buggy blade wind?

[Ctennyson]

Yeah, the best word I can use to describe battlefield spells like Bladewind:

"Teh Suq"

[Pocus]

I too think that many of the lesser spells lack something like 2 points in precision. Its so weird do see all these fireballs, bladewinds, and flares hit every empty square possible, *around* the intended target, as if there was a deflector raised before the intended unit.

I know that they are not supposed to be that powerful, but as of now its a waste of mage to script most of these spells. With the lowering of gold income in dom2, a mage is even more valuable than before. As the battlefield in dom2 has been enlarged, I think it would be ok to raise a bit the precision, to compensate the loss in power of the spells.

A mod can change that, but most of the players play with standard dominions rules.

[Ctennyson]

I am still not sure what the precision on my mages means, either.

For example, if my mage has a precision of 30, and casts fireball, which I think is precision 4, is this a prec 34 fireball? I dont think so, but I dont understand why not. Well, I do, sorta, for game balance, but, I mean, is prec for bows only? Dunno.

[PvK]

I think I've mentioned the following idea before and it was well-received. I tend to think the scatter should be greatly reduced, but then the chance to avoid getting hurt when it lands in the right place should probably be increased to compensate somewhat and not make ranged attacks too sure of success. The result would be:

1) It would look a lot less silly.
2) Friendly fire would be less common.*
3) If tweaked properly, even inaccurate ranged attacks would have a fair chance of having an effect, especially against dense Groups.
4) If tweaked properly, even accurate spells, and fire into a dense group, wouldn't have too certain a chance of hitting someone without a shield.

(* Friendly fire would still be bad, though - again, my only real complaint with the game is units killing their friends by firing at targets near their friends.)

PvK

[Sand]

As a newcomer who never played Dom1, I have to say that a lot of these spread spells seem worse than useless -- they waste an action and fatigue for the mage, and rarely if ever hit anything (and if they do, rarely if ever damage/kill it). If I could say "never cast these spells" to the AI, I would.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I don't mind the apparent lack of precision with some spells. Because that makes spells like aim and items like eye of aiming particularly useful. Try casting that blade wind spell again after giving the caster an eye of aiming and look at the results.

Magic is quite powerful, especially area effect spells. There may be rebalance issues throughout entire national themes if precision is increased.

[Truper]

Its hard to tell sometimes, but in my experience, more of the blades are actually hitting than the animation makes it appear. I learned this when I grumbled something like "damn blades never hit" after a watching a battle, only to check the hall of fame afterwards, and discover that the mage I thought hadn't hit anything at all actually racked up quite a few kills...

When it comes to battle replays, don't believe everything you see