Any reason to take lore of death for vampires over lore of shadows? (not talking mp)

[Get Donked On]

Like for real apart from spirit leech (wich I can bypass by just having a wight king with mind razor buff)or soublight i dont see much point.

Fate of bjuna seems very overpriced when i can fly over and cast melkoth.
Purple sun appears to do very little dmg compared to pit of shades and overcasting only increases duration so it feel even more pathtic as i just decides to fly off into the sunset wasting all my WoM.

Am i crazy or is death magic really underwhelming,

I have yet to play a faction where its not the bottom tier choice usually alongside lore of beasts.

Call me crazy but i think fate and xerxes could use a little rework. It feels like death doesnt really have any fun spell you want to use atm. hell my most used spell is dread knight soulblight combo. It feels like lore of death and lore of shadows are the wrong way round,

death magic sucks at killing
shadow magic kinda sucks at debuffing

I cant be the only one that feels like this is whacky

Im also told wind of death was originally a death magic spell knowing that just makes the rest of the death lineup look like even bigger stinkers especially purple sun of xerxes.

[Fendelphi]

You really have to look at it in relation to how you want to support the Lore of Vampires.

Lore of Shadows has good AoE damage capabilities and some debuffs. It has no good options for single entity damage.
Lore of Death has good single unit damage(cant be dodged) with either Fate of Bjuna(great against elite infantry and cavalry) or Spirit Leech(great vs single entities) and leadership debuffs. It has some options for AoE. Its passive also gives you a faster regen on Winds of Magic.
Lore of Vampires has good AoE damage(Wind of Death) and a decent magic missile(Gaze of Nagash) as well as various buffs and debuffs(and a healing spell).

So if you want to add more single target damage to snipe enemy lords, heroes and big monsters, or if you want to cause a chain-route through leadership debuffs, you go for Lore of Death.
If you find that you need a more precise damage tool than Wind of Death or Purple Sun, then Lore of Shadows can do well.

I just want to say that a well placed Wind of Death makes Pit of Shades/Pendulum obselete in 90% of the situations. It just obliterates half the enemy army.
The only time I see Pit of Shades be "truly worth it" is if several elite units have stacked on top of each other(so that you are hitting 2-3 units with it).

Edit: And Wind of Death has always been a Lore of Vampire thing. Never Lore of Death.
Further edit: For a faction lacking ranged damage options, single monsters, heroes and lords tend to be a larger issue, than enemy infantry and cavalry, as you have fewer options for focusing them down compared to ranged-heavy factions.
In addition, a faction that relies so heavily on lore of Vampires and spell casting in general, the increased WoM regen from the lore of Death passive is a nice boon to have(less opportunity cost for casting anything other than Lore of Vampires).
So more often than not, I go with the Lore of Death over Lore of Shadows when playing the Vampire Counts.

[Twitchey]

Purple Sun does buku damage, it's just the random moving that can make it seem bad sometimes, I would agree fate of bjuna is a bit overpriced, but that's its only real issue (aside from maybe also cooldown), it is fantastic at helping to delete those op problem units (like certain RORs etc).

I think the main issue you are pointing to is that static AOE spells just more reliable at dealing that magic based AOE damage, Shadow lore has 2 spells that are 100% reliably accurate AOE, so it comes across as better at killing.

I would agree that death lore should be more reliable at that role, but I also think AOE magic in general mostly just does too much damage, for example one well placed pendulum will change the entire outcome of a fight.

[CrUsHeR]

Biggest difference for me:

Unlike Purple Sun of Xereus, Pit of Shades also works on walls. It doesn't move, has 100% armor piercing, larger radius, longer cast range, and seems to be much more disruptive to formations.

Besides getting Pendulum at level 3, among other things. So for "regular" factions like Beastmen, i'd always pick Shadows over Death.



Death is just great because of the WoM refund from Life Leeching. Works best with the cheaper spells, like Aspect of the Dread Knight or Soulblight.

Example when ascending Tzeentchian Chaos Lords and Heroes (WoC), going Death -> Metal and Fire -> Tzeentch is a reliable combo.

Likewise you would use the Shyish (Death) fragment on Kairos just for Life Leeching. Spells like Pink Fire are practically free at some point.

[LORD-ORION]

Lore of Death is a multiplayer lore because of Spirit Leech.

[Get Donked On]

Origineel geplaatst door CrUsHeR:

Biggest difference for me:

Unlike Purple Sun of Xereus, Pit of Shades also works on walls. It doesn't move, has 100% armor piercing, larger radius, longer cast range, and seems to be much more disruptive to formations.

Besides getting Pendulum at level 3, among other things. So for "regular" factions like Beastmen, i'd always pick Shadows over Death.



Death is just great because of the WoM refund from Life Leeching. Works best with the cheaper spells, like Aspect of the Dread Knight or Soulblight.

Example when ascending Tzeentchian Chaos Lords and Heroes (WoC), going Death -> Metal and Fire -> Tzeentch is a reliable combo.

Likewise you would use the Shyish (Death) fragment on Kairos just for Life Leeching. Spells like Pink Fire are practically free at some point.

oh ye the passive is amazing but i feel theyre basically gimping the entire lore cost wise just because it has that passive instead of it being the low cost high dmg lore it really should be when its named lore of death. fate of bjuna ive found to be kinda meh its killing potential is a lil overhyped ive found the stat debuffs are nice but tbh id rather throw down 1 pit of shades and win than waste my time on frankly, kinda lame mediocre spells. im not sure what elite units people are casting on but best ive seen bjuna do is 60% on stuff like empire knights and they usually dont lose more than 5-10 ish models. not helped by the fact it takes like 90 seconds to even deal that dmg whilst you couldve been sniping the cav with melkoth. dmg wise i find only spirit leech worthwile in the death lineup.

[StrangestEcho]

Origineel geplaatst door Get Donked On:

Like for real apart from spirit leech (wich I can bypass by just having a wight king with mind razor buff)or soublight i dont see much point.

Fate of bjuna seems very overpriced when i can fly over and cast melkoth.
Purple sun appears to do very little dmg compared to pit of shades and overcasting only increases duration so it feel even more pathtic as i just decides to fly off into the sunset wasting all my WoM.

Am i crazy or is death magic really underwhelming,

I have yet to play a faction where its not the bottom tier choice usually alongside lore of beasts.

Call me crazy but i think fate and xerxes could use a little rework. It feels like death doesnt really have any fun spell you want to use atm. hell my most used spell is dread knight soulblight combo. It feels like lore of death and lore of shadows are the wrong way round,

death magic sucks at killing
shadow magic kinda sucks at debuffing

I cant be the only one that feels like this is whacky

Im also told wind of death was originally a death magic spell knowing that just makes the rest of the death lineup look like even bigger stinkers especially purple sun of xerxes.

It's useful with other kinds of leadership debuff stacking, such as heroes with a -4 leadership to enemy army trait. With certain races/factions you can stack it a ridiculous amount, so that lower tier infantry just instantly flee. Otherwise it's arguably the weakest form of magic in the game and highly situational.