Water magic

[Crust]

What are good ways to use it on land? Quickness spells seem good in principle but hard to make use of.

[K]

Originally Posted by Crust

What are good ways to use it on land? Quickness spells seem good in principle but hard to make use of.

Well, the staples of midgame combat are Falling Frost and Frozen Heart which the first killing large numbers of foes and the latter killing SCs, thugs, and high hp units. Spells like Grip of Winter are perfect for attacking whole armies, and depending on your nation and foes Wolven Winter can be crippling.

Quickness is one of those things that is nice to get, but hard to use. It is far better to use the various direct attack Water spells.

Basically, Water is a midgame magic. Unlike Fire that peaks in early and mid or Astral that is mid to late, Water gets all its most generally useful and nice things right in the middle of the research paths.

[HoneyBadger]

Cold spells are very nice too, and there's lots of water summons that can be used on land.

[vfb]

While you're waiting for those goodies, you might want to try out:

Slime - slows armies down

Numbness - I'm pretty sure this is a (5AN+cold scale) no-MR stun attack, CR defends

Curse of the Desert - Nice area 2d8 stun attack, CR does not defend, MR defends. If initial MR check fails, continues to do 2d8 stun damage until more difficult MR check made.

Wolven Winter - You can also cast this on someone's capital to reduce their income immediately by 15% (best on heat-loving nations, not good on cold-loving ones) and permanently (via the 5% pop kill). The pop kill does not sound like much, but 6 casts and you've cut his best province income by a third.

In the mid-game, you can also make bottles of living water, it's really gem-efficient.

[otthegreat]

Originally Posted by K

Basically, Water is a midgame magic. Unlike Fire that peaks in early and mid or Astral that is mid to late, Water gets all its most generally useful and nice things right in the middle of the research paths.

I agree with you, there are a number of good mid level damage spells. I'm wondering though, how effective are niefel flames? Is having a few niefel flame casters an effective late game strategy?

[K]

Originally Posted by otthegreat

I agree with you, there are a number of good mid level damage spells. I'm wondering though, how effective are niefel flames? Is having a few niefel flame casters an effective late game strategy?

Neifle Flames is nice for that high quality AN damage, but it suffers from the problem that not only is chaff and Cold Resistance easy to come by in the late game, but Undead Cold resistant chaff is extremely easy to come by.

[Nikelaos]

grip of winter + falling frost spam murders everything not cold resistant, no questions asked, just make sure you have something to protect you're mages (a wall of chaff to stop melee troops, some way to protect from mage counters such as rain of stones) as long as you're mages can hold out for like 10 turns everything not cold resistant the enemy has is more than likely to die, even if not killed in those 10 turns they would be over fatigued and are made useless (i find this particularly effective vs hydra rushes, funny seeing those blessed serpents die of fatigue) .

falling frost also causes damage (but not the chill effect) to cold resistant troops but can be evaded with a high defence/parry skill making it perfect for even cold resistant chaff.

[Trumanator]

Don't forget Sailor's Death. I think its something like 3W, area 1, 10 AN damage or something around there. Its Thaum, though I don't recall what lvl.

[Nikelaos]

sailors death isn't too effective for me.

you're better of hording all you're mages back to research till you research some of the nicer evocation spells before casting frozen death on you're enemies in the battlefield. Unless ofcourse you're a neifel jarl or a formorian king, then send em out straight away with like five of they're resepective sacred units as henchmen then splash a nice bless and take out any indie province or early game army with the greatest of ease.

[Meursy]

Has anyone used Prison of Sedna to good effect?