Death Magic on the Battlefield - Page 4

sum1lost · #31 May 23rd, 2008, 02:08 PM

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MaxWilson said:

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Renojustin said:
A lot of you have been concentrating on the negatives of Shadow Blast, one of the very best spells in Death. It's an incredible spell, though, and deserves a lot of play.

You can research it relatively quickly and one or two powerful death mages casting this three or four times each during an appropriate battle will do more damage than any other level 5 spell in the game.

1 death gem... come on. It's one gem for a massive effect. Stop complaining about the gem cost; it's negligable. Equipping one D2 mage with a skull staff is more expensive than having two mages cast Shadow Blast a few times each in a big fight and taking out up to 200 enemies. Skellyspam = 30 skeletons maybe; Shadow Blast x 3 = 100 dead foes. I know how I will script MY death mages in midgame.

Have you tried this? Because I don't think it will be as cheap as you think. Say you've got two D4 casters. I project that getting each of them to cast Shadow Blast four times in a battle will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 gems. I had an E9 Cyclops yesterday blow 6 gems casting Earthquake. The spellcasting AI, for some reason, likes to use huge numbers of gems, which makes Shadow Blast a fun niche spell for defending the laboratory and surprisingly good on D2 mages, but not as good as Cloud of Death for powerful mages. (D9 Cloud of Death covers almost 20 squares and does 19 AN damage! Best scalability in the game.)

-Max

The AI uses ALOT more gems if you have your mage well stocked. If you only give him a few, he will be far more careful about using htem.

MaxWilson · #32 May 23rd, 2008, 02:16 PM

Shadow Blast is best for tipping the balance in big-army-vs.-big-army combats. At least, the times when it devastated me have all been in a castle assault or something when the defender unexpectedly strafes my army with Shadow Blast on the first round of combat. Doesn't always win the battle for him, but it sure can even out the casualty count.

-Max

MaxWilson · #33 May 23rd, 2008, 02:25 PM

Quote:

sum1lost said:

Quote:

MaxWilson said:
Have you tried this? Because I don't think it will be as cheap as you think. Say you've got two D4 casters. I project that getting each of them to cast Shadow Blast four times in a battle will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 gems. I had an E9 Cyclops yesterday blow 6 gems casting Earthquake. The spellcasting AI, for some reason, likes to use huge numbers of gems, which makes Shadow Blast a fun niche spell for defending the laboratory and surprisingly good on D2 mages, but not as good as Cloud of Death for powerful mages. (D9 Cloud of Death covers almost 20 squares and does 19 AN damage! Best scalability in the game.)

-Max

The AI uses ALOT more gems if you have your mage well stocked. If you only give him a few, he will be far more careful about using htem.

Yeah, but if you want multiple Shadow Blasts you will have to make sure he's well stocked. That E9 Cyclops had 7 Earth gems in the hopes that he would use 3 on the first Earthquake and 3 on the second, with 1 extra in case he went a little overboard on the first. If you give a D4 mage 6 Death gems I bet he'll only get off two Shadow Blasts.

-Max

Aezeal · #34 May 23rd, 2008, 02:28 PM

YOu can't boost with more than one gem right? Unless I'm not correct I don't get the cyclops example

thejeff · #35 May 23rd, 2008, 02:30 PM

Right, far more effective to give 1D to 4 mages than 4D to 1 mage and hope he casts 4 times. (Of course that requires 4 mages...)

MaxWilson · #36 May 23rd, 2008, 02:34 PM

Aezeal,

You can boost with more than one gem for fatigue purposes, but only one of them counts for path purposes. A D5 mage can use 5 death gems to let him cast a D4 spell at +6 (for 1/7 fatigue, not sure if it helps penetration), but he still couldn't cast a D7 spell.

This is contrary to how Kristoffer has described it in the past, so it may be a bug. I sure *wish* it were capped at +1, it would make battlefield gem spells so much more economical.

-Max

thejeff · #37 May 23rd, 2008, 02:37 PM

It appears that the common assumption, held at least at one point by KO, that you can only boost with one gem is wrong.

My current working theory, that is by no means fully tested or confirmed, is that 1 gem can be used to boost your level to be able cast a spell, others, up to the total of your path level, can reduce fatigue. I think I've seem mages use more gems than their level, but I haven't been able to duplicate it.

Aezeal · #38 May 23rd, 2008, 02:48 PM

DO others agree with tehjeff and max.. cus it's the first time I heard of this

Baalz · #39 May 23rd, 2008, 03:11 PM

Hmmm, I guess those shadow blast detractors haven't seen how effective it can be. I've seen it be very effective when properly used.

1) As mentioned above it's just for large battles - just like most any gem requiring spell

2) Having one powerful D mage is nice, but I find it's also very effective to spread out and have 2-3 mid level D casters each cast it once. Opening round of a fight, have 3 D2 guys with eyes of the void fire shadow blasts from the front line (each only has 1 D gem). The effect on human level MR troops is absolutely devastating even if some of it misses and it cost you three gems plus risking some cheap mages. Not bad at all for a big fight.

Tyrant · #40 May 23rd, 2008, 04:08 PM

Since it's resisted and low precision, the efficacy of Shadow Blast is widely variable. If the enemy army is so big you can't miss, or coming through the gate in a siege you're gunna nail a bunch of targets, but if they have high MR and/or Antimagic it won't do that much. In a game i'm in right now i got two mages into the HoF in a single battle by spewing SB. In another one awhile back shooting it at some MR 14 sacreds had no discernible effect.

There's a pretty short list of big AE blasto spells- Falling Frost, Falling Fire, Shadow Blast, Acid Rain, Blade Wind, Nether Darts, Magma Eruption and Astral Fire. Acid Rain is clearly superior, but rare's the mage that can do it. Among the rest it just depends on what you are fighting. Shadow Blast has some advantages- it works underwater, it does not work v undead, and it's AN damage.

Since it's unlikely that you will have many mages dedicated to casting it, those that are should always have a Spell Focus, and optionally a Void Eye if you think you can get away with it, and a Rune Smasher if you got one.