Paralysis is overpowered.

[sector24]

I think the duration can be ridiculously long sometimes. Once I was paralyzed for 52 turns which is basically longer than the entire battle anyway. Open ended d6 sounds like a great idea, possibly with multiple applications of paralyze being additive, so if you really wanted to permanently paralyze someone you could but it would take several mages.

[Adept]

[quote=K;634015]

Originally Posted by Baalz

My feeling isn't so much that
The one thing that really gets me is that every time someone whines "oh no, it's unbalanced because it kills SCs" then people seem to ignore that the fact that the same tactic is almost useless against a regular army.

Stop insulting people please. Nobody is whining. You are putting words in people's mouths and burning straw men.

Other than that, interesting replies.

[Tifone]

It seems to me that the power of this spell fits the overall "unbalanced" way the counters of this game works - intending for "unbalanced" not the negative meaning of the term, but the simple statement that very often the countermove is MUCH stronger than the move. I must say I see it as a feature - which kind of compensates the difficulty you get sometimes getting to counter the move your opponent threw at you if your nation has not the good path / research level for going with the best counter in time.

But I'm a n00bie so just feel free to kill my point badly

[Zeldor]

K:

Decay works on undead.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

K:

Decay works on undead.

Have you ever looked at an undead unit's lifespan? Decay may effect them, but they live so long it's irrelevant.

Jazzepi

[K]

Originally Posted by Adept

Stop insulting people please. Nobody is whining. You are putting words in people's mouths and burning straw men.

Other than that, interesting replies.

Here is what a strawman argument is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man. Please read it completely before charging someone with that particular offense.

And back to the issue....

My point is that "balanced" in the context of Dominions is "good vs some enemies and bad vs others." Anti-SC tactics are usually very good against SCs and very bad against decently-sized armies (which can very effectively use high HP or other kinds of units to draw away anti-SC spells).

While not all the pro-SC crowd are whiners, there are enough to color them as a group. It seems that every week I see a "this spell is broken because it killed my SC" argument, but I rarely see a "this spell is broken because it killed my army" argument. I apologize if that seems like an insult, because I see it as a valid observation about complaints that stem from emotional rather than logical reasons.

I understand that people get attached to their SCs. I don't understand why they ask others to play differently or change the game itself in order to respect that emotional attachment.

[K]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

K:

Decay works on undead.

I thought that Decay didn't have a chance to kill old undead like it does with living units who are -- or have been taken by the Decay effect-- into old age.

Am I wrong about that?

[NTJedi]

I think paralysis should allow those paralyzed to have another MR roll each turn, if they succeed the MR roll then an extra 2 to 10 turns of paralysis are removed. Those with strong MR should overcome the paralysis more quickly since battle turns are so limited.

Just another DOM_4 improvement.

[konming]

I do not really know about that. Soul slay is just one level up there and it is generally much better against SCs. Paralyzed SCs still may have cold/heat aura, fire/astral shield, blood vengence, awe+fear and more. Why should we nerf a spell that's specifically against thugs/SCs so it would not work on thugs/SCs? Paralyze already has 0.7% chance of working casted by a base caster against 25MR. Who would ever use paralyze against anything if each turn it can shrug off 2-10 turns?

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by K

Ok-dokey. Here are a few examples of comparable MR resist spells that are good when you've mages spamming them:

I've killed an enemy SC god using Rage in an MP game. He turned and killed most of his own army before they killed him. F2 at Thaum 3. I didn't even script Rage.

Sleep is mighty effective if you have a few guys spamming it. N2 at Thaum2.

Decay, while hard to actually hit anyone with, can do the job as well if the battle is long and he's not undead or lifeless.

If you don't like the MR-saves spells, we can go back to Astral for Starfires. It's armor negatingm kills with real damage and comes in at S1 at Evo1.

If you are lucky and your enemy SC is Astral, you can can do Magic Duel at S1 at Evo3. Sure, you may lose a few S1 mages before the rolls favor you, but it can be worth it to kill an SC (I've killed fully-kitted golems in MP with S1s before).

And, if none of those are right for you, Vengeance of the Dead comes in at S3D1 and Thaum4. It's a little more expensive than Paralyse in terms of mage paths and gems but it's the same research cost and it kills things dead pretty well.

I'm not saying that any of these are perfect, or even as good as in as many situations as Soul Slay or Paralyze, but they are comparable and the counters to them are all the same: don't overuse SCs or thugs. Considering that Astral is very weak early on against most enemies, it compensates by being good against SCs and thugs.

The one thing that really gets me is that every time someone whines "oh no, it's unbalanced because it kills SCs" then people seem to ignore that the fact that the same tactic is almost useless against a regular army.

Not to sound contentious, but most of your suggestions all have the same *big* disadvantage to paralyze, a precision weeeeell south of 100 and also a much shorter range. Paralyze hits every time, from the first round of combat until you run out of fatigue. Those other spells are going to miss a single target the vast majority of the time unless he's close enough to poke you with his sword. This translates into drastically less MR checks and thus a drastically lower effectiveness. Sleep has to overcome the MR on the one or two hits you manage to land after the SC has run through his buff cycle and closed to kill your troops. Not really what I'd describe as the same ballpark as effective as paralyze.

Re: Rage - are you sure you didn't use charm? (tongue in cheek in case that didn't come through). Rage I've had cast many, many times by the unscripted spellcasting AI and the best result I've every gotten was getting a Neifel Jarl whacking a Neifel giant a couple times and giving him an affliction before they both turned back around and stomped my troops. Without arguing the point I'll just say I've had quite different results with Rage that what you describe.

Magic duel is a very special case and not really reasonable as a comparison.

Vengeance of the dead is kinda out there for comparison. It requires a much more powerful, specialized multipath mage and pearls to burn spamming it. It's also a ritual, and that's rather an apples to oranges comparison.