Best - worse magic paths

[FrankTrollman]

What schools you prefer will depend largely upon what age you're playing in and who you are up against.

Most early age troops are lucky to get pants at all, and a protection of 13 is something you're supposed to be happy about. That makes things like Bladewind a battlefield clearing spell. On the other hand, in the later periods, entire armies can be thrown down where a protectionof 17 is low - and Bladewind might not kill anyone when cast.

The dynamics of battle magic are very different in Dominions 3 than they were in Dominions 2. In the previous game, spells like Flame Bolt were essentially worthless as they never hit anyone; yet spells like Frozen Heart were battle-winners because you only needed to kill a few targets to route the other side. With larger armies, Bolts of Cold and Flame almost always hit something, making their effects much more similar to the auto-hit spells at higher research levels.

The role of the battle mage is very different from what it used to be. Spells which enhance armies are much nicer, and enemy squads are usually large enough that they'll manage to get to close combat no matter what magical assault they are under. Combats are not won by Fire Darts alone. But perversely, Fire Darts does kill more enemies than it ever did in Dominions 2.

War Mages with Water and Fire are essential, but not sufficient. They easily pay their cost and more in even early battles, but they are no longer able to win battles without help from troops. Dominions is no longer a magic game with troops, it is a game of troops that has magic. But if you have the magic and they don't, you'll win.

If you have the troops that is.

-Frank

[Tyrant]

Death is excellent largely because it's has so much variety. It has virtually no buffs, but it does have good summons starting at the bottom end and going right through to the top as well as good blasts, battlefield spam, and items. It's also easy to power up with items, and the kicker is that it's "self booting" in that you can use items to increase your level to summon higher level death mages who can then take the items and summon more of the same.

I would say that nature is more useful than powerful. I really hate playing without it, but it's hard to crush the world with nature magic alone, primarily because it lacks killing power.

I think astral is overrated. It's a great secondary suit, but it has jack for summons and it's excellent BF spells are almost all single target. If i want to kill things one at a time i'll hire a crossbowman.

[NTJedi]

Tyrant said:
I would say that nature is more useful than powerful. I really hate playing without it, but it's hard to crush the world with nature magic alone, primarily because it lacks killing power.

Yes nature works more in combination with other paths to be effective. A few examples would be gift of reason on the tartarians, swarm spell with undead archers, and gandalfs tornado with charm.

Tyrant said:
I think astral is overrated. It's a great secondary suit, but it has jack for summons and it's excellent BF spells are almost all single target. If i want to kill things one at a time i'll hire a crossbowman.

I always want some units with astral, but not my pretender unless he's a astral_7 or better. Astral works great for giving a large enemy of units the curse mark or providing increased magic resistance for your units. And the buff spells like body ethereal and luck are for already powerful units such as demon knights.




Much depends on what nation is being played and which are your current enemies.

[Windreaper]

Yup, sorcery rules. Astral is still the king in my book with death coming close second. Nature got its key spells nerfed and isn't really essential now, imo (also, it's easy to recruit an indep 1N mage and forge a wineskin or two).

I'd rank earth the 3rd strongest path overall and by far the best elemental path - no weak areas, really. Air is also good but Fire/Water I can easily live without.

These things are nation and player dependant, but generally I'd say:

1. Astral
2. Death
3. Earth
4. Air
5. Nature
6. Blood (I don't use it much, but it can be a game winner)
7. Fire
8. Water

[Zebion]

Why does water have virtually no spells underwater (Not counting summons) Anyways? I can only find one or two battlemagics underwater,and the closest one for research is Level 4!

[Forrest]

Fire has that nice arrow thing.

Water has that nice quicken thing. Double strike sword and double strike boots are kinda nice.

[Teraswaerto]

Yeah, nice for collapsing from fatigue after two rounds of fighting.

[Graeme Dice]

Teraswaerto said:
Yeah, nice for collapsing from fatigue after two rounds of fighting.

The number of attacks a unit makes in one attack action has no effect on fatigue. You only accrue fatigue for each complete set of attacks you make. If a unit's melee encumbrance is 5, then they gain 5 fatigue each time they attack. It doesn't matter if that unit with a melee encumbrance of 5 is a a pikeneer with one attack, or a nataraja with four swords of swiftness. Both units would gain no more than five fatigue per turn. If either unit is given quickness, then they could gain a maximum of 10 fatigue per turn from melee attacks.

[Truper]

Frank Trollman's post in this thread is excellent.

[HoneyBadger]

Water has great underwater summons, including the sea serpents, which are lovely monsters who eat independents for dinner and don't cost much, in levels or gems. Summon up a dozen in the early stages of the game and you won't be sorry. Earth has built-in usefulness because it's got lots of nice early game forged items that you can make en-masse, and earth drakes, which are really tough for low level summons, esp in early era where armor is at a premium. I'm not too impressed by fire magic. It could use some later game boosts, and more variety. It's nice that you can sell the gems for 15 gold a pop, but earth gems are much more valuable, and they're only worth 10. Is there any good reason why the other gems can't be converted to gold? I know it's probably for balance, but pearls, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, they're all really valuable, especially the pearls and amethysts in ancient times. Still, gold in the game isn't so valuable a resource that the other gems shouldn't be unconvertable.
But I digress, (I do that a lot)
I'd like if you could use mastery in fire to combine more with other paths: more magma, steam, some kind of eldritch death-fire Anthrax spells, maybe something with Astral to make Aether magic? Aether (along with fire, earth, water, air) being one of the Platonic elements. Water, overall, seems to be a little bit more useful, especially considering the ability to freeze your enemies solid. You can set your enemies on fire, but so far I haven't seen this have too much of an effect. Can one troop on fire set nearby troops ablaze? probably, but I haven't seen it yet.
Death to me is the most useful, throughout the game, regardless of nation, with astral and earth tied for second.