Nominate your "Tiny Tim" spell here!

[Sombre]

I agree with Gandalf too. He is spot on as usual. Or dot on. Or is that a period? I can't tell.

[Gandalf Parker]

I had a comment but edited it out. It was un-gandalf in its tone

[vfb]

Okay, I've renamed the thread subject to something more constructive.

My nomination is Blink. What is an effective way to use this spell?

[Juzza]

I personally think that 1 of these 3 could be the most useless.

1. Spirit Curse: it costs a death gem to curse while there are other spells that cost no gems.
2 .Bleed: have never been able to use effectively, when with lots of casters.
3.Corpse Man Construction: even with one of the magic items hat increase the amount of corpse men to make, I still find them a waste of air gems.

[vfb]

Okay, slightly breaking rule #1, but here's the Spirit Curse description:

"The caster summons a malign spirit from the underworld and coerces it to curse an enemy. In return, it is set free to wreak havoc on the living. The spirit never joins battle."

I've happily used Spirit Curse a few times in the early goings, playing Agartha. I didn't notice any extra havoc, but maybe I wasn't looking in the right place.

Does the "wreak havoc on the living" mean anything different than the "curse an enemy"? Is it just flavor? Or does something happen to the population where the battle is fought?

[MaxWilson]

Opposition is inferior to Soul Slay (lower range, restricted to magical beings) and a level-6 spell. AFAIK, useful only if you're going up the Enchantment tree anyway.

Stellar Focus is pretty dubious. Ench 7 and 30 gems for 5 pearls per turn. It would be okay if it weren't taking up a global slot, but by the time you get it there's pretty much always going to be another global somebody would rather have up, so you'll have to cast it with 100+ pearls to prevent it from getting dispelled, at which point it's just as cost-effective to invest in clams instead.

Gift of Nature's Bounty, on the other hand, sounds like an awesome global but I've never cast it.

-Max

[PvK]

I'm worried about (the AI maybe deciding unwisely to use) Mossbody, though I haven't seen it cast yet.

Otherwise, I can only think of two truly nearly-useless spells, but the thread rule says I'm not allowed to comment on them.

[Sandman]

Breaking the rules, but:

Opposition works against mindless magical constructs, whilst soul slay doesn't.

[Nick_K]

I think that Spirit Curse just inflicts a curse. Its utility seems clear - it's a 0 research way of cursing an enemy SC.

I cast gift of nature's bounty in a mid-sized SP game a while back and went from making a few thousand profit every turn to making over 12000. The income chat showed a dramatic jump, bigger than that I usually get on the gem income chart when I cast a gem-producing global. In summary, if you can keep the spell up, it is awesome.

Stellar focus could be ok in SP, I guess - I usually end up with all five global slots anyway.

The most powerful death touch spell deals massive damage. I don't think it's changed since Doms2 where I lost an air queen SC to it on the second turn of combat. Not something you'd script, but it can be very effective if the spell AI makes a clever choice.

Off the top of my head, I think that I might agree with the OP about healing touch - that provisionally gets my vote, but I'd really need to check the spell manual to be sure.

[Twan]

Ritual : Call the Eater of the Dead

Battle Spell : Hand of Dust