Pole/survey: Most useless spell in the game.

[leuchovius]

There you got it!
Couldn't agree more. All other spells, including firestorm, can be very useful, but slow really, really SUCK.

[Mage_77]

quote:

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SLOW .

What with combat taking soooooo loooooong at times, this spell is just what you need (NOT). Handier than a pause button - need a quick sandwich or a loo break - cast slow in the first round on a large group. Coma back in 15 mins to see if it's your turn yet.

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Gotta Disagree here. Slow is one of the better defensive spells in Wizardry 8. Yes it does take longer for fights and i put it under more as a situational spell.

I often use it on stuff that i run into that is often 5+ levels above me. It reduces a mobs chances to hit you and increases your chances to hit a mob.

[Solomon]

The results of the slow spell are useful, it's just how the effect is depicted that is horrible to live (hopefully) through.

I agree that firestorm is a big disappointment -- even at a high power level it hardly seems to make a difference.

[Jem]

quote:

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Originally posted by MaskedFrog:
As a second choice I would have to choose Hypnotic Lure. I tried using it once then never bothered anymore.

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I have to disagree with Hypnotic Lure. It was very helpful to me when I was on the roads and at the mines where I kept getting hit with 20 or so creatures at one time. Use the lure and it would normally pull at least 1/2 of them away so you could concentrate on the rest without taking as much damage.

Heck, even Rapax were affected by it at higher levels. Not that I used the spell itself, mind you -- I always used my gadgeteer's Lava Lamp to cast it.

It even came in useful at the fight with the Sorceress Queen and her cronies because I used it in the doorway without going into combat and it lured all of the cultists out so I could take them out in one combat -- most of the cultists didn't even cast spells once combat did start because of the lure. When I did enter the hall to take the others on (two Death Lords & queen) it was a snap - without those eye-for-an-eye and summon elemental spells the cultists cast, the battle was much easier.

Towards the end of the game it can be useless but it even made the fights in Rapax Rift and Castle easier to survive because if they are staring at the lure they aren't casting spells on you. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Pyrates]

Yep, I also found slow useful several times, e.g. for the vast hordes of juggernauts... Insanity was of really great use against 13 Depth Dwellers, most of them went mad and helped my finish the job. I haven't ever thought of Light as making it easier for enemies to see me, maybe that's why I had a hard time sneaking past nessie even with chamaeleon...

Did you ever make the mistake to cast slow on a bunch of millipedes? Woa, THIS is what you need to get your housework done, I vacuumed my room, wiped the dust AND cleaned all the dishes...


Never forget your towels, cheers
Philipp

[Rhea]

There are some spells, like Sleep, that are useful in the beginning of the game, but not later. I don't use Light much, although in most CRPG's it's a standby.

Personally, I LOVE Insanity, or even better, Pandemonium. I usually have the Bard use one or the other, then have one of the spell casters use Freeze All or Web. Then, while they're all stuck or better yet, babbling or hacking at each other, I can move in and slice and dice. [img]smile.gif[/img] There's something kinda wonderful about sitting back and watching your enemies hack each other to bits!

[ObverseReaction]

I'd personally vote for Dracon Breath. A spell that simply gives someone else the ability to breath (which isn't very effective in the first place) isn't terribly great.

But overall, I'd have to say mindread. It and charm are both mildly useful at best for practise reasons, but charm is much better to use than mindread. I've never got a piece of information from mindread that I couldn't get just by talking.

O.R.

[Jem]

quote:

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Originally posted by ObverseReaction:
I've never got a piece of information from mindread that I couldn't get just by talking.

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I know of a few things you can get from MindRead that you can't get from talking but I'm not sure how useful they are. If you use MindRead on the Umpani NPCs, you'll get a weird word in allcaps. For example: Saxx thinks of "VAUGHN". Turns out those are the passwords for the NPCs in the EWAXX computer. If you enter the NPCs name as the username and the mindread word as the password you can get into the database. The reason I don't know if this is useful is because I've not found anything using an NPCs password that I couldn't find out using my own. It could be I'm just not using the right keywords, however.

For the most part, I'd have to agree with you that the spell is useless in Wiz8. It just doesn't give you anything other than a few laughs when you read something like "I can't believe Balbrak asked Sparkle for a date" from the bartender. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Mage_77]

I dunno if it was your first time through O.R it might be different with mindread.

He'li - Come sup with a thought about a female who became a rapax templar. (being a newbie this was my first tip off about the rapax and a possible alliance to them). I went through the game twice before i ever visted a board for Wiz 8.

Balbrak - Matilda
Kunar - Tech
Saxx - Vaughn
Panrack - EGGLES
Bildublu - HPIOU1

Supposedly using the higher ranking npc's name/p-w will allow you to get into the files that are listed as confdential uner your own name/p-w although ive never seem'd to have found any information outside that which i could find with my own name/p-w.

[Nordoki]

Interesting responses. I have played games where it was very clear which spell would be considered useless. This game seems to find some who like what others don't. I tend to ignore ones I think I can do without, but in all honesty will very rarely get it just to try it out.

Good to know this game is a bit better balanced in that regard.