Glamour Spells

[boozermonkey]

I think it’s been long enough now for folks to have played around with these new and reworked spells in glamour to have a pretty good feel for them so far.

What do you think?

I’ve recently been playing around with a TNN heavy penetration thaumaturgy build using the sleep/geas/confusion spells in SP games to really good effect.

How has glamour been working out for you in SP and MP games?

[Emphyrio]

I still don't have a feel for it. It doesn't seem very impactful or stand out much so far. Illusory Army at evo 5 can be ok I guess.

[Ica]

I don't have much experience with pure glamour yet, but I love some of the crosspath spells it offers. Awe and fear auras offered by F/G and D/G are good, and I've summoned a lot of Gnomes and Bluecaps (E/G).
I've always liked EA Machaka and I think that nation got a lot better thanks to glamour access and the crosspaths they have now.

[TheMeInTeam]

Returning spells like luck we know are good, because luck is pretty similar in value to Dom 5.

Similarly, anything that penalizes enemy stats we can look at similarly to a bless or buff/debuff that does the same thing, and stat advantages are quite effective.

I have used glamour in multiple MP games now, but it's never been my primary/high path, but rather something available as off path or broken into (lucky throne indy). Thus I have not yet made extensive use of false damage, since the fatigue from glamour mages went into luck + apply de facto stat advantages in armies as a priority.

[Dezzmont]

I likewise haven't played with false damage yet, but it is at least on par with, or perhaps slightly weaker than, earth for army buffing.

You trade some resistance to big aoe spells for potential access to things like rout spells in the crosspaths, and most glamour mages I have played with are mages with crosspaths. Which makes sense as glamour sorta replaced random air 1 crosspaths on a lot of nation's multi path mages.

[TheMeInTeam]

It's not good vs things like foul vapors or fire storm, but luck is very good for resisting big AoE damage like gifts from heavens or tstrike! You still have to deal with the splash damage too, luck helps with that but you're prefer to resist it so only the AoE1 target square needs to hit the 75% roll to survive.

I need to test what glamour mages will do when back-positioned off script. I think they will cast warrior illusions, if so they can be used as anti-raiding since a couple of them will stall out even mwep thugs if you stagger placement so thug only hits 1 thing at a time. If they cast something else maybe not.

[Aeris]

I'm playing as Eriu in my current game and attempted to use lots of Sidhe Lords as battle mages instead of thugs / buffed melee attackers, and it worked increadibly well. With Twilight up they can be scripted to cast 2x Group Luck and 3x Visions of Death at Thaum4/5, a nice power spike, and then it's not too long to move up to Thaum7 for Charm. I wish I picked Arcane Finesse for my bless.
The Glamour path also has increadible heavy infantry and heavy cavalry fay summons, as well as stealthy fort-breaching cave kobolds.

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by Fafnir:

I'm playing as Eriu in my current game and attempted to use lots of Sidhe Lords as battle mages instead of thugs / buffed melee attackers, and it worked increadibly well. With Twilight up they can be scripted to cast 2x Group Luck and 3x Visions of Death at Thaum4/5, a nice power spike, and then it's not too long to move up to Thaum7 for Charm. I wish I picked Arcane Finesse for my bless.
The Glamour path also has increadible heavy infantry and heavy cavalry fay summons, as well as stealthy fort-breaching cave kobolds.

Exactly the build I'm testing now, and i've found it to be quite devastating with some penetration gear and bless. Mass confusion/sleep is actually really good. I look at it more like the old school Enchanter in a game I wont name because it shows my age.. ehem.. Everquest.. using these guys as crowd control. Idea is you put everything your frontline is not fighting to sleep and/or confuse them to fight each other. With +1-2 Pen gear it works remarkably well at higher Thaum levels.

Yeah, charm is charm so its awesome. I also want to see just what that battlefield wipe glamour spell can do as well. Looks like it really hasnt gone mainstream yet, but damage that bypasses everything is quite OP.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

People are sleeping on Ephemeral Blast, I think. "Shadow Blast with half the AoE for no gem cost" can brutalise quite a few nations, and unlike Shadow Blast it costs bugger all fatigue, so you can still spam it to get through Antimagic.

[Catowl]

Glamor magic is pretty great honestly.

Catowl actually won a game thanks to it by using "lore of legends" to boost several H2's to H3 and capturing 4 thrones on the same turn with a nation that has no H3 priests.

[Antpile]

Originally posted by Ddraig Lleuad:

People are sleeping on Ephemeral Blast, I think. "Shadow Blast with half the AoE for no gem cost" can brutalise quite a few nations, and unlike Shadow Blast it costs bugger all fatigue, so you can still spam it to get through Antimagic.

This. Glamour has surprisingly good evocations. I think a lot of people are sleeping on them. And ALL that glamour damage is completely armor negating.

[Draken]

It's also not doing as much friendly fire if the enemy doesn't have any glamour mage or weavers on the field, as the false damage will just heal 2 points a turn. If they survive the hit.

But hey, better than other types of friendly fire damage.

[Ddraig Lleuad]

Originally posted by Antpile:

This. Glamour has surprisingly good evocations. I think a lot of people are sleeping on them. And ALL that glamour damage is completely armor negating.

Don't forget it ignores regeneration and blood vengeance!

[Emphyrio]

Has anyone found value in spending the gem+fatigue to summon phantasms instead of illusions?

[powerfinder]

I heard that false damage can also kill an immortal. Is it true?

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by powerfinder:

I heard that false damage can also kill an immortal. Is it true?

Nothing like testing to find out. Setup a test game with two players and you play both, then setup a fight with an SC vs. a TNN army backed up with tons of glamour evocations.