Paralysis is overpowered.

[K]

Originally Posted by Baalz

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.

Sure, and I admitted they they aren't as good. The point is that they can be used and only need a hit and a failed save to be effective. Some effects have to be better than others at the same level, and Paralyze sucks at killing units but is great at SCs.

Originally Posted by Baalz

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.

It was Rage. Pretenders are immune to charm.

I think the Raging unit attacks the closest units to it. My mages were at extreme range and the Pretender ran back to his army which was not advancing because they were archers (and my troops were not advancing because I didn't have any). I think he killed himself on their Fire Shields.

Originally Posted by Baalz

Magic duel is a very special case and not really reasonable as a comparison.

Really? Aside from a gem cost, weird mechanic, and requirement of Astral, it has a lot in common with Paralyze. It's Astral, low research, and always hits. It's even better in that kills, can kills things with stupid-high MR, it costs less in research, and it can be cast by a weaker mage without doing anything crazy like communions or having powerful mages cast battlefield spells.

Originally Posted by Baalz

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.

It's a save or die that you don't have to leave home to do, so if it requires a slightly more powerful mage then who cares? The fact that at level 4 you can be killing SCs with a save or die proves my point that there are comparable SC-killers.

I mean, I only highlighted the sexier single casting options. There are plenty of SC killing tactics at low levels. For example, ten Storm Demons on Fire Large Monster vs an SC not immune to lightning can be instant death.... Swarms or summoned undead can be instant death on turn 75....a single caster E1/S1 with Gifts from Heaven can just be a dedicated SC killer with a few common items.....

My point is that nerfing a type of magic that is already weak at low levels is not the answer. It's not going to solve the problem of people killing your SCs and it weakens all existing Astral nations.

Considering that with a high MR it still takes an act of God to even work.... well, that just confuses me. I mean, why nerf something that only has a 1-2% chance of working anyway? Is the pro-SC lobby that insecure? Don't they want their opponents to have any chance?