Is Falling Fires bugged?

[tinkthank]

Falling Fires does 15 AP damage. When it hits groups of militia or lightly-armored archers, I will often see whole bunches of them take no damage, often consecutive turns. That really shouldnt be the case. Is there a hidden MR roll (which probably shouldnt be)?

[Boron]

Maybe there is a defence roll involved like with some cold spells .

Fire is very suboptimal compared to earth or airmagic imo .

Falling fires needs f3 , 20 fatigue and only area of effect 3+ .

Here falling frost is almost better , with 17+ damage and 5+ area of effect .

But against water protection or undeadness helps and against fire protection also somewhat helps + it is less precisise during storm + devils are fire immune .

I personally higly prefer a magma eruption casting Black sorcerer to a falling fire casting f3+ mage

Some spells work like a missile attack, so a hit is not 100% guarantee even if the target square is in the area of effect !

[Endoperez]

EDIT: Oops, confused two thread together...

I don't know why that happens. But IIRC, all AoE effects automatically hit everyone on the area they affect. That negates only defece, not prot., resistances, glamour (but it is destroyed by the hit) etc.

[PvK]

Falling Frost specifically says that agile units can dodge the frost, even though it is an area spell. My guess would be that Falling Fires is the same way.

What "agile" means is an interesting question. Maybe it is a saving roll based on AP? That would be interesting, and explain why militia would often not get hit.

PvK

[Ironhawk]

My experience with falling fires is that it is a bit random tinkthank. Sometimes it will only hit 1-3 guys in the AoE. But then other times it will wipe out whole squads. I use the spell often tho, cause fire magic is so easy to boost in combat via phoenix fire, unlike water and air (which I know can be boosted easily on thier own, but both require eq of some kind.)

[tinkthank]

Hm, ok -- did some more testing, and I dislike the results. I think Falling Fires is really a fairly poor spell compared even to its weaker friends (like Holy Pyre).

If possible, I would like to see these types of spells altered for dom3....

[Ironhawk]

Wow! What did your testing show you?

I have found Falling Fires superior to Holy Pyre in almost every game I have used fire magic.

[tinkthank]

Every unit which got hit by Holy Pyre took damage; almost none took no damage. I was routing standard Indy troops easily with it. With FF, most of the troops I hit got off unscathed, even though more seemed to get hit.
Additionally, I found I was more flexible with Holy Pyre, since you need one less path of fire to cast it. Being availble earlier helped too.
How are you finding FF superior?

[PvK]

It would also depend both on the targets and the caster. Holy Pyre does more damage with more skill, and Falling Fires do more area with more skill.

PvK