Shadow spells inevitably failed

[猫の猿回し]

Can someone cast a shadow spell without any issues?

Every time I cast it, it always fails and consumes a spell slot to no avail. I remember it has worked fine before 1.1 beta patch.

[haran.yakir]

For me they work. But I think they work TOO well. It looks as if the enemies don't get a will save to disbelieve, which makes these spells more powerful than intended

[Blind Reverend]

Failed because you wear armor, spell resistance or saving throw?

[hilburnashua]

I can cast the ones that summon creatures. Haven't ever bothered with the others since I don't have Nenio speced to nuke. The only issue I have had with those spells if your system is lagging badly (which I haven't seen since the original Drezen fight) was when you tried to click the spell to choose what effect you wanted to cast, the lag seems to autoclose the tab making the spells uncastable.

Frankly, they (the illusion nukes) are pretty terrible in this game since the opponent gets two chances to resist them and if they make the first save they completely ignore the spell. And even if they fail the first save, the damage is reduced by any elemental resistance they have. In the tabletop the illusion nukes have some utility since it allows the caster to tailor the spell to target a creature's weakness. But in this game with the mythic ability to ignore elemental resistance? Makes the spells garbage.

[猫の猿回し]

Originally posted by Blind Reverend:

Failed because you wear armor, spell resistance or saving throw?

I didn't wear armor but casting a shadow spell always turns out to be a mere failure. I'm not sure how spell resistance or saving throw will work if there are no enemies around, in which I tried and failed too.

Originally posted by hilburnashua:

I can cast the ones that summon creatures. Haven't ever bothered with the others since I don't have Nenio speced to nuke. The only issue I have had with those spells if your system is lagging badly (which I haven't seen since the original Drezen fight) was when you tried to click the spell to choose what effect you wanted to cast, the lag seems to autoclose the tab making the spells uncastable.

Frankly, they (the illusion nukes) are pretty terrible in this game since the opponent gets two chances to resist them and if they make the first save they completely ignore the spell. And even if they fail the first save, the damage is reduced by any elemental resistance they have. In the tabletop the illusion nukes have some utility since it allows the caster to tailor the spell to target a creature's weakness. But in this game with the mythic ability to ignore elemental resistance? Makes the spells garbage.

At least it didn't feel laggy on my system. I try to cast it and it instantly gets negated as if I fail to pass armor casting chance(of course my character is an arcanist, wearing no armor)
It seems like it doesn't happen to everyone so I have no clue what causes this and whether there's a way to work around.

[Miskatonic]

I started a new 1.1 game, and at the first Minagho fight all of her spells failed in the same manner. There might be a more serious bug afoot. I'll try to cast shadow spells when I get the chance.

[Sine Diego]

Going though similar issues. Shadow spells never failed to work before the beta.
Can't even conjure pits or summon monsters with Shadow Conjuration

[猫の猿回し]

The point is this might be a bug caused by the beta update so I sent in a report. Hope it will be addressed in the following patch.

Originally posted by Sine Diego:

Going though similar issues. Shadow spells never failed to work before the beta.
Can't even conjure pits or summon monsters with Shadow Conjuration

Yeah that's exactly what I bumped into. All shadow spells appear dysfunctional at the moment.

[Sotanaht]

I still don't get why someone would use a spell that requires an extra save to work like a lower-level spell you can just as easily cast normally. Especially in a game where saving throws are basically a lost cause to begin with. Technically Shadow spells do get a naturally higher level and therefor save (though there's always Heighten for that, if it works at all), but doubling the number of failed saves required pretty much torpedoes that strategy anyway. There are a couple of feats and items that help shadow spells (at least one that boosts caster level by 2) but that can't be significant enough to be worthwhile.

[Babbles]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

I still don't get why someone would use a spell that requires an extra save to work like a lower-level spell you can just as easily cast normally. Especially in a game where saving throws are basically a lost cause to begin with. Technically Shadow spells do get a naturally higher level and therefor save (though there's always Heighten for that, if it works at all), but doubling the number of failed saves required pretty much torpedoes that strategy anyway. There are a couple of feats and items that help shadow spells (at least one that boosts caster level by 2) but that can't be significant enough to be worthwhile.

I think for Nenio there is one spell level where it is either Shadow Conjuration or the utterly pointless Mass Invisbility for her school spell.

But I agree, an extra save seems crazy, the one and only time I thought I'd give it a go I looked at the 48 million icons of possibilities the spell can take and went 'nope' ...

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Babbles:

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

I still don't get why someone would use a spell that requires an extra save to work like a lower-level spell you can just as easily cast normally. Especially in a game where saving throws are basically a lost cause to begin with. Technically Shadow spells do get a naturally higher level and therefor save (though there's always Heighten for that, if it works at all), but doubling the number of failed saves required pretty much torpedoes that strategy anyway. There are a couple of feats and items that help shadow spells (at least one that boosts caster level by 2) but that can't be significant enough to be worthwhile.

I think for Nenio there is one spell level where it is either Shadow Conjuration or the utterly pointless Mass Invisbility for her school spell.

But I agree, an extra save seems crazy, the one and only time I thought I'd give it a go I looked at the 48 million icons of possibilities the spell can take and went 'nope' ...

That's the main reason for Shadow spells by design. They replicate a vast number of other spells. Problem is the computer game doesn't have that many different spells you'd actually want to cast, especially in the evocation and conjuration schools. I really doubt there are enough even in tabletop to make shadow spells worthwhile.

[Sine Diego]

looking through the patch notes, the Shadow spells simply skipped the "will save to disbelieve" check, and that was fixed. But in doing so, a new bug where the Shadow spells never actually activated kicked in.
So basically, it went from always working to never working.

[john_boy]

Originally posted by Miskatonic:

I started a new 1.1 game, and at the first Minagho fight all of her spells failed in the same manner. There might be a more serious bug afoot. I'll try to cast shadow spells when I get the chance.

Happened here too (Just restarted a run to test the new patch out)

[sunglare77]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

I still don't get why someone would use a spell that requires an extra save to work like a lower-level spell you can just as easily cast normally. Especially in a game where saving throws are basically a lost cause to begin with. Technically Shadow spells do get a naturally higher level and therefor save (though there's always Heighten for that, if it works at all), but doubling the number of failed saves required pretty much torpedoes that strategy anyway. There are a couple of feats and items that help shadow spells (at least one that boosts caster level by 2) but that can't be significant enough to be worthwhile.

most Demons have ♥♥♥♥ Will saves, that's why Embers Slepp Hex is so powerfull. Throw in spell focus, G spell focus and mything spell focus and and you'll be able to land the spells on even demons with good will saves. Another way to look at is it preparing a mass amounts of highten spells.

[SaltySeaWolf]

Shadow spells are currently broken,both for the player and NPCs.

[dwarner]

Originally posted by hilburnashua:

I can cast the ones that summon creatures. Haven't ever bothered with the others since I don't have Nenio speced to nuke. The only issue I have had with those spells if your system is lagging badly (which I haven't seen since the original Drezen fight) was when you tried to click the spell to choose what effect you wanted to cast, the lag seems to autoclose the tab making the spells uncastable.

Frankly, they (the illusion nukes) are pretty terrible in this game since the opponent gets two chances to resist them and if they make the first save they completely ignore the spell. And even if they fail the first save, the damage is reduced by any elemental resistance they have. In the tabletop the illusion nukes have some utility since it allows the caster to tailor the spell to target a creature's weakness. But in this game with the mythic ability to ignore elemental resistance? Makes the spells garbage.

They’re not garbage, especially for an Arcanist. And they’re also not just for nukes. It would help if they used the right school though.