Which spells do folks consider worth learning or upgrading ?

[lauvhk]

Just a sidenote. If you ever use Dryad/Demoness, you can also use Sacrifice on the charmed enemy troops. Of course, it is less stellar than Hypnotize.

[Amiable]

Originally Posted by lauvhk

Just a sidenote. If you ever use Dryad/Demoness, you can also use Sacrifice on the charmed enemy troops. Of course, it is less stellar than Hypnotize.

I don't know about that... Demonesses + Anga's ruby (or even without they have a high initiative).

Round 1 have a tank unit and the demonesses wait. Demonesses go last swap Tank unit for stack of humanoids.

Round 2 Demonesses go first - hypnotize. Immediately cast sacrifice.

The advantage is you get to cast whatever spell(s) you want in turn 1. It is especially useful for warriors/paladins who do not get high magic and thus cannot hypnotize sacrifice on the same round and it also saves on the mana so you need to spend less time regening/recharging. I have used this to terrific effect on immpossible (I rush to Demonis and grab Demonesses first thing).

Sacrifice is also hilariously mana efficient as an attack spell....

Few other points:

Blind is terrific, it works on undead.

Target is also awesome if you get a big tank unit, becomes even more awesome when you get timeback.

Dragon arrows will turn a stack of undead archers into an unstoppable killing machine.

People love phantom and it is very useful in certain situations, but to be honest, I can achieve almost the same or better crowd control effect using target/blind for a fraction of the mana cost.

Stoneskin vs. gods armor... God's armor prevents more damage but is pricey from a mana standpoint and it also requires a hefty investment in order. I tend to focus on distortion first (for all the awesome spells) and then chaos (solely for sacrifice efficiency, everything else is useless to me, except perhaps for demon portal).

This is coming from an impossible difficulty warrior/paladin player. Mages may find other things more useful (especially if they are lucky enough to get their hands on armageddon).

[Gatts]

God's armor is stuck on max resistance, so only good about it is that it provide resistance agains all types of damage (but astral )

Target is great, but it has limits on: mind immune enemy, level 5 enemy units... than Phantom works fine... that is why I use Phantom, sooner I get used to Phantom tactics better later on... so even if phantom tactics may seem too difficult and expensive early on, you will adopt the "way of phantom" and will be excellent player till the bittern end of this game, but using target spell instead will leave you blindfooted against cyclops, dragons, archdemons etc...

[Amiable]

Originally Posted by Gatts

God's armor is stuck on max resistance, so only good about it is that it provide resistance agains all types of damage (but astral )

Target is great, but it has limits on: mind immune enemy, level 5 enemy units... than Phantom works fine... that is why I use Phantom, sooner I get used to Phantom tactics better later on... so even if phantom tactics may seem too difficult and expensive early on, you will adopt the "way of phantom" and will be excellent player till the bittern end of this game, but using target spell instead will leave you blindfooted against cyclops, dragons, archdemons etc...

Yeah I agree, late game phantom sees a lot more use (when you have higher level stacks and more of them), but early game I prefer target. But I find if you are clever about your tanking unit you can usually get higher level folks to focus on them. (Im having fun now running a dryad unit up front and having her cast her summon thorns ability, for some reason the high level mobs LOVE to attack her and/or the thorns - thorns are like sweet delicious cake to dragons).

I'm a bit lazy though, I like to end battle battles at near full mana/rage and I find if I use phantom I end up spending a lot more time rebuilding one I get combat under control...

[Gatts]

Enemy AI units go mostly for:
1.) your most dangerous unit (your unit dealing type of damage AI is vulnerable to, or is strong shooter, or both)

2.) is weak against the type of damage AI is dealing (Dragons with Fire damage, will most likely attack your thorns as they will deliver much more damage/kills than if the would attack any other unit... +100% damage)

Also sometimes AI goes just for the nearest (this turn I can hit this summoned loser or noone... hmm I take the loser...)

The base logic I see behind AI logic is to deliver damage ASAP, not huge planning or strategy... so you can go for BAIT strategy using any spell or even w/o spells... AI is basically looking on type of resistance/damage and HP, it can't calculate well with it's own skills/abilities and not at all with yours...

So AI brainlessly uses up all its abilities and totally does not try to hinder you from using yours... the max we may await from AI is to try to hinder your shooters... but even this can be avoided by BAIT strategy , so at the end, phantom or target... AI has many logic holes that players who are not first time in strategy world can reveal very fast and so sadly spoil the game little bit (not me, first I am not good stretegyst, that is also the reason for second point, which is : I love to rock'n'roll on bodies of my fallen enemies... )