Chargers Spell - Useless?

[Xargon]

Originally Posted by Nirual

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.

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...