Death & Blood a little borked?
 

These two paths SEEM to have some of the best summons in the game at somewhat low research levels.

As examples: Devils, Banes, Wrights.

All exceptional summons for their cost, all at low tech levels.

Now if these paths were the ones that had poor higher levels summons then I would say that makes sense from a balance perspective.

However they also have excellent higher level summons as well, ex: demon lords, ghost riders, tartarus gate.

Finally, even if they had just some of the best summons but had poor combat magic then I would say : "maybe they are balanced."

Now it is true that blood has pretty bad combat magic. But death has excellent combat magic. Eg: Life Drain, Soul Vortex, raise dead. All excellent.

I don't get it. It seems like death and to a lesser extent blood are just better paths than the other magic paths. Is this intended? Perhaps I am missing something?

[ June 02, 2004, 19:06: Message edited by: Huzurdaddi ]

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

I haven't played a lot of Blood Magic. But I have noticed that most of the powerful Blood summons require significant skill in both blood and some other sort of magic. This seems to be less true for other schools of magic.

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

One of the reasons why ERMOR is so strong is because death magic is very powerful. In my multiplayer games we've Banned the ghost riders spell simply because it's way too powerful for its low cost. Many gamers on the forum are using the castling strategy because of spells such as this.

[ June 02, 2004, 19:35: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

Death summons are unusually vulnerable to Dust to Dust, Wither Bones, Solar Rays. Some also suffer from a tendency not to play well with others (cold aura, disease spreading) and this is especially true of death battle magic (area life-draining / disease-spreading / decay-causing tends to be indiscriminate, for instance.)
Death magic also lacks friendly fliers, has few mounted units, provides fairly limited forging, and is very bad at providing other benefits such as countering other magics (no domes or ward spells, say), providing mobility (Stygian Paths is late, hard and dangerous), no troop enhancement spells et al. It's quite strong at what it focuses on, but hopeless at others.

Blood is similar in degree of focus. It's great for summons, especially in winged summons, but lousy at most other tasks.

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You're absolutely correct, Air is a much weaker and less useful path all around. DOWN WITH DEATH AND BLOOD.

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

And Astral ... don't forget about astral .. you may get your path level 5 pretender killed by a lousy shaman !!

oh, wait, does it make it too strong or too weak???

Damn, nerf it anyway. All of them...

[ June 02, 2004, 20:15: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

All the death and blood summons can be banished or destroyed by the many things that bLast the undead.

Against opponents with enough cheap priests or whatever, these things are not so tough.

PvK

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

IMHO:
Death is pretty specific in its combat usefulness. Unless you have undead army, its combat usage is fairly limited. Even its early combat summons are not too great unless cast by a powerful mage - a DD mage can only summon a few skeletons before colapsing; useful, but not too great. Blood is even more specific in combat, as it's very exhausting and require the presence of frail blood slaves (ever had any blood slaves left on Abyssian mage after combat?).

As for the summons, I find most of the early ones to be rather cost-ineffective in mage time, all the way until you get to higher levels of research, when other paths get good summons as well (well, maybe not water apart from sea trolls). I mean, 5 death gems and a DD mage's turn for a single wight is not all that great. I would rather put him to research so I can access the more useful summons sooner (which is a shame, because I almost never get to use the early ones that don't have high-end counterparts, such as the drakes).

The rest of it is fine and balanced IMO. You cannot really cast powerful globals with death unless you're Ermor, so you have to have something that is in favor - and this is where remote summons come into action. High blood rituals are also either risky, or summons. Yes, the late summons are very powerful, but that's the essence of blood anyway. You have flame storms and shimmering fields on one side, and heliophagi on the other.

[ June 02, 2004, 20:58: Message edited by: HJ ]

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ah scarcasm. Cute. Yes I understand that Air has a number of very powerful spells. As a matter of fact many people have commented that air combat magics are perhaps too powerful or do use another word abusive.

However the "problem" with air is not that most of the spells are busted, but rather that a few are very efficient (eg: Wrathful Skies, Lighting Orb ). While I think that the problem with Blood and death is more pervasive.

Of course some people simply like the status quo. I would imagine Zen that you argued like heck against nerfing the VQ.

Re: Death & Blood a little borked?
 

Death summons are strong... until they get banished, which is a cheap, very effective, and common weapon which anyone with holy priests can use, without any research or gem investment.

Blood summons are almost all the same way (a bit more resistant, but less numerous), and having to use masses of blood slaves for everything is a strong limitation.

PvK