Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

As a mental exercise (and maybe part of a guide), I'm compiling the best combinations of two magic paths in the game. I was curious to see if others shared my values.

1. Earth and Astral

2. Water and Nature
3. Blood and Astral

Actually, other than the first one, I'm pretty much open in almost any argument as for relative utility and importance. For example, Death and Astral is great to have on national mages, but less great on a Pretender.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

I like Nature and Earth. But it only really works for Pan.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Well high N and E can be good on a Pretender, for the nice globals of both but even for super-tough, very durable sacreds. Of course you plan to do the real damage with something else while they take the beating ^^

Earth (for battlefield) and Blood (for rituals) go well with pretty much everything.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Fire and Water are very nice, but good luck getting them together. I have trouble even imagining Mod Nations that would get a lot of those two, without trying to shoehorn a theme around them...

Possibly an Iceland/Greenland thing, with volcanoes and hot springs bursting up through glaciers, or something with genies.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Mmh? Except for the high bless, with the Pretender, I don't see uses of F and W together on a mage :confused:

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Tartarians bring nice path combinations :)

Tifone:
Rune Smashers!

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

And elemental staves. And a few decent spells I don't entirely recall at the moment.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

The bless ofcourse is nice, but you also get Boil, Geyser, Acid Spray, Acid Bolt, Acid Rain, and Acid Storm--not to mention Rune Smasher, Staff of Corrosion, and Staff of Elemental Mastery. Oh and the artifact 'Ember'.

Somebody mentioned, quite a while back, the thought of mass-producing Staves of Corrosion. I've yet to figure out a good way to do that early in a game, with any Nation, but it would still be a lot of fun if you could figure it out.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Don't forget "Manifest Vitriol" - a nasty suprise for someone not expecting to run into a bunch of these little nasties.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

If you want to test out every possible path combination, excluding blood, the mod "Gem Valley" provides that capability in a wild magic manner. :D

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Blood and astral are a good combo. Astral by itself has many good spells, both battlefield(soul slay, astral geyser, master enslave, communions), and out of it (wish, strands, etc...). Blood sort of has all sorts of spells which would fit in other categories, only they are cheaper by virtue of using blood slaves. Plus, with astral you get the nifty send horror spells. It might be interesting to use astral corruption as well, albeit it will force you to focus on blood spells.

I think that taking blood in the pretender is not a good idea, through, as the bless is very bad, and you can boost blood easily thanks to the high ammount of slaves you´ll get.

If anything, I´d include enough blood dots to break into blood if you dont have native blood hunters. Otherwise just boost your god's power through mass human sacrifice.

In fact, here is an idea: take a SC pretender with a blood nation, and when his SCness starts to be challenged, turn him into the uber-blood god through mass empowerments.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

I think people tend to overemphasise the amount of blood slaves you can drag in each turn. A well run blood economy can certainly produce a lot, but setting up that economy is no easy task when you're being raided, need gold for upkeep and other duties, don't have masses of efficient blood hunters etc.

Empowering a unit from nothing to high level in blood isn't as wasteful as doing it in another path of course, but it is still pretty crazy.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Some of my favourite combos for magic

1. Earth/Fire Magma eruption!
2. Astral/Death Nether darts!
3. Fire/Death Banefire!
4. Astral/Nature buff bot beyond compare

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

I also want to add that it's a real shame there are so few water/fire mages, because the water/fire spells are cool and actually pretty good. Acid spells can do a horrible amount of damage for their level and cost.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

It's nice for Oceania coming out of the water. The amber mages even have nature for better aim.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

EA Atlantis?

All Basalt Kings as well as a better than 1/4 of all Mages of the Deep can craft them. Additionally, Atlantis has the appropriate gem income in their capital and the ability to craft hammers - again using gems from their capital. Construction 4 and you are set to go.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Air/Earth:
1. Cloud Trapeze then Mistform and Rain of Stones, or EarthQuake, Bladewind, Destruction...
2. Fog Warriors then Rain of Stones
3. Mistform and Ironskin, or other protection buff
4. Summon Earthpower, Thunderstrike
5. Aim, Bladewind
6. Enchant Gargoyle
7. Staff of Elemental Mastery

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Water/Nature:
Bog Beasts! :D

More seriously, how about Astral/Water?

• Personal Buffs! Body Ethereal + Personal Luck + Astral Shield + Quicken Self + Breath of Winter
• You know all of those beefy water summons: Krakens, Sea Serpents, Asp Turtles, Sea Trolls, oh my? Buff them, too! Ethereal Asp Turtles! Lucky Sea Trolls!
• Abominations!
• Underwater Mind Hunters that can't get shot by Seeking Arrows, toasted by Flames from the Sky, or sickened by Leprosy
• Um ... hold on a second....
• There are two nifty Astral/Water artifacts: Trident from Beyond & Nethgul.
• Did I mention Abominations yet?
• Power of the Spheres + Falling Frost (or Ice Strike, or Frozen Heart) spam
• That's all I got for now.

I guess it's not great synergy, but there are a few possibilities.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

I only want to reiterate that Fire/Water is in one of the most high powered combos in the game :)

Acid spells are VERY good for their cost and level. Acid Rain can be crazy. The Staff of Corrosion competes with Standard of the Damned for favorite quickened spell slinger item. The only reason these spells don't get more air time is because so very few nations can actually use them.

And actually, I nominate Shinuyama as best nation for making an artillery out of Staves of Corrosion. They have natural F/W gem income, so they don't need to bootstrap one, and 1/4 of mages can naturally craft the staves. Lastly, they have one of the best line-up of commanders for acting as spell slinging artillery (ie. muiltiple high precision commanders, some who can buff themselves with quickness and some who have no magic at all which is actually good in this situation because then there is no worry they will try to cast some other spell.)

This is on top of the other great item available through this combo.

I guess my rating would be:

1. F/W
2. E/S
3. A/N or A/E

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Thanks for the tips about Fire/Water (=Acid) to you guys. Apparently, I really underestimated this combo. Possibly due to its rarity :D

I'll find a way to give it a try into an SP.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Well, here's an interesting combination.
Earth and Air. High Dominion + Dark Skies + Melancholia....

Making *all* of an opponents researchers desert.......

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Earth + Air is one of my favorites--specifically for the Watchers.

Watchers have to be my favorite summons in the game. I've built Pretenders around Watcher-spamming before.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

astral/water has amazing synergy,

each have spells that specificly kill undead or demons respectively which means you don't need to spend so much time and resources making preists to tackle nations like ermor.

as already stated some nice buffs
and summons.

Grip of winter + falling frost spam tears through anything not resistant to cold, whole armies become over fatigued and suffer frozen death.

How about stellar cascades instead of falling frost if they are cold resistant?

oh and how about all those lovely astral spells to move you're frozen death machine of a mage force around the map with their armies.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

They'd be nice if they didn't require magic leadership. I still use them now and then but its bittersweet.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

They're best used to boost PD, specifically PD that includes a magical leader.

I wonder what happens if you GoR them, though. I've never tried that before.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

I'm surprised that Astral + Death was so quickly discounted. Do people even use Soul Drain any more?

I mean, the Nether spells are cool, and dusk daggers are outright SC killers, but most of the best death spells require a Communion and that's a key synergy. Ether Lords are also formidable late-game combatants.

Astral + Death forever!

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Astral + Death is very nice, and they're also two of the most powerful paths. I'm hoping, at some point, to build a Nation that uses those two paths, exclusively.

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

Would that nation be called MA Ermor? ;)

Re: Best Magic Path Synergies?
 

No, it'll be a modded Nation based on the Warhammer 40,000 Necrons, but conforming to Dominions "technology", so Steampunk basically, but still undead.

Similar to, but different than, Ermor.