Destructive magic a bit underpowered?

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Killroyan
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Destructive magic a bit underpowered?

Unread postby Killroyan » 06 Sep 2006, 07:33

Right now I am playing the inferno campaign and thought lets make the main hero a heavy damage dealing caster. He got expert destructive magic and expert sorcery to cast fast. I did get the icicle and the phoenix feather cloak as artifacts in the third map and had about 12 spellpower. I check the damage and find that meteor shower does a whooping 320 damage (that is with the extra 50%!!!). My main hero would do almost as much damage with a normal shot on the dragons. Is it just me or is destructive magic a bit underpowered compared to dark/light magic (huge buffs/nerfs overall) and summoning magic (phoenix/elements/raise dead). I mean implosion did 525 dam. In a battle with 39 dragons/80 ents/107 unicorns/155 druids/400 rangers/600 wardancers/400 sprites what is 525 dam???? Chain lightning did 325 dam and the third hit was something of 65 dam on a warmachine. I casted chain again and the second hit was on the warmachine but it still wasn't destroyed. Weak spells, very weak if you ask me and I propably have to wait for the dungeon with empowering spells to see some good damage.

Overall I do think that mass haste/slow/endurance/etc.... is a lot more valuable then destructive magic even with the extra stuns from the subskills of destructive magic. Also I really don't like it that the armor damaging effect is working only with fireball and armageddon but not with meteor shower, bummer. The saddest part with expert destructive damage that I was able to kill at most 20 units with a meteor shower (rangers and druids stacked together) but a simple basic frenzy was able to wipe out 150 range and 30 druids. Something does not sound right here. Or am I too quick with my judgement over here. Please prove me wrong.

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Unread postby asandir » 06 Sep 2006, 08:01

i think you are right, unless you can cast empowered spells .... these are a nice boost for the dungeon (it is dungeon that get empowered isn't it??) and can do some good damage, as a rule for other factions i avoid destructive magic for this very reason
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Unread postby RaSmuShaDoW » 06 Sep 2006, 08:51

Verry interesting topic.

I ussualy play with Dungeon faction against my friend who plays Heaven. And I lost 4 of our games because I wasn't sure which should I take - Destructive or Dark Magic.

Yesterday we had a final battle and I had like 23 Spell Power with expert Destructive Magic. I also had slippers +50% earth damage (easy to buy). Also had Empowered spells (easy o get).

With one empowered meteor shower I killed ~60 marksma, ~20 monk, ~30 squire and all of his machines (tents, balistas and ammo cart).

Nevertheless I lost this big battle and had to run away.. :( But then he got closer to my castle I used hit and run tactis. I have attacked him with 7 stacks of Assasins and used one empowered implotion to killed 200 marksmen in one blow.

From now on I am quite sure - I will consentrate on Destructive magic.

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Unread postby sezerp » 06 Sep 2006, 08:54

Inferno hero is might-oriented, so maybe that's the problem. OTOH, damage done by say, Lightning Bolt is pityful. Except when it is cast by Druids -then it's way overpowered, especially in the early stages of the game

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Unread postby Mytical » 06 Sep 2006, 08:59

Yeah empowered destruction = good. Normal destruction = bleh. In my opinon though Light and dark are also of limited use most of there spells can be gotten rid of by the other. I have also found only AS, PF, and SP useful in summons (besides things like summon your creatures and travel spells). I think they need to add some zing to all of them to spice them up a bit. Even 1 spell each would be something! Unless you have a lot of mana (academy) or empowered spells, they just dont have that zing.
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Unread postby Psychobabble » 06 Sep 2006, 09:23

It seems to me to be more of a viable choice than it has been in previous games in the series.

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Unread postby Killroyan » 06 Sep 2006, 10:32

Aha, meteor shower is earth based. That explains the lack of power. Didn't know that. The stunning effects of the spells is sometimes better then the damage dealt by it. But then again I might have played too little yet to make a full assumption.

About inferno being might oriented I agree so dark or light magic would have been better but then again I was lacking in the shooter department so I thought lets get a heavy caster hero to compensate for that.

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Unread postby Cyrox » 06 Sep 2006, 12:40

I think all other factions except Dungeon should not use Destructive Magic. Dungeon is the only faction that can achieve reasonable damage with empowered spells or with warlock's luck with destructive magic.

However, I still think that destructive magic is still weak. In fact the weakest spell school.

The usefulness of the Warlock's destructive spells runs out come mid-late game, where your unit stacks start dealing like 1000++ to 2000++ damage and the damage increases with weeks.

Even a lucky implosion dealing 2000++ damage cant win the battle for you because the enemy numbers are too great.

I think the destructive spells should be given a high base spell damage so its viable for the other races, and also increase the damage per spellpower a little more so it can scale well with unit sizes.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 06 Sep 2006, 12:50

Mytical302 wrote:In my opinon though Light and dark are also of limited use most of there spells can be gotten rid of by the other.
And waste their heroes turn in doing so. Call me crazy, but i think that a plus.

As for Destructive, it's as it always was, great at the begining and crap in the end. But the stuning-like abilities help with that. Now if someone would make them stack # dependant in some way...
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Unread postby Gaidal Cain » 06 Sep 2006, 13:03

ThunderTitan wrote: As for Destructive, it's as it always was, great at the begining and crap in the end. But the stuning-like abilities help with that. Now if someone would make them stack # dependant in some way...
If someone would make all spells stack-dependant, it would be even better.

But I have a hard time believing Killroyan's claim of 12 spell power. Demon lords has very low probability of getting it on level up, and there aren't very many Star Axises (or whatever ubival calls them...) until map 3 of inferno campaign. Overall, damage spells are better than they were in both h3 and h4, thanks to the bonus effects you can get. Easily the magic school with the most interesting standard abilities.
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Unread postby LordErtz » 06 Sep 2006, 13:09

If you don't have any master of ice/fire/whatever, then destructive magic is semi-redundant. If you're not a warlock you'll most likely be using the spell which does the most damage, or be using an area damaging spell.

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Unread postby MrSteamTank » 06 Sep 2006, 13:09

Cyrox wrote:I think all other factions except Dungeon should not use Destructive Magic. Dungeon is the only faction that can achieve reasonable damage with empowered spells or with warlock's luck with destructive magic.

However, I still think that destructive magic is still weak. In fact the weakest spell school.

The usefulness of the Warlock's destructive spells runs out come mid-late game, where your unit stacks start dealing like 1000++ to 2000++ damage and the damage increases with weeks.

Even a lucky implosion dealing 2000++ damage cant win the battle for you because the enemy numbers are too great.

I think the destructive spells should be given a high base spell damage so its viable for the other races, and also increase the damage per spellpower a little more so it can scale well with unit sizes.
Higher base dmg would overpower destructive magic in the early game. I'd rather see a secondary skill or two for every race thrown in to improve the destructive magic later in the game. Something with rather high requirements and fairly decent boosts.

Like for knights and rangers which tend to have piss poor spell power give them a skill like the following
Destructive Force - +4 Spell to all Destructive Spells
or for warlocks and wizards
Chain Casting - If your spell kills less than 15% of the enemy stack you get a 30% increase in your initiative until your next turn.
then for necromancers and demon lords
Debilitating Magic - All your destructive spells will reduce your enemies attack/defense/initiative by a small amount.


All these spells would have rather high requirements such as
for warlocks
expert destructive magic & expert sorcery
or for demon lords
expert destructive magic & expert attack
or for rangers
expert destructive magic & expert luck
and so forth.

The point is to make heroes have to be level 10-15 before they get these spells so that you only get your powerful destructive magic only later in the game. Btw these numbers are just for reference but the idea is still the same.

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Unread postby asandir » 06 Sep 2006, 13:16

not a bad idea MrSteamTank, it would certainly open up some interesting late game possibilities
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Unread postby Killroyan » 06 Sep 2006, 13:32

You are right Gaidal about not getting much spell power on levelling or star axis on the map. I had however 2 items with +3 to spell power (armor of churning flesh and dragon bone greaves if I am not mistaken). So that is why I had a good amount of spell power. Another reason why inferno should stay away from destructive as knowledge and attack are the two primary stat increases when levelling (total amount of defense right now is 6 with 4 from buildings at level 24 :()

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 06 Sep 2006, 13:38

Gaidal Cain wrote: If someone would make all spells stack-dependant, it would be even better.
I disagree, boost/weaken spells are fine as they are.
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Unread postby Cyrox » 06 Sep 2006, 13:56

Hmm maybe the base damage should remain the same..

What about spell damage increasing exponentially? Eg. Like lvls 1-10 20*power, lvls 11-20 25*power and so on..

So in the end it is still dependent on spellpower and could scale up nicely throughout the whole game and thus not losing its effectiveness.

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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 06 Sep 2006, 16:50

The only thing that makes destruction usefull is secondary skills.Even my empowered meteor shower did just nearly 1000 damage.I used TA more than this.A nice way to deal with this would be to make the spells do SP^2 times some damage.Or maybe SP times damage for basic,SP^2 for advanced and SP^3 for expert?

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 06 Sep 2006, 17:40

Nope, sorry folks, but stack dependency still sounds like the best ideea.
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Unread postby Kilop » 06 Sep 2006, 20:01

yes and the reason is simpls ...
take a late game hero who lost his army, with his oponent at 1/4 health ... would it be normal for him to go back to his castles take some remaining troops, and kill him just because he has the power to hannihilate any army by himself ??
when power is tied to arny ( lets say +1 power / week of lvl 7 growth )
no crazy lonesome arch mage could obliterate anything

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 06 Sep 2006, 20:29

Kilop wrote:yes and the reason is simpls ...
I belive in leting people figure things out 4 themselves. It's quite frustrating really. But then again i do rather suck ar making a point.
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