Spell Damage

[WildLynx]

How to determine each combat spell's damage, to-hit ratios and special effects, saves and resists, and what hero's stat or skill, if any, affects spell effectiveness?

[Roland, Frisky Cow]

Out of combat, I have no idea. In combat, after you select a spell but before you target it, it will show in the right panel that spell's attack, damage, and damage type - it's really just a fancy ranged Strike. The target's chance to resist is usually its Resistance stat (the higher, the more likely a successful resist will occur) - unless the damage is Physical type, in which case Defense is used. Every character's stats are viewable just by clicking on it's portrait. Magic Resistance is the Ankh, and Defense is the Shield.

[WildLynx]

Thank, you for information, I noticed pre-cast info too late. But what really puzzles me, is how to create 'nuker' main hero, with spell damage maximized? Or spell damage and to-hit is fixed, and cannot be changed?

[Jerry]

I'm not certain about this but I got a good guess having played the game back in 1999.

You can't boost spelldamage directly. The only way for a unit to take additional damage is if that unit has a weakness to the damage type. I'm not sure how big the chance is for the special strikes (burning, cold, holy, death etc) to take effect but I know how it works in AoW II ^^

[Brieg Skåld]

Actually, the only elemental bonus you can exploit is Death based damage over a cursed target. A spell like 'Deathray' may curse the target. 'Death strike' can also curse the target.
A cursed target will get twice the ordinary damage from any Death based attack.

For instance, your Hero with Death strike has 5 damage points.
He's first attack will deal, say, 5 damage AND curse the target.
If the next hit should deal 5 damage, it will deal 10 instead.

Hence what makes Death based attacks, potentially, the most powerful attacks in the game.
If you got 10 damage and a Hero with Death strike and 'Extra strike', you can deal 10 + 20 + 20 = 50 DAMAGE to a single unit. There is, basically, NOTHING in this game that can handle THAT much amount of damage (even the most powerful units usually don't go over 20 lifepoints). Of course, a target immune to Death won't be cursed and, therefore, won't be affected by this damage buff.

If you want a game-breaking build combo for your Leader, go for Death strike + Extra strike + Damages and have fun obliterating your ennemies in a single exchange of hits.

[Codyksp]

The above answer is very odd to me, having played the game for over 2 years in multiplayer and having made a large mod for it I have never heard of Cursed multiplying Death damage from attacks. I am 99% sure this is false information.

To answer your actual question, everything in the game works with an Attack value and compares this to either Defense, Resistance or sometimes both.

For example Fireball has 8 attack. It will look at the target's defense to determine whether or not it hits. 8 vs 8 = 50% chance. This goes up by 10% per 1 difference up to a maximum of 90% and a minimum of 10% to hit.

Entangle is one of the more special spells, it has 7 attack but it needs to beat both defense and resistance to apply. So a target with 4 in both stats makes it 80% chance to pass defense and 80% chance to pass resistance, effectively making it 80% of 80% which is 64% chance to actually apply the effect.

All 6 magic types have a hidden effect and these each have their own attack value that targets resistance. Burning = 4, Frozen = 3, Stunned = 6, Poisoned = 4, Vertigo = 3, Cursed = 3 and as a bonus I'll throw in Entangled from Entangle Strike, which has 7 attack.

This means if you target something with Death Ray, which has 8 attack, you first need to have Death Ray hit. After it hits the target there is a 3 attack chance (versus resistance) of Cursed being applied to the target.

Damage is calculated in an entirely different manner. The number you see is only the maximum amount of damage that can be dealt. All attacks also have a 10% chance to be a critical hit or a critical miss. When an attack is a critical hit is always deals maximum damage.

For all other attacks damage is randomly rolled from a specific minimum to the maximum amount of damage possible. The minimum damage depends on the attack as compared to the defense of the target. It only goes up if you are 5 or more attack above the defense of your target.

The calculation for this is (attack-defense-3) so for example with 8 attack against 2 defense it ends up being (8-2-3=3) of course this only works if the attack can actually deal 3 damage or more.

Most of this information cannot be found in any specific place, I have learnt it from playing the game, modding the game and searching through 20 year old forum posts.

[Brieg Skåld]

Originally posted by Codyksp:

The above answer is very odd to me, having played the game for over 2 years in multiplayer and having made a large mod for it I have never heard of Cursed multiplying Death damage from attacks. I am 99% sure this is false information.

This is not. Any Revenant imbued with Dark Gift (for instance) will shred any cursed units.
That is also valuable in AoW II.

[dtt.scanner]

For a mage build, don't forget the multi-damage that global spells can do. Softening up the opponent before battle can make a huge difference in difficulty.

If you are going for a Death Mage, then (from the above) it looks like Entangling Strike would be a good build for skills. You can get Death Strike and other status strikes from other spells/skills, so I would start with Entangling Strike.

You also depend on magical gear for your fit, but basically you want to have the highest stats that you can muster. Death mage has no defensive spells, and the best defensive spell (stoneskin) was nerfed by the balancing mod. Since you can't do both life and death, that really only leaves Death/Earth to give yourself a bit more defense. Most tank builds require healing magic, so that means you would have a 3/2/2 Death/Water/Earth build. I honestly prefer Earth/Life/Water for the best defense from Magic, healing, plus Roads and Gold, which means you don't have to perk up stats as much to max them out with spells and gear and can field a large offensive/defensive force. That gives you more points for movement and health on your character as well.

I usually do Cold Strike, but it looks like Entangling Strike might be a better build. This is only available if you use the balancing mod that allows you to select from all possible options. I believe Entangling Strike is not available in Vanilla. Also in vanilla you can only select a status strike on your initial build... you cannot add it later. This means without the mod, you can only afford one status strike at the beginning. So, for vanilla, I would take Cold Strike. You can get other status strikes from skills/spells like Holy/Unholy champion, lightning bolt, etc, and if you are lucky from magic weapons themselves.

[Codyksp]

Originally posted by Brieg Skåld:

Originally posted by Codyksp:

The above answer is very odd to me, having played the game for over 2 years in multiplayer and having made a large mod for it I have never heard of Cursed multiplying Death damage from attacks. I am 99% sure this is false information.

This is not. Any Revenant imbued with Dark Gift (for instance) will shred any cursed units.
That is also valuable in AoW II.

I even tested this to be sure and no, damage is not multiplied in any way. You do realize this about Age of Wonders 1 right? The first game? Revenants do not exist.