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Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Has anyone had any luck using blood magic as combat magic? It seems extremely cumbersome, considering the fact that you basically have to drag around a ton of gems just to have any effect. Shadow blast is a ridiculous beating, but then you expect it to be for the effort of loading up all those gems, etc.
I was just curious what people thought were good blood combat spells, especially ones that are good against troops. Jazzepi |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Shadow blast is death magic. Blood magic in combat is not very effective. Sure there are a few spells that are good. Summon imp is good to distract enemies. Hellfire is a decent low level falling fire like spell. Blood rain has its use sometimes. Leech is a very potent spell. Life for a life can kill lots of SCs from Fomoria kings to Seraphs. Infernal prison and its icy counterparts are also good against SCs.
However the biggest problem with blood magic, aside from absurb high fatigue, is that your gems are acutally units and can be easily defiled by earthquake and like. Even if they are not killed, they can longer be used as "gems". |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
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Jazzepi |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Jazz, you have been playing this game as long or longer than I have. Surely you know that blood slaves are units in battle, and can be killed by any means.
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I think the question was as to whether a wounded blood slave was usable - I certianly wasn't aware that they weren't
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"Even if they are not killed, they can longer be used as "gems"." Jazzepi |
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I use hellbind heart if I've got a bunch of slaves, and a few powerful foes (eg elephants).
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I haven't noticed my Abysian Warlocks being unable to use their blood slaves that have caught fire from standing too close to them.
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wounded (or even afflicted) blood slaves are usable, in my experience.
Now, blood magic... it IS extremely cumbersome... mostly because of the high fatigue rates, but also because it´s combat spells are expensive and not too good. The fatigue can be offset with a highly empowered spellcaster, or a communion (which I think is more practical to use with Astral mages as slaves, as otherwise you´ll be spending many slaves just to set it up). If you do commune up your casters, make sure that you have the exact number of slaves you are going to use in your first five turns, and/or extra communion slaves. I had one communion with four slaves set to be reinvirgorated by a sabbath master while the other casted agony at the enemy (I sort of hope it to perform well with a death bless), which resulted in a wipeout of all the slaves when my caster decided to use his increased-due-to-communion blood level to cast the level 5 battle-wide life leeching spell, which has horribly high fatigue. My mages survived that, but in the following moments he casted mind burn four times, each one resulting in a dead turkey... |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Blood magic can be very effective in combat. As Jazzepi points out though there is a higher bar to use it as you'll only do so in the fights where it makes sense to burn gems. With that in mind, here's some suggestions:
Summon imps + bloodlust is a very nice little combo to pull off with a bunch of cheap research mages and modest research. It's surprisingly effective in many situations. They're flying so they'll tangle up archers and mages, they're size 1 with 2 attacks so they'll overwhelm high defense, they do decent damage buffed, they have a good defense so they've got a bit of staying power in numbers, and they're fire immune so they're a perfect screen to drop fire evocations on or to tie up that fire brand wielding SC. Bloodlust & Rush of Strength can be worth the price of admission all alone depending on what you're fielding. Bloodletting is one of the easier battlefield wide spells to cast and you can keep casting it because it reinvigs you. One casting of this spell is a bit underwhelming, having 2 guys cast it several times though...20 blood slaves is a cheap price for killing a large army. Blood rain - fabulous for use in combination with other fear effects. Panic, terror, starvation, horrors....even super-elite forces have a breaking point. I think this is an underrated spell, you know how easy it is to break those 8 morale militia? Well in my dominion your 13 moral elites now break that easily and horrors have a *huge* fear aura. Call horror - a bit of a niche spell, but it's not too hard to find situations where 2-3 horrors will really ruin somebody's day even without counting on their fear. With horror marks it's not too difficult to point them in the right direction either. Reinvigoration - people keep this one in mind for communions, which it's great for, but it's also very worthwhile to have SCs/Thugs at 0 fatigue before going into melee, and it can allow you to cast those big spells several more times. Hellbind heart is like charm with a much larger range and easier path requirements. Leech is one of my favorite spells. Easy requirements, AOE1, no way to get resistance (unless you're already lifeless), AN. Not only is it perfect to counter most SCs, you'll be amazed at how fast 20 triple blessed whatevers evaporate before they can even close on your PD if you get 4-5 (cheap!) casters to spam this. Life for a life + go to hell - The best anti-SC spells in the game. PS wounded blood slaves are definitely usable. You can easily witness this by casting bloodletting several times as it effects your slaves. |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
ALL HAIL BAALZ
http://members.tripod.com/Papajoe666/sacrifice.jpg |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
One thing I haven't seen mentioned with blood magic in battle is while you have the gems out there to be killed or whatever, you don't need to find a lab or bring gems to your mages. Just hunt in your current province and you can find more.
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
and don't forge Agony and Harm : there are very potent with High level mages
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Baalz pretty much has it, but there are a few things he missed.
Storm Demons are less of a combat unit and more of a battle magic. Each tosses str-based AN lightning bolts(10 per battle) fired with Storm-immune Precision 14, so when you are rolling in with 20-30 of them you can have a devastating magical assault before you engage in melee. Summon Imps is a great way to win assassination/failed seduction/deathmatch battles. Agony is also a fear effect, so it has value beyond just weak attack. Send Lesser Horror/Horror is a great way to add in killers with low amounts of resistance against high numbers of attackers. I've had more than a little success with casting a few of these and only having a few mages and no troops on defense to cast battlefield spells or other large area magics. Sheer probability means that the Horrors will attack the vastly larger force(barring Horror Marks). Hell Power has a number of niche uses, so don't discount it despite it's great cost. Infernal Prison/Claws of Cocytus are the best way to defeat Doom Horrors. |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Hey dear Baalz,
Multiple bloodletting kill all your gems before you are able to take out the entire army :p it does have a serious impact on your oppo's morale however -- one of the best way to route a 1000+ army, and one could always send (lesser) horror to cut off retreat... Also wanna mention that life for a life behaves strange sometimes. You'd think two LFL's definitely enough to take out an elemental royal as long as it's not clovered, but that's rarely the case... |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Yes, bloodletting takes out your blood slaves, but (assuming human level MR) it takes out the bad guys at the same rate. You don't have to kill 100% of the enemy troops for the army to be 'destroyed', killing 60% and routing the rest with heavy afflictions is, at least to me, destroying the army. This is very doable with 4 castings, which is more or less what your blood slaves will handle if you bring a few extra.
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Blood magic, is all about SCs. And that carries over into its battle magic too. While it does have a handful BE and AoE spells, the real power of blood magic on the field is for killing SCs. Life for a Life, and the go to hell spells are the best anti-SC spells in the game.
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Early on, I wouldn't underestimate summon imp. They have okay HP, they're hard to hit, and fly, which means they cross the battlefield and can stop the enemy army immediately for some time, which you can leverage for considerable advantage with the right units.
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
you know... units probably don't evaporate when they're morale is 0 - they have to take enough casualties to prompt the morale check...
Interesting... and maenids - if they take a small amount of damage will go berserk..... interesting. |
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If you ever get bored, have a Sabbath or Communion Master cast it so that it goes to eight or more Slaves. It'll bring so many Horrors you'd think being attacked by Horrors was going out of style. Since Horrors attack Horror Marked units first, then combining Hell Power with some of the Horror Marking spells means that there might be a potential battle tactic here, but it's so dangerous that it reeks of pure desperation. |
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Jazzepi |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Can someone please explain what is the "go to hell" spell?
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Concerning call horror: to what extent I wont be committing suicide by casting that? (some more background details: I have an astral 3 mage spamming astral geyser)
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
As long as there are lots of marked enemies you should be ok. The horrors attack a random marked individual each turn. They might switch targets from turn to turn IIRC.
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Remember though that after all your enemies rout the horrors will come attack you so you need a plan to deal with them. This is not necessarily a horrible thing as (presumably) you'll be prepared to deal with the horrors and your enemy will not. Leech, incinerate, frozen heart, drain life, orb lighting, etc. make short work of horrors.
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Orb lightning, then. I´m using chartmakers as communioners, and half of them end up as useless for communion but useful orb lightning casters. This fits into my world domination plans perfectly...
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
Speaking of blood magic:
Does anyone have anything positive to say about illwinter or the looming hell in MP play? |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
looming hell isn't the best thing ever, just puts you on everyones hitlist just for a few assassination attempts.
I find an infernal disease spam is usually better because you can direct it where needed, you don't gain unecesary attention from everyone and failed attemps will usually end in the opponents commander being diseased anyway. |
Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
What about astral corruption? There was this one game in which I used it (again, SP), and I found that even for a mostly blood-casting nation, it can be painful, for the one time you need to cast some other ritual spell...
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Re: Blood Magic as Combat Magic?
One nice thing about Looming Hell is that it works well with Disease Demons. If the enemy does not put guards on their commanders, then Disease Demons can take care of them. If the enemy puts guards on their commanders, then Looming Hell gets them. This makes it very difficult to protect any non-thug commanders.
Also, many blood nations can sacrifice for dominion, which gives them a lot of control over who is affected by Looming Hell. You can sacrifice to push your dominion into enemy lands, while holding back along your peaceful borders. |
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Illwinter is the same. The fact that the upsides aren't that good and it has no downside for you means that it is ideal for knocking down globals. |
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