Paralysis is overpowered.

[K]

Originally Posted by Baalz

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.

Sure, and I admitted they they aren't as good. The point is that they can be used and only need a hit and a failed save to be effective. Some effects have to be better than others at the same level, and Paralyze sucks at killing units but is great at SCs.

Originally Posted by Baalz

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.

It was Rage. Pretenders are immune to charm.

I think the Raging unit attacks the closest units to it. My mages were at extreme range and the Pretender ran back to his army which was not advancing because they were archers (and my troops were not advancing because I didn't have any). I think he killed himself on their Fire Shields.

Originally Posted by Baalz

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

Really? Aside from a gem cost, weird mechanic, and requirement of Astral, it has a lot in common with Paralyze. It's Astral, low research, and always hits. It's even better in that kills, can kills things with stupid-high MR, it costs less in research, and it can be cast by a weaker mage without doing anything crazy like communions or having powerful mages cast battlefield spells.

Originally Posted by Baalz

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.

It's a save or die that you don't have to leave home to do, so if it requires a slightly more powerful mage then who cares? The fact that at level 4 you can be killing SCs with a save or die proves my point that there are comparable SC-killers.

I mean, I only highlighted the sexier single casting options. There are plenty of SC killing tactics at low levels. For example, ten Storm Demons on Fire Large Monster vs an SC not immune to lightning can be instant death.... Swarms or summoned undead can be instant death on turn 75....a single caster E1/S1 with Gifts from Heaven can just be a dedicated SC killer with a few common items.....

My point is that nerfing a type of magic that is already weak at low levels is not the answer. It's not going to solve the problem of people killing your SCs and it weakens all existing Astral nations.

Considering that with a high MR it still takes an act of God to even work.... well, that just confuses me. I mean, why nerf something that only has a 1-2% chance of working anyway? Is the pro-SC lobby that insecure? Don't they want their opponents to have any chance?

[Endoperez]

Could someone post the actual paralyze mechanics from the manual?

I'm at school and don't have the manual with me, but IIRC paralyze damage is transformed into rounds paralyzed through some pretty weird formula that takes size into account, so that big units spend less time paralyzed. Analyzing the damage caused by Paralyze and the formula, and then looking at how different values would compare, seems like a much better idea than comparing Paralyze to other low-level spells.

IMO, 20 or more turns of paralyzation for a size 2 unit is fine (almost as good as Soul Slay, at small units), and even size 6 units should be paralyzed for several turns (because big units are targeted first, and it wouldn't be fun if your mages spammed Paralyze at an Elephant that only gets 1 turn of actual paralyzation, recovering just in time to be targeted again). I don't know what would be a good average amount of paralyzation for big units, but I expect that the average isn't 20 turns even with the current values.

[chrispedersen]

Bows of Botox. Visions Foes.
Communion + just about anything.


Sure tho bows dont actually kil em. But does render them useless.

Also, to enter a comment in - for S3 mages etc, paralysis is deprecated in favor of soul slay, at least often.

1. I think SC's are too strong.
2. I think paralyze is stronger than other schools spells, but I would rather boost other schools than penalize paralyze overly much.
3. Ryalla is a big part of the problem.

If you had to fix it - why not make it instead of turns of paralysis - a cumulutive action point drain?

That way, quicken, haste, would counter act it somewhat - and faster units would resist paraylsis somewhat better than slow ones.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

IMO, 20 or more turns of paralyzation for a size 2 unit is fine (almost as good as Soul Slay, at small units), and even size 6 units should be paralyzed for several turns (because big units are targeted first, and it wouldn't be fun if your mages spammed Paralyze at an Elephant that only gets 1 turn of actual paralyzation, recovering just in time to be targeted again). I don't know what would be a good average amount of paralyzation for big units, but I expect that the average isn't 20 turns even with the current values.

In my experience with Paralyze, no matter what size, the vast majority of your successful casts result in either around (3) turns Paralyzation, or (20)+ with some individual casts going past 30 turns.

Regardless of what the manual says it does, or did 2 years ago, that's what it actually does in game.

[zzcat]

S2 & S3 make a big difference. Because of the extreme duration, paralyze is almost as powerful as soul slay and disintegrate. We know disintegrate need Alt 8, and there is no way to empower death path other than item & communion. But with a mere astral gem(light of the northern star), all S1 mage in the battlefield can spam paralyze like crazy. I think it's overpowered for a Thau 4 spell. Either increasing the prerequisite to S3 or increasing the research level to 6(same as frozen heart) or 7 looks fine to me. Or give it a reasobable duration like 3-5 rounds.

[Micah]

Paralyze damage is (damage-size)/2 so on short duration things like mind blasts and a failed petrification size has a major effect, but paralyze does 60+ damage, so knocking off 6 isn't gonna make much of a dent. Seems like it actually works like it's supposed to as well. =)

[IndyPendant]

Finally, a debate that I have something to add to! ; )

Once you look at all the factors (100 Prec, long-ish range, low research, easy paths, low fatigue, paralysis duration, etc etc), it is very hard to consider Paralyze balanced in comparison to other SC killers. In that respect, Paralyze is overpowered.

However, it is also hard to consider SCs and thugs *themselves* as balanced, compared to regular armies. It is a common (although perhaps not universal) belief--one that I happen to share--that Dom3 late game in particular is all about the gems. Once the SCs and battlefield spells arrive, armies of 'regular' units become so much disposable chaff. In that respect, SCs are far more overpowered than Paralyze.

Anything that weakens SCs and thugs--balanced or not!--is a *very very good thing* in my book! ; )

--IndyPendant.

[konming]

Originally Posted by zzcat

S2 & S3 make a big difference. Because of the extreme duration, paralyze is almost as powerful as soul slay and disintegrate. We know disintegrate need Alt 8, and there is no way to empower death path other than item & communion. But with a mere astral gem(light of the northern star), all S1 mage in the battlefield can spam paralyze like crazy. I think it's overpowered for a Thau 4 spell. Either increasing the prerequisite to S3 or increasing the research level to 6(same as frozen heart) or 7 looks fine to me. Or give it a reasobable duration like 3-5 rounds.

A simple reverse communion and power of the sphere plus that banner of the northern star is all you need for S3. If you can go S2, you have all the research done for S3. And all that are required are just a bunch of S1 mages.

[zzcat]

Originally Posted by konming

A simple reverse communion and power of the sphere plus that banner of the northern star is all you need for S3. If you can go S2, you have all the research done for S3. And all that are required are just a bunch of S1 mages.

LoNS is virtually free for boosting 10+ mages in one round, but reverse communion is dangerous, I think it should be acceptable if one can take the risk.

[Foodstamp]

The only thing annoying about paralyze is when your playing a nation where mages have more HP than your units. Since paralyze targets the units with the highest hp your units are virtually ignored while your mages are paralyzed. Can be a pita.