Death Magic on the Battlefield

[Lingchih]

Nether Bolts are nice, but they hardly ever hit the Commanders that you want them to hit. When they hit in the middle of an army, they usually only take out a couple of troops. If you are facing a lone SC though, you can spam them with a bunch of mages and hope that a few hit (chance of feeblemind).

And I agree, Shadow Blast is only effective facing a large army. The cost is high, but several cast into a large army can cause devastating damage. Against SCs, it is a waste of gems, since it usually misses badly.

[Shovah32]

Nether Bolt isn't great, and is usually much less effective, but it can be great against troops with big shields(nether darts can be stopped like arrows).

A few nether darts casters with decent precision(and possibly penetration items), particularly behind skele spammers, can really hurt enemy SCs relying on buffs from their own magic. Nothing like feeblemind a Seraph or elemental royalty. Nether Darts in general is a really nasty spell - particularly at higher levels, and since anyone who can cast it can be in a communion...
I love MA Ermor.

[AreaOfEffect]

I love death magic. Mainly because I find battlefield uses for it in all stages of the game, even when skill in death is low.

Skill Level 1 Death Magic:

• Versus the Undead use Dust to Dust (Thaumaturgy 1)
• Versus low moral units (such as elephants] use Frighten (Thaumaturgy 1)
• Versus anything use Ghost Grip (Conjuration 5)

Skill Level 2 Death Magic:

• Versus Super Combatants and Tramplers use Disintegrate (Alteration 8)
• versus the undead you can use Control Dead (Thaumaturgy 5)
• Versus most other things spam raise Skeletons (Enchantment 3)

And don't get me going on the wonders of Death 3. Every level of death up till Death 4 brings you something new and wonderful.

Shadow Blast is a great spell but don't use low level casters. The spell scales in both damage and on area of effect, so it is meant to be used by high level death mages, which is actually rather easy with some death gems and research into Construction.

Possibly my favorite spell in the whole of Dominions is Ghost Grip. It is easy to spam and can be deadly against anything when the fight is drawn out. Also, don't be shy about using it against the undead, it effects them too.

Good luck and die well.

[MaxWilson]

Lingchih said:
Nether Bolts are nice, but they hardly ever hit the Commanders that you want them to hit. When they hit in the middle of an army, they usually only take out a couple of troops. If you are facing a lone SC though, you can spam them with a bunch of mages and hope that a few hit (chance of feeblemind).

And I agree, Shadow Blast is only effective facing a large army. The cost is high, but several cast into a large army can cause devastating damage. Against SCs, it is a waste of gems, since it usually misses badly.

Many Death nations also have access to either Air or Nature (EA C'tis, Helheim, Lanka come to mind). Aim and Eagle Eyes benefit Shadow Blast/Cloud of Death significantly. Waiting a couple of rounds for them to advance into your chaff and/or skelly spam is also potentially advantageous. Consider that the main advantage of artillery spells is to thin out formations so your troops can gang up and overwhelm defenses.

-Max

[moderation]

How do Raise Skeletons and Raise Dead compare to each other? I get the rough impression that Raise Dead provides higher HP units and more of them, but you need create some corpses by getting some units killed first.

[MaxWilson]

Skeletons also have better attack/defense than Soulless do. If you've got Darkness or something, Skeletons are much better. You're correct that Raise Dead requires corpses, although I think PD corpses work fine.

-Max

[Endoperez]

Units killed in that battle also provide corpses for the Soulless. They get better equipment (shield, sword, some armor) if the corpses had high resourcecost.

[sansanjuan]

Endoperez said:
They get better equipment (shield, sword, some armor) if the corpses had high resourcecost.

That is so cool the IW guys bothered to code that. Every day there's some new level of detail I learn about.
I can't imagine how involved the feature list QA was for this product.
-SSJ

[moderation]

Has anyone been able to raise giant soulless on the battlefield?

[Endoperez]

It's nation-dependent. Giant nations get giant soulless, C'tissians get c'tis and slave lizard undead, Caelum gets those useless, winged-but-not-flying corpses, Lanka gets different types of monkeys, etc etc.

Yes, casting Blade Wind to kill bunch of monkey PD lets you raise the Markata as Soulless Giants.