Missle shield underappreciated?

[Cornbread]

I love this spell, always pick it as early as possible. It lets me start working on the air domain from the start, and blocks alot of attacks. Nothing is better than watching a queen ants attack be deflected. Right now anyways heh. For real though, I love how I can just ignore any and all missle users and just concentrate on the guys in front of me. I dont think I have taken more than 5 damage from any of the flying gun drone thingies, or those crazy plant spike throwing dealies. Anyways, since I always see people hype enchanted blade and armorplate, figured I would give props to a decent spell.

Cornbread

[gator]

In general, I think it is a good idea to have up all your buffs (Missile Shield, Armorplate, Magic Screen, Enchanted Blade) at maximum level at all times. I also like to cast all the buffs and Shadow Hound right before camping. This way they will still be in place if you are awoken by monsters and the Shadow Hound will not let them surprise you (plus it also leads to increases in Air).

A note about Missile Shield: It seems to me that Missile Shield gives increases to its realm much faster than the other buffs. Has anyone else noticed this?

[ChaosTheorist]

In general, I think it is a good idea to have up all your buffs (Missile Shield, Armorplate, Magic Screen, Enchanted Blade) at maximum level at all times. I also like to cast all the buffs and Shadow Hound right before camping. This way they will still be in place if you are awoken by monsters and the Shadow Hound will not let them surprise you (plus it also leads to increases in Air).?

There seem to be two schools of thought on this: either keep the castable-out-of-combat buffs and prots up all the time, or use X-Ray and maneuvering to control when/where combat happens, and cast them immediately before entering combat mode. Well, I guess there's a third variation--wait until combat actually starts, and cast them them during the first/second round--but I don't think it's too popular. I usually tend to use the same BPSS plan as you: keep my kids Bladed, Plated, Shielded, and Screened at all times. Especially once a magic-heavy party has two members who can use Portals: the magic fountain in Trynton makes it essentially "free" to keep them up all the time.

A note about Missile Shield: It seems to me that Missile Shield gives increases to its realm much faster than the other buffs. Has anyone else noticed this?

I think it's more because
1) You get Missile Shield and Enchanted Blade two levels before Armorplate and Magic Screen, so by the time you have all 4 you can typically cast the first two at higher power levels. Even though you're now casting all 4 fairly frequently, the higher power level raises the skill faster.
2) Unless your Mage-book caster is casting Shrill Sound in combat, Missile Shield may be the only Air-realm spell s/he is really using, so you see it getting 100% of the credit for skill bumps. In contrast, the Priest-book caster's Magic Screen is one of 5 Divine-realm spells that are in more-or-less constant use.

[Ziggurat]

I noticed that about Missle Shield. Your ability to use higher levels of it goes much faster than, say, Armor Plate. Some spells seem to have a much wider range of yellow and orange levels. Maybe it is because Missle Shield is a level 2 spell and Armor Plate is level 3. I made my recent party with a valkyrie, rogue, gadgeteer and alchemist. I found I had to change the alc to mage for three levs just to get Missle Shield and Enchanted Blade. That was enough, though. Maybe I'll try a "pure" alchemist in a larger party.

[Morlac]

Originally posted by ChaosTheorist: 2) Unless your Mage-book caster is casting Shrill Sound in combat, Missile Shield may be the only Air-realm spell s/he is really using, so you see it getting 100% of the credit for skill bumps. In contrast, the Priest-book caster's Magic Screen is one of 5 Divine-realm spells that are in more-or-less constant use.

yeah -- I think this is probably the cause. I notice something similar with armorplate, as it is often the first or one of the first earth realm spells gotten by Vi or my bishops. Remember also that increases to skills come really fast at first while the skill is low, and it tapers off as the skill gets higher.

[Nightowl2]

Yeah, my teams always traveled buffed to the max in every game. I loved that missile shield, too.

Waiting to buff until combat starts is always a bad move. You waste time there when you could be casting nasty stuff at the enemy.

Nightowl2

[Wereboar]

I too think missile shield is the most important of the buff spells. Only few of my ironman parties got killed after the King Crab, and most of them were hybrid-only parties without a (decent) missile shield in the swamp or the entrance to Martens Bluff (i hate these Deathsting Apusses)