New empire wizards unique traits, any changes in which wizard is the best?

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

So something I noticed in my Karl campaign is that the empire wizards all have new unique skills, some more interesting than others which has me wondering if the meta of jade > Fire > etc has switched up at all? I'll list the end skill below for each as its the only one thats really different each skill below it are just cheaper spells and more armor.

Ameythyst (Death): enemy battle healing cap -10% and wizard gets terror
Bright (Fire): enables flammable attacks on wizard I believe and gives army 15% fire resist
Celestial (Heavens): Army movement range +5%, LoS +10%, Ambush defense +20%
Gold Wizard (Metal): 10% physical resistance to himself and Tempered aura (15 armor around himself)
Grey (shadows): army +20% ambush for army and stalk/slippery on himself
Jade (life): +10% healing cap and immunity to contact effects on himself
Light: "aura of protection" 10% damage resist 35m around himself as long as he has 15 winds of magic or more and -2 corruption.
Amber (beasts): gets 2 charges of "Kettle's call" which allows him to summon a flock of "great hawks" which I believe are the tier 4 wood elf eagles.

So with the addition of lore of metal and all of these unique abilities does the meta change at all or are life and fire wizards still the kings of the college? I personally have really enjoyed having my starting amber wizard with Karl, two griffons wrecking havoc behind the lines with a flock of hawks and a manticore is devastating along with flock of doom and the buffs for when Karl has to dual someone are so freaking sweet.

[SarmatII]

Why do people rank Fire magic so highly? I find it highly unreliable and most of the time, "meh".

Heavens has much more reliable damage output from cheap to high cost options. A comet on a clump of melee instantly wipes them out, no risk of wandering flamestorm that kills your units instead.

Same for Shadows magic, just solid & reliable.

Lore of Life is still super OP. Best aoe dmg spell in the game thats so misleading (1dmg/sec lies), from a lore thats supposedly to heal.

Beast magic is really good for Empire now, at l22 the caster gets Gryphon mount making it a flying monster, and the new bound 2 x Great Hawk summon means you can use Skaven tactic with summons forcing enemy AI to clump up, and Empire artillery & long rifles can easily take out. Otherwise the Manticore summon is too costly on winds of magic. Flock of Doom spam + free summons, nice!

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by SarmatII:

Why do people rank Fire magic so highly? I find it highly unreliable and most of the time, "meh".

Heavens has much more reliable damage output from cheap to high cost options. A comet on a clump of melee instantly wipes them out, no risk of wandering flamestorm that kills your units instead.

Same for Shadows magic, just solid & reliable.

Lore of Life is still super OP. Best aoe dmg spell in the game thats so misleading (1dmg/sec lies), from a lore thats supposedly to heal.

Beast magic is really good for Empire now, at l22 the caster gets Gryphon mount making it a flying monster, and the new bound 2 x Great Hawk summon means you can use Skaven tactic with summons forcing enemy AI to clump up, and Empire artillery & long rifles can easily take out. Otherwise the Manticore summon is too costly on winds of magic. Flock of Doom spam + free summons, nice!

I don't really know why people rank fire so high, I mean in tww1 it was great and still is great for wiping out the vampires but otherwise its pretty bad. The buffs are okay but burning head is only good vs unarmored enemy's, bolts are AP but have such a small striking area they feel like they are only good against low count elite units like champions, and I only see vortex spells as good for sieges and again flame storm is bad vs armor.

Heavens is pretty good, was sieging archeons capitol with one and every rank 1 comet took out half of chaos warriors or chosen in one hit, and hell even the votex is way better with 100% AP. Not to mention harmonic and curse are very strong buff's and debuffs for your melee lords.

Heavens just seems like an upgraded fire wizard.

Last time I posted about beast wizards people shat on them, I get it most of their spells aren't that great but flock of doom is great in sieges, I remember last time my beast wizard did like 1800 value in gold damage even though he didn't get many kills, and yeah he feels like the skaven pack master with those swarm abilities.

[SpeaksTooFast]

If playing with Gelt I think most of them are really interesting and give you some nice options. With other factions I find myself gravitating towards life/light/heavens but once again all have use cases.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by SpeaksTooFast:

If playing with Gelt I think most of them are really interesting and give you some nice options. With other factions I find myself gravitating towards life/light/heavens but once again all have use cases.

Well yeah gelt's new abilities kinda lean into you making a wizard doomstack with him, makes sense kinda he is the leader of the empire mages.

[zefyris]

Shadow's ambush bonus and stalk both are excellent bonus, and the lore of shadow is a nice one to have to begin with, so shadow for me. Metal and beast provides nice buffs as well imo.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by zefyris:

Shadow's ambush bonus and stalk both are excellent bonus, and the lore of shadow is a nice one to have to begin with, so shadow for me. Gold and beast provides nice buffs as well imo.

To be clear I don't believe it give stalking stance to the army just to the wizard itself, but yes the higher ambush chance is pretty good although for a gunpowder heavy army I think I'd go with something else, maybe in a cavalry heavy army. Gold is an interesting one I've never been sure how good it is because outside of gelt I haven't played many factions that can use metal lore.

[zefyris]

it does not, stalking here is for the wizard yes. Stalking for wizards is very nice, it helps their survivability a lot. Stalk stance for an army would be way OP compared to the other heroes anyway.
The idea that ambush is only usefull if your army is melee focused is ludicrous btw. Ambush stance is not just to ambush the enemy directly, that's only one of the several important uses in campaign. Bonus to ambush chances is always extremely good, unless you're already at 100% pretty much everywhere.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by zefyris:

it does not, stalking here is for the wizard yes. Stalking for wizards is very nice, it helps their survivability a lot. Stalk stance for an army would be way OP compared to the other heroes anyway.
The idea that ambush is only usefull if your army is melee focused is ludicrous btw. Ambush stance is not just to ambush the enemy directly, that's only one of the several important uses in campaign. Bonus to ambush chances is always extremely good, unless you're already at 100% pretty much everywhere.

I'm not saying its useless I just always thought that having more time to use your artillery from a longer range is better for artillery focused factions like empire or dwarfs.

and while stalk is good on foot I feel like having a Pegasus already boosts their survival a ton, outside of leaving them in enemy archers range I don't think anything outside of a rare few flyers can touch them.

[zefyris]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

Originally posted by zefyris:

it does not, stalking here is for the wizard yes. Stalking for wizards is very nice, it helps their survivability a lot. Stalk stance for an army would be way OP compared to the other heroes anyway.
The idea that ambush is only usefull if your army is melee focused is ludicrous btw. Ambush stance is not just to ambush the enemy directly, that's only one of the several important uses in campaign. Bonus to ambush chances is always extremely good, unless you're already at 100% pretty much everywhere.

I'm not saying its useless I just always thought that having more time to use your artillery from a longer range is better for artillery focused factions like empire or dwarfs.

and while stalk is good on foot I feel like having a Pegasus already boosts their survival a ton, outside of leaving them in enemy archers range I don't think anything outside of a rare few flyers can touch them.

that's not the thing though. Ambush does not serves simply to fight ambush battles. Ambush makes your army become invisible to the AI as long as it isn't detected, meaning that the AI will no longer take decisions taking that army in account. Ambush stance is one of the most powerful tool on the campaign map against the AI, and anyone understanding this should use it 10 times more for hiding their armies than to lay traps. Not that laying traps is bad in anyway, but it's just the kind of ratio in which hiding your army is useful compared to how often you can trap and catch enemy armies.

As for stalk, stalk in the air is on the contrary excellent. they can really freely approach the enemy and cast short range spell without being targetted by the enemy, then once they cast they become visible, but they can freely move away with the flying ability, rince and repeat. Invisible caster is a really scary thing imo.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by zefyris:

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

I'm not saying its useless I just always thought that having more time to use your artillery from a longer range is better for artillery focused factions like empire or dwarfs.

and while stalk is good on foot I feel like having a Pegasus already boosts their survival a ton, outside of leaving them in enemy archers range I don't think anything outside of a rare few flyers can touch them.

that's not the thing though. Ambush does not serves simply to fight ambush battles. Ambush makes your army become invisible to the AI as long as it isn't detected, meaning that the AI will no longer take decisions taking that army in account. Ambush stance is one of the most powerful tool on the campaign map against the AI, and anyone understanding this should use it 10 times more for hiding their armies than to lay traps. Not that laying traps is bad in anyway, but it's just the kind of ratio in which hiding your army is useful compared to how often you can trap and catch enemy armies.

As for stalk, stalk in the air is on the contrary excellent. they can really freely approach the enemy and cast short range spell without being targetted by the enemy, then once they cast they become visible, but they can freely move away with the flying ability, rince and repeat. Invisible caster is a really scary thing imo.

Very true I forgot about that part of ambush's, the funny thing is too outside of ambush battles these days it feels like 95% of combat is always done in cities and sieges, AI is too scared to fight regular battles unless they massively have an advantage over your armies.

Not saying that the AI should be stupid and fight your army of ironbreakers and thunderbarges with nothing but a horde of goblins but it just feels wrong when archeon leads you on a wild goose chase where he runs back to hide in the chaos wastes.

and I guess that makes plenty of sense with stalk on wizards, I do find it annoying when siege towers keep shooting my wizards when the fly in. I just can never tell when stalking units will get discovered, sometimes randomly while their waiting for the enemy to engage my front line they get discovered and caught out in the open when I use them though this was a long time ago when I tried them specifically bugman rangers I believe.

[Adamsevs]

The best lore of magic will depend of the army you put him in into, or versus something.

Since the empire got a massive buff in his ranged abilities, the Light wizard with his net got serious value, pinning down 3 ennemies in front of your amethyst gunners is very satisfying !

And death wizards got buffs playing as elspeth, but i don't find lore of death very meaningful in a ranged focused army but pairs well with the knights of the roses since lore of death could give them magical attack, debuff armor/dmg of their enemies or put bjuna on threatening enemies monsters

Lore of life is bonker too on amethyst gunners and knights of the roses since they can get the upgrade which ensure no entities dies over 50% of their health

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

Originally posted by zefyris:

Shadow's ambush bonus and stalk both are excellent bonus, and the lore of shadow is a nice one to have to begin with, so shadow for me. Gold and beast provides nice buffs as well imo.

To be clear I don't believe it give stalking stance to the army just to the wizard itself, but yes the higher ambush chance is pretty good although for a gunpowder heavy army I think I'd go with something else, maybe in a cavalry heavy army. Gold is an interesting one I've never been sure how good it is because outside of gelt I haven't played many factions that can use metal lore.

Just to clarify

The Stalk Stance for an army - same as Skaven etc have them - is activated by Gelt's College Action, called Mass Concealment for any army with a Grey Wizard. Has nothing to do with the Stalk unit ability.

Originally posted by SarmatII:

Why do people rank Fire magic so highly? I find it highly unreliable and most of the time, "meh".

Fire still has its place, especially for the reworked Empire.

Burning Head is still the top blob killer against unarmored units in sieges. Nothing comes even close, especially when you realize that the spell gets reflected by walls.

Flaming Sword of Rhuin, you put this on your Helstorm Rocket Batteries to turn a bit of WoM into more damage which translates into less used ammo. The flaming attacks also scale with Kindleflame. Especially useful early on when you don't have an engineer to restock ammo.

Or you cast this on your gunners to burst down those lord / hero / SEM.
The two higher spells are garbage though.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Fire still has its place, especially for the reworked Empire.

Burning Head is still the top blob killer against unarmored units in sieges. Nothing comes even close, especially when you realize that the spell gets reflected by walls.

Flaming Sword of Rhuin, you put this on your Helstorm Rocket Batteries to turn a bit of WoM into more damage which translates into less used ammo. The flaming attacks also scale with Kindleflame. Especially useful early on when you don't have an engineer to restock ammo.

Or you cast this on your gunners to burst down those lord / hero / SEM.
The two higher spells are garbage though.

huh i never even thought of applying flaming swords on ranged units.