Magic is Worthless Now

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

I played WBC3 a long time ago and remember really having fun with my Pyro Summoner build because after all the hard work building it, but now it's just worthless.

It takes blood sweat and tears to build a mage that can even contribute to the battle much less one that can hold his own, and with the magic nerfs any school of magic that involves summoning is just garbage now, garbage. What's even the point of being a necromancer or a summoner anymore? Why would I even want to be a pyromancer anymore if the most costly spell in my spellbook can't even kill T3 units?

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

Originally posted by TheSpaniard:

My Ssrathi Summoner is great fun to play, stats and skills: 22 intelligence

So you have less than a hundred max mana? That must suck, I wouldn't consider building a mage with less than 30 intelligence in WBC 3, mana capacity is shot without racials.

Originally posted by TheSpaniard:

10 summoning magic, 5 poison, 5 ritual, 10 running.

Since you got ritual you should probably tech up to get higher level spells, otherwise it's just wasted points unless you're running around with minus casting warrior gear.

And why stop at 5 poison? The most OP summoning spell in the game is on that tree.

[Chronie]

Originally posted by Red Communist:

Originally posted by Chronie:

Fire elementals like all other elementals are more of siege unit and not good against normal troops. Try using them to smash mines for resources.

They used to be good against normal troops because the mage sould hide out next to his towers and just keep summoning them until he had a whole army of them. They'd start out by using them like they were static defense.

Unless I had Salamanders (I rarely played daemons) it was normally a good strategy because even if my zergs managed to break mines and buildings the mage was a self sustained unit generator and could hide out in a tower and use summons to guard the base while rebuilding.

Uh thats a lot of Mana and that can still be beaten rather easily as fire is the most common elemental resistance. Still using them to aid in base defense if not otherwise busy is a good idea. By the time you could build an army of just fire elementals a summoner would have had enough mana to make a succubi swarm with demons, a druid have twice as many unicorns and a necromancer over 100 skeletons with at least 1 undead champion. Sorry but that strategy just doesn't measure up to other options.

Originally posted by Red Communist:

Originally posted by Chronie:

I know that is the whole point in using cheap troops is you cannot be everywhere at once so use them as a sort of scout.

Not just to scout. They're good fodder, they can break mines all over the map, and they can harrass enemy units in waves, and they can harrass enemy structures and be generally just annoying because you can produce endless streams of them.

People usually underestimate their value, even fey players who should know better would generally try teching up to pixies and fairy dragons instead of using their sprites and spriggans.

I always have multiple roles on my troops scouting teams will try to grab resources by smashing a mine if I don't want to send out a converter. Without elemental/magic damage or bonuses against buildings it takes a lot longer to destroy any structure. If you dismiss a unit as only good at one thing then it is often useless for you.

Fey are possibly the hardest race to play and I am suprised you forgot to mention leprechauns with their magic damage. Pixies are great units however to create a production facility for them it takes over 1000 crystal to get. Fairy dragons have weak fire damage and sprites are also weak flying troops. The reason fey players grab a lot of spriggans is they do not require crystal like most of the other things in the team. Slyphs are good filler units but are yet another drain on crystal.

Originally posted by Red Communist:

Originally posted by Chronie:

According to the manual you would be spending around 1.5 metal per second per recruitment site for pikemen

Screw pikemen, I'm talking about regular Spearmen. The ones you can train as soon as you finish your barracks. I wouldn't even bother training pikemen, they're too expensive, train too slowly, and one of them is not worth six spearmen.

That is what they are called Pikemen by the game. The other unit is a Halbredier easy to get the 2 mixed up but don't discount a unit just because you can get more weak versions to do the same job. There are times when you want to pay extra for somehing more durable.

Originally posted by Red Communist:

Originally posted by TheSpaniard:

My Ssrathi Summoner is great fun to play, stats and skills: 22 intelligence

So you have less than a hundred max mana? That must suck, I wouldn't consider building a mage with less than 30 intelligence in WBC 3, mana capacity is shot without racials.

Originally posted by TheSpaniard:

10 summoning magic, 5 poison, 5 ritual, 10 running.

Since you got ritual you should probably tech up to get higher level spells, otherwise it's just wasted points unless you're running around with minus casting warrior gear.

And why stop at 5 poison? The most OP summoning spell in the game is on that tree.

That is a viable character at that level poison 5 is used for poison touch a spell that gives poison effects to all melee troops. There are good reasons to go with non elves caster as it is not all about flinging spells you can fight in melee or do other things too. When that hero hits around level 30 they will start to have problems as all the hero does is run away as others fight and die for them. Assuming they are playing Ssrathi army yes the build is a bit of a joke as most of their troops already have poison. The summoning from poison isn't overpowered the Nagas are good but start at level 1 and everything else is just a swarm unit.

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

Originally posted by Chronie:

Uh thats a lot of Mana and that can still be beaten rather easily as fire is the most common elemental resistance.

Mainly just daemons and other pyromancers.

And a pyromancer with 30 intellect and mana regen/magic discount items is going to have mana to spare.

Before summons vanished, a pyro could start the match summoning fire elementals and use them with starter units (who can also be soul flamed and cauterized) to defend the base. It was a great zerg counter, they could send clumps of three or four to go around breaking mines while others defend so they could tech up really fast and if they could just withstand my zerg waves they could boom out on me.

I actually had to worry about them and plan my own teching and units around them, they were about the only thing that ever made me feel like I NEEDED catapults to win, before Summons got gimped so hard.

With summons gimped I didn't have to worry about mages much at all, it made PvP no fun. If they summoned they always just did cheap rush tactics and that's where they climaxed so when that failed because my generals and hero were OP they weren't much of a threat. Attack mages could hurt me and occassionally kill generals but they usually couldn't kill me and usually wouldn't survive the encounter they wounded me in, and I'd either regen (if not diseased) or drink a potion or have a general heal me. About the only mages I ever had to serously worry about were necromancers spamming skeleton waves then teching them up while they flooded into my base, and that was mainly just because I tend to rely on piercing damage a lot.

That and call of Antharg. And I'm not just saying that because of arachnaphobia, even though those little blue spiders give me the chills!

[Chronie]

I agree with summons being trash now but in PvP you say you were never seriously threatened by a mage? I had the opposite problem when it came to swarms and often would thank the other player for free experience as they would usually only kill 1 or 2 units. Daemons could be countered easily enough and so could most other summoning magic. The major problem for me became trying to sneak up on the mage without them casting their best spells. If they saw you it was no mercy and they were never alone. I could go through the entire list for every spell set but in short you needed to run or die. Running after the enemy gets you surrounded by swarm troops and your army killed.

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

Originally posted by Chronie:

I agree with summons being trash now but in PvP you say you were never seriously threatened by a mage?

Not after they nerfed summons.

Attack spells lost a lot of their potency when they added cooldown timers to stop burst magic and nerfed mana pools IMO.

Originally posted by Chronie:

I had the opposite problem when it came to swarms and often would thank the other player for free experience as they would usually only kill 1 or 2 units.

A swarm of pixies can really wreck some stuff up, they were seriously underestimated. Attack spells may be able to nuke a swarm of fodder but you can eat away a mages mana with that, throwing waves and waves of slimes or pixies of dwarven axemen or just whatever cheap fodder units you have until the enemy hero is defenseless and the enemy base is in ruins and all the mines are broken.

Originally posted by Chronie:

The major problem for me became trying to sneak up on the mage without them casting their best spells.

Most of my warriors could just take the hits, pop a potion, and keep charging. In WBC2 it was scary because the only limit was their mana pool but in WBC3 it's a lot easier to just tank a mage. They'd have to do insane damage and make really good use of their units to survive a bull rush.

[Chronie]

Originally posted by Red Communist:

Most of my warriors could just take the hits, pop a potion, and keep charging. In WBC2 it was scary because the only limit was their mana pool but in WBC3 it's a lot easier to just tank a mage.

Yeah after they dropped the damage, implemented cooldowns on mages and mana only was plentifiul for those with lore so good luck without certain items at high levels. Still possible but a heck of a lot harder and healing in any form was a constant pain which meant everyone needed some melee capabilities.

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

In WBC2 I played against a fey ice mage that could cast potent attack spells in quick succession and also taught me the value of a good zerg of cheap units.

[NonverbalShoe]

I leveled my IceMage to about 90 before testing him in campaign, beat first level easily but in the second there was a level 90 warrior who rushed me, ignored 2 ice storms, and rekt me and my base in about 15 seconds with no help(I had a Minotaur King fully trained that died instantly). I hate dealing with high level warriors with 60+ combat and about 1000 health that attack at the speed of light.

[Chronie]

Originally posted by NonverbalShoe:

I leveled my IceMage to about 90 before testing him in campaign, beat first level easily but in the second there was a level 90 warrior who rushed me, ignored 2 ice storms, and rekt me and my base in about 15 seconds with no help(I had a Minotaur King fully trained that died instantly). I hate dealing with high level warriors with 60+ combat and about 1000 health that attack at the speed of light.

Once the game reachs a certain point you need 35 dexterity with no exceptions on class and some gear to give decent combat statistics. The game also assumes by that point that you have some of the highest quality gear on your character so simply jumping up levels will not help. When facing high level warriors like the one you described try using freeze to slow them down for an ice mage, dispel any buffs and use a group of units to maintain distance while you nuke them.

Having 1000 health means that they had sunk most of their level up points in that area annoying but you could potentially be dealing 500 or more damage from an ice storm spell and have high armor value on your own character. Computer heroes have a higher level than yours most of the time but lack any useful equipment.

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

A mage with 35 dexterity is bad at being a mage though, at that point you have to ask yourself why you didn't just roll a warrior.

[Chronie]

Originally posted by Red Communist:

A mage with 35 dexterity is bad at being a mage though, at that point you have to ask yourself why you didn't just roll a warrior.

When you get high enough (level 75+ I think it was) you don't have choice you need to be able to finish off the opponent. The damage and other factors of spells have been reduced so many times that you cannot be a pure mage anymore. Personally I blame the makers assuming everyone is going to have the fey harp to reduce spell costs.

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

But a warrior with 35 dexterity and 40 strength can just about steamroll everything, whereas a mage with 35 dexterity and 40 int can... Run away?

[Chronie]

Hit with magic to wipe out most of the enemies health and army weaken them with weapon then finish them with a second spell. They may also use a few other spells to weaken or give an advantage. Psyhic Blast from divination drops combat to 1 and speed to 1 so you can hit them with ranged attacks and there are a few other options. Not easy but still possible and part of the reason I say it is one of the hardest characters to play. Without getting certain gear you don't stand a chance as a mage.

[Not Jim Sterling 💯]

A warrior with lifesteal can just rush in and murder everything, and if he has high magic resistance or magic immunity he'll just laugh at your magic.

There's even an item set in WBC 3 that provides magic immunity I believe.

[Chronie]

No magic immunity at all that I have seen. Resistance only gets you so far eventually it becomes useless against high powered spells. Dexterity is only raised to 35 because attack time drops by .02 per point to a a minimum of .40 so without having a comparable speed you don't stand a chance. Personnally I hate high level hero combat and in WBC 2 mages would win everything but now melee heroes have an advantage although can still be beaten.