Overcasting

[LuNi]

So about overcasting spells. What exatcly are the benefits and risks of overcasting spells?
How badly can overcasting backfire?

[Zoie Shales]

Overcasting makes spells stronger, makes some summonings bring out strornger units, but costs more power. You could miscast too, the spell still goes off but the caster gets hurt a bt, you cannot miscast if you are not overcasting.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by LuNi:

So about overcasting spells. What exatcly are the benefits and risks of overcasting spells?
How badly can overcasting backfire?

The benefits vary spell to spell, i'm not going to go over them here, you can go over them in the ingame encyclopedia, but it can vary from extended duration to longer range, AOE, better summons, greater effects, larger AOE, more AP damage etc
There is a 50% miscast chance when you overcast, which is almost always worth it, since the self damage is a joke and the spell will still go through.

[董]

I believe theres a chance the spell does nothing and mage take dmg

[Sasparillafizz]

Quick overview: Overcast usually doubles (roughly) the cost of the spell, but has added benefits.

Look at the spells menu and look at each individual spell to see what the overcast does. Some make it affect an wide area rather than a single unit (Usually things that buff dmg, or debuff enemies). Some of the direct damage spells get things like greater armor penetration when overcast, or let you cast it much further away. Summon zombies for VC when overcast will instead summon skeleton warriors. Some damage over time spells will make the spell do more damage and last longer to boot.

The spell menu will tell you what the overcast adds to it, the costs of the spell, and has a nice visual demonstation of what it looks like when cast so you know what the push spells and stuff will be shaped like when cast.

Overcasting has a default 50% failure rate. If the spell fails, it will cause the caster to take a chunk of damage. The damage is not usually a perticularly large amount, unless you've a rather squishy hero. Most heroes can learn the earthing ability, reducing risk of failure when overcasting to 25%.

[Wyvern]

Overcasting failure doesnt cancel the spell, which is why it's worth it 99.9% of the time. I just ran a quick test overcasting a bunch of spirit leeches and my sorcerers, even when miscasting, always got the spirit leech off on their target.

The cost is also usually about 50%-75% more, with a very small handful of spells costing double(okkams mind razor coming to mind going 10->20 iirc)

[gachi is manly]

Worse thing that can happen from overcasting is you take some damage.

Luckily it's not like the tabletop game where your wizard's miscasts can end up with him losing his spells or being sucked into a vortex never to be seen again.