Fire Magic - why is it still so weak?

[Legowarrior]

Ever noticed that in Dominions 6, fire magic, though improved, is still really weak? What's with that?

[Sombre]

What's weak about it?

[crawlers]

To avoid ctrl + c from stuff stated before, briefly, here is this.

It is more liable to be shut down by resists than any other path. I remember it mentioned by another person that it is not so much that small amounts of fire are bad (pyre and lantern are nice), but rather the situation where one is going really big on fire and having to deal with resistant enemies. I still think the situation is better than dom5 though due to the decline of the resist bless and the addition of the +2 atk buff (even though still greatly inferior to what other paths can do buff wise).

[Sombre]

Perhaps more buffing spells that aren't countered by fire res would be useful in fire. A fire spell that causes berserk, or raises morale, things of that nature.

[Legowarrior]

Originally posted by Sombre:

What's weak about it?

Summons and direct damage spells are reliant on Fire, and so fire resistance is a stronger counter to Fire magic then Poison to Nature, Shock to Air, Cold to Water.

Summons are of utility compared to other paths.
Spells have limited utility outside of direct damage.
Rain increases fatigue and can happen natural.
Fire decreases maximum age.

Fire has a handful of benefits, such as leadership and research, but neither of these are unique to fire or that strong.

The fire summons tend to all be undisciplined and many cause heat, making it hard to use outside of Sauro, EA Machaka or Pythium. Also they are few in number and unlike other paths, almost entirely reliant on dealing fire damage.

The direct damage spells rely on Fire. Unlike nature, with can throw thorns at poison resistant units when faced with fire resistances, Fire, whose main theme is direct damage, has few (if any) alternative ways of dealing damage with only fire.

Some suggestions I have -
Fire summons that don't deal fire damage - Maybe Primordial Magma Creatures that use regular steel weapons and armor - Still keeps the fire theme and fire resistance, but now is heavy armored units that deal regular damage.

Fire Utility - Fire Leap - Gives units in battle a one time flight ability but take damage from fire.

Alternative Damage - instead of dealing fire damage, what happens if a FIre Mage withdrawals heat from a target - Extinguish Heat could deal Cold Damage to an area. Maybe inefficiently but an alternative.

Change all the Solar Spells to Fire. We know that Second Sun is fire, but so should Solar Rays and Solar Brilliance.

But that is just a sample of an entire discussion on this matter.

[BNRON]

I think the main thing Fire lacks in combat is a strong set of buffs. For example, Air has Mass Flight, Army of Mist, Arrow Fend, Wing Guide, Storm. All of these are hugely impactful (not just a small stat bonus), and completely orthogonal to dealing damage or elemental resistances. At present fire doesn't have equivalents, and this lack of options makes it feel a bit one-dimensional.

To address Fire's lack of buffs, I've created a Fire magic mod, Spirited Fire, that adds a small amount of fire buff spells. The aim is to allow high path fire mages, e.g., King's of Elemental Fire, to be more impactful and not so strongly outshone by high paths mages in other schools, e.g., Queens of Elemental Air.

Most of the spells are pretty late game, e.g., requiring high paths, and high research, e.g., a level 9 mass phoenix pyre spell that requires a 7 path fire mage to cast, e.g., King of Elemental Fire + booster + phoenix power. But when cast they are strong (but hopefully not OP). These are the kinds of fire spells I'd like to see added to the base game.

P.s. Feedback on the added spells and their balance is very welcome!

[knowthyself2]

Are there spells that give vulnerability to fire damage? If not there should be

[Bumc]

Magic types don't need to be balanced in vacuum, right?

You have to weigh magic paths together with stuff like opportunity cost and strength of factions that use them even for the "fair" balance, which Dom doesn't really do anyway.

Fire does have some early game power at least between very cheap temp gems and easy to get elementals. Sure, it falls off as pretty much anyone can get counters eventually, but hey, cannot have everything all the time.

Having better fire summons with non-fire damage would be cool tho.

[BNRON]

I think one issue is that pretty much every other path has a late-game reason you would want a high level mage of that path alongside an army, and where a single super high level mage would be very impactful. And it just feels kind of un-fun that fire doesn't have much use for a high level mage.

E.g.
An air mage to cast mass flight or fog warriors or arrow fend, etc...
An earth mage to cast army of gold
A nature mage to cast mass regen, or awaken forest
A death mage to cast life after death
An astral mage to cast master enslave(s)
A glamour mage to cast dreamwild legion, or legion's demise
etc...

I'm also not convinced that Fire is stronger early. I can't image wanting Fire over Air on a nation say.

I agree that balance is not critical. it is ultimately about fun. It feels annoying that a fire-themed nation is going to have less interesting stuff they can do than an air-themed one, when there are tons of thematic spells one could create for Fire magic.

[Count von Bunnyhopven]

I jumped in to this game from Dom 4. Skipping 5. And boy is Fire magic much stronger than it used to be!

Flaming arrows are easier to cast and does 8 AP instead of the old 6 AP. There is a new Fire buff that increases attack skill and the damaging spells like Falling fire does more damage, have larger AOE and have longer range! Its easily twice as powerful as in Dom4!

Meanwhile a lot of dominating schools like Earth and Air have gotten nerfs. I just dont see Fire as a weak main path anymore.

Complaints that fire resistance stops fire magic is not true. (Other than fire arrows and cloud spells.) Most spells does so much damage now that it punch through the resistance spells just fine.

[ulzgoroth]

Basic fire resistance buffs, yeah - the mass buff spells tend to only be +5 resistance, which doesn't negate big evocation primary damage though it might counter cloud or secondary damage. (Fireball, say, does high damage in a small area and small damage in a large area.)

You can stack a stupid-high amount of fire resist on a leader, of course.

[crawlers]

Fire resist buff combined with prot buffs (or just high prot units) is enough to negate it mostly if not totally. In the late game these are much more available. Only the worst of the 3 prot buffs (barkskin) gives fire vuln.

[Count von Bunnyhopven]

Late game comes Pillar of fire though with its 35+ AP damage for 20 fatigue from a small F2 caster.

[MadAsgardian]

Originally posted by FacePerson:

I think the main thing Fire lacks in combat is a strong set of buffs. For example, Air has Mass Flight, Army of Mist, Arrow Fend, Wing Guide, Storm.

The game would be pretty boring if every spell school was identical, and there's nothing stopping you from recruiting indie mages.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Originally posted by MadAsgardian:

The game would be pretty boring if every spell school was identical, and there's nothing stopping you from recruiting indie mages.

yeah it would be pretty naff if fire had arrow fend or mass flight. fortunately there are other possibilities for fire-themed buffs.

[crawlers]

Originally posted by Count von Bunnyhopven:

Late game comes Pillar of fire though with its 35+ AP damage for 20 fatigue from a small F2 caster.

This is an aoe1 spell, which is even worse in dom6 considering armies got larger.

Originally posted by MadAsgardian:

Originally posted by FacePerson:

I think the main thing Fire lacks in combat is a strong set of buffs. For example, Air has Mass Flight, Army of Mist, Arrow Fend, Wing Guide, Storm.

The game would be pretty boring if every spell school was identical, and there's nothing stopping you from recruiting indie mages.

I don't think I have heard much of advocating for the paths of magic to become identical, but rather for fire to become less of an inferior option to mainline. There are thematic and unique things to give to fire to resolve this that other paths need not get.

The issue of fixing fire magic being weak getting the response of "just break into another non-national path and use that" feels like an admission that it is weak. It is not bad in-game advice, but that is a separate matter from the state of the path itself. Also when considering breaking into other paths, fire does not give summons suitable for doing so (unlike say glamour or blood as the primary path).