Paralyze vs Stellar Cascades

[samoht]

Vanilla Dominions

Paralyze is a level 4 Thaum spell, AoE 1 person, does 60+ points of AN damage and paralyzation.

Stellar cascades is a level 5 Evo, AoE5, 25AP stun damage.

Both require S2 to cast.

Questions:

1) Is there an effective difference between stun and paralyze?

2) Assuming enough research had been done where both would be reached at the same time, which would you pick? What situations is one better than the other?

[Shardphoenix]

does 60+ points of AN damage

In fact, it does PARALYSING damage. And is negated by MR. So, if you hit someone with paralyse - you don`t kill him, you just paralyse him for a LONG time.
Stellar cascades, OTOH, deals damage to fatigue and can`t be negated by MR, so it`s much better against something resistant to magic (like fully kitted-out Iron Angel, for example)

[LDiCesare]

Stellar cascade needs spamming (must reach 100 damage to effectively hold the target) and is AP, not AN. So paralyzis is better against armored targets with low MR, and stellar cascade against unarmored with high MR. You also have a huge difference in terms of precision and AoE. Stellar cascades basically requires spamming and can affect many units. Paralysis with some penetration can get rid of a single nasty thug or SC.

[Soyweiser]

isn't paralize prec 100?

[Shangrila00]

So's Stellar Cascades, so there's actually no difference there at all. The really big difference is paralyze is range 100 but Stellar Cascades is only range 30, so the latter can be dodged with good scripting. On the other hand, any random set of S2 mages or S1s in reverse communion can spam Stellar Cascades and it's not really plausible for any SC to survive it, since it'll require ridiculous 40+ protection and sky high reinvigoration, while it's quite plausible to make SCs near invulnerable to paralyze spam without penetration gear.

[Soyweiser]

Yeah, stellar cascades is a great spell if massed .

[samoht]

How does the priest spell Word of Power compare to these?

[Shardphoenix]

How does the priest spell Word of Power compare to these?

It`s like paralyse with AoE 1 and needs holy4 priest. It probably means, that nobody in your empire can cast it without some serious boosting (communions, PotS, Sword of (In)Justice).

[samoht]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

It`s like paralyse with AoE 1 and needs holy4 priest. It probably means, that nobody in your empire can cast it without some serious boosting (communions, PotS, Sword of (In)Justice).

But were I able to use it, would it be worth scripting before I reached stellar cascade and paralyze in my research?

[bbz]

Originally Posted by samoht

But were I able to use it, would it be worth scripting before I reached stellar cascade and paralyze in my research?

Against high HP SC's (with some regen) then yea, against anything else smite should be better.