Strands of Astral Power. Worth it?

[Tuidjy]

What do you guys think about the global "Strands of Astral Power"? In my current
game, I have drawn too much attention, and my only chance for survival is to
turtle down and hope the neutral nations decide that my enemies are getting too
strong. I am considering "Strands of Astral Power", because I know that "God's
Wrath" will hurt people outside of my dominion and they will rightfully turn on me.

Now, I am pretty sure that it does not attack outside of my dominion. I have
tested it as well as could in the SP games I have around, and everyone I have
asked has agreed. But is it worth casting?

I understand it only attacks mages, and that they get a MR check. Will penetration
items on the caster help? Will extra natural levels? What about astral boosters?
As to non-astral enemies, will the mind burn benefit from penetration and extra levels?

Anyway, I am absolutely ignorant about this spell, and both the manual and the
in-game description fail to answer many of my questions. Have you ever used it
in Multiplayer, and what did it do for you?

[sum1lost]

It is pretty much a mental attack on all mages in your dominion. It devestates mages in your territory, at least it did when I used it, but if you contact an astral mage, it initiates a (sort of) magic duel between the two (if you lose, you are usually feebleminded), so with that kind of mental fight going on, its best to have a mage with either some way of curing afflictions, or very high natural levels in astral.

[Ylvali]

It also does a limited site searching which is useful when you are expanding fast or have large areas left unsearched.

[Tuidjy]

Well, as far as I am concerned, that was a bloody waste of 200 pearls. It seems
that magic resistance negates the spell without taking penetration items on the
caster into account. With dozens of invaders in my lands, four were found and one
was feebleminded. Great success!

[Dedas]

With a high magic scale and invaders with low MR it should be more effective.

[Tuidjy]

So not worth it! On this turn, I have at least 30 enemy mages in my dominion,
sitting outside my castles. Not a single enemy mage found!

What is the point, seriously? A spell that only detects mages, but is easily
defeated by magic resistance, and neither dominion 10, high penetration, or
extra levels help. Serves me right for using it for the first time in MP.

[Dedas]

What is your magic scale?

[Sombre]

You're right that is pretty stupid. The one thing you can count on mages having is decent mr.

[Tuidjy]

It is drain 2, but what does it matter? As if +2 or +3 to penetration would
make a difference. I have no SCs at under 22, and no mage under 20... I doubt my
opponents do. So instead of MR 23, they would be MR 20 if I had magic + 3. Woo!
Then I'd have made a killing... Unless there is a way to reduce the enemies' MR
beyond the measily +2 from magic 3, this spell is worthless.

Oh, and when I said 30 mages, I lied. In just one province, there's about 50
astral mages... and not one was detected.

[Dedas]

Astral mages have extra MR due to astral you know so it is no wonder the spell doesn't work.

As for +1-3 difference in MR matters? Well not if you have 20 MR against the base check against 10. But a standard mage with 13-15 MR in your dominion with magic 2 (for example), that takes it down to 12 or 13 is a big difference - just look at the table in the manual for the chances of penetration.

[sum1lost]

Astral mages are automatically protected against Strands, I believe.

[Tuidjy]

> Astral mages are automatically protected against Strands, I believe.

Actually, no. Astral mages are the one that Strands is supposed to feeblemind.
But because the caster does not seem to benefit from extra levels, penetration
items, or dominion strength, astral mages laugh at the spell. I have at least
eighty (80) mages in my dominion, and on the last turn, my caster failed to
detect a single one.

> a standard mage with 13-15 MR in your dominion with magic 2 (for example),
> that takes it down to 12 or 13 is a big difference

I never play with Magic 2, but I am reasonably sure that it is -1 to MR, not -2.

[vfb]

Astral mages get a resist bonus versus astral spells, I think that may be what sum1lost means.

[Tuidjy]

Well, if they get their level bonus when the caster does not get his, the spell
is even more worthless than it already is, but at these levels of usefulness,
it is hard to tell the difference.

I mean, what is more useful - a playdough beer opener, or one made of cottoncandy?

[AdmiralZhao]

Has the playdough dried out?

[AdmiralZhao]

Has the playdough dried out?

[Dedas]

Tuidjy said:
> Astral mages are automatically protected against Strands, I believe.

Actually, no. Astral mages are the one that Strands is supposed to feeblemind.
But because the caster does not seem to benefit from extra levels, penetration
items, or dominion strength, astral mages laugh at the spell. I have at least
eighty (80) mages in my dominion, and on the last turn, my caster failed to
detect a single one.

> a standard mage with 13-15 MR in your dominion with magic 2 (for example),
> that takes it down to 12 or 13 is a big difference

I never play with Magic 2, but I am reasonably sure that it is -1 to MR, not -2.



I did never state that Magic 2 gives -2 in MR. I did however state that most standard mages have a MR between 13-15. Lowering that to 12, 13 or 14 with Magic 2 gives you a much better chance of success. That is because the SoAP requires a simple MR check (against 10) if I'm not mistaken. Anything that lowers the enemies MR just a little is very, very good, just look at the table in the manual.

[Sombre]

Yeah but he's saying he has magic 2 and loads of mages there waiting to be detected, yet the spell isn't doing a damn thing. So regardless of how theoretically helpful it would be to lower enemy mage mr, it doesn't change that SoAP doesn't really work as intended.

[Dedas]

Tuidjy said:
It is drain 2, but what does it matter? As if +2 or +3 to penetration would
make a difference. I have no SCs at under 22, and no mage under 20... I doubt my
opponents do. So instead of MR 23, they would be MR 20 if I had magic + 3. Woo!
Then I'd have made a killing... Unless there is a way to reduce the enemies' MR
beyond the measily +2 from magic 3, this spell is worthless.

Oh, and when I said 30 mages, I lied. In just one province, there's about 50
astral mages... and not one was detected.



Nope, he says he has drain 2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Szumo]

I've used Strands in one of my MP games, with Tartarian (AFAIR 6 or 7 natural astral), equipped with runesmasher and rings of wizardry and sorcery. My dominion was very strong, and he killed or feebleminded several enemy mages each turn, so the spell seemed to work fine.

EDIT: i had magic +3 dominion.

[Dedas]

Yes, exactly, it works very well. You just have to use it right. If you are going to take out astral mages with it you better have the right equipment on the casting mage. Not doing it in a drain dominion also helps of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

Tuidjy seems to think the penetration items don't help.

I misread about his magic scale above. Magic scale would clearly help, but SoAP still sounds pretty ****ty. Maybe it should say in the description that it requires magic scale to really be effective.

[Ewierl]

I wonder if you need(ed) to have the penetration items equipped when casting the ritual? Anyone got the time to test?

[Tuidjy]

This is a game in progress, so I would like to avoid spelling it out. But I can
assure you, if penetration items and extra levels were helping, the results
would have to be different. And yes, I had the levels and penetration items at the
time of the casting.

What makes the spell broken, is that the targets benefit fully from magic
resistance, but the caster does not benefit from penetration bonuses. A level
nine spell, cast with a very suitable commander, should not miss eighty out of
eighty possible targets... Yes, my opponents have properly equipped their
commanders. I wish my effort of properly choosing and equipping my caster meant
something too.

And no, I do not buy the argument that the spell is only meant to work in a magic
heavy dominion. I care little about 'the normal mage with MR 13'. At the time
astral strands is likely to be used, battles are fought with commanders with
starting magic resistance of 17-18, and with at least some MR gear.

I mean, I know that my pearls were wasted, and I will not get anything out of this
spell in my game. I just think that this spell is a cool one, and should not be
made worthless by the one-sided way bonuses are taken into account.

[vfb]

How's your dominion in the province with the enemy mages? Is it 10 candles, or just 1?

[Dedas]

But you shouldn't expect a spell that relies on a simple magic resistance check to work very well on MR 17-18 units. It's very logical. If you want to lower their MR you do that by magic scale (not in this game of course), penetration artifacts and high magic level. I don't know if the latter works on Strands of Arcane Power but magic scale sure does.
The spell doesn't suck, but it wasn't the best one to cast in your situation.

[Jazzepi]

I don't see the problem with the spell. What's the swing between in MR between drain 2 and magic 3? I think that's pretty significant since it moves you up on a bell curve. It sucks that penetration items apparently don't work with the global, but from Szumo's post it sounds like it works just fine if you're setup for it with a high magic domain.

Jazzepi

[Tuidjy]

Jazzepi, the enemy mages in my dominion range from MR 18 to 26, with the majority
at MR 20. The difference between Drain 2 and Magic 3 is 3MR. That would give
a bonus of chance of 8% (Wowsers!) for the wimpiest targets, and no appreciable
bonus for the tough ones.

Mine is a simple argument. If the spell depends on the modified magic resistance
of the target, it should depend on the modified penetration of the caster.

[Zeldor]

But that spells is supposed to find enemy MAGES, not commanders. And it is suposed to magic duel/mind burn them unless they have high MR. I don't know about any 8MR mages.

[Dedas]

There is none, but there are LOTS of 13-15 MR mages. With a magic scale of 2 the lowest become as low as 12 making it pretty good chance that they will be damaged.

[Sombre]

Why would you waste that many gems to feeblemind crappy mr 13 fire darters?

[Don_Seba]

I find it hard to disagree that if kiting out your mages to protect them works, and kiting out your mindhunter does not, something is not right.

I still find it hard to believe that out of 80 mages in your dominion, not one was detected. Come on, with odds of one single percent, it is still unlikely.

[Edited because of typos]

[Ironhawk]

Yeah something does seem amiss. Even a weak spell will get lucky and defeat high MR if cast enough times. If this spell really is being cast 80 times a turn with no results then something does appear to be wrong.

Perhaps there is a mechanic to it which we are not aware? Maybe the spell literally has no effect if you are in drain dominion? Needs testing!

[VedalkenBear]

Just FYI: With a 1% chance, the chances that 0 mages are found would be 0.4475. (0.99)^80

With a 5% chance, the chances that 0 mages are found drop to 0.0165.

I can't seem to find my rulebook ATM. I'd be more than happy to calculate values for the case at hand.

[Tuidjy]

It's on the second turn that the caster failed to detect anyone. The spell
managed one feeblemind on the turn it was cast, so it's not failing in 100% of
the cases. Of course, I have no idea whom it got, and where. It was not one of
the mages in the provinces I hit (with teleport) on the next turn.

I just did some testing in one the testing mods (the one that give both sides
a ton of X10 angels with very high MR. With penetration bonuses adding to 9 on
the caster, there is no difference on the effectiveness of the spell. I think
it is quite clear that the caster does not benefit from levels or items. And
he definitely does in mind hunting - he pops the angels much too often, if anything.

I call it a bug. Can one of the developers chime in, please?

Is Strands of Astral Power supposed to allow bonuses for the targets but not
for the caster?

[Jazzepi]

Tuidjy said:
Jazzepi, the enemy mages in my dominion range from MR 18 to 26, with the majority
at MR 20. The difference between Drain 2 and Magic 3 is 3MR. That would give
a bonus of chance of 8% (Wowsers!) for the wimpiest targets, and no appreciable
bonus for the tough ones.

Mine is a simple argument. If the spell depends on the modified magic resistance
of the target, it should depend on the modified penetration of the caster.



Oh, I agree! I still think the spell is fine as is. shouldn't it just demolish armies that have non-astral, and thus lower MR, mages?

Jazzepi

[Jazzepi]

One more thing. If this spell did work with spell penetration, and you equiped all the penetration items you can think of. Let's say it gives you +6, plus a natural S9 pretender used for a bless, plus the -2 MR off of Magic 3, then wouldn't you just demolish any invading army?

Just from a viewpoint of balance it doesn't sound terribly workable.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

It wouldn't demolish any invading army. It would make bringing mages in a lot harder, but then given the restrictions of the spell - high cost, dominion only, astral pearls, high research, hard to cast, negated by enough mr (even with lots of penetration items), can be stopped by whomping the caster, dispelled - well I think it deserves to be powerful.

[Tuidjy]

Lets not forget that this spell doesn't kill, it just mindblasts non-astral
mages, and feebleminds astral ones. And when it comes to feeblemind, the caster
runs the risk of getting feebleminded as well. And it is a level nine spell,
supposedly the Ultimate Evocation Spell. And it's not a cheap spell, either.

So lets see. High research, check. High price, check. High risk, check.
Effectiveness against a late game opponent with a clue? Zip, Nada, Zilch.

But hey, if everyone agrees that a spell with a brilliantly fluffy design and
that took so much programming work deserves to remain useless, so be it. As
I said, my gems are wasted already. I had just hoped that the spell may be
looked at.

------------

By the way, Magic 3 gives only -1 to MR, -2 compared to Drain 3. It makes very
little difference against the late game SC/casters, that have the HPs to laugh
at mind blast, and MR in the twenties. And SoAP does not affect armies or troops.
Hell, we are talking late game here, anyway. Let me go in that game and list
the Natural MR of my most numerous mages.

First most popular mage - MR 16
Second most popular mage - MR 18 (+5 as standard equipment, seldom +3)
Third most popular mage - MR 15 (+2 as standard equipment)
Fourth most populuar mage - MR 16
Fifth most popular mage - MR 17 (+2 as standard equipment)

This does not even include summoned SCs with MR 18, of which I may have a few :-)
Guess how many MR 13 mages I use in enemy dominion, especially without MR gear?

[Saulot]

I'll wait for KO to chime in before I start criticizing the spell, AFAIK, it could just be a bug somewhere.

Anyway, to correct the misconception (and repeat part of Tuidjy's post).

Magic 3 = -1 to MR
Drain 3 = +1 to MR

[Jazzepi]

What exactly does a mindblast do?

Jazzepi

[Tuidjy]

> What exactly does a mindblast do?

No idea. On the first turn the report said "4 detected, 1 feebleminded". On the
second it was "No mages detected". I paraphrase, of course.

I'll let you know how next turn goes... and yeah, know I am pretty much telling
my opponents, feel free to invade. For me it's less about winning (though I
love that) than for winning at the greatest game ever.