Curse of Stones

[Baalz]

Its a niche spell, but it can be pretty darn useful under the right circumstances. It doesn't explicitly affect people with higher encumbrance more, though they are more likely to be suffering from fatigue problems so indirectly yes.

It really shines I find against good non-elite heavy infantry/cavalry (which are very common...say you're fighting Abysia or Pythium or EA Ermor or Man or Ulm or etc.). Cast it opening round with two mages equipped with a void eye - very doable early on. What happens is 2/3rds of that big army of bad *** heavy hitters take a point of fatigue every step so they're more than half passed out by the time they get to. The point of the spell is not to try to make the enemy pass out though, it's to make them enter round one of melee with 50+ fatigue. 50+ fatigue for them gives them -5 attack/defense which is the equivalent of level 10 fire/water blessing for your guys (the high chance of a critical hit due to fatigue is arguably similar to having flaming weapons against heavy armor). If combat drags on (which is what heavy infantry excels at) they *do* pass out. Then, the extra tasty icing on the cake is when they route they keep passing out every other step so even if you've got slow heavy infantry yourself you can kill every one if them (that was affected by the spell at least).

Niche spell, but I've never seen anyone other than myself cast it so I think it's under appreciated because it can be very effective given it's research level and ease to cast.

[Alpine Joe]

I heard it affected your own troops as well. Is this true?

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Baalz

50+ fatigue for them gives them -5 attack/defense which is the equivalent of level 10 fire/water blessing for your guys (the high chance of a critical hit due to fatigue is arguably similar to having flaming weapons against heavy armor).

Are you sure about that? I thought (based on the manual formulas and observational experience) that it was -1 to defense per 10 fatigue, and -1 to attack per 20 fatigue. Thus you're getting +5 to attack and +2 to defense, plus the crit effect, making it more of an F10W4 equivalent than F10W10.

I would use it more frequently if it weren't MR-easy or if it cost only 1 earth gem. I do like your suggestion of casting it with multiple mages--you might get worthwhile coverage that way. Fatiguing 1/6 of the enemy army is less worthwhile than Earthquake or Strength of Giants, but if you could get it up to 1/2 the army it would be worth doing.

-Max