Chargers Spell - Useless?
 

When i read the description and the upgraded levels of the spell - it looks like it will always restore the mana which was used to cast the spell in the first place, and return a little rage - e.g. 3 5 and 6 and level 3 - which seems very weak..

Or is it 3 5 6 mana per rune so max 9 runes * 6 = 54 mana/rage - which would seem OP


NM - it is indeed the latter but these are little balls dropped on the playfield - i just tried level 2 with my warrior maiden and could easily pick up 5 because she has so many action points

Also, the spell gives movement boost to the unit that picks it up, which, in theory, could make it a little better than a haste spell, if you only needed that haste for one turn.

I haven't really tried it out, but it seems interesting.

Yeah, I think it's kind of cute. But I feel like a lot of low-level rune magic falls firmly in the category of "cute, but you probably have something better to do."

Then we have level 1 negation if you want to talk about useless. I am not sure I've seen the AI cast a buff yet (omg doom, omg poison skulllllllll) and I wonder if they would actually try it again on the same unit if you had just dispelled it.

negation would be great if it could target enemies, but it can't so it's useless?


imagine negation+kamikaze bombs?

I feel like a fair number of spells , no matter the mana cost, fail the 'is it worth a casting slot' test.

Sure, a spell that makes negative effects run out faster is kinda nice. But how often is it better than a simple dispel?

I should know better than to proclaim anything useless with all these smart people around. Good one. And I don't know where you can cast it, the description doesn't say whether it's only allies or enemies. I just cringe when I read it and think of spending crystals, lol.

@Zechnophobe, I am right there with you. I also think the increased level of unit special abilities - not mention whatever the rage skills du jour are - has moved several spells to the back of the list. Between Loki's touch for enrage, my valkyrie's gold pile, and my engineer's flash bomb I haven't had any trouble keeping the enemy ranks in disarray. I used to use spells for that.

CHargers is not useless at all :)

In fact I start some of my battles with casting lvl 3 Chargers in order to boost my rage to 20 instantly after collecting all 3-4 rage balls with my Maidens, that, as you said, can easily collect all balls with her movement.

With chargers you get to incrase your rage skills faster, because you can create rage out of runes. You can also greatly increase your GOLD. Because you use Chargers for rage, then cast Christa's Gift,, and take the money. I make between 2000-5000 gold only from this /battle , in easier battles where I don't need to deal damage with rage.

In theory between it and the spell to give runes you can indefinitely regenerate mana while generating rage, spamming Chista's skill for unlimited money and easy progress towards the rage spent medal. Don't think it's worth much in terms of leveling your rage skills though, and money is mostly redundant anyway, so all it's really doing for you is the +7% crit bonus..

In practice through there are sadly way too many spells that fall into the "Nice spell but I can only cast 1 or 2 per turn and this won't be it" category.

that combo doesn't work, is what i was saying... you can't do it... or at least I never could target an enemy with negation because it consumes a rune to use it.

I am loving this spell I have it at level 3 and it allows me to speed my Viking force across into combat, it also gives me enough rage and mana to cast whatever I want.

Does anyone know if this will be improved by Creation? I can imagine gaining even more Mana/Rage would be VERY useful. :D

Daniel.

it's a useless spell really

i don't like rune magic at all it got crappy spells
only really usefull one is gift


and as for having rage+mana all the time just chainfight no worries about that;)

I can only suggest people try it for themselves, I love it. :)

Daniel.

If the unit is likely to be targeted with more debuffs in the next few rounds. Like when fighting dragons or spiders. that said, I haven't used it all that often either. If I had gotten it before the undead spider it would've been very handy for ranged stacks to minimize the web effect I'd imagine.

Chargers were very useful for rage early on my soothsayer, but now I can just as easily get a lot of rage by casting Blizzard instead.

Maybe that is it, I am using a Skald, and I'm still on the Viking Isles.

Daniel.

Rune magic: gift, blizzard, timeless (once working), runechain, ice ball (was the only tanky summon I had for a while) come to mind. Probably more that I don't think of right now.
Chargers lvl3 can regenerate quite a bit of mana, and generate rage so you can use rage skills more often or earlier. If you spend up to 60 mana in a single round as a soothsayer, mana regeneration can come in quite handy for the rest of the battle or to end the battle with full mana.

Well, as a Skald my rage worries ended once I got Edda. At least against undead, because that song provides huge amounts of rage/mana.

Magic Missile is extremely useful early on, at least as Soothsayer. Doesn't hurt that it stays at 5 mana regardless of level, makes it a good starter with High Magic (especially against Necromancers and Beholders). Dance of Winter was my go-to area spell until I got Blizzard, Ice Snakes isnt too shabby either but I didnt get that one until much later. Both are handy for dealing (mostly) physical damage, too.
Runic Word is useful here and there to replenish Runes you might need for other spells aswell as those needed by Runemages (yes, they have their own spell, but if you dont have a lot of unused hero runes it'll only restore 2 for the cost of 1)

About the only rune magic spell I dont get at all is Snowstorm. there arent that many opponents with a lot of ice damage, so its mostly just a mediocre buff for your units that requires them to stay in one place. And good luck getting more frost res on your troops to beef that up. Sure it can also weaken enemies with a lot of fire res, but at the same time they can move out of it easily and while affected also take less damage from my frost spells.

Yeah Undead is a lot easier but I still often like to use Chargers straight away as it gives me enough rage to use my most powerful ability before my enemies get a go.

Daniel.

I forgot magic missile... I think the damage on dance of winter is somewhat low, and ice snake is ok, but I got it pretty late (after blizzard, fireball, etc). Runic word is good if you use the runes for something, but that would mostly be other rune magic spells.
I never used snowstorm either. I learned it because I thought it could be nice in Demonis, with all those demons with fire resistance around. But then I saw that it only affects 7 hexes, so its usefulness suffers if the enemy is not clustered. Similarly, you need to cluster your own units to gain significant protection from cold. It just seems too much work and too situational to be really useful...

Yeah Dance of Winter falls behind greatly later on but it does deal physical damage, useful against black dragons and such.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Hoped it would expand the area of effect with higher spell level but no such luck.

I'm not sure Snowstorm works, it had 0 effect on my Ice Dragons... :evil:

Daniel.

I'm pretty sure they have Magic Immunity.