Need Combat Spell Advice

[Ironhawk]

So, I was getting rocked by QM in a duel recently and it became clear to me that, even now, my understanding of combat magic is still weak. Lets hear some sage advice from the old dom2 veterans about how to use magic on the field of war.

Do you even use much magic on the battlefield itself? What tatics do you use with which magic schools? What spells are most commonly used in combat for the different paths of magic?

[Zen]

Hah, that's a pretty tall order without any specifics to deal with.

Maybe if you were a little more specific or nation/pretender would give people a little room to give you advice.

[spirokeat]

I'm a SP mainly. But I can certainly say that magic on the battlefield is absolutely required to make a good impact.

All the paths pretty much have a basic at about lvl 1 or 2 and then more advanced attack which can be gained at about lvl 4 or so. off the top of my head.


Fire - Fire Flies, Fire Darts, Flame bolt, Fireball
Earth - flying Shards, Blade wind, far strike
Blood - Blood boil, Hellfire, Bleed, Agony
Water - Cold Bolt, Sailors Death
Astral - Star fires, Solar rays, Stellar Cascades, Mind Burn, Soul Slay
Death - Shadow Bolt, Shadow Blast
Nature, Vine Arrow, Sleep

And thats not even mentioning the multipath stuff like nether bolts, or acid rain etc.

usually you can research an attack spell for a mage within a turn or two of starting that he can cast right out of the box with no gem cost. use that as your starting point.

Spiro

[PDF]

Huh, that's a pretty big question ...
Sure I use (even abuse) battlefield magic, I can list some of the most used spells by path (in research order mostly):

Earth : Legions of Steel, Blade Wind, Weapons of Sharpness, Earthquake, Living Earth

Air : Lighting Bolt, Orb Lightning, Wind Guide, Schockwave, False Horror spamming, Thunderstrike, Storm, Wrathful Skies, Living Air, Shimmering Field

Fire : all fire evocations blast spells :Flame/fire bolt/blasts, Fireballs, Falling Fires, Holy Pyre, Astral Fire, Phoenix Pyre, Flame Eruption, Fire Storm, Flame Storm, and Living Fire,

Water (on surface) : Quickness, BoW, Falling Frost, Frozen Heart, Living Water

Astral : Communions, Body Eth, Luck, Mind burn, paralyze, Soul Slay, Enslave Mind, Opposition, Astral Tempest, Master Enslave

Death : skeleton spam (Raise..), Dust to Dust and Wither bones (vs undead), Terror, Nether Bolts, Shadow Blast, Cloud/wind of Death, Soul Vortex, Disintigrate

Nature : Tangle Vines, (Mass)Protection, Berserkers, Strength of Gaia, Swarm, Howl, Foul Vapors, Sleep Cloud, Charm

Blood : not much, except Summon Imps, Call Horror and Blood Lust

Well, that's just what comes to my mind right now, surely there are other http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[shovah]

one of my favourite is quickness + nether darts (hard to get but can be used with marsh master with astral random) and i also like false horror/raise skeletons with quickness which are most often used by caelum and miamasa respectively .

give us a specific nation then maybe we help more (with a bunch of death increasers in late game i have a bunch of marsh masters with bone grinding http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif (which rocks if use en mass)

and of course with miamasa its VERY useful to have 1 or 2 mages casting quickness and relief

[Endoperez]

A nation with sacred mages that can use Evocation-based spells, and preferably have Water or Nature or otherwise benefit from Alteration (W = Quickness, N = Eagle Eyes). Take a W9 pretender, go for Evocation 5 (Falling Frost) and Alteration 2, and your pretender becomes very good damage dealer. E.g. Pythium's and Abysia's mages would also get lots of nice attack spells. If a nation has mages that benefit from a School of magic, which has power-scaling spell of a path with fitting blessing for that race, you have a good combination. Pick one of those, and try a SP game focusing on getting the goodies soon. Astral Fires and Nether Darts are the most powerful multiclass Evocations, most easily used by Broken Empire Ermor, Marignon and Utgård Jotunheim.

[shovah]

cant believe i forgot to mention my utgard friends, havnt used em in ages. just make a ton of labs and castle and spam out nether darters

[Ironhawk]

Zen said:
Hah, that's a pretty tall order without any specifics to deal with.

Maybe if you were a little more specific or nation/pretender would give people a little room to give you advice.



Yeah it is a big question but its not like if you answer you have to write out every experience you've ever had. Maybe you are just a strong death player and so you go into death magic. Say how you grab anything with 2D and up and put it in a line at the back of the battlefield and just spam spam spam spam until you collapse. Or maybe you use Nether Bolts or something? I just want an open forum for how people use magic in combat, how much a part of it that plays in thier overall strat, little tricks they use - stuff like that.

[shovah]

well summon spamming is obviously my favourite and quickness is almost a must. if you can get use it and relief is also useful. for me the better AoE the better because even low damage, high AoE spells with quickness and multile mages will do alot of hurt

[archaeolept]

Blood : not much, except Summon Imps, Call Horror and Blood Lust

try hellfire w/ bloody mary : )