About aerotheurge... <Spoiler>

[imminence]

So, I try to see, what people are talking about, when they write stuff like " an aero / hydro is the most OP thing ever..." and the likes.

In my current game (lone wolf) my aero / hydro is currently level 11, has an INT of 29 and an aero-level of 18. She should do decent damage, at least strip off a large portion of any magical armour around her.

But she does not, at least not in a reliable way.

Sometimes it works fine, sometimes not at all.

Example:

(NOTE:
I won the fight, as I won it in all my games before. Tactical advices are not needed :) )

I just had the fight with that grave robber Qanna. She comes with a magical armour of 336.
I casted "superconductor" which should do 204 - 227 damage. Well, it damaged Qanna and reduced her magical armour by 12 (twelve) points.
Then I casted electric discharge (aka "lightning bolt") which should do 185 - 204 dmdg and recuced Qannas magical armour by another 4 (four) points.
Ok, Qannas air resistance is 80, but after my both attacks I shouuld have caused ~ 80 dmg instead of not even 20.

I am certain, that there are things behind the math beyond my comprehension. Perhaps someone could explain, how I can make "the most OP thing ever seen".

Thx in advance.

[Tututu_突突突]

yea,damage could be weird sometimes.My aero mage cast pressure spike and crit 10k,insta kill a spider in arx sewers.

[Akatosh]

Do you think to use water on your target before using your Aero skills ?

Start the fight with rain, then throw a lightning blot on your target; you'll deal extra damage (because wet target is weak against electricity) + you will shock the target wich will loose at least one turn.

Of course, elemental resistence is important. If you're against an annemy with 80% def against electricity, use something else ^^

[⊶⦕ Gobbo ⦖⊷]

Aero/Hydro are considered to be all kinds of OP strong because Thunderstorm is incredibly broken in terms of damage and CC (crowd control).
EDIT: If you're looking for constant numbers, go Geo/Pyro. Ectoplasmic Discharge is the most reliable (not a lot of peeps have heavy resistance to oil/earth) and heaviest damaging spell in ze game.

Your damage will take a hard spike as long as you keep Rain/stuff that sets wet on your targets; their being soaked makes them take extra damage on top of making shocks stun. In order to maintain consistant damage with Aero, this must be done. Otherwise, your numbers fly all over the place.

[imminence]

Ok, in this particular fight I forgot to cast rain.

Meanwhile I had some other fights in which she shined a bit more.

Earth / fire? Hmm... I tried that in former games, but was annoyed, that
1) Often enough my melee(s) was afflicted, too
2) In small areas (rooms) I see no way to make good use of both other than the tier 1 bolder or the like

A new thing:
Despite having max magic armour, she steps from normal ground onto one tile of cursed ice and is instantly frozen solid.

I've sent her through cursed fire and it always said "magic armour prevented burning".
How can she be frozen and her magic armour did nothing?

The other of the team went over the same cursed ice and there, the magic armour worked.
Still weird things which are not really to explain?

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by imminence:

A new thing:
Despite having max magic armour, she steps from normal ground onto one tile of cursed ice and is instantly frozen solid.

I've sent her through cursed fire and it always said "magic armour prevented burning".
How can she be frozen and her magic armour did nothing?

The other of the team went over the same cursed ice and there, the magic armour worked.
Still weird things which are not really to explain?

Cursed ice has a chance to freeze, if it happens, it penetrates shields. Magic armor doesn't protect against it. Same logic that regular ice can knock down through physical.

[Eonwe]

Aero can be really strong but it's not 100% reliable : i've had a lot of issues with dazing bolt not hitting the targets it should for instance, or i've had my mage getting insta gib by casting superconductor.
Also, you run into the elemental resistances of ennemies which is a huge problem. This is one of the reasons a lot of people say a physial dps party is just more easy to play and efficient. I'm running a geo mage fane in my current playthrough and i swear half of the ennemies are extremly resistant or downright immune to poison, which means half of my spells are useless.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Eonwe:

Aero can be really strong but it's not 100% reliable : i've had a lot of issues with dazing bolt not hitting the targets it should for instance,

Dazing bolt is a weird spell. It doesn't hit the area where you cast it, it picks an enemy (not necessarily the closest to the center) and casts the ability as if you cast it directly on that person. The safest way to use it, is to only target people directly with it instead of trying to get everyone in it. It just doesn't work that way. Kind of misleading because of that but eh, it does ridiculous damage so...

[Ashera]

Aero is strong because easy aoe and simply pairing well with hydro.
Super conductor from a high location? all enemies hit.
THUNDER STORRRRRM is simply hella strong.
Closed circuit hits hard, but small range, like poison wave.
Chain lightning, awesome.

So, superconductor... Thunderstorm... Chain lightning are all great AOE damage. Simply amazing.
Hydro, has piss poor source spells. But deepfreeze hits HARD. So does Icebreaker (1ap wtf)

Hydro is also very easy for ele affinity.

Strong source aero spells + cheap hydro spells (ele affinity), the ability to constantly freeze / stun 1 or more targets (especially with rain)

heres an example from my 15 team.
Super conductor is hitting for 800. To everyone. Thunderstorm 1.2k. Chainlightning roughly 700.
Electric discharge, like 400.
Icebreaker (for 1ap?!?!?!?) 1.1k
^thats broken.

On top of the damage being decent... aero has the teleports, the stuns. hydros got the heals and cc. ps, healing ritual against undead is stronk.

[Psicraft]

Why are aerotheurgy and hydrosophism better than geomancy / pyrokinesis?

1. Rain reduces Air and Water resistances through Wet. It has a huge cooldown, but also affects a huge area. It is easy to cast (hydro 1) and scrolls of Rain are crafted from relatively common ingredients.
   
2. Rain/Blood Rain creates a surface that can be electrified. These can be cast out of combat, through any kind of barrier, i.e. they don't require line of effect or even line of sight. For example, you can cast these into the Driftwood Arena from outside.
   
3. Air resistances are often low throughout the game, while many enemies are immune to fire and poison. This is almost entirely because of fantasy tropes: undead and demons.
   
4. Enemies that do have high air resistance typically won't also have high water resistance. In contrast, fire and poison immunity are commonly seen together.
   
5. Aerotheurgy gives access to stunned, and hydro gives access to frozen. They are easier to apply/re-apply than geomancy's petrified/crippled.
   
6. Geomancy's crowd-control spells often check against physical armour instead of magical armour, so that is a huge nerf because they don't deal physical damage. Aero/hydro spells always check their effects against magical armour.
   
7. Geomancy's Worm Tremor spell is bugged. It always entangles your Avatar, despite having enough magical armour to block it. (Is this still buggged?)
   
8. Ongoing outgoing damage to enemies from poison/burning, on difficult encounters, is often much less important than reducing incoming damage from enemies to your party.
   
9. Aerotheurgy has some outlier spells that are just plain better than any other school. The reason Thunderstorm is so good is because the AI does not understand that it needs to move out of the area of effect, else it will continue to take damage on subsequent turns.
   The fact that Dazing Bolt is bugged (it often hits invisible ceilings instead of the targets) doesn't make up for that.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Psicraft:

Why are aerotheurgy and hydrosophism better than geomancy / pyrokinesis?

1. Thunderstorm.
   
2. Seriously - thunderstrom.
   
3. Well, thunderstorm is REALLY cool.
   
4. Chain lighting + superconductor + Pawn on round 1 on high initiative mage is nice too. I mean - really nice. But read No 0 :)

But never though about aero as damage source before lvl 12.

Originally posted by Psicraft:

while many enemies are immune to fire and poison

Full imunity to fire is very rare thing. Yes, high resists are common, but :
a) fire damage is incredible and able to crit-melt even through 40-50% quite well.
b) flay skin help a lot too.

Originally posted by Psicraft:

In contrast, fire and poison immunity are commonly seen together.

Who need poison? You should have only one school maxed to 10, second school will be +/- only supporting (and for high-resist fights).

Originally posted by Psicraft:

Aerotheurgy gives access to stunned, and hydro gives access to frozen. They are easier to apply/re-apply than geomancy's petrified/crippled.

And why we need it? My pyro mages literaly melting everything since Driftwood.

Slowed in first round is all what we need.

Originally posted by Psicraft:

Geomancy's Worm Tremor spell is bugged. It always entangles your Avatar, despite having enough magical armour to block it. (Is this still buggged?)

Before last patch 100% worked fine. Now I have all 3 SP spells so don't need that little worms anymore :)

Originally posted by Psicraft:

Ongoing outgoing damage to enemies from poison/burning, on difficult encounters, is often much less important than reducing incoming damage from enemies to your party.

Not. Lakes of fire :
a) damage enemies (and death is best form of CC in DOS2)
b) make them try to avoid moving on fire = wasting AP and/or teleports.
c) you always can have enough armor to survive round 1. after it you shouldn't have any problems to finish remainings.

Originally posted by Psicraft:

The fact that Dazing Bolt is bugged (it often hits invisible ceilings instead of the targets) doesn't make up for that.

It does. Aero became damaging school only at 12 level. Without superconductor and chain lighting combo it's simply can't deal any notable damage.

[Psicraft]

Do you think that the importance of Crowd Control vs. pure damage output is a constant across all difficulty settings and all player levels, or that these questions have more dynamic answers?

It may have been an illusion, but CC in Lone Wolf Honour Mode made me feel safer.

[imminence]

Well, after some time now I can see the damage (lvl 16 menawhile, maxed aero), but nevertheless, the melee's best friend is certainly not the aero :)

[karol]

I love aero on my dagger/xbow mele solo char.
Blessed smoke cloud - 2 turn invisibility (and you can shot every turn and hide after)
Uncanny evasion - another great thing.
3 teleportation spells

Great support spells for chars with low int.