Your favorite magic school(s) H4

[Orfinn]

Which class(es) do you prefer the most? Do you like to spread your power on many schools of arcane knowledge or do you focus only on a few or just one? Does it depend on which town you start with or do you have allround favorites no matter which town?

It all depends on which town I use at first ofcourse, but I mostly prefer chaos and nature that combo really kicks ass once I have reached mid-level of my hero. Cat reflexes, quicksand, mass luck, giant/dragon strenght, lightning bolt, fire ring, summon faerie dragon you name it all serve me well and I have won alot with this combo.

I use a mix of two magic schools for each of my favorite starting towns.
I use one or both of my fav combo depending on which town. But as you can see below, overall, my mix of 2 are chaos and nature, its a great combo I tell ya

Stronghold: Life, Chaos = Pretty useful combo, heal up and bring even more damage to the opposition with DD spells and beef ups like cat reflexes, bloodlust etc. (Since migh have no natural magic, the life and chaos combo are my allround here)

Asylum: Chaos, Nature = Useful too, using the towns natural magic school including mostly DD, enraging spells and adding some help for summoned creatures really helps.

Preserve: Nature, Life = Since the better summon creatures comes late I beef my existing ones with life magic, but I also use luck, quicksand for extra help.

[Vlad976]

Sort of a mix of 2. Go with Life magic, then throw in Order or Chaos, depending on availability.

[Kalah]

I find it difficult to vote in this poll... Which magic schools I use all depends on what kind of map and adversaries I face. Also, my starting hero has a lot to say; I don't always have a choice in which alignment or town I start with. Developing Life magic if you only have a Nature town, e.g. would be a bit silly.

- If I am playing a big (L, XL) map, or a campaign, obviously I'd want to develop an archmage with several different schools.

- If the circumstances are otherwise, my favourite magic school is Nature, because it contains everything. It can boost and/or protect your creatures, confuse the enemy and protect you from bad magic, whereas Life magic is mainly for protection, Chaos and Death for destruction and Order for manipulation. Then of course there is the summoning of creatures, which is only matched by Death's necromancy skill.

Anyway, that's what I think.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Order is my favorite, followed closely by nature. I voted Order.

GOW

[Echo_]

Vote Chaos magic only

Its the coolest because you get ot kill people with it. Its also the only magic I bother getting in higher levels.

[dallasmavs41]

I'd have to say nature,with the summoning of creatures, and all-around a good magic skill....Death is a close second...

[Banedon]

Echo_ - yeah, except Chaos Magic does get increasingly useless at high levels while all the other magic schools gain in power. If you're the one casting Chaos Magic, you will have to seek an early confrontation before your opponents learn GM Magic Resistance.

Life Magic's my personal favourite by a long stretch. It may be purely defensive, but it is extremely powerful (it also has the only spell in the game capable of resurrecting fallen heroes). Order Magic's the most curious of them all, with Nature and Death Magic both strong, but I definitely like Life the most.

[Metathron]

Echo_ - yeah, except Chaos Magic does get increasingly useless at high levels while all the other magic schools gain in power. If you're the one casting Chaos Magic, you will have to seek an early confrontation before your opponents learn GM Magic Resistance.

But why such a rush to get GM MR? Is it really worth it, seeing how easily accessible immortality potions are? I'd rather work on my magic skills or any other skills that I have for that matter, than invest experience into MR.

As for which school is my favourite, it's a difficult choice. I'll eliminate death right away as I'm not as fond of casting curses. Chaos is solid, but I prefer to put boosts on my creatures rather than attack myself, and chaos doesn't have that many. Order is interesting and offers some cunning possibilites. Finally, it's a toss up between nature and life, and the former wins by the narrowest of margins. I just love those fortunes, first strikes, stone skins, giant & dragon strengths...

[wimfrits]

Depends on what you play. I like playing campaigns most, in which case magic should be useful in combination with a relatively strong hero. So that rules out Chaos and significantly degrades Death.

Order has teleport which is tactically excellent. Lacking town portal can be a pain.
Nature has decent buffs and useful fodder summoning.
Life has decent buffs, healing and the best tactical spells overall.

All three are extremely useful imo, but Order alone is not nearly as powerful as single Nature or single Life are. A combination of Life and Nature works best I think.

But I find that overall, playing without Life downgrades my ability to win combat most of all schools, so I vote for single Life as the school I prefer most.

For games in general, I agree with what Banedon said and again vote single Life.

[ThunderTitan]

Voted Chaos. Even if it gets weaker the longer you play DD spells are just cool.

[NecroSpazz]

Order. I like to control the enemy with berserk, blind and forgetfulness. Also town gate is nice spell to have.

[HodgePodge]

Voted: Mix of 3 … Life, Order, Nature or Chaos

Of course, depending on which Hero I have and what kind of Map it is.

[csarmi]

I don't like the question.

There are a few facts, or we can say axiomes, if it comes to expert h4 playing.

1)No hero should learn more than one magic schools.

It's as simple as that. Of course there are exceptions (demonologist building, very loooong campaign maps when you fight with the same hero all over again). And of course with that I don't want to say that after you reached GM in your school, you shouldn't get a few (hopefully free -- altars, huts) advanced/basic level auxiliary magic.

2)You should be using at least 2 different kind of magicians (they complement each other)

For example, you build druids and priests.

There are exceptions of course, sometimes you want 3 paladins, for example for they all can cast divine intervention reviving each other. There are combos like that. But the message is still clear.

3)Every hero should get some magic, yes, tacticians, pathfinders, even fighters.

Just for a few powerful low level spells. Healing, cancellation, summon leprechaun, etc...

So my answer would be: yes and no? or what?

I'll try to answer the good question: I like the priest+druid combo the most.

[HodgePodge]

I don't like the question.

There are a few facts, or we can say axiomes, if it comes to expert h4 playing.

1)No hero should learn more than one magic schools.

WHAT! Are you against higher education??

2)You should be using at least 2 different kind of magicians (they complement each other)
For example, you build druids and priests.

Well, I perfer an Orderly, Chaotic, Tree-Hugging, Necro-Priest!

3)Every hero should get some magic, yes, tacticians, pathfinders, even fighters.

Of course, I also subscribe to the "No Barbarian Left Behind" education model!

[Black Ghost]

Difficult choice...

As for single m.school definetly Nature is my no.1. Have lots' of toys for all other magic factions and useful in any situation.

However, two schools combined give the huge potential on the battlefield (voted mix of 2) and IMO there are three really strong guilds:

1) Nature-Chaos, lot's of top H4 spells. Probably the strongest of all. For weak army summoning is a bless. DDspells kill quickly heroes. D-Strenght&Reflex is great combo. Also the only guild using effectively Mana Flare.
It's only weakness is that some spells (speed, f.strike, confusion/wasps) have the same effect, so sometimes 3 spells do the same:P
Advantage- alligned schools

2) Nature-Life
Strong units will huge full dmg (Bless&D-Strength combos). Or mirthed spellcasting nature unist devastating enemy:) Finally Wards better replace Antimagic against dd-spells and curses.
advantage-alligned schools
weakness- rather army-oriented and a bit defensive. M.Cancellation is real pain. Enemy with Steal All E. is a nightmare.

3)Chaos-Life
Despite m.school conflict they cooperate really good with each other.
Chaos weakness is huge dmg. range which is fixed with Bless.
Moreover, very agressive army-hero army simmilar to N-Ch but more flexible against controlls.
advantages: equal good in offensive and defensive magic

I agree with Csarmi that generally it's better to have non-classed spellcasters (mean ex.druid+sorc) as it's faster to get better skills.
However loss of one of them is big pain:(

Btw. mix of 3 or more isn't IMO good choice. You use particularly in 75% of battles only 2 schools. And futhermore, combination of 2 have enough potential to eliminate weaknesses of each component-school and cast the full range of combo/dd/control/support-spells.
Not to mention the loooong time to collect all 3 magic skills on good lev.

[Banedon]

But why such a rush to get GM MR? Is it really worth it, seeing how easily accessible immortality potions are? I'd rather work on my magic skills or any other skills that I have for that matter, than invest experience into MR.

Magic Resistance is the safest bet against DD spells. Immortality, Chaos Ward, Fortune, etc. can all be dispelled or cancelled while Magic Resistance can't. Just consider it: A GM Magic-Resistant hero is absolutely devastating against Chaos mages, invalidating more than half their spellbook. Not having Magic Resistance also exposes you to Song of Peace, Confusion, etc.

[trailMix]

I'm surprised that Order magic isn't so popular. IMO, it's the ultimate school of magic against the wandering stacks. Mass slow(usually) followed by hypnotize, or even forgetfulness (if hyponotize isn't available) for powerful ranged monsters (e.g. Cyclops) does wonders. Throw in a proper ward (life magic) and possibly regenerate, you can fight almost any non-magic resistant creatures. I've had no problem fighting scores of level 4 creatures this way with only two heroes (level ~20). I don't see why you couldn't fight hundreds of level 4 stacks, if your mana doesn't run out.

I prefer either nature and order or life and order, depending on the map. For LONG campaign maps, I like nature, order, and life for might based hero. For magic based hero, I like chaos, order, and life. In general, it makes sense to choose at least one school that focuses on blessing magic (life, nature) and one school that focues on curse (death, order). That way, if you happened to stumble upon opponents that are highly resistant to magic, you still can still fight fairly well.

[george137]

In very long campaigns i would go with Order and Death/Chaos. Order is in my opinion a very good school of magic. Sure it only has a level 2 DD spell but it can alter the flow of battle by disrupting the opponents forces. Throw in some Death magic and their in no shape to fight back. If you happen to choose Chaos magic you get some nice offensive power.

[klaymen]

I prefer chaos + death, because sorcery skill improves death spells too (hand of death is much stronger, with staff of death more usable against most of 4th level creatures than disinfegrate) and aging skill for hero (if has good combat skills) is good help.
spells like cancellation, poison (against camping AI), mass curse/weakness, vampiric touch (really useful on bone dragons or hydras) can minimise your losses

but archmage (death, chaos, order) is also a good combo (same as I wrote in first paragraph) with forgetfulness (against cyclops, titans or venom spawns), teleport, mass slow, mass precision (if playing as chaos - great bless for orcs), blind, berserk, hypnotize

[Milla aka. the Slayer]

I voted mix of two. Order and nature can be a deadly combination. I love the differences in the creatures available in Nature and (with the right level of magic) what I can do to my enemies! Once the summoning skill is highly developed there's almost no limit as to how many enemies I'm willing to fight

Order provides me with all the mind confusing spells that can leave my opponent weak and powerless. It's a great feeling slaying your opponent without them arguying about it
Order magic also has some slamming power with the Ice Bolt and the Illusion spell. Works like summoning.
So basically with these two combined I can create an army by only summoning and creating illusions...sweet..

Mesa like!