I've been lurking here for a while and searched back about 10 pages and I really haven't seen this topic about. So, I'd be curious to ask, who likes which spells for combat with what? To start, myself I've found a few odds and ends worth pointing out but I'm only perhaps 25% through the game. I'm sure there's much more to learn than to tell.

1) Hypnotic lure is really very powerful, and often better than sleep
2) Since so many outdoor monsters have high earth and middling air/water resistances blinding flash is quite powerful since fire based.
3) Most of the single target damage spells are only a way to use up spell points when there's nothing better to cast. They're fine when free via books but I'll not again spend a spell choice on them.
4) Slow is actually much more useful than I'd expected since it's also a snare, lovely for my mostly ranged party.

I'm all ears for any further responses.

Raederle

[ 04-18-2002, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Raederle ]

nukular blast is a good all around clearance spell.
I've been told that boilling blood is good; however, that is
a alchemistry spell and the alchem skill has to bee 80% to learn
from book or 70 ish to get from lvl up.

I am going bananas. I am doing the game will 6 bishups and boy
is this taking a long time. then again, now after flash freezing
and beeting the rats over and over, go back to the monistary and
wound why it was so hard at first. my last lvl up had a small
surprize, there was not a hole lot of spell choices.

yah, enemy resistances are important to check until you have a high Power Cast. If your party is good at melee, Web and Freeze Flesh are really useful. Sleep isn't very good if you use mass-destruction spells; they wake up when they get hit. The high-level sigle-target spells like concussion are quite nice. Party-buff spells--this is mentioned in a lot of the combat- and trainig-advice threads--are essential for increasing your realm and book points. (If you're fanatical about skill development, you can max the books and realms you have non-combat spells from in a few days of standing around and casting. Ok, maybe weeks if you don't have a handy mana source...)

Type of spells employed change as the story unfolds. I think the most heavily used combat spell in my book was Noxious Fumes (spell and gadget together). That followed by Acid Bomb and Firestorm. The three combined in a first round surprise attack is good.

[ 04-19-2002, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: Annheiser ]

Some of my favorite battles in the Mountains:
4 Sulfurous Scorchers: 2 killed by Quicksand, one by Death Wish and one by Negatair (gadget which casts Asphyxiation). All in the first round.
3 Blistering Scorchers: all killed in the first round by Asphyxiation.
5 Knights and 3 Archers: only one knight left after the first round, in which i cast the above spells and Death Cloud; i don't remember which took out what...
That's why i like to develop everybody's magic and Powercast.

Asphyxiation looks great, but it hardly ever worked for me with a mage with reasonbly high air skill and good power cast. Death cloud is great but it doesn't seem to work after the first couple of rounds (do they get immune or something?). Magic missiles is a super duper spell, especially for early on when most monsters have some earth/fire/water/air resistance but hardly ever divine, but even later on it's good against lots of enemies like Rapax. Slow is awful, the battles are long enough with lots of enemies without slowing them down. Unless you had to take a phone call or something in the middle ;) . I used tsunami and blizzard a lot, they're good against rapax. But the two most important spells, (that I never cast) are pandemonium and freeze flesh - the instruments that have them are the most invaluable in the game IMHO [img]smile.gif[/img]

I really like the freeze spells and web a lot, especially in the early game. I'm also a huge fan of insanity. It was especially useful in the early time when juggernauts would clean my clock. I agree about hypnotic lure. I have fa,len into disuse with it, but every now and then, I still fire up my lava lamp, and I'm amazed at how many monsters it can hold in thrall. I love my gadgeteer, especially now that I can cast asphyxiation and boiling blood with him. Why bother with a vaporizer when you can negatair them? Besides the different realm, of course. Boiling blood can cause some huge damage, and it's a good way to wear down some of those casters with very few HP when the victim explodes. As far as damage spells go, ego whip is good, as well as lasting effects like acid bomb. I don't use a whole lot of the earth realm, so whipping rocks is pretty useful as a damage spell early, too.

I am glad someone finally mentioned Insanity. That spell saved my bacon more times than I can count in the early to mid game. Hypnotic Lure is a must in the swamp! My favorite spell later in the game is Psionic Blast - you don't have to be in sight of the target enemies, and many creatures do not have high resistance to Mental Magic. You can deal out decent damage and possibly drive them insane. It was the key to my success against the Cultists in the Wilderness Temple. Freeze Flesh has come in handy with the Rapax, and so has Quicksand. I am not sold on the damage-over-time spells. Nor have I experienced much success with the Instant Death or Deathwish spells.

Armormelt, baby. Always affects every monsters it touches.
I keep Armorplate, Enchanted Blade, Magic Screen, and
Missile Shield up at all times. I usually cast Soul Shield
and Element Sheild vs magic slingers. And finally, Guardian
Angel is a life saver.
Personally I never had much luck with the Webs, Paralyzes,
Freezes, etc. Same goes for the "insta-kill" type spells.

Helix

As an aside, with the disabling spells, I very seldom got all of the monsters in a group to be affected. What the freezes and webs, and even insanity did for me was things like worrying about 2 juggernauts at a time instead of all nine. When all my guys were still little, that was very very important.