[K]

Lets break it down.

All of the spells don't check MR, and are armor negating.

Frozen Heart is fatigue 20, can be cast by a Water 1 mage, and comes in at Alteration 6. It has a range of 20+, and can be negated by cold immunity, and has a damage of 10+.

Drain Life is fatigue 10 (but not really since the lifedrain life actually removes fatigue, so lets just say 0 since 32 out of 36 times the total fatigue from the spell is 0 or removes existing fatigue from previous spellcasting and/or armor fatigue), can be cast by a Death 4 mage, and comes in at Alteration 5. It has a range of 25, and cannot be negated for its 14+ damage.

Life for a Life is fatigue 199 (1 slave), can be cast by a Blood 3 mage(but not really since no mage will cast a spell whose total fatigue takes them past 200 and with armor fatigue is will be for all but a minority of mages, so lets say Blood 4 is the minimum), and it it comes in at Blood 8. It has a range of 100, cannot be negated, and does 40+ damage.

So, looking at these stats we see that in one casting of each spell you get an unconscious Blood 4 mage who has burned a gem type that he had to bring to the battle, a Water 1 mage with 20 +armor fatigue and a Death 4 mage with 0 fatigue, and the damages are 40+, 10+, and 14+.

Turn two and the Blood 4 mage is still most likely unconscious, the Water 1 mage gains another 20+armor fatigue for another 10+ damage, and the Death 4 mage is still at 0 fatigue for his 14+.

Basically, the Blood mage needs a very expensive mage to cast the spell, spends gems to do it, can basically do it once a battle, had to go to a research level of 8 to get it thus making it an endgame tactic, and we are not even considering the commitment the player had to make to focus on the Blood research path instead of Alteration that has great things for all colors of magic at almost every level.

Frozen Heart can be cast by independant mages you find like Jade Amazons and noncapital mages of the Water magic races, and the total damage is still higher per battle. Drain Life requires capital-only mages or summonable mages (or one of those making those banners), and be cast basically every turn of battle so in a modest 20 round battle an individual is doing 280+ points of damage to enemies and has 0 fatigue.


The one advantage Life for a Life has (100 range, and best damage in a single casting) is really offset by the fact that if anyone can ax your blood slaves you can't cast it at all. Basically, at the very best its a "lose one mage for the battle to hopefully kill a monster."

The only reason I'm even defending it is so that Blood mages get any battle magic at all. If you replaced it at Blood 8 with Drain Life but castable by even a Blood 4 mage, I don't think we'd see any complaints.

I just think you hate it when people kill your SC Banelords. To that I say "too bad". To be a good Dominions player you have to learn to not get attached to all of your units. War in dominions is not just about leaders, but about armies, magic, economy, diplomacy and guile, and this game's great strength is that there is no single killer tactic that ensures that you'll win, but that there are a variety of ways to grow your empire and defeat your enemies.