Astral magic seems overpowered

[Hadrian_II]

Originally Posted by ghoul31

So basically, water and fire are very underpowered compared to the others..

Fire gives you very nice early to midgame artillery (fireball, falling fires) items (fire brand, golden shield, charcoal shield) and flames from the sky is the spell that makes armies obsolete. Phoenix pyre and fire shield are nice on scs, and incinerate is a nice SC killer (also there is an item for it, so that you can cast it twice a turn with quickness). Also if you have archers, flaming arrow is very powerful.

Water gives you quickness (in spell or item), with falling frost and frozen heart some nice artillery and clams (is there an other use for water gems than clams and boots of quickness?).

[mathusalem]

[quote=Hadrian_II;719829]

Originally Posted by ghoul31

(is there an other use for water gems than clams and boots of quickness?).

frost brand and sometimes water bottle

[Hadrian_II]

Originally Posted by mathusalem

frost brand and sometimes water bottle

Frost brand is the worst brand of all, and water bottle is only useful when you enemy is spamming earth attack on you.

[vfb]

Originally Posted by Hadrian_II

Frost brand is the worst brand of all, and water bottle is only useful when you enemy is spamming earth attack on you.

:P Tell that to my dead golems.

[chrispedersen]

Frost brand is better than shadow brand.
Bottle water is ok for assassins.

Water also has tidal wave (vastly underrated), wolven winter, and murderous winter.

Water also dovetails extremely well with water nations. So for example, your cold scales will not affect you (underwater) and can be devestating to heat loving nations. Your summons (winter wolves) are pretty reasonable.

Water has an excellent site searching spell (voice of tiamat). I was against the change that required it to be your province.

Frozen heart, encased in ice, prison of Sedna are all excellent spells. Water is a well rounded school having good construction items, good anti SC, good site searching.

Falling frost is devestating in the hands of someone that knows how to use it... and there are others.

Demon whip is only Con2 in CMB and then only 1.5 or later iirc.

[Redeyes]

One of Water's greatest strengths though is how effectively it lets you bootstrap into Death and Nature through Streams of Hades and Contact Naiad. With how crucial either of those paths are for winning strategies nations with water magic have a decent advantage right there.

What Water lacks is strong globals and rituals, but no single path can have everything (except Death, or Astral, I guess).

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Hadrian_II

Frost brand is the worst brand of all, and water bottle is only useful when you enemy is spamming earth attack on you.

Au contraire. Water bottles can be very useful against teleporting SCs (high def high strength units with immunity against awe and blindness and I think life drain and multiple forms), or combined with cold to make them tramplers.