Man / Tir na n'Og healing songs and other in battle healing mechanics question

[Ghost49X]

Hey, so far I'm playing Dom4 and am considering getting Dom5 while it's on sale. Some thing that I liked lorewise was the Tir na n'Og songs (a which MA man also had) as well as nature "healing" spells. By healing I mean the in battle give back some HP spells rather than the cure affliction options. But unfortunately there was no viable way to play with those mechanics in Dom4 mostly due to the poor AI. Has Dom5 made this any more viable?

[ÆtherNomad]

If you're talking about the spells Soothing Song, Healing Song and Song of Bravery, all three have been removed from the game and replaced by a passive ability called spellsinging, which doubles spell casting time but halves fatigue from spell casting.

[sunbeam]

Spellsinging was awful for TNN/Eriu. Some spells you want off ASAP.

[Ghost49X]

This saddens me, as I felt they had an interesting potential if they could work out the kinks...

[ÆtherNomad]

The new ability is pretty interesting though, and it works very well, especially on Thunderstrike spammers. Also, it has the side effect of allowing communion slaves to leave their communion as soon as they lose consciousness, thus avoiding death - which is really great for Man, since it received new Nature-based communion spells.

[konon.ymir]

Technically spellsinging doesn't cause mages to leave communions when they lose consiousness, the nature-based communion spells for MA Man cause the caster to leave the communion when they lose consciousness, but spellsinging is a pre-requisite to cast them.

[ÆtherNomad]

Are you sure about that? I know that the spells' descriptions claim that, but I think they are wrong/lying.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by Ghost49X:

This saddens me

Not me. The new system is a buff for Man / Tir na N'Og, as the old Dom 4 "Song of x" spells were useful in the first few turns of the game, then became obsolete and unused after Research Level 2 or 3.

With Spell Singing, mages/bards from the related nations will always have a trait which is useful to them, and it affects all spells, not just the three "special" spells.

Lastly (and anecdotally), the spell AI in Dom5 is much improved over 4 in regards to casting short-ranged spells like the various "heals". With the new "Advance and Cast Spells" order, I've had off-script mages still cast Healing Mists / Healing Light to front-line troops well into the duration of the battle, whereas that never happened in my experience in Dominions 4.

[Lord Silverwood]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

Are you sure about that? I know that the spells' descriptions claim that, but I think they are wrong/lying.

It is the new nature communion spell Chorus Slave that causes the slave to drop out once they are unconscious. They still gain the benefits they gained while in the communion (such as revig if a mage cast summon earth power or a bless with revig) but they are no longer considered communion slaves. In game you can see this when you select a unit that was a communion slave and has gone uncouncious, the communion slave indicator will be gone but all buffs will still be present.

[sunbeam]

All that is true, and MA Man's changes are certainly a buff for them, even if they do give up some things.

But I still think the changes were bad for TNN/Eriu. When I play both nations I use Thugs a lot. Now they take 50% longer to get off their buff spells.

In addition, while you can get off a few more thunderstrikes, you can't pump them out as quickly as before either, let alone things like Fog Warriors hitting round 3 or 4 instead of round 2.

And while it isn't as big a deal, it does take them 50% longer to get off Holy spells as well. SInce all but one of those (and that one is almost never used) are zero fatigue (except for encumbrance), it is strictly a nerf in that regard. Including blessing sacreds.

[ÆtherNomad]

Originally posted by Lord Silverwood:

It is the new nature communion spell Chorus Slave that causes the slave to drop out once they are unconscious. They still gain the benefits they gained while in the communion (such as revig if a mage cast summon earth power or a bless with revig) but they are no longer considered communion slaves. In game you can see this when you select a unit that was a communion slave and has gone uncouncious, the communion slave indicator will be gone but all buffs will still be present.

Again: are you sure this is true? There's no way to test it without modding the game or empowering a spellsinger in astral magic. If your only source is the description, it's not reliable.

[terve886]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

Originally posted by Lord Silverwood:

It is the new nature communion spell Chorus Slave that causes the slave to drop out once they are unconscious. They still gain the benefits they gained while in the communion (such as revig if a mage cast summon earth power or a bless with revig) but they are no longer considered communion slaves. In game you can see this when you select a unit that was a communion slave and has gone uncouncious, the communion slave indicator will be gone but all buffs will still be present.

Again: are you sure this is true? There's no way to test it without modding the game or empowering a spellsinger in astral magic. If your only source is the description, it's not reliable.

I have seen other people say it is the feature of the spell singer trait and not the chorus communion, but I haven't tested it myself. slave matrix will probably be the easiest and fastest way to test spell singer slaves droping out of communion.

[ÆtherNomad]

Originally posted by terve886:

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

Again: are you sure this is true? There's no way to test it without modding the game or empowering a spellsinger in astral magic. If your only source is the description, it's not reliable.

I have seen other people say it is the feature of the spell singer trait and not the chorus communion, but I haven't tested it myself. slave matrix will probably be the easiest and fastest way to test spell singer slaves droping out of communion.

I wouldn't trust a slave matrix, as the mage can't remove the item during combat, so it would be logical for the effect not to disappear mid battle.

[Lord Silverwood]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

Originally posted by Lord Silverwood:

It is the new nature communion spell Chorus Slave that causes the slave to drop out once they are unconscious. They still gain the benefits they gained while in the communion (such as revig if a mage cast summon earth power or a bless with revig) but they are no longer considered communion slaves. In game you can see this when you select a unit that was a communion slave and has gone uncouncious, the communion slave indicator will be gone but all buffs will still be present.

Again: are you sure this is true? There's no way to test it without modding the game or empowering a spellsinger in astral magic. If your only source is the description, it's not reliable.

I've tested it myself in game. Setting up various spells seeing what I could do agaisnt various nations as MA Man. One of things I was checking was to see if the slaves would be able to keep phenoix pyre going after they dropped from the communion and if they actually dropped. From these tests I can assurerdly say that it is true that they drop out after too much fatigue.

[ncarr99]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

Originally posted by Lord Silverwood:

It is the new nature communion spell Chorus Slave that causes the slave to drop out once they are unconscious. They still gain the benefits they gained while in the communion (such as revig if a mage cast summon earth power or a bless with revig) but they are no longer considered communion slaves. In game you can see this when you select a unit that was a communion slave and has gone uncouncious, the communion slave indicator will be gone but all buffs will still be present.

Again: are you sure this is true? There's no way to test it without modding the game or empowering a spellsinger in astral magic. If your only source is the description, it's not reliable.

It does literally say in the description of Chrous Slave that a slave that loses conciousness will leave the "communal chant".

[Lord Silverwood]

The main idea behind it is that if they can't continue to sing they can't stay part of the communion or chorus