Poll: Most useful path of magic?

[Saber Cherry]

Vicious Love said:
I voted astral, but I might just have well have voted death. Either air or blood would be a very, very close third. The qualitative gap between the top 4 and bottom 4(particularly fire) is a bit more clear-cut.

I strongly disagree! Fire is an excellent path.

1) Excellent evocations.
2) Good summons, esp. with Blood... unfortunately KOEFs and ADs are limited, but they are still excellent. In a "fixed" game where Soul Contracts are weakened, fire is more powerful as it is required for Devils. Fire Snakes are also pretty good.
3) Best gems (15 gold each!) which makes fire mages a good investment for searching alone.
4) Excellent buffs and items (Fire Shield or Charcoal Shield on SCs or thugs are practically worth planning to get the path if you use SCs; Flaming Arrows alone is worth taking Fire as Tien Chi or Man, and considering it as Caelum). Fire has not many good buffs or items but the ones mentioned are good enough to make up for it.
5) Best set of spells/items that are AP, AOE, and/or anti-undead. Holy Pyre is all three, for example, and thus very useful in the early to mid game.
6) Additional effect (burning), like cold, as oppossed to Air and Earth which have no special effect.
7) Lastly - Artillery! Fire has fearsome artillery spells and even early-game artillery.

OTOH Air does not have any artillery spells.

[Agrajag]

Saber Cherry said:
6) Additional effect (burning), like cold, as oppossed to Air and Earth which have no special effect.

I thought that some of the air spells also caused a lot of fatigue, or am I confused?

[The_Paladin]

I voted for astral mostly for the versatility reasons stated earlier. Plus I know its a very high level spell but Strands of Arcane Power with arco I find to be very useful. If you are a way behind in gem income for whatever reason (or just want to jump ahead) that spell will help an amazing amount even if it does just find low-level sites typically. Also combine that with arcane nexus and wish if its still enabled and you will be rolling in the gems!

@Agrajag Yes air does cause stun / fatigue damage with its thunderstrike spell - making it quite useful indeed justifying its extra fatigue cost.

[Sandman]

One weakness of fire is that it doesn't synergise with astral magic very well, unlike the rest of the magic paths.

Astral fires isn't very good, and I've never found any reason to cast inner sun. I don't think there are even any non-unique fire/astral items.

[Chazar]

Saber Cherry said:3) Best gems (15 gold each!) which makes fire mages a good investment for searching alone.

I will never understand why people alchemize! I often buy any (non-living) gem type at 16-17 gold per gem...but then again, I usually take order3 as well...


Oh, by the way: Earth rocks!

It might not be top, but if I must get along with it alone, its ok: Good range of items offensive and defensive and misc (eg. Gate cleavers are not bad!), many buff spells (legion of steel, invulnerability), nice offensive spells (blade wind, petrify) and ok summoning (mech men). It is probably not the best in all those categories, but at least it has something useful for each category, be it fighting armies or SCs.