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Originally Posted by K
Ok-dokey. Here are a few examples of comparable MR resist spells that are good when you've mages spamming them:
I've killed an enemy SC god using Rage in an MP game. He turned and killed most of his own army before they killed him. F2 at Thaum 3. I didn't even script Rage.
Sleep is mighty effective if you have a few guys spamming it. N2 at Thaum2.
Decay, while hard to actually hit anyone with, can do the job as well if the battle is long and he's not undead or lifeless.
If you don't like the MR-saves spells, we can go back to Astral for Starfires. It's armor negatingm kills with real damage and comes in at S1 at Evo1.
If you are lucky and your enemy SC is Astral, you can can do Magic Duel at S1 at Evo3. Sure, you may lose a few S1 mages before the rolls favor you, but it can be worth it to kill an SC (I've killed fully-kitted golems in MP with S1s before).
And, if none of those are right for you, Vengeance of the Dead comes in at S3D1 and Thaum4. It's a little more expensive than Paralyse in terms of mage paths and gems but it's the same research cost and it kills things dead pretty well.
I'm not saying that any of these are perfect, or even as good as in as many situations as Soul Slay or Paralyze, but they are comparable and the counters to them are all the same: don't overuse SCs or thugs. Considering that Astral is very weak early on against most enemies, it compensates by being good against SCs and thugs.
The one thing that really gets me is that every time someone whines "oh no, it's unbalanced because it kills SCs" then people seem to ignore that the fact that the same tactic is almost useless against a regular army.
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Not to sound contentious, but most of your suggestions all have the same *big* disadvantage to paralyze, a precision weeeeell south of 100 and also a much shorter range. Paralyze hits every time, from the first round of combat until you run out of fatigue. Those other spells are going to miss a single target the vast majority of the time unless he's close enough to poke you with his sword. This translates into drastically less MR checks and thus a drastically lower effectiveness. Sleep has to overcome the MR on the one or two hits you manage to land after the SC has run through his buff cycle and closed to kill your troops. Not really what I'd describe as the same ballpark as effective as paralyze.
Re: Rage - are you sure you didn't use charm? (tongue in cheek in case that didn't come through). Rage I've had cast many, many times by the unscripted spellcasting AI and the best result I've every gotten was getting a Neifel Jarl whacking a Neifel giant a couple times and giving him an affliction before they both turned back around and stomped my troops. Without arguing the point I'll just say I've had quite different results with Rage that what you describe.
Magic duel is a very special case and not really reasonable as a comparison.
Vengeance of the dead is kinda out there for comparison. It requires a much more powerful, specialized multipath mage and pearls to burn spamming it. It's also a ritual, and that's rather an apples to oranges comparison.