Best Spells?
 

As a new player of Dom - I am interested in what the better spells are.

My contribution after a couple of demo games and 75% of the way through my first proper game is for the best or deadliest low level ritual spell is:

Arrow of Seeking (Air 3, Ench 3) - From the flavour text this spell should be called Arrow of Slaying (heads straight for the heart if it hits) As far as I can tell if successful this spell kills a random leader in the province selected. The manual says -8 on armour penetration, which sounds good, so I guess good armour protects you. In the SP game I am playing I have killed a pretender SC, and killed several leaders on the top ten list. Just one of the things you need to protect against in an MP game.

GM12

Re: Best Spells?
 

Yeah, Seeking Arrow is a powerful and a very frustrating spell.

As for best spells...just some, out of the top off my head.

Blade Wind (Earth 3, Evoc 4) - Certainly a winner in early age, this is a truly monstrous spell in fine-tuned squads of Basalt Kings or Agarthan Oracles with Earth Boots, Summon Earthpower and then Bladewind...of course it is far, far less useful against armoured targets but with so many things running around pretty much buck naked in the Early Era this spell is stupendously effective.

Mirror Image (Air 1, Alt 2) A nice buff spell that scales well with power. This one, AFAIK, also protects you again AoE spells! Be careful that enemies can luck out and hit through the Mirror Image.

Body Ethereal (Astral 1, um, forgot the level) Quite possibly the best protection spell before you run into magic weapons. You can also protect others with it too, albeit at a short range.

Rhuax Pact (Earth 1 Fire 1 Conj 3, Agartha Only) - An amazing little ritual, this one summons 5 magma children for 2 fire gems. Since fire gems can be easily made into gold we get 5 Magma Children for 30 gold. And that is amazingly cheap for what you get. Of course fire immune and resistant creatures nullify Magma Children and they are somewhat weak to missiles but against regular infantry and even some tougher creatures they are utterly amazing, blowtorching their way through twice larger forces.

Re: Best Spells?
 

If it's killing SC pretenders, it sounds to me like the spell has a bug - or at least, a serious balance problem. In Dom2, it would usually kill a human-sized mage (ie, HPs in the 10-12 range), but even they sometimes escaped with a chest wound. If it's killing SCs, it doing a lot more than single arrow damage.

Re: Best Spells?
 

These are only for the demo, of course. And the most powerful spell is rarely the best spell, because some of the "weak" spells are much more cost-effective than e.g. Wish or Summon Demon Lord.

Re: Best Spells?
 

I've seen an AI Lich do pretty good as an SC, but I seriously doubt the AI decked out a pretender in all the gear necessary to be really lethal and then got killed by an Arrow. What kind of pretender did you kill with it? If it was a Wyrm or dragon, I'm impressed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As far as good early-game non-battlefield spells are concerned, I'm usually partial to site-searching (Dark Knowledge, Voice of Aspu, the Thaummaturgy 2 ones). Not flashy I know, but it gets you a boost in your gem economy for the big enchantments and emergency summons.

Re: Best Spells?
 

It was a Manticore pretender. I think the Ai was using a modified SC strategy with a hero doing most of the fighting backed up by the pretender. However both were on the top ten heroes list, the hero was top and had the death arena trident.

GM12

Re: Best Spells?
 

Okay, a Manticore shouldn't die from the Arrow.

Re: Best Spells?
 

Morkilus made a good point. He meant Thaumaturgy, though, not Transmutation. The astral site-searching spell, Arcane Probing, is Evocation, and Death and some odd underwater site-searching spells are in Conjuration.

EDIT:
It might be that your arrow hit the Manticore, perhaps even to the heart. However, it wasn't necessarily enough to kill the beast. He will boast a chest wound, though. Most human heroes die after an Arrow, though. Is there a cross (indicating Death) next to the hero's name in the list of heroes?

Re: Best Spells?
 

Manticore could have been in strong adverse dominion, therefore perhaps had very few HP ?

Re: Best Spells?
 

No he was in his own dominion or at least neutral

GM12

Re: Best Spells?
 

I always liked Manifestation. Assassination spells are powerful when used at the right time, and the ashen angel can take out most commanders even if they have bodyguards (and she's kind of cute).

Re: Best Spells?
 

That LA atlantis assasination spell tupilak or whatever its called is nasty. The MA agartha spells from sentinal and upwards are very good (and with weapons of sharpness later on..) and, from the limited use ive made of it the blood 9 horror seed spell is quite good.

Re: Best Spells?
 

Dreams of R'lyeh sounds wicked, but I have yet to use it.

Re: Best Spells?
 

Hmmm... Astral Corruption?

Re: Best Spells?
 

I have yet to use dreams of rlyeh aswell (although i planned to) but their void spectre thing is ok (25 pearls, has S4, ethereal, stealth, spreads insanity, has lifedrain)

Re: Best Spells?
 

I have always been partial to swarm. It is a nice little spell that can make a big difference. It is especially fun to use against knights.

Re: Best Spells?
 

Swarm + Haunted Forest was an evil, evil thing to do in Dom 2, but I haven't checked to see whether HF still exists or whether this combo still works.

Oh sure, they're just insects... but when killed in the caster's dominion, they turned to human-sized mannikins :p ...

Re: Best Spells?
 

Yah, HF was (and still would be) a beauty, but it'll be tough to find a caster for it now without designing a pretender specifically for it (used to be 2-3 Jade Sorceresses with the right randoms could team up to forge boosters and there you go. Now, the JS features what, WN and 50% <FWDN>... no way to bootstrap the booster machine with that!)
Next favorite: Nether Darts (evoc 6? 7? /S1D1) . Plant an Ether Lord (if Jotunheim Utgard, a Norna) at crucial bottlenecks and watch massive invasions come to nothing.... it's just ridiculous when an S7D3 gets rolling with that spell.
Honorable Mention: the Acid series (low Evoc, W2F1) Unlike the other bolt-type spells, there is no such thing as acid resistance. In the early game, it's the Sultan of SPLAT.

Re: Best Spells?
 

I also like life for a life. 40 an is pretty awesome.

Re: Best Spells?
 

Regarding Haunted Forest - Animal Horde is nice. 100 beasts of the wild for 30 gems.
Creeping Doom is also nice. It's like Swarm, but with Giant Ants. Lots and lots of giant ants!

Re: Best Spells?
 

Hmm. Do they still show up inside the fortress, during storming battles? :p

Re: Best Spells?
 

Isnt it something like 70 giant ants for a few gems or something? that would be nasty. Howl would also be quite mean, manakins appearing infront of and behind your units...

Re: Best Spells?
 

Will'O'Wisps and Corpse Candles also appear in the sides of the battlefield IIRC.