Banishment vs Dust to Dust -- which do you prefer?

[tinkthank]

Which spell do you find better against larger quantities of yucky undead: Banishment or Dust to Dust?

Let's say you have a unit which can cast both (MotD, Caelum Hero, etc.), and you are facing lots of lower-quality undead (not equipped SCs).

Banishment: Larger area, no fatigue, but smaller damage, can be MR-negated.
Dust to Dust: Small area, 20 fatigue, more damage, cannot be negated.

Which do you like, and why?

[magnate]

I prefer Banishment against hordes, because the hordes generally have fairly low MR and low hp, and also because you need to keep casting it over and over (so fatigue would suck). I've had normal 50-gold indy priests rack up over 100 kills in a couple of fights.

Dust to Dust, IIRC, only kills one target, so it's far far less efficient against hordes - not to mention the fact that your casters eventually pass out unless you have Relief on hand. It is much better against even mini-SCs though (Banes, Mound Kings et al.).

CC

[Boron]

tinkthank said:
Which spell do you find better against larger quantities of yucky undead: Banishment or Dust to Dust?

Let's say you have a unit which can cast both (MotD, Caelum Hero, etc.), and you are facing lots of lower-quality undead (not equipped SCs).

Banishment: Larger area, no fatigue, but smaller damage, can be MR-negated.
Dust to Dust: Small area, 20 fatigue, more damage, cannot be negated.

Which do you like, and why?

ermorian longdeads have 9-10 mr .
banishment has 7+ an damage but mr negates .
normally ermor takes magic 3 for research so again -1 mr .

so banisment is optimal against ermorian fodder .
since the ai mostly uses this fodder against ai it is perfect.

as magnate said against scs you should take dust to dust or better wither bones .

other really good antiundead spells are blade wind and magma eruption . these are optimal for pangenea .


dust to dust is all in all not really good because it has 0 precision and area of effect only 1 .
so when you have nature / air mages with death pick it is good because you can cast aim / eagle eye but otherwise hitting is not so easy .