Can anyone explain the Lore of Heaven to me?

[Green Raven]

Companion post to the one asking for help understanding the Lore of Metal.

The other six lores DO things. They have a strong central theme, and a usually a couple of off-theme spells to keep them well rounded.

Lore of Fire is, as the game says, magical artillery. It's spells are cheap, powerful, long lasting and just a tad innacurate.

Lore of Death aims at breaking the enemies morale. Spirit Leech snipes off thier leaders, Doom and Darkness takes a huge chunk of Leadership, they have another spell that imbues terror, and Fate of Bjuna - which isnt a cost effeciant spell compared to Mystifying Miasma or flock of Doom, but does a lot of damage quickly, causing a dramatic loss of Leadership.

Lore of Light is about controlling the flow of battle, and is the best Lore for a well rounded army. The Net holds enemies while your archers pour on damage, augment spells ensure your infantry hold the line, and Timewarp aids your calvary in quicker, deadlier flanking manuevers.

Lore of Life is about healing and protection. Life wizards don't just want you to win; they wan't you to win and still be healthy enough for the next battle.

Lore of Shadows is about close quarters melee combat. It's spells strip enemies of thier Melee defence and Armour, and Okkams Mindrazer sends supercharges your melee weapon strength, both normal and armour piercing. when armies meet in a nice, long battleline, the Pendalum can rip through their ranks.

Lore of Beasts is about versitility. It's Lore Attribute gives you more magic to work with, which is always nice; it has augments and hexes that are equally useful in a melee throwdown or a missile duel; the Amber Spear is effective at any range against any target; and when is a pet Griffon not a welcome sight on the battlefield?

Lore of Heaven and Lore of Metal, though... I cant figure them out.

[RCMidas]

Heaven is easy enough - it's the zappy electrical version of Fire. Wind Blast, Thunderbolt, Chain Lightning, Comet of Cassandora. Owing to its association with the celestial bodies, it is also used for telling the future and manipulating fates, hence Harmonic Convergence (in the lore it belongs to this branch of magic), Curse of the Midnight Wind and suchlike.

Note that Metal is not necessarily better able to deal with actual worked metal in the game - it is more focused on transmutation (the classic lead into gold...or perhaps lightweight steel into heavyweight lead through Transmutation of Lead; or even flesh into gold through Final Transmutation) or the adopting of metallic features on other elements (making mere air as tough as steel, for instance, through Glittering Robe). Spells like Searing Doom are the changing of ordinary air into molten silvery shards.

I would try to explain Gehenna's Golden Hounds, but they are several orders too complicated and convoluted for me to try to understand myself right now.

[Green Raven]

So Heavens theme is also magical artillery? Commet of Cassandra and Chain Lightning matching up The Burning Head and Flame Storm.

Interesting theory... it makes me want to check on Chain Lightnings effeciancy when compared to Banishment or Purple Sun. My game is uninstalled at the moment so it will have to wait until morning.

[Android Poetry]

What about the other lores: Vampires, Wilds, Deep, and High? I don't think the lores you mention have the unifying themes you think they do, save for fire, the rest are pretty loose assoications of items, perhaps you are simply more familiar with them.

[Green Raven]

Lore of Little Waghhh, Big Waghh, Vampires, High and Dark all have strong themes... Im about to hit the sack, so I'll tell you about em tomorrow.

Deep I havent taken a close look at yet, but I suspect it favors armies with signifigant range capabilities,.

I havent taken a proper look at Nehekara Magic or Lore of the Wilds.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Green Raven:

Interesting theory... it makes me want to check on Chain Lightnings effeciancy when compared to Banishment or Purple Sun. My game is uninstalled at the moment so it will have to wait until morning.

Chain Lightning is better than both of those. And Comet of Casandora when overcast can nearly annihilate entire units (or I'd guess completely annihilate entire units on lower sizes). Heavens is arguably stronger than Fire for the magical artillery role, though the comparison between the two is kind of moot point because there are almost no situations in which you'd be deciding between the two.

[RCMidas]

The Lore of Vampires is a perversion of the Lore of Death, developed by Nagash.

The Lore of the Wilds is a similar perversion of the Lore of Beasts, ironically by the Beastmen communing with the Ruinous Powers.

The Lore of the Deep is a new and game-only Lore that is effectively an aquatic variation of the Lore of Vampires.

The Lore of Nehekhara is an older, forgotten way of channelling the Winds of Magic that was not influenced by the elves, being independently developed by humans. The modern way of channelling the Winds of Magic was taught to humans by Teclis.

Both High and Dark Magic, of the High and Dark Elves respectively, are the result of channelling all the standard eight Lores at once. Lesser races are literally incapable of performing the same feat. Slann can use High Magic because they are just that magically awesome. High Magic is the pure way of doing this, Dark Magic is the corrupted method pioneered by Morathi.

The Lores of the Big and Little Waaagh are unique to the Greenskins and are the result of these creatures drawing upon the Winds of Magic in a way that is basically inexplicable.

The Lore of the Maw, or Gut Magic, is similar unique to Ogres. They draw upon magical power from the Great Maw that fell onto the planet from outer space.

The Lore of Ice may or may not be a thing these days, and was relegated to Kislev even when it was.

True Chaos Magic comes in three forms: Slaaneshi, Tzeentchian, and Nurglish. It is raw and unfiltered power from Chaos Realms. Khorne does not use any magic at all (except inasmuch as his Daemons are magical and the weapons/armours his smiths forge are magical).

[Green Raven]

Originally posted by Fire Spell:

What about the other lores: Vampires, Wilds, Deep, and High? I don't think the lores you mention have the unifying themes you think they do, save for fire, the rest are pretty loose assoications of items, perhaps you are simply more familiar with them.

As for the other Lores, I do think strong themes stand out, and I dont think that's an accident.

Even when you have 2 spells that seem similiar, the Lores theme will stand out.

That's why we have Lore of Fires Vortex costing half the price and lasting twice as long as vortex spells from Death and Light.

And that's why Deaths direct damage spell costs a great deal but does its damage all at once, as opposed to it's Shadows and Beasts counterpart: Death's version deals enough damage in it's single burst to effect Leadership.

[Green Raven]

Originally posted by Green Raven:

Lore of Little Waghhh, Big Waghh, Vampires, High and Dark all have strong themes... Im about to hit the sack, so I'll tell you about em tomorrow.

Deep I havent taken a close look at yet, but I suspect it favors armies with signifigant range capabilities,.

I havent taken a proper look at Nehekara Magic or Lore of the Wilds.

Lore of the Little Waghhh is about snatching away your oppenents tools. It has a hex that nueters cavalry charges, a stealth spell that makes them untargetable by missiles and artillery, and it's Lore Attribute, Sneaky Stealin, hampers enemy wizards. Even its vortex spell is more of a moving hex then a strict damage dealer.

Lore of the Big Waghhh is the Orcy take on Fire style artillery magic.

Lore of High Magic is, by design, without a theme. The High Elves have easy access to all the core Lores; now High Magic gives them a few spells with very rare effects. There's a healing spell, the only one outside the Lore of life, that also grants fear; a dedicated anti-air spell; and a spell that can be used on an enemy wizard to put all of his spells on lockdown. Mix these more exotic spells with some utilitarian spells, like a damage dealing wind and a cheap, versitile augment, and you have a reason to choose High magic over the others.

Lore of Vampires is unique, in that every single Vampiric army has access to it. You can add to your army minor vampires with Death or Shadow magic, if you want, but your Lord will always know Lore of Vampirism. So I guess the unifying theme of Vampire magic is "what works well with the undeads roster." Like a healing spell that brings back the undead, or a recruitment spell, that makes more undead.

[Yellowdragon]

Ask Jesus.

[Green Raven]

Yes I can see the conversation in the confession booth now...

"Say, Father, do play Total War? Cuz I've been trying to learn my way - what? Oh, yeah, yeah, I sinned, whatever - anyway as I was saying, there's this spell called Uronnon's Lighning bolt and..."

[Fendelphi]

Lore of Heavens has no magic missile(ie, fireball type spell) so generally struggles when dealing with single models, but instead it has 2 Magic bombardment spells(1 large, 1 small) that can do pin-point damage to groups, 1 fan-shaped wind spell(Wind Blast) and a cheap and an efficient Vortex spell(Chain Lightning).
Overall, it is a very offensive lore, with a few supportive spells(buffs and debuffs) and overall the lore focus on AoE effects and can deal with lightly armored hordes and heavy armored elites.

Metal is an offensive lore that has more precision that most other offensive lores. It is especially effective at dealing with heavy armoured groups(either through good AP damage or by reducing enemy armor), but even light armored hordes gets destroyed by it's vortex spell and it's bombardment spell, both of which are fairly cheap.
Final Transmutation is basically Spirit Leech on overdrive. It is AoE, ignores armor and cant damage your own troops. If you expect a lot of monstrous infantry, cavalry, monsters, heroes etc., it is a very strong spell to use, as the damage potential on a base cast is 8x 144 damage per affected target.
The passive also constantly increases the damage output of your melee units.

[Green Raven]

Lore of the Wild, the Beastmen's signiture Lore, is about squeezing the most damage out of the smallest armies. Mantle of Ghorok only effects one ally, but sends his melee and weapon damage into overdrive, and Savage Dominion brings a freanking Cygor into play. Viletide and Bray Scream aren't much, but they can be used to repeatidly trigger Bestial Surge, which keeps your vigor topped off, allowing the same group of units to slaughter the enemy without running out of steam.

This is especially cool, because it meshes so nicely with the way the Beastmen operate on the strategy map. You think you have them cornered, and bam! they ambush you.

On the tactical field, you might be facing down what looks like a tiny force when bam! your staring at a very angry Cygor.

[The Sylvan Learning Center]

Originally posted by Green Raven:

when bam! your staring at a very angry Cygor.

who can toss like 4 or 5 rocks before disintegrating

[gachi is manly]

Curse of the Midnight wind is one of my favorite debuff spells. Overcasted it lasts almost a minute and dramatically decreases enemies chance to hit while also stripping off a sizable chunk of their armor. A well placed comet is also a game changer too. Those are the two spells I use the most when I run heaven lore.

[Wh♂♂par]

I'm sorry, but I can't understand people not seeing, which lore is for what, because you have the spells listed for you readily available.

While their quality in application might differ, there is information on what the spells do and what you'd like to use them for.