Astral magic seems overpowered

[Agema]

Generally, I find Water to be the weakest path. As I found in one MP game against Rlyeh, it's a struggle to even find useful spells to cast underwater that are as good as astral's.

[Tollund]

Shark attack is pretty good, but other than that and frozen heart there's not too much that's very effective for water magic underwater.

[thejeff]

Friendly Currents and Water Ward (if that's the large scale one) can be nice. Quickening is also good.

In general you're right. Water really should be more effective underwater. Of course, that would make it even harder for land nations to attack underwater nations.

[chrispedersen]

Some of the changes in balance103

Well of misery is based on water.
Volcanic eruption (earth blood deep well) is based on fire.
Maelstron switches to air
And Mother Oak switches to earth.

thus there is one huge change: Water gives you the death gem global.

The less important is that fire gets you earth, earth gets you nature, and air gets you water.

The other important thing is that it isn't self reinforcing.. if you have nature - your won't won't be able to bootstrap into an insurmountable lead.

[vfb]

Shark Attack used to be more awesome. You need a pretty big battle to make it worthwhile now. I'd prefer to cast Summon Sharks three times instead, in most cases. The little sharks distract mages in the backfield, and split up the enemy army so you're only fighting a bit of it at a time.

In a medium battle underwater (10-15 turns before an army rout), I've been lucky to get 1 or 2 sharks out of Shark Attack.

[Trumanator]

lol, ask Calahan about Shark attack He cast Rigor Mortis in a battle as LA Ermor, there must've been 150+ sharks that showed up!

[Illuminated One]

Yeah, it's not really impressive now.


@chrispedersen

The idea is interesting, what do you do with the other globals, though?
Air now has 2 gem gens (and a couple of others already) and is a quite powerful path as it is.

[Omnirizon]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

Yeah, it's not really impressive now.


@chrispedersen

The idea is interesting, what do you do with the other globals, though?
Air now has 2 gem gens (and a couple of others already) and is a quite powerful path as it is.

To the same addressee as quote:

I'm all far experimenting with more drastic balance changes. However, the other benefits of the paths need to be considered in making changes; particularly the bless benefits.

W has a big (maybe the best) bless benefit, and will get big-W pretenders for that reason. Adding a big-W spell to buff this school is a mistake because it will not persuade anyone to take water that wouldn't have anyway, and will only give certain already powerful builds even more power. Instead, W needs low level spells added/buffed, or maybe the level of existing W spells lowered to make this school more powerful via ease of access.

For the same reason as with W, putting more big-F spells to buff that school is probably not the right tack. Why not try making Falling Fires/Frost F2 and W2 respectively instead?

A has maybe the worst bless benefit, so it can stand to have more big-A spells because that will actually make it worth having a big-A pretender. Additional gem boosters might be a good idea for that reason, but should probably be a minimum of A7 because it is pretty easy to get to A6 if you have A4.

A big-N spell added might also be a good idea, because no one takes N big-bless, and would therefore make taking big N more of an option for some builds, while removing power from builds that already have a great big-bless benefit. I say _might_ because N little-bless is a great option, and so there is already some incentive to have a higher N on a pretender.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Omnirizon

To the same addressee as quote:

I'm all far experimenting with more drastic balance changes. However, the other benefits of the paths need to be considered in making changes; particularly the bless benefits.

W has a big (maybe the best) bless benefit, and will get big-W pretenders for that reason. Adding a big-W spell to buff this school is a mistake because it will not persuade anyone to take water that wouldn't have anyway, and will only give certain already powerful builds even more power. Instead, W needs low level spells added/buffed, or maybe the level of existing W spells lowered to make this school more powerful via ease of access.

For the same reason as with W, putting more big-F spells to buff that school is probably not the right tack. Why not try making Falling Fires/Frost F2 and W2 respectively instead?

A has maybe the worst bless benefit, so it can stand to have more big-A spells because that will actually make it worth having a big-A pretender. Additional gem boosters might be a good idea for that reason, but should probably be a minimum of A7 because it is pretty easy to get to A6 if you have A4.

A big-N spell added might also be a good idea, because no one takes N big-bless, and would therefore make taking big N more of an option for some builds, while removing power from builds that already have a great big-bless benefit. I say _might_ because N little-bless is a great option, and so there is already some incentive to have a higher N on a pretender.

Some of the issues are valid balance issues.
However, I viewed this as a different kind of problem. Getting these generators reinfoced themselves. ie., getting Well of misery makes it much more difficult for someone else to overwrite well of misery.

Designed to make the late stage globals *less* overwelming.

[Squirrelloid]

Water has a number of good spells for UW combat or just combat in general:

Shark Attack/Summon Sharks, Frozen Heart, Water Ward have already been mentioned. Friendly Currents its generally better to get from the item.

Numbness can be amazing when spammed (admittedly also doable via item, but its worth casting without one).

Encase in Ice is a pretty good anti-SC spell. Worst-case scenario you can freeze an SC until they auto-die on turn 75.

Water has some good summons as well, including Clay Men (in enchantment), Sea Serpents, Naiad Warriors, and Asp Turtles for UW use. (On land it has Catoblepae and winter wolves - both of which i've used). It also has Naiads and Kolkythiads (Streams from Hades), the former is good for bootstrapping nature, and the latter is great for bootstrapping in death or gaining death casters *while using water gems*.

Bone melter would be good if its targetting was better or it was easier to cast.

And of course the acid spells are a good supplement to the cold spells for non-UW combats, since they aren't resistable.

The problem is that many of the good water spells are crosspath, and thus require you have the right other paths to use with them. Meaning any given water nation will have access to some but not all of the decent to good water spells. Pure water spells that are good are mostly useable UW though.