Worst level 9 spells?

[Selgeron]

So now that the level 9 spells are researched separately, some of them just clearly don't pass . Which spells are you basically never researching?

The most egregious ones I see are:
-Call Abomination/Call Tarrasque (Just not particuarly useful or strong enough to justify, should at least be commanders)
-Flamestorm, Niefel Flames, (Damage barely tickles late game armies)
-Volcanic Eruption, (Less unrest and popdeath than lower level spells, and by end game it doesn't matter as much/is countered by domes on important provinces)
-Winds of Arcane Drought (Since you have to place it in your province, and is stronger closer to it, it tends to screw you over more than your opponents)
-Looming Hell (Oh boy I convinced 3 units to make assassination attempts vs their commanders- compare to vengeful water's dozens of assassinations)

[Draken]

Winds of Arcane Drought seems useful for nation that have very strong Air and don't mind losing some fire, water and earth gems in return.

6 range is also pretty big, so you can cover quite a bit of territory if you don't play on a very big map. I think on quite a few games you could get a capital in range from a border fortress, and putting that under -3 drain and is nasty to aim at the main research center of your opponent. In addition to the gem theft.

You can also plan out were to place it and thus avoid the negative effects. Or you might want the drain as your nation can handle it and likes the additional MR.

Last, it will probably pick up a couple of hidden gems sites. So I don't think: "It will screw you over more than your opponents" is necessary true.

Looming Hell: It's currently up in one of itsmu's game on youtube, and is definitely causing some issue for him. Normal water elementals are a lot less dangerous in my opinion.

[ExasperatedCultist]

In the vast majority of games, you will hit multiple enemy capitals from your own capital with Arcane Drought. Range 6 is massive.

Flame Storm scales. Anointed of Rhuax with a 4-man sabbath (remember that you can have sabbath items now), a skull, a hat and a shield of meteoric iron, after casting phoenix power, is doing 25 AP fire in AoE 50 at range 65. That is very far from trivial to be immune to.

Abominations... should probably not be a lvl 9 spell, but they're better than people give them credit for, especially with the cost changes. It's a massive pile of regenerating HP, and a very large AoE attack of AN damage, which has gotten better since they now no longer run out of ammunition if you can keep their fatigue low.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Yeah, Niefel Flames also scales. Even something humble like a Mother of Avalon who rolled W1, given a water bracelet, robe of the sea, shield of meteoric iron, and an 8-witch communion? That's gonna be range 50, AoE 85 (!), 14 AP damage. It could stand to scale harder, I think, but like... Gee, I hope you didn't get scared off of casting Ironskin by MA Man's famous and still-somewhat-possible air communions and paint Marble Army instead, or that's an awful lot of Abysian Infantry getting mauled.

[ExasperatedCultist]

Eh, I don't really know that I think niefel flames ever threatens an army with buffs.

On the other hand, it does make you have to buff against some nations; against MA Atlantis, it's definitely gonna be a You Must Be This Tall To Ride.

[Demonsthenes]

Abominations and Tarrasques are awesome. I do wish you could make them commanders for cheaper to give them gear, but Abominations in particular are light SC tier if you fluff them enough; they just recover so much HP per turn with their lifesteal attacks. I killed 600 Storm Demons with basically all the whole army buffs on them in a test game.

Would not use them solo, but put them in an army and they will kill a lot.

Tarrasques are similarly super tough; very hard to kill a line of them given the immense HP pools and Regeneration; if whatever you're fighting is vulnerable to poison. Main threat is soul slay, which is why you want to make them commanders to increase MR, but 15 gems is cheap enough that you can go wild with them if you have a conjuration discount site.

[Demonsthenes]

The thing you do with the Niefel flames category of spells is cast it like several times at the start of a fight and interrupt spells/cause afflictions with chip damage, even if you're not getting kills against troops. Doesn't need to kill elites if the area is big enough that it messes up mages. It's possible to endure, but certainly impressive enough to be a level 9 spell.

Very possible to build a number of nations to do it 10x turn 1v with water lenses. or bring one W10 cast on your Water Queen communion master as a surprise.

[Selgeron]

Originally posted by Demonsthenes:

Abominations and Tarrasques are awesome. I do wish you could make them commanders for cheaper to give them gear, but Abominations in particular are light SC tier if you fluff them enough; they just recover so much HP per turn with their lifesteal attacks. I killed 600 Storm Demons with basically all the whole army buffs on them in a test game.

Would not use them solo, but put them in an army and they will kill a lot.

Tarrasques are similarly super tough; very hard to kill a line of them given the immense HP pools and Regeneration; if whatever you're fighting is vulnerable to poison. Main threat is soul slay, which is why you want to make them commanders to increase MR, but 15 gems is cheap enough that you can go wild with them if you have a conjuration discount site.

I think in comparison to Ancient Presence (which gains HP, has an insta kill attack, and regen and also has magic paths if promoted to commander) the tarrasque and the Abomination are really weak.

As far as Niefel Flames and Flame Storm... You guys are painting a lot of things onto it 'well if you have a level 10 mage in an 8 person communion with 3 path boosting items, it can do some damage'. That sort of works with most things. The point of an epic spell is that it's epic.

Firestorm does 15+2 per level, so a level 10 mage, which is quite a bit of work to get, is going to do 25 AP damage in a large aoe. Thats respectable, but it's hardly game changing- A standard heavy infantry will have 15 protection, with ironskin that puts them at 23 protection, so we're down to 13 damage, then 5 fire res drops that down to 8 damage. Vs a level 5 mage they're totally immune.

And most end game armies are going to consist of things that are a LOT stronger than a standard heavy infantry.

And heavy infantry aren't even that strong- everything you'll be facing in late game is going to be significantly stronger. If you are just looking for chip damage to interrupt mages, you're probably better off casting fire storm. Compare this to similar lower level spells like Lightning Field, Shimmering Fields, Wraithful Skies, or even just spamming banefire or pillar of flame, and it is just off. It's far easier to get 10 F2s to spam Pillar than it is to get 1 F10 to cast Firestorm.

Niefel Flames is even worse with a range of damage of 12-17 compared to Flame Storms 15-25.

[crawlers]

Winds of arcane drought's range gets larger with rangeboosts, including ones from magic sites, so it can hit a lot more than 6 theoretically.

[Demonsthenes]

You're forgetting the impact of chip damage when analyzing Flame Storm. A reason it's good is interruptions: chip damage can cause key spells to not cast.

But also, a Storm Demon caps out at 20 protection/5FR, and an F10 flame storm for 25AP will potentially kill one of those in one shot if Demon Cleansing is up.

and that the Abomination has (1) a Gaze of Death attack, which deals MRN AN damage to an enormous area, and (2) two full life drain tentacle attacks, which means it pretty quickly his the maximum HP for a unit

[Demonsthenes]

I do think volcanic eruption and Looming Hell are indeed kinda underwhelming, though.

[Selgeron]

Originally posted by crawlers:

Winds of arcane drought's range gets larger with rangeboosts, including ones from magic sites, so it can hit a lot more than 6 theoretically.

Once you have 8 range or so, that basically covers the entire world in a 10 player game. Right now I feel like if I was an underground nation it would be pretty funny to come up, take 1 surface province and cast it up there. Unfortunately it's path requirements are strictly 'Pretenders Only'

[Selgeron]

Originally posted by Demonsthenes:

You're forgetting the impact of chip damage when analyzing Flame Storm. A reason it's good is interruptions: chip damage can cause key spells to not cast.

Flame storm can do some chip damage and interruptions for sure- but when I think 'epic level 9 spell' im not hoping for chip damage and making a mage drop his glasses- especially when you compare it to the much more significant damage a spell like Shimmering Fields or Lightning Field can do. Even something like earthquake will hit more units, and is untyped so can't be specifically resisted against. If you want to just keep it for fire, you're probably more likely to interrupt mages with firestorm since it ticks so often, even if they have resists.

But shimmering Fields, Lightning Field, Legion's Demise, Cloud of Death or Poison Mist can actually KILL things, instead of making them lose the page in their spellbook.

I'm not saying that Flamestorm is USELESS it seems to be exceptionally good at clearing chaffe. Fighting a giant swarm of 2500 skeletons or something? 2 or 3 Flame Storm casts will clear that right up. The problem is that there are lots of spells and units that already clear chaffe easily- and likely at a lower level. Flame Storm is epic and it should feel epic and scary to face.

And of course Niefel Flames is even worse- at least in Dom 5 it as AN damage.

Originally posted by Demonsthenes:

But also, a Storm Demon caps out at 20 protection/5FR, and an F10 flame storm for 25AP will potentially kill one of those in one shot if Demon Cleansing is up.

I feel like that's saying a lot more about Demon Cleansing and how powerful that is than it is about Flame Storm. Also, how often are you fielding F10s in fights? Usually even when I hit research level 9, I'm at most running level 5s that can phoenix into level 6s. (Anathament Dragons with 1 booster ) or maybe level 6s or 7s which would be an anointed with 2 boosters. The only F10 is likely going to be a pretender- and I don't see a reason to take such high level of paths on a pretender- there aren't any blesses or globals in fire that feel like you would need to spend the pretender points for that.

Originally posted by Demonsthenes:

and that the Abomination has (1) a Gaze of Death attack, which deals MRN AN damage to an enormous area, and (2) two full life drain tentacle attacks, which means it pretty quickly his the maximum HP for a unit

Maybe I'm sleeping on Abominations? Maybe the new Meta is to have like 10 abominations in the back set to do ranged attacks.

[Draken]

Originally posted by Selgeron:

Originally posted by crawlers:

Winds of arcane drought's range gets larger with rangeboosts, including ones from magic sites, so it can hit a lot more than 6 theoretically.

Once you have 8 range or so, that basically covers the entire world in a 10 player game. Right now I feel like if I was an underground nation it would be pretty funny to come up, take 1 surface province and cast it up there. Unfortunately it's path requirements are strictly 'Pretenders Only'

Well, we just got a new type of communion. One that works for rituals.

[Selgeron]

Originally posted by Draken:

Originally posted by Selgeron:

Once you have 8 range or so, that basically covers the entire world in a 10 player game. Right now I feel like if I was an underground nation it would be pretty funny to come up, take 1 surface province and cast it up there. Unfortunately it's path requirements are strictly 'Pretenders Only'

Well, we just got a new type of communion. One that works for rituals.

It doesnt make rituals more powerful or easier to cast, it just increase their overcast amount to make them harder to dispel. I know disappointing right?

[Draken]

Originally posted by Selgeron:

Originally posted by Draken:

Well, we just got a new type of communion. One that works for rituals.

It doesnt make rituals more powerful or easier to cast, it just increase their overcast amount to make them harder to dispel. I know disappointing right?

You are right, that is indeed dissapointing.