[quantum_mechani]

NTJedi said:
Global Spells:
1) Earth Blood Deep Well
2) Arcane Nexus
3) Thetis Blessing (attacking water nations)
4) Gift of Health <Priceless)
5) DISPELL -- Taking out enemy globals!

Without construction, getting casters for most of these is quite a trick. And arcane nexus is far less impressive when about all you can do is dispel.

Critical Battlefield Buffs:
1) Strength of Giants
2) Flaming Arrows
3) Anti-Magic (entire army!)
4) Haste
5) Arrow Fend (major)
6) Mass Flight (major during storming castles)
7) Mass Regeneration
8) Long List of battlefield spells for resistances
9) Storm Warriors

Haste is about as far from critical as you can get, I'm not sure I've ever seen a casting of it that even had a noticeable effect in battle, let alone being worth it. Resist spells and strength of giants are not exactly must have spells either. In fact, the only true 'critical' spell I see there is flaming arrows. And again, many of these are hard to very hard to reach without construction.

Great Battlefield Spells:
1) Unraveling (magical units go Snap-Crackle-POP)
2) Raise Dead or Skeletons
3) Foul Vapors
4) Heat from Hell or Grip of Winter
5) Rigor Mortis
6) Mists of Deception (recently identified as being too powerful)
7) Demon Cleansing (double damage on demons)
8) Friendly Currents (underwater spell)

Unraveling is not only special purpose but rather ineffective (causes decay, magic beings tend to have lots of MR and very long lifespans). Mists of deception is only too powerful as a bug, as intended it is pretty marginal. The only truly all around useful spell here is raise skeletons. Lots of high path-level requirements as well.

Important Teleporting Spells:
1) Cloud Trapeze
2) Ritual of Returning
3) Faery Trod

Fairy trod is quite high priced for something that only targets forest, and often doesn't even hit the _right_ forest. Ritual of returning is far less useful without teleport.

Good List of Summoning Spells:
1) Revive King / Create Revenant
2) Claymen (underwater optional)
3) Pale Riders (underwater optional)
4) Enliven Statues (underwater optional)
5) Reanimate Archers (one of the very few archer summonings)
6) Carrion Reanimation (major)
7) Lichcraft

Only liches and archers (both from the same path) really stand out as great summons. And liches much less than normal without being able to access other paths.

Good Offensive and Defensive Spells:
1) Army of the Dead
2) Seeking Arrow
3) Most of the DOMES are here

Seeking arrows are good, but limited, army of the dead is very hard to get casters for with only enchantment, and the domes are hard to get casters for _and_ rather limited in applications.

Good Buffs helping SC's types to actually stay alive:
1) Breath of Winter
2) Resist Magic
3) Personal Regeneration
4) Astral Shield
5) Flight

A SC with construction will still easily carve up almost anything you can build that has to run around naked.

Second Chance Spells:
1) Ritual of Rebirth
2) Twiceborn

These spells are far more fun that useful. I have yet to see them be any where near decisive.

There is also the problem, that taken together, paths apart from death are left with very limited or almost no options. Astral gems are almost only for dispel, fire has no good gem channel, air can pretty much only seeking arrow or teleport, nature has highly limited options without high level nature to start with, water needs earth/water for it's only real gem channel.