Offensive spells - damage or hindrance?

[Dan Speziale]

I go with both offensive spells and defensive spells, as well as those that protect my party. I'm right about at the Mines now and this has been my strategy so far:

Alchemist casts Summon Elemental
Bishop casts Summon Elemental
Bard uses Rousing Drums (Haste)
Psionic casts Insanity

Others attack using range weapons

2nd round:

Alchemist casts Ring of Fire (if it looks as though combat will get to close fighting), then Whipping Rocks (or Crush for one enemy)
Bishop casts Shrill Sound or Magic Missiles
Bard uses Piercing Pipes
Psyionic casts Psionic Fire or many multiple offensive spells

After this, magic users check on Stamina levels during attacks

After looking this over, I realise I rely far more on offensive spells, but every battle is different.

Dan

[DraconisRex]

Both.

Damage (Area of Effect (AOE) & Singular Creture (SC)) thoughts:

AOE - damage spells work wonders against nuciense enemies. Also there are a few encounters than many have had trouble with, yet I've breezed through, even on the first game, because a few rocks coming at a crowd of ants, etc., will wipe out a lot of them quickly. Individually, ants are weak. But they have a real tendency to go for the lightly armored bards, thieves and mages.

AOE spells take planning and a fast party. Call-up walk mode, based on your *slowest* PC, and target the incoming creatures at range. Unless they're really, really fast, you'll get in at least one good volley.


Singluar creature damage spells are good when fighting a strong enemy that is few in number. I don't care how much work you put into combat skills for a mage, he/she just isn't going to be that effective with melee weapons. In these cases, a few energy blasts or mind blasts will help you achieve your ends in an efficient method.


Enemy Effecting (AOE & SC) thoughts:

Paralyze is a darn good SC spell. If it works, you'll chop big chunks off of a tough enemy with your melee guys. There are others, like mind blast, energy blast, acid spash, that do good damage against certain creatures. This is mostly because they are weak against that magic realm.

A couple of good AOE's are sleep and terror. A nice 7 man Higardi patrol throwing death stars at you can easily be handled with those spells.


Party Effecting spells:

These are great and it's tough to succeed without them. Bless and enchanted blade are a must in the early game. Stamina is a great SC spell that really helps keep your Bard playing at full efficiency.

[Kelvin]

quote:

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...and have often been impossible to target on the enemy because the targeting mechanism requires you to drag the targeting staff around on the ground to reach your foe - no casting fireballs up at a catwalk. The enemies, on the other hand, seem to have no trouble doing this Am I missing something?

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The manual says to hold down the right mouse button if you want the 3D targeting staff to move up or down. I have not tried this myself,
but the next time I have problems on the catwalks in Trynton it may be useful

[RadeonX]

thanks for the suggestions! the general consensus seems to be that status spells are more effective and useful than damage spells. damage spells seem to lose a lot of their effectiveness as the game progresses since we encounter an ever-increasing number of magic-casting enemies. incidentally, i'm still in the earliest stages of the game and thus have had remarkable success with damage spells (besides, the majority of the spells offered to my casters are damage spells). thanks to all of you for your experiences in later parts of the game. i'll be sure to buff up my status spells. btw, Kinfyr, your style seems really interesting and i'm beginning to see how it can work wonders. for example, i fought a hogar by casting guardian angel on my front line and lo and behold no one died (my party's still pretty weak)! my question is, how do you balance your tactic with the consideration that the spells you throw out affect 1 person instead of 6 and the fact that meanwhile you're buffing up 1 guy, your enemies are shooting spells affecting your entire group? if only 1 of your guys is functioning, you probably can't win anyway

[phoenixsl]

you should try out Noxious Fumes, at lower levels the dmg is good, but at higher levels the diabling effect is very useful.

My favorite mage spells are

low level party (up to 15)
Noxious Fumes, Magic Missles, Shrill Sound

higer level party
Insantity, freeze flesh, and Summon Elemental

[Elhana]

power casting which you get when your intelligence hits 100 is useful. You also have to use your mythology to check the resistances of the creatures you are fighting. If the creature has a 100 resistance of water, don't cast iceball at it.

The damage spells are suitable for taking out large group of irritating and weaker creatures. Like if you get surrounded by those wasps, flying snakes, or ants, or millipedes ... And if you have 2 or more castors that can all do heavy damage spell, so much the better.

Take millipedes ... low fire resist. stay at thrown range and split out stuff. You do the status spells, you still have to walk up and kill them one by one, very long and irritating. I got 2 bishops, one cast fireball, the other go firebomb ... no more millipedes. : )

The trick is to plan your spells according to what you are fighting. There are spells like crush, dehydrate, boiling blood and concussion for the single big nasty monsters. If they are high in resist, hex them first. If its a bunch of big nasty close range crocs that you don't want near your party, insane them first before you do anything.

There is no rule to say that using status spells first before you slower blast them to bits is cheap. Whatever gets the job done! [img]smile.gif[/img]