Farstrike a useless spell?

[BigJMoney]

I'm trying to figure out any use at all for the farstrike spell, and I can't come up with one. It is only precision 5, so the change of you targeting a single target with it is too low. It seems to me to be the equivalent of turning your caster into an archer with an bow that does fairly high damage. I initially looked at it, hoping it might be an anti mage spell, but I don't think it would work for that.

BTW are there any good anti mage spells?

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[Frostmourne27]

BTW are there any good anti mage spells?

Spells with high (battlefield is good) AOE are excellent against most mages, since most mages have less than 15 health or so. Wither bones is particularily nasty. Against mindless summons, spells like soul slay will often work well. Nether Darts might work, if you can fire them at the mages (a big if) since they feeblemind and do decent damage. Heat from Hell and Grip of winter do fatigue and lethal damage, though slowly, so if you're playing Caelum, Jotun or Abysia, you could try that... you could try master enslave / undead mastery / arcane domination in late game, against a mage army, capturing even one or two mages would be worth it. Howl and Mists of deception, since they bring units on from behind the enemy might be worth a shot. Touch of madness would be awesome, except that I think mages will only cast it on friendlies. Soul Drain will work, but it's kinda overkill. Wrathfull skies, since it's battlefield AOE, and does enough damage to kill, as does fire storm. Call Horror maybe? and just hope it goes in the right direction...
Considering you started this thread by asking about farstrike, though, I'm guessing you were looking for low level spells, of which few seem particularly mage killing, though a couple of these might be worth a shot.
NB: I made this list by going through the spell list, so I haven't tried them all.

[KissBlade]

Howl and Swarm are both relatively good anti mage spells early game since they tend to fly/attack rearmost most of the time. Rain of Stones (I think that's what it's called, it requires 3 earth and 1 air is also not shabby)

[Cainehill]

As I recall, farstrike is also a pretty sweet spell at times for a mage with high strength - massive damage at range.

[Endoperez]

With a high-srength caster, I quess Farstrike could punch through even heaviest armor. With cheap items like Boots of Giant Strength or Halberd of Might, the damage could become pretty high.

EDIT: I tested it, and while the damage can be good, the low precision really hurts. If there were giants with access to Farstrike, it would occassionally have spesific uses even in the very late game, but as it is, it's just a low-level spell. Against heavily-armored enemiest, it's better than Stone Shards.

[Nerfix]

I've used it on some occasions. I can see using it with the Marverni in future at early game. Eagle Eyes + Farstrike...

[quantum_mechani]

Farstrike has only one, very specific, use I've found- immobile pretenders with a literal punch.

[BigJMoney]

Frostmourne27 said:
Heat from Hell and Grip of winter do fatigue and lethal damage, though slowly...

I tried using Heat from Hell with my wussy Moloch SC (nother thread) and I was unclear what it was doing for me. Does it work on a cumulative scale; ie take a long time to ramp up its effect?

Endoperez said:
I tested it, and while the damage can be good, the low precision really hurts.

This is exactly what I was referring to. Making it a precision 100 spell would probably be the way to make it useful. That would put it in the same line as spells like mind burn, petrify, soul slay, incinerate etc. but at a lower level. And the cool thing is that it could still be useful later in the game when magic items become available to increase the damage it can do.

On the same topic, touch spells are fairly useless because you can't deliberately make use of them. Do you think it's possible that a patch for Dom3 could be considered giving touch spells a much higher chance of success in melee? By chance of success, I'm referring to the effect that causes mages to not be able to cast spells while someone is meleeing them.

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[BigJMoney]

Actually, let me ask this, though I assume the answer is "no". Is there any way to get a mage to go on the offensive but still use spells. If I tell them to attack, they only seem to use melee weapons.

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[KissBlade]

No, making a mage attack is a really really bad idea ... Unless you're talking about the typical "self buff, attack rear" chassis. They'll use only what they're equipped with.