Is Death the worst ultimate spell in the game?

[Mazryonh]

I know the whole "Summoning the Avatar of Death" look is pretty cool-looking, but on a whole it appears to be the weakest spell of its kind in the game. Here's how:

• It's very easy for Death to go after your own creatures. If you get too close to Death, he'll go after your own army, making the spell more harmful to you than good.
  
• Death's targeting priority is all messed up. He doesn't seem to prioritize higher-soul creatures; he just seems to attack whatever's closest to him. Since you can't give Death actual attack orders, he can waste his time attacking weak creatures rather than going after powerful ones.
  
• Death is very easy to fake out, or in other words distract so he does nothing useful. Because he'll attack whatever's closest to him (wizards excluded), it is possible to feed his appetite for kills by summoning enough Manahoars, and Manahoars are both quickly summoned and cost almost no mana.
  
• Death's greatest enemies (when not playing an "Always Gib" match), are the "Animate Dead" spell and the Dragons' "Breath of Life" ability. Using either of these means a player whose units are targeted by Death can just resurrect them faster than Death can kill them.
  
• Even if you do get Death to target only enemy units, if the enemy wizard is still alive, he or she can just collect the souls of those enemy units and summon them up again. This means that even if everything goes to plan, Death is at best a very risky delaying spell. Even killing the enemy wizard to prevent this isn't much better since it's easy for enemy wizards to resurrect themselves if they have a nearby friendly mana source.

Compare these to other ultimate spells:

• Tornado is a guaranteed delayer since it will render helpless both enemy units and enemy wizards it sucks up into the air.
  
• Bore is the best area denial spell in the game. Any enemy units that fall into the hole are permanently destroyed, even their souls. Enemy wizards who fall into the hole get teleported straight to their altar, which could be very far away, making for a better delaying tactic than Death does.
  
• Volcano is . . . I really don't have to explain how ridiculously effective it is at area denial and damaging enemy forces, do I?
  
• Meanstalks doesn't last long, doesn't do much damage, and only targets enemy units/wizards once per casting. It's the second-weakest ultimate spell in my opinion.
  
  Can someone help me understand how to use Death better, or give me some ideas about when I should cast it?

[Mazryonh]

Originally posted by Darkstorm:

If you make Death spell slaughter enemy army isn't it the same as the volcano (especially if u killed wizard). You can miss all of these. Tornado is a little bit better than meanstalks. Low dmg. All of these ultimates block enemy movement for a while so let you buy some time. If you will make enemy wizard focused on making manahoars he is like dead because he can't do other stuff. You can say it's worst but it can help you in some circumstances. Like when enemy is cornered you can use death and plague to give him hard times...

No, Death is not in any way like Volcano.

Death can't hold ground (by guarding a spot) since he can't be ordered around, or reliably make an area dangerous for an enemy to pass through (called area denial in real life). Once you cast Volcano in an area, you can be absolutely certain it will create a small area of erupting lava, plus a circular area where exploding rocks will be flung in all directions from the lava column, denying a large part of the map to an enemy and heavily damaging anyone caught inside the spell's area. Also, aside from Meanstalks, the other ultimate spells have no limit on the number of targets they can affect per casting, while Death will simply disappear after a certain number of kills.

Death can't be controlled and you can't really be certain of where he will go or what he'll attack, beyond what's closest to him. Plague and Wailing Wall are better area denial spells than Death, because they affect specific and predictable areas.

Besides, Manahoars only cost one mana point and only one Soul to summon each one. If I had to make a choice between losing my highest Soul creatures to Death or summoning Manahoars to keep him busy and make him disappear as quick as possible, I know what I'd choose. That's why I'd suggest for Death to not target Manahoars, just like he doesn't target Sac-Doctors.

[Mazryonh]

Originally posted by Darkstorm:

Okay, there is a straight line map. Imagine there is each spell casted once at the time. Tornado means you can't go. Volcano means you can't go. Meanstalks means you can't go. Bore means you can't go. What Death means? If you will go and make it busy with summoning manahoars... Plague will come for you, you will have 0 mana regen and get shot from FAR range by the deadeyes.

It's just like you said. Death doesn't function as area denial, but more like a heat-seeking missile that can be decoyed or even turn on you. Deadeyes are long-ranged, but the longer the range they sit at, the more time an enemy wizard has to dodge their poison needles, especially since poison needles don't move very fast. Deadeyes in my experience are best used to debuff enemy artillery or sniper units.

Originally posted by Darkstorm:

Is the Death the worst ultimate spell in the game? Maybe yes, maybe not it depends on circumstances. I would say Death is best to finish off enemy, where he can't teleport anymore. It will kill his guardians allowing you to take down the last standing manalith(where believe me or not manaliths are very important in this game), and will chase after him even further making great opening for you to invade his base without being harm(unlikely when using cloudkill, volcano or bore where you could harm yourself so much).

Yes, I know that Manaliths are extremely important in this game. So in your opinion Death is best used as an offensive Siegebreaker since while an enemy wizard can summon up
creatures to replace Guardianed creatures killed by Death, it will take time for him or her to make the reinforcements into Guardians again.

Death also remains the only ultimate spell with two direct counters (assuming you're not playing an Always Gib match), those being the Animate Dead spell and the Breath of Life special ability of the Dragon. If your opponent has either of those you might as well not use Death at all as long as the enemy wizard is alive or any Dragons are still alive, because s/he can just revive the creatures that Death kills faster than Death can kill them again.

Those two counters make Death a paper tiger compared to Tornado (there's no getting someone down from a Tornado as long as the spell lasts) or Bore (there's no getting back any creatures or their souls who drop into the Borehole). Volcano might be countered by a Persephone-using Wizard's shielding and healing abilities, but that requires a lot of micromanagement.

I actually like Cloudkill much better than Death, because if you cast Cloudkill above an enemy wizard's head, s/he will either be forced to teleport or run away from his/her own creatures, because that Cloudkill will follow him/her everywhere as long as the spell lasts. Cloudkill's area of effect is also small, so you can pile on the damage it does with ranged units without getting them into range of Cloudkill's lightning bolts. Best of all, Cloudkill has the shortest cooldown of any spell of its kind in the game.

[corbet]

his ult isn't bad because the secondary spell that comes with it, that can kill any enemy creature and turn it souls into blue souls. that's a good spell. also his reaper ult fits his theme, of outlasting the enemy over longer fights. since his poison stops enemy from healing mana and his flyers drain mana, and his wall drains mana, and he can revive his own creatures for really cheap and quick, ect. the reaper puts death out over the field and turns it more into who can outlast who battle. also if you well place it it can serve the role of a plauge rain spell and take out a group of enemies in the distance such as artillary units ect.

[Flushing]

Death is great. Just aim/place death in the middle of the enemy army. I don't understand why this is hard for you.

Just manually move your army away from your caster if your having an issue. All you have to do is read the text of the spell to understand why you are having problems, it always attacks the closest targets. WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOURSELF THE CLOSEST TARGET, WHEN YOU CAN PLACE DEATH WHEREEVER YOU WANT.

I couldn't tell if this post was a troll or not.

Death kills on hit. Besides Bore, the others don't.

In a 2v2 multiplayer game one well placed cast will win the game.

[corbet]

Originally posted by Darkstorm:

Death kills 8 units. 6 chainlightning kills 6 locusts. Soul wind kill all nearby spitfires. Death is lvl 8 spell. The others are not. Death allows for easy teleport out because reaper appears instantly when you start casting and it starts chase closest unit when the casting is over. This is alot of time to use teleport spell. In multiplayer all lvl 8 spells. Like Tornado, Bore, Volcano, Meanstalks and Death are disable area spell. It can be tiny path, so you buy some time. It can be spot on battlefield. Players can escape from these spells so they aren't stuff you should trust. It's only bad player or bad timing that makes them caught by these spells.

chain lightnigting can't come close to killing units stronger than level 1 units, will not come close to killing artillary units, ect. death can lay waste to 8 powerful creatures regardless of how powerful they are.

now what you said about teleport is cool. that might be a thing, but you teleport out while you have souls on the ground to collect? you might of just harmed yourself there kiddo. also don't you need mana to teleport due to all the stuff charnel has you most likely won't have mana to teleport and to cast creatures and do whatever you want to do.

and again. all those spells including death, guardianed creatures can't out run the spells. will take the owner of those creatures ages to kill his own creatures to unguardian them. there is no other way to unguardian a creature other than to kill it. death like those other spells are good against players who like to guardian their creatures and make it harder for the offensive player. guardian creatures are very powerful and very difficult for regular creatures to fight against, rightfully so, that's the purpose of guardianing to be able to defend well, and that they do. but these spells really help disrupt that and help the offensive player counter it. if that's what he needs to do.

[76561198083547334]

Yes its often easy to get confused with balance when not taking into consideration a god's entire kit.
Death's main purpose is to lockdown or keep an enemy busy or eliminate his titan units if cornered at the right time. Its a very powerful spell too in multi, now i cant argue for singleplay because to me it seems singleplayer mostly doent favor these abilities, stratos simply is the best there, you raid with seraphs and frosties and ais are locked out of mana and map acess.

[joaoorlandojr7]

wat

[joaoorlandojr7]

Bro, death is the best ultimate spell. But you have to use your brain to extract the maximum potential from it. A good casting can turn a lost battle.

[76561198083547334]

Volcano aint hte best its mostly used as a tool to generate yourself time, or erase one or two specific liths, or just keep an enemy busy while you go elsehwere if they are already cornered.
I would argue that tornado is the best, because it simply keeps you in the air for too long and the fal damage is considerable too aside that the time you fall gives hte enemy more than enough time to move his units over yours and use that advantage of making sure you can neve repair, there i also the chance to dip units and to close of any path for a given time period, and all this comes in combintion with ck flying up chasing targets, and fence being a tool to erase falling enemies if you place it right where you should.
Death is good but it takes long to cast, its most potential comes from cornering an enemy, because otherwise it can go for your units and it doesnt stay long enough to make it a relevant distracting tool. But with poison in the picture death is very potent.
Bore is boring, there's not much to it.
And Meanstalks is good, if you alreay hae a shrike army, they wont die form the stalks, and can chase enemies up the air, or throw enemies off the edge and dip them.

Honestly the entire argument is meaningless. Its not really ultimates that make the difference in sac.