Vortex spell test

[Aenarion]

Did a little test with this powerful spell type. Conditions were custom battle with the choose any unit as lord mod, and only one unit (the caster). The enemy force was 20 clan rat units on the smallest testing map that comes with the mod (100*100). The enemy always deploys in two blobs, and I simply cast the spell in the middle of the left blob within the first three seconds of battle, recording the results as follows:

SPELL - CAST COST - KILLS
Bladewind 11 330
Purple sun of Xereus 18 517
Chain lightning 14 284
Gehenna's golden hounds 9 362
Banishment 18 348
Flamestorm 13 265
Pit of shades 13 1 (yes, a single kill)
Plague 11 292
Curse of da bad moon 11 570
Sakhmet's incantation of the skullstorm 12 175
Sandstorm 0 (bound) 370

Obviously there is a high degree of randomness with vortex spells, so the results aren't much more than an order of magnitude estimate. Still I think they're kind of interesting as a starting point for discussion.

A few spells deserve particular mention. Unlike most vortices, pit of shades is stationary, with a low kill count along the lines of many other stationary spells. Tempest cannot even be cast in these conditions (targets flyers only). Obviously I cannot test campaign only spells/abilities like the Sword of Khaine vortex.

Did I miss any? Which vortex spells do you find most effective?

[Orderan]

For pit of shades, it isn't so much a damage spell as a formation breaking/area denying one. It deals low damages, but it can break an enemy's charge (bonus) or formationdefense.

also I would suggest trying those spells on heavily armored targets to compare

[Chrenergros]

When i use pit of shades with morathi i always reduce at 10% a full stack. How it could do only 1 kill in your test?

[Aenarion]

^ It did quite a lot of damage but spread across a lot of models.

[Chadner]

Baiting the AI into blobbing and hitting them with a purple sun is the only right way to play the game.

[Chrenergros]

Oh yes, makes sense. Did u use the base spells or the upgraded version?

[Kaaz]

Originally posted by Kemono:

Baiting the AI into blobbing and hitting them with a purple sun is the only right way to play the game.

seconded only to chokepoint battles with the tomb swarm ability (bonus points if you can do both)

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by Kemono:

Baiting the AI into blobbing and hitting them with a purple sun is the only right way to play the game.

As Lizards you don't get Purple Sun, so you throw down Banishment, Curse of the Midnight Wind, Chain Lightning, Comet for kicks, and if you're playing Mazdamundi throw in Ruination of Cities as well.

Then hit "Scroll of Power" and do it all again.

Originally posted by Kaaz:

Originally posted by Kemono:

Baiting the AI into blobbing and hitting them with a purple sun is the only right way to play the game.

seconded only to chokepoint battles with the tomb swarm ability (bonus points if you can do both)

good grief Tomb Swarm is powerful, it's the only Direct Damage spell I ever bother using. It's so deadly it's annoying even in the hands of the AI!



Baaaack on topic:
- would be interesting to try this again with some heavily-armoured units like, oh, IDK... some chaos lot? A non-neglegible part of vorticies comes from their armor-piercing damage, and Clanrats doesn't reflect this. Clanrats do reflect raw damage though, which is good!

- Pit of Shades is really best thought of as a Bombardment spell, sitting next to Comet. To me it doesn't deserve to be counted as a "vortex" in the standard sense.

Did I miss any?

Yes - Khatep's bound spell Sandstorm which is cast for freeeeee! This is an interesting vortex because it is basically useless against armor. If they've got 50+ armor, it's not even worth casting it. Unfortunately most Dark Elves, even their trash, have armor near that amount...

[Aenarion]

Originally posted by Chrenergros:

Oh yes, makes sense. Did u use the base spells or the upgraded version?

Base version.

[Aenarion]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Did I miss any?

Yes - Khatep's bound spell Sandstorm which is cast for freeeeee! This is an interesting vortex because it is basically useless against armor. If they've got 50+ armor, it's not even worth casting it. Unfortunately most Dark Elves, even their trash, have armor near that amount...

Thanks, finally got round to testing this and added results to OP.

[Aenarion]

Did a few retests with Chaos Warriors this time, to test power against armour:

Skullstorm 19
Sandstorm 39
Chain lightning 100
Purple sun 154

[Kaaz]

plague is best boy, stationary and melty melty

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by rymeintrinseca:

Did a few retests with Chaos Warriors this time, to test power against armour:

Skullstorm 19
Sandstorm 39
Chain lightning 100
Purple sun 154

must say, I expected Sandstorm to do worse :P

Good ol' Chain Lightning... my favourite strat is to send Maz on Zlaaq in one flank of the enemy and a Skink Priest on Stegadon in the other... then cast Banishment on top the Skink Priest and Chain Lightning on top of Maz.

I'd also be interested in how well Banishment fares?

[Aenarion]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Originally posted by rymeintrinseca:

Did a few retests with Chaos Warriors this time, to test power against armour:

Skullstorm 19
Sandstorm 39
Chain lightning 100
Purple sun 154

must say, I expected Sandstorm to do worse :P

Good ol' Chain Lightning... my favourite strat is to send Maz on Zlaaq in one flank of the enemy and a Skink Priest on Stegadon in the other... then cast Banishment on top the Skink Priest and Chain Lightning on top of Maz.

I'd also be interested in how well Banishment fares?

They're pretty idealized testing conditions (basically ten CW units on top of each other) that would rarely if ever be achieved in an actual battle. I did a test as well with skullstorm against a single CW unit, got a nice dice roll with it staying in the middle of the unit... and still only got one kill. So you might get 2 with sandstorm :) Basically these spells are a complete waste of time on armour (though sandstorm is at least free).

I tried a couple of goes with banishment but the casting cost is so high you have to keep restarting the custom battle to have enough WoM at the start, which is tedious (I got lucky with purple sun).

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

I know you can't 'test' it in this sense, but I also know you've been playing around with it loads, so how effective is the Sword of Khaine vortex? "Insta-kill-anything-it-comes-across" like the Purple Sun of Xereus, or "trash" like Skullstorm?

How big is its AOE? Despite owning the DLC I've never used the Sword of Khaine... I don't like public order problems :P

[harleyquinrazer]

Direct hit on Swordmasters of Hoeth stack on VH takes off over 50% of the total HP. Make of that what you will.