Gelt with His Cool Looking Spells

[tiberiansun371alexw]

i really like confederating Balthasar Gelt and then watching him cast spells. So on my normal difficulty runs where I don't need to min max everything, I want to constantly see him using some of these spells, even if I might be sticking his neck in danger a little more than what would be optimal.

Once Mid-game I want to be able to use Final Transmutation, Plague of Rust, and Searing Doom at least 3 times per battle, and every time I have 30 winds, I want to be casting one of those 3 spells. This doesn't mean I will neglet my other spells (so I might reach 30 winds, see a target where a vortex spell might be useful, cast Final Transmutation and then Gehenna's Golden Hounds, or maybe I see my units being beaten in melee by a bunch of base damage units so I would cast Glittering Robe even though winds didn't reach 30, or I might need to give my units a buff when my winds did reach 30 so I might buff them with Glittering Robe and then immediatly cast searing doom), but I will be using these 3 spells a lot even it is likely later in the battle I might want the winds for a different spell or a different wizzard. Unless of course I am out matched in a battle so hard I need to optimize wind use. That said, just because I am going to spam spells rather than conserve, I don't want to entirely waste the winds, so what is the best way to use them?

Plague of Rust seems simple enough, just cast it on enemies in melee. Searing Doom, I'm having some difficulties landing them. Final Transmuation is a tough one, I don't know how to use it right. Based on the description, it should be a lord sniping spell, but it's nothing OP like taking 30% of an enemy lord's HP. The best time I got a use out of it was one battle where 3 units of Lothern Sea Guard were surrounding their lord and I hit all 4 units 7 casts of it (I think one cast I got a 5th unit as well, some of their forces tried to move through) as well as ordering 3 units of Hellstorm Rocket batteries to snipe their lord. Gelt did a lot of damage and the artillery actually did land the final hit on the lord after missing a lot, but most of their misses were still productive making this probably the only time HRB aiming for a lord wasn't a massive waste of ammo. Most of the time, I cast Final Transmuation, watch it look cool, and then see the enemy is mostly OK.

[wpegg]

Final Transmutation appears to work like an area of effect spirit leech. I got a reasonable result out of it while I was cheesing Chaos with a flying Gelt a load of huntsmen by getting them all to blob up then hitting a huge number of units. If you can catch several units that have a few high health entities then it works nicely.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by wpegg:

If you can catch several units that have a few high health entities then it works nicely.

Hmmm... see the problem is that it's easier to get the AI to clump up it's regular units than it's single entities. I did get pretty good results with that lord with his lothern sea guard, but I don't have much confidence in being able to get a bunch of say... giants in range of a lord or hero.

[Lack of Stuff]

Final Transmutation is ok against cavalry but not really much use against single entities. Don't trust the descriptions.

Searing Doom should be what you use most of the time since Gelt gets it for like 1 wind cost per cast.

[SpeaksTooFast]

If you think the lore of metal is cool effect wise I'd recommend checking out the Vampire Coast. The lore of the deeps has a wicked broadside.

With regard to the best way to use the lore of metal: Gelt can make a few of his spells really cheap which means you can be really efficient if you don't mind the battle taking a while. You can also just fight the battle normally and use the spells for support as needed.

Searing Doom is good damage and efficient but the AI may try to dodge it if not engaged and free to mover around.

Golden Hounds is good against large groups of moving targets but watch for friendly fire.

Plague of Rust can be helpful to boost your front-line if they are fighting a lightly armored front-line. Something like swordsmen vs ork boys but often the damaging spells are more impactful.

Final transmutation is expensive but can put the hurt on some high value targets and single entities. I'd use it sparingly but if you have some good targets one of these can turn the tide.

I normally avoid glittering robe but if you have a melee fight against non-ap units it could be helpful.

[Verchial]

Originally posted by SpeaksTooFast:

If you think the lore of metal is cool effect wise I'd recommend checking out the Vampire Coast. The lore of the deeps has a wicked broadside.

With regard to the best way to use the lore of metal: Gelt can make a few of his spells really cheap which means you can be really efficient if you don't mind the battle taking a while. You can also just fight the battle normally and use the spells for support as needed.

Searing Doom is good damage and efficient but the AI may try to dodge it if not engaged and free to mover around.

Golden Hounds is good against large groups of moving targets but watch for friendly fire.

Plague of Rust can be helpful to boost your front-line if they are fighting a lightly armored front-line. Something like swordsmen vs ork boys but often the damaging spells are more impactful.

Final transmutation is expensive but can put the hurt on some high value targets and single entities. I'd use it sparingly but if you have some good targets one of these can turn the tide.

I normally avoid glittering robe but if you have a melee fight against non-ap units it could be helpful.

I have played a lot of Empire & Gelt and tend to agree with most of this.

What i would add is that I’ve found almost no use for Final Transmutation. Its not worth its winds cost to me. In my recent empire playthroughs I didn’t even train it on him.

Same with Glittering Robes. I don’t waste points on it. I always put a life mage in his army and they get the same darned spell with a diff name.

Maybe it’s just me and how I play but I found that Plague of Rust also functions as a sort of “fear” spell that works on everything (including unbreakable). It seems like most of the time when I use it the unit just runs off. Very handy when my triple gold chevron Unit is getting wrecked down to a few men and may be otherwise lost.

[Mr Robert House]

gelt has such cheap that you can spam hounds and searing doom for the whole battle, get him a life wizard to help with a spare arcane conduit, and you should beable to cast some other spells too.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Originally posted by Verchial:

What i would add is that I’ve found almost no use for Final Transmutation. Its not worth its winds cost to me. In my recent empire playthroughs I didn’t even train it on him.

But it's so cool! I guess I can just reroll heros a bunch of time to increase the reserves.

[-Singularity-]

Gelt is a beast. He can cast constantly and never run out of mana. My favorite magic user in game. Most casters can cast 3-5 spells in a battle and thats it. Gelt can cast constantly through-out (1 mana searing doom anyone).

[SpeaksTooFast]

Originally posted by Verchial:

What i would add is that I’ve found almost no use for Final Transmutation. Its not worth its winds cost to me. In my recent empire playthroughs I didn’t even train it on him.

If I'm in a tough fight and am able to use my entire pool on searing doom that is absolutely more efficient. There are many fights where where WoM usage is either not that critical or it's impractical/impossible to spend 20 min casting one spell.

I have personally found final transmutation to be very effective if you can get a few of their high value units to bunch up and you don't need to worry about friendly fire.

This is also a bit dependent on the army you want to give gelt, if you just give him huntsmen and let him solo everything then yeah you probably have no need. I like to eventually give him my steam tank stack where Final Transmutation can be really useful if the enemy has some faster units like cav or monsters that get stuck on the tanks.

[Verchial]

Originally posted by SpeaksTooFast:

Originally posted by Verchial:

What i would add is that I’ve found almost no use for Final Transmutation. Its not worth its winds cost to me. In my recent empire playthroughs I didn’t even train it on him.

If I'm in a tough fight and am able to use my entire pool on searing doom that is absolutely more efficient. There are many fights where where WoM usage is either not that critical or it's impractical/impossible to spend 20 min casting one spell.

I have personally found final transmutation to be very effective if you can get a few of their high value units to bunch up and you don't need to worry about friendly fire.

This is also a bit dependent on the army you want to give gelt, if you just give him huntsmen and let him solo everything then yeah you probably have no need. I like to eventually give him my steam tank stack where Final Transmutation can be really useful if the enemy has some faster units like cav or monsters that get stuck on the tanks.

I guess I never thought to try that. I usually finish him off with a steam tank stack too, (with a pair of luminarks, the black lions and a life mage.) The only loss with this completed stack I ever had was vs two stacks of late game WOOD ELVES. Maybe Transmutation would have slowed down that horde of vegan super-hippies.