Nominate your \"Tiny Tim\" spell here!
 

Hey folks, to steal some of the fire from the Vanheim/Helheim thread and, more honestly, to get people discussing some newer items that could be useful for the game, please nominate your "Tiny Tim" Dominions 3 spell and why. I say "Tiny Tim" because you are looking to name one spell in the game you think gets overlooked because it just seems a little too weak to be effective. The top ten nominees will be added to a poll and voted upon later. I'm hoping that modders et al will take note and consider giving the "bite sized" spell as much of a facelift as they possibly can. This may be by means other than simply modifying the spell (which I don't even think is possible).

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/PointRight.gif[/img]Rule: Refrain from commenting upon others' nominations unless you are correcting a misstated fact!

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/PointRight.gif[/img]Rule: You must explain why. It is pointless to nominate a spell without a "why"!

My nomination: Healing Touch. This spell is underpowered because it can almost never be used. By the time your troops are injured, they're on the front lines, and your mage having been set to "cast" can't even get to the front lines. For such rare magic, it doesn't really impress! Further, this spell won't ever get used because the one saving grace of touch spells doesn't apply to it: assassination/arena. You can't heal yourself with it!

<font color="blue"> The list thus far: (spells listed with reasons given by the person believing why they aren't useful enough)</font>
Healing Touch
"Will never get used"
Howl
"Summons flee too quickly"
Crumble
"Troops better for relative cost"
Dragon Master
"Far too much effort (research, gems, mage requirements); AI never uses it"
Spirit Curse
"Better options"
Bleed
"Doesn't do anything noticable"
Corpse Man
"Not worth the cost"
Stellar Focus
"Being global spell is too high an investment requirement"
Touch of Madness
"Can get you killed"
Raven Feast
"Tiny Rewards; corpses better intact"
Flare
"Its window of usefulness is too small"
<font color="red"> If I misunderstood anything, please correct me.</font>

These spells were named, but no reason was given. They cannot be nominated until there is some discussion:
Stream of Life
Harm
Leeching Touch
Hell Power
Astral Projection
Call Eater of Dead
Hand of Dust

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Dragon master?

Any spell involving the word 'touch'.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Dragon Master

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Howl = 2 nature gems and 2 nature path
the wolves flee very quickly

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

I'll second any of the lower level touch attack spells as well. If you are close enough to touch an attacker the mage should be running not trying to annoy his attacker.

I wouldn't mind some uber-cool higher level touch spells though for when you your mage is buffed up... like a touch enslave that costs no fatige...

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Astral Projection

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Seconded on touch spells, although fists of iron isn't too horrible.

I'm gonna throw up Crumble for nomination though, 20 earth gems, it doesn't do much of anything to the units inside, it requires a powerful mage at earth 5, and probably worst of all if your siege force isn't hurting the walls to begin with crumble won't let you storm the castle, since it happens before the defenders repair the walls, so they get the gate closed before you can issue orders. I think you'd be better off alching those earth gems and buying 200 gold worth of troops, at least those are reusable for the next fort.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

90% of the Blood Magic combat spells. I think you can count off the nonawful ones on one hand.

Re: Nominate the [funniest] spell here!
 

Um, okay. I was going to come up with something, but on reflection I agree with Gandalf. So instead I nominate Polymorph as the funniest spell. The description made me laugh out loud.

-Max

Re: Nominate the [funniest] spell here!
 

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

Re: Nominate the [funniest] spell here!
 

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

Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

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

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

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

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.

Rule number one
 

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?

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

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

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Breaking the rules, but:

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

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

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.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Ritual : Call the Eater of the Dead

Battle Spell : Hand of Dust

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Summon uh... i forgot what it's called.

It's the "make a Frankenstein" air/death spell, that creates a stronger zombie. One whole turn of mage time for one stupid zombie.

I still use it in single for kicks, but it's very inefficient and the unit it makes all but useless.

[right, lightning rod, book of Igor. It's still useless http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif]

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Touch of madness and the other one that drive folks berserk. they are worse than useless. They end up boning me half the time. I cant leave nature mages unscripted because of them.

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

Raven feast. Don't know if anyone has ever got more gems than the number of gems he put in the spell ?

Depends, it can be worth the gem when you are attacked by an enemy sc pretender and have no SN mage. I was really happy to use the gem the time it happened to me.

Well... Hmmm... Am I not breaking rule # 1 ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

Gift of Nature's Bounty is awesome. Gobs of gold = gobs of troops.

In SP at least I have yet to lose a game in which I cast it.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Oh, yeah, they're awful. Maybe if they gave the beserker ability without actually making the target beserk...

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

Norfleet aside http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

The attached jpg comes from the turn after I nuked someone's capital with 2 or 3 Black Deaths. It seems you need to generate a lot of unburied corpses to make hay with raven feast, but it can be done.

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

Number of deathgems generated by ravenfeast was squareroot of corpses divided by three.

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

My bad, it seems useful in such cases. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Ah. That's not breaking the rules, then, because you're correcting my facts. I now know what Opposition is good for. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

I agree Ravenfeast is a (virtually) useless spell, it would be easy to fix really, just change the formula to squareroot, full stop or if that makes it too powerful, just divide by 2 not 3.

I have played loads of MP and the most corpses I have seen in a province is 500 or so and thats rare.

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

In the Eventide game I was Ashen Ermor and was completely liquidating populations via pillage with gigantic armies. I got up to 1500-2000+ corpses pretty regularly I remember.... in two turns I could usually clear an entire province.

Unfortunately I didn't have an air mage high enough to cast Raven Feast but I had about 20 priests that were raising the dead and moving with the army.

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

If you were raising those corpses... might have been worth it for somebody else to cast Raven Feast to reduce your likely meatshield count.

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

Kind of a big if, that.

Sorry to break topic, but that thread linked to by morkilus was hilarious. I had no idea Dom2 had such characters. Deny deny, deny, leave. Awesome. He could run for office.

Re: Help! How do you use these 10 spells?
 

Bah, I could only raise a small percentage of the corpses before they rotted away even with the 15 dedicated priests.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

You could've used the spell that raises 100 at a time...

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

The death gems I would have spent to cast it were always much more important than chaff. But I would have liked to trade air gems for death gems as Ashen Ermor though...

I suppose all this to say that I think the spell can be very useful but only in very limited circumstances.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Yeah, I wonder if Norfleet is still here somewhere reading this just now? Naaaah! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

In combination with black death or tidal wave i use raevenfeast in mp games sometimes. Playing LA ermor helps too.

The spell could need a buff but not a big one. Otherwise the strategy to kill half of population and then cast ravenfeast will be too strong.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

I get a sick laugh everytime someone links to that norfleet is busted thread. Tis unimaginable to me that someone can be such a ****tard in a game, any game, but then I remember that we speak of humans, such incredibly vain, selfish, inconsiderate, egotistical, win at all costs beings such as we are and I am not surprised anymore.

Still blows me away how brazen this norfleet ***' lies were. NO shame, no guilt, nothing but blame for others. Just the sort of garbage I fantasize about exposing to sterility inducing chemicals for if they lie about things such as this which truly do not matter at all then should they have the possibility of breeding?

Pardon my vitrolic manner but I have had a bit to drink and by all the gods I am HEARTILY SICK of selfish ****ers like this..

Anyways yeah, Raven feast sucks donkey balls.. Used it several (3-4) times and never even got close to receiving what I spent on it (if you convert em) and the touch spells are ridiculous even without the 50% chance of casting when in melee range!

Rathar

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

I just feel sorry for him as it seems he can control this behavior of his. Hopefully he sought some help before he actually hurt someone for real.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Back to sucky spells, here's a good one: Flare. Fireball is only one research step higher, and is virtually identical except for much lighter fatigue.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Okay, lots of input; very cool. Ironically, the two who were concerned about "I'm breaking rule #1..." didn't, and a few other people broke the rule, but it's not too bad because the thread hasn't gotten spammed, thrown off topic or turned into flame.

I'll give this more time for people to find it. Please remember to stay on topic, and if you look into the grimoire and wish to change your mind, go right ahead.

Additionally, if any of these spells have been affected positively by the CB mod, that's pertinent info.

=$=

PS -- In case anyone is offended by the title of this thread, I am sorry. Consider looking from another perspective. Read it as intended, "The most useless out the rest of the content." I'm simply being fair. No matter how wonderful the game is or ever could be, there will always be one spell that will be "most useless". Do not be offended by such an innocent word. It's not a diplomatic title, inviting unanimous agreement and warm sentiment, but neither is it a rude, demeaning, libelous or emotionally framed title either. It's a pure critique of one spell at a time, which I hope will remain without the uneccesary critique of each others' comments, alongside. I don't think it's wrong for any of us to have the opinion that maybe there are some spells that became overlooked in the grand scheme of such a complex game!

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Oh, i forgot another one- Stream of Life

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Actually Stream of Life is a way for Pangea to deal with super creeps mid-late game.

Jazzepi

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Yet another "what is crap in the game" thread which amounts to showing us that altho people keep saying there is alot of crap it doesnt amount to much since there is such a huge disagreement on what that crap is.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Dominions 3 isn't perfect but I don't think this thread was here to complain, just discuss civilly in a slightly jokey fashion what they think about certain spells. Nothing wrong with it and not really deserving of a derisive post.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

You are being abit unfair here Gandalf, this is a very constructive thread, no one is knocking the game at all. Indeed, hopefully by the end we will have a list of some spells that could do with a 'retune' and some spells that people thought were useless but now release are useful given the right situations.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Even without discussion of it you are getting disagreements. With discussion it might be shown to be another no-agreements subject therefor not worth the impression it gives.

But its not like Im taking official action. Its just my personal opinion which I allowed to leak out. Just mumble "gandalf fanboi" again and ignore it.

Re: Nominate the most useless spell here!
 

Most spells mentioned here are useful in the right situations. However, these cases often are are very rare and, more importantly, not something you could plan to use. Stream of Life is risky, but if it's the best you can do... Similarly, in the optimal case you never use the touch spells, but occassionally they can save the life of your caster.