Help me compile the list of underperforming spells(MP context)

RazeAndBurn

Let's compile a list of spells that underperform and therefore are never picked in the Multiplayer battles.

- list a spell.
- give arguments why it underperforms.
- give suggestions on how to improve its' current situation.

I'll start:

Lore of High Magic

1. Arcane unfroging

Issues:
- Too short of a range. Most of the spells and some of the abilities you'd want to prevent have bigger cast range or can be activated prior coming within the 100m range.
- Overpriced for what it does. While the damage is supposedly +69% more than a Spirit Leech and the cooldown malus is theoretically worth something in practice what makes Spirit Leech good is the potential to spam it and delete models on tattered cavalry for cheap as for the cooldown malus - see the above.

Solution: Focus the spell around the Cooldown part and therefore utility rather than damage.
- Increase range to 250m. Still balanced in a way that spells with 300m range can be cast before Arcane Unforging has a chance to put them on cooldown.
- Reduce the WoM price to around 11/14 points. Not spammable but not too prohibitive if you would want to use it in conjuction with most other spells.
- Reduce duration of the damage part to Spirit Leech level (13 seconds) to justify the above.

TheShiroOfDalton

Massive disagree on giving any point&click spell such a long range, especially not when you turn it into a quasi anti-mage spell that can shut down what is currently one of the most powerful ways of influencing battles. This sort of thing should be part of a general dispel mechanic, not be exclusive to only two races.

This spell should only affect artifacts like its TT counterpart, it's that simple. There's no reason to make it better because the problem of most magic in this game is simply the fact that as there's zero counterplay to magic and magic is completely safe to use, you can just cherry-pick spells that offer the most bang for your buck. That's where you need to start the balancing efforts.

eumaies#1128

comet of casandora - cast time takes too long (or could be alot cheaper WoM instead)

doombolt - costs too much WoM for what it does

bladewind - costs too much WoM for what it does

AfghanMamba

For high magic a couple spells feel like wasted potential:

Apotheosis’ overcast is pretty much useless since the extended range is never worth it.

Hand of glory is almost always wasted since you’ll rarely be able to use both of its effects with a single cast.

I’d like it if both worked like how the storm vermin summon spell did where there’s no conventional overcast but instead a different effect for the same cost.

For apotheosis one version could be the heal and the other could have some other effect such as vigor replenishment.

For hand of glory one version can have the reload skill buff with accuracy or missile strength as well and the other could have the melee attack buff with weapon strength as well.

Otherwise soul quench is just fine and so is tempest. Fiery invocation is ass but that’s fine I’ve no problem with it being a campaign spell. Arcane unforging could use a cost reduction though as of now it’s just not worth it. Doesn’t even have a niche ever since waagh was reworked.



I’d also be happy if they reverted the most recent damage nerf to burning head but increased the cast time by a second. That way there’s actual counterplay to it in the form of dodging while still being punishing if they’re caught unawares.

BjornNorlinder

All the damaging spells that cost too much money and wom and take too long to cast

Lotus_Moon#2452

Spells to buff

Light of battle - should rally fleeing troops immediately and add 2s duration, 4s OC.

Comet of Casandora - Cast time way too long, should be reduced by a minumum of 5s

Fiery Convication - Cast time too long should be reduced greatly

Power of Darkness - Reduce WOM cost to 1 or 0, up the friendly dmg to 1000 from 500.

Doombolts - Almost there just reduce WOM by 1 and 2 for OC.

Spells to Nerf

13th Spell - reduce range from 200m (wtf is that) to 100m so it cannot be used to nuke arty.

Soulsteeler ON Morathi - remove reduced WOM cost reduction on item

Burning head - +1s cast time

Traitor Kin - Either +WOM or Reduce dmg, its pretty much q soulsteeler without the heal currently for 7 less WOM...

User_Clue

ShiroAmakusa75 said:

Massive disagree on giving any point&click spell such a long range, especially not when you turn it into a quasi anti-mage spell that can shut down what is currently one of the most powerful ways of influencing battles. This sort of thing should be part of a general dispel mechanic, not be exclusive to only two races.

This spell should only affect artifacts like its TT counterpart, it's that simple. There's no reason to make it better because the problem of most magic in this game is simply the fact that as there's zero counterplay to magic and magic is completely safe to use, you can just cherry-pick spells that offer the most bang for your buck. That's where you need to start the balancing efforts.

Three races have the spell but I get your point. It might also be possible to remove the spell recharge rate debuff and leave in the ability recharge rate debuff, but I'm not sure. I wouldnt really say it shuts down magic though. It only adds a 30s cooldown every 74s. That's a about a 2:3 ratio. You can't just spam the spell either. It costs 16 winds so if that's all you wanted for you didn't get a good value. The damage is good, but it's worse than spirit leech for the price.

I don't agree with the OP's suggestion though. They basically just said the spell should pretty much cost the same as overcasted spirit leech with practically the same range and damage,. but also add an cooldown effect and remove the risk of miscast? How does that make sense?

Asamu#6386

Lotus_Moon said:

Spells to buff

Light of battle - should rally fleeing troops immediately and add 2s duration, 4s OC.

Comet of Casandora - Cast time way too long, should be reduced by a minumum of 5s

Fiery Convication - Cast time too long should be reduced greatly

Power of Darkness - Reduce WOM cost to 1 or 0, up the friendly dmg to 1000 from 500.

Doombolts - Almost there just reduce WOM by 1 and 2 for OC.

Spells to Nerf

!3th Spell - reduce range from 200m (wtf is that) to 100m so it cannot be used to nuke arty.

Soulsteeler ON Morathi - remove reduced WOM cost

Burning head - +1s cast time

Traitor Kin - Either +WOM or Reduce dmg, its pretty much q soulsteeler without the heal currently for 7 less WOM...

I'd add to the "buff" side:
Piercing bolts of Burning and Searing Doom - same situation as Comet. They take way too long to deal damage.

Scorch - it's too narrow/doesn't do enough damage.

Most weapon damage, armour, or leadership augment/hex spells - they just don't have enough impact when compared to other types of spells, either because of the effect being too weak, or the duration being too short. Flaming Sword of Rhuin, Mindrazor, Soulblight, Wyssan's Wildform, Bless with Filth, Aspect of the Dread Knight, Withering, Flesh to Stone, Armour of Darkness, etc...
Plague of Rust is almost okay because it has a 44s duration.
IMO, just do something like +25-50% duration to all of these spells.

Veil of Shadows (Lore of Stealth) - why does a spell that deals 0 damage and doesn't apply any buffs/debuffs 12 WoM? This should be something like 3 WoM. This is easily the worst spell in the entire game as is, and even at 4-5 WoM, it might still be bad.

Vortexes with random movement - pretty much all of them are bad in MP, but OP in campaign. I'm not sure how to resolve that other than making them weaker, but more controlled.

Hand of Glory - maybe reduce the WoM cost by 1 or raise the duration by 25% or so?

Spiteful shot - this spell is worthless. I don't know how you can make it useful without changing it in some way. Accuracy just isn't really a valuable stat. "Hitting" 100% doesn't actually mean you hit 100%, as units can move to dodge even unintentionally, and accuracy is generally high enough already that it's not adding much practical value. Maybe it could also give reload speed, or last twice as long or something... 36s just isn't enough time for the accuracy buff to have a noticeable impact.

Chillwind - +1-2 damage?

'Eadbutt and Bray Scream - increase the damage a bit. Due to the short arc, they don't last as long as other wind spells, and can't hit as many entities, so it's hard to do much damage with them.

On the nerfs:
For Burning head, I think I'd rather see them just hit the damage again, and make it less polarized. 1-2 AP, but much less normal damage. Currently, it's OP vs light infantry, but extremely weak vs anything with heavy armour.

For Soul Stealer: Also make it work like final transmutation, so it drops off of units that leave the effect area.

Traitor Kin could probably do with +2 to the WoM cost, though it doesn't significantly damage single entities like soulstealer does.

Dreaded 13th spell costs 20 WoM. Reducing the range to 150 is probably fine.



As far as Arcane Unforging - Why not just -2 WoM cost, or +4s duration (+2 ticks of damage)? It's not THAT far from being reasonably good. Compared to Spirit Leech, it actually isn't that far off on damage for the cost, as it does 5 more ticks (12 vs 7) of the same damage.

The_real_FAUST#6885

Glittering robe to buff

-1 WoM normal - 2 WoM OC

You never see it, armour has got less and less useful as more AP has been introduced, if it was cheaper to cast it would see greater use.

One of those spells that actually could be useful but is too expensive to be worthwhile

hanen

Word of Pain
Its duration is longer (40s) than comparable spells like Devolve (20s) and Enfeeble foe(17s) but its impact is arguably less and it costs more WoM.

My solution would be to lower the WoM cost from 8 to 6 as well as lowering its duration from 40s to 30s.

Disposable Hero

I use glittering robe, especially as norsca, I think it's fine but situational with regards to both target and the faction you play against. Very good value cast on mammoths for example as lines clash vs factions who typically don't have AP on the majority of their ranged in the matchup, like HE, EMP, WE, Bret, GS, etc.

Over all spells are in a much better spot now compared to a few patches back.

My list would be:

Fiery convocation: -3 sec cast time
Vargheist revenge: -2 sec cast time
Comet of casodora: -2 sec cast time
Piercing bolts of burning: -2 sec cast time
Burning head: +1 cast time

Banishment: -2/-2 wom
Bladewind: -1/-1 wom
Chain lightning: -1 wom
Command the unliving: -1/-1 wom
Cracks call: -2/-2 wom
Doom bolt: -1/-2 wom
Dreaded 13: -50m range
Fireball: +1/+1 wom
Phas protection: +4 seconds
Power of darkness: no wom cost, increase damage
Sandstorm: -1/-1 wom
Soulblight: +4 seconds
Traitorkin: +1/+4 wom

Hand of glory: Change OC effect (as adding more reload often is capped by animations anyways I'd assume) to +25% WS, both melee and ranged, and increase wom for OC. Alternative effect could be accuracy +30, might be interesting?

Lotus_Moon#2452

Dreaded 13th spell costs 20 WoM. Reducing the range to 150 is probably fine.

I disagree here, i think dreaded 13th is a 28 WOM spell and its crazy udnercosted.

I think it shoudl go down to 100m, +6 WOM and +45s duration on the summon.

The explosion its bit stronger than level 2 itza, so than you pretty much get a summon for what 5 WOM? which is a Stormvermin... Nah this spell is busted and has been always.

Energyzed#6772

As a related topic, i will add that i dont like the cost unification of lore passives. Currently just a few of them are worth taking and the vast majority are to expensive. Also, the fact that the strength of many effects got their numbers rounded down to fixed numbers has also contributed to make some passives even worse and harder to balance, If no longer they can tweak the cost and the strength of the effects because they can just be buffed/nerfed by fixed amounts.

Lotus_Moon#2452

Energyzed said:

As a related topic, i will add that i dont like the cost unification of lore passives. Currently just a few of them are worth taking and the vast majority are to expensive. Also, the fact that the strength of many effects got their numbers rounded down to fixed numbers has also contributed to make some passives even worse and harder to balance, If no longer they can tweak the cost and the strength of the effects because they can just be buffed/nerfed by fixed amounts.

Yeah i agree, but i do think the standardisation was a good thing just they should all be looked at and balacned around that cost now

WojmirVonCarstein

eumaies said:

comet of casandora - cast time takes too long (or could be alot cheaper WoM instead)

doombolt - costs too much WoM for what it does

bladewind - costs too much WoM for what it does

For comet, I would change it so that the casting player can see exactly where it lands but the enemy player sees a MUCH wider radius, meaning they don't know exactly where the comet will fall. This would make dodging possible, but harder and thus make the spell better and differentiate it from other spells.

eumaies#1128

WojmirVonCarstein said:

eumaies said:

comet of casandora - cast time takes too long (or could be alot cheaper WoM instead)

doombolt - costs too much WoM for what it does

bladewind - costs too much WoM for what it does

For comet, I would change it so that the casting player can see exactly where it lands but the enemy player sees a MUCH wider radius, meaning they don't know exactly where the comet will fall. This would make dodging possible, but harder and thus make the spell better and differentiate it from other spells.

the challenge is the radious would always be centered on the target spot.

I actually find the comet missing pretty well executed right now, those minor misses can make it tricky to play with. But it's just way too slow so no one is ever even in the ballpark by the time it lands.

BovineKing

I never understood why dreaded 13 is so much better than not just other summons but other explosion spells. Like why the duel affect it would be less broken if it wasn’t two spells in one.

damon40000#7640

BovineKing said:

I never understood why dreaded 13 is so much better than not just other summons but other explosion spells. Like why the duel affect it would be less broken if it wasn’t two spells in one.

probably its like that to clear space for summoned unit

anyway

Rune of Negation - it needs longer range up to 200m to be able to save units more reliably

Rune of Oath and Steel - is just plain useless as armor only buff, either it should also give some md along with less armor or it should also replentish decent ammount of vigour

Global cooldown for runes should be lower (for example tie it to number of runes taken, for example 3 runes - minus 20 percent, 4 runes - minus 40 percent and so on), right now taking more than 2 o or maaaaayby 3 of them is just not worth it

ThibixMagnus#8300

others have said many buffs/debuffs could use some love. I would add that if anraheir is the new standard, then even midnight wind, decent for heavens standards, is underwhelming.

Heavens could use some rethinking in general, it is the lore of fate and divination but has 4 AoE damage spells, super aggressive but very redundant

Shorter cast time for casandora is certainly the easiest way, but it would overlap a bit with uranon or chain lightning. An alternative would be to increase the radius, to have a scarier nuke. Harder to implement but funnier, follow the TT and have a random duration before it hits, with the radius growing. Would work as area denial playing with nerves.

Uranon could follow a target like doombolt, be a bit better vs SEMs. I know it is supposed to be an anti-artillery spell but any magic missile does the job better.

Windblast could also serve as crowd control with speed debuff, but it is hard to change one of the few working spells of the lore.

RazeAndBurn

Guys! Generic -X WoM cost or -X wind up time comments are not usefull. Especially considering that the spells also compete within the lore - I can state that half the spells in the Lore of Dark magic are DOA because Soul Stealer is just so good. For instance no amount of reasonable buffs to Bladewind is gonna make it viable because it competes directly against the Soul Stealer.

Compiled_with_LLVM

Asamu said:

Spiteful shot - this spell is worthless. I don't know how you can make it useful without changing it in some way. Accuracy just isn't really a valuable stat. "Hitting" 100% doesn't actually mean you hit 100%, as units can move to dodge even unintentionally, and accuracy is generally high enough already that it's not adding much practical value. Maybe it could also give reload speed, or last twice as long or something... 36s just isn't enough time for the accuracy buff to have a noticeable impact.

Probably it could increase ranged attacks range (range +100 or something). There is not even a single spell in a game that increases range - could be unique

TheShiroOfDalton

Compiled_with_LLVM said:

Asamu said:

Spiteful shot - this spell is worthless. I don't know how you can make it useful without changing it in some way. Accuracy just isn't really a valuable stat. "Hitting" 100% doesn't actually mean you hit 100%, as units can move to dodge even unintentionally, and accuracy is generally high enough already that it's not adding much practical value. Maybe it could also give reload speed, or last twice as long or something... 36s just isn't enough time for the accuracy buff to have a noticeable impact.

Probably it could increase ranged attacks range (range +100 or something). There is not even a single spell in a game that increases range - could be unique

I'd make it so that the next shot, and only the next shot, homes in on whatever you point at. Not aggressively so, but enough that a simple "walk right or left perpinducarly from the incoming missile" won't be enough.