Best pure damage Empire Wizard?

[Professor Von-Wulfen ]

Hello all.
Of the Empire Wizards, which school of magic has the best range of damage spells?
I can only afford 1 and am in need of a good unit damage spell slinger.

[Teh_Diplomat]

Gelt along with a Bright (Fire) Wizard makes things quite ridiculous in terms of overall kill count.

Provided you have the numbers - on the enemies side; you can rack up 1K kills respectively.

[Sins]

Bright wizards are the most potentially powerful, with the largest variety of damage spells and Flame Storm being a long-lasting vortex- not to mention their passive. Shadow is very safe and consistent and brings some strong buff/debuff power on top of their damage. Celestial is a middle ground between the two.

Really any of the three will wipe out large groups of enemies pretty good and they're all close enough that imo there isn't really a "best", they all bring a little something extra to the table.

[IntrepidH]

Yeah I’d probably go
Shadow>bright>celestial

(casandora got a big buff recently to its center impact)

Shadows pit of shades just consumes blobbed infantry, fire gets a decent strike with the meteors spell (forget the name) and fireball isn’t useless either though the moving aoe firestorm usually isn’t worth casting (if it was a little slower it might be good)

[IntrepidH]

Amethyst lore is so bad because in TWW1 days vampires got their heal plus stronger fate of bjuna and spirit leech so they nerfed everything about it until it faded back into obscurity

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by IntrepidH:

Amethyst lore is so bad because in TWW1 days vampires got their heal plus stronger fate of bjuna and spirit leech so they nerfed everything about it until it faded back into obscurity

Eh, lore of death was never a great campaign lore. The ld buffs and debuffs in it are just largely wasted vs ai, and single target damage spells just dont have the same impact on battlefields where 20 vz 20 or larger army sizes is standard, all of who are most likely elite to boot, meaning crippling one key asset the way you can in mp is very unlikely. Soulblight is ok, but not the most amazing debuff ever, so youre basically left with just purple sun for mobs(which is useless vs walls or if ai doesnt clump) and sl to snipe lords/heroes. In mp it remains a great lore, but the way battles work there is very different.

[cb4n28]

If you really can only get one wizard as Empire, and assuming this if for an ME campaign, my recommendation would be Bright Wizard. There are several wizards with high damage output, and imo the differences between them in terms of pure damage aren't big enough to really recommend one over the other if that's your only scale. However, as Empire your most immediate rivals, Vampires, Norsca and even Greenskins, all field scary units with regeneration and/or weakness to fire and for your purposes that gives the Bright Wizard the edge in my book. He'll be about as effective as any other high damage mage in most cases, but when he's burning his way through the dangerous monsterous units you are likely to run into like Skinwolves or Vargulfs or Trolls, he's going to have an edge that the other wizards can't match. Better still, he'll have the ability to lend that edge to your other troops with some of his buffs.

So for an Empire campaign if you can only pick one Wizard, Bright is probably the best choice. In the long term, your opponents' weaknesses to fire means he ends up being capable of doing the most damage.

[hammerinn]

It really depends on what type of damage you want to do. Kill trash? Armored cav? Heroes? As above, if you just want to target any unit, fire is really good. Not the best all of the time, but it does well.

[Pimpin Pippin]

If i remember right the Pit of Shades (shadows) does not hurt your own troops, so that is really practical and powerful - as well as the penumbral pendulum.

Fire is a lot of searing fun but watch out for that friendly fire.

Lore of Heavens (lightning/air) also has a lot of damage spells and i think it got buffed recently.

[Fendelphi]

My own personal preference is actually Amber wizard(beast lore) when playing the Empire in campaign.
Flock of Doom is cheap and can actually generate wins of magic for you(due to the beast lore passive), while being very effective against large blobs of infantry(5-700 damage per unit affected, I never overcast it). It also cant hurt your own troops, so you can use it every time it is available "for free".
You have access to a potent(and cheap, 8 WoM) AoE buff for melee, can increase the speed and durability of cav(which together with a Warrior Priest is just silly) and can summon Manticores to chase down and duel lords, cavalry and other threats, cause disruption in the front line and apply fear and terror around it. And it is cheap as well.

The spells wont instant kill many foes in the same way that a Bright or Shadow Wizard might, but the damage it generates over time is very similar and it will apply constant pressure and synergizes well with a mixed army. I once got around 500 kills with an Amber Wizard in a long, drawn out fight against the undead.

And to top it off, the Amber Wizard gets to ride a Griffon. That means Armor piercing, high weapon strength and terror. All very nice things. If your lord is a general on a griffon, you can have 3 Terror causing units in a "cheap" army(no demys or steam tanks), which means you win most frontline fights and have the ability to single out and kill individuals very easy.

And due to how low cost the Beast spells are(and the fact that you generate extra WoM every time you they cast a spell), you could even include a second battlewizard if you want(a Jade wizard perhaps?) and delegate the Amber wizard to Flock of Doom and Manticore only.

[Professor Von-Wulfen ]

Many thanks all.
I went with Bright wizard (fire) in the end.
I do intend to experiment with other schools later in the game though.

[Ninjasquirrel]

Loved that chain lightning in my epic dwarf wars.

[Professor Von-Wulfen ]

Originally posted by Rawfire:

Bright wizard is good against regenerative units, but celestial wizard causes the most damage to armored units (chain lighting melts all)

Many thanks. Good point. Will try Celestial next.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Atomsk:

Is the Amesthyst Wizard any good? I actually forgot it existed even though its new DLC,

It is death. And death, fire and shadow are really good dmg, also haven can be nice dmg, not this comet but this lightning ball which runs random can be very effective.