LIFE Realm

[Seravy]

Still thinking about which name to choose for healing charge.

Life Surge is the best - but it suffers from containing the realm's name in it which we try to avoid usually, and we already have "Chaos Surge" - this naming would imply the two are similar spells with different realm specific properties when they are completely unrelated.

(anyone who have already seen Chaos Surge would think Life surge is a global that buffs Life units)

Augment Life
Bestow Life
Health Surge
These include either "Life" or "Surge" - better than both but not ideal. (I think Surge is a really good word for the spell's effect, but Chaos already used it)

Blessings of Health is straightforward, but we already have "Bless" so I prefer not to use the word.

Reinforce sounds a good name, the only problem is, it feels like something to use on an inanimate object, not a living target. Renewal, idk, feels more like a raise dead type spell - you can't renew something that is still at full health anyway.

Which leaves Divine Favor - very generic name for a Life spell that could do anything from healing to buffing, Ray of Hope which is the same but I'd probably imagine a laser beam attack spell first when hearing that, and Exaltation..I really can't say anything bad about that one except that it doesn't really imply healing, only adding extra max health.

...so, still unsure. Any objections against Exaltation?

I prefer to keep the effect unchanged, I really think healing 60% more per turn, while ignoring irrecoverable damage is enough on its own to be a rare - granting health over the maximal amount just makes it even better.  "+1 to defend" or anything else would mean it's a buff, and would require a free buff slot on the unit which we do not have so that is not an option.

I think Stream of Life is fine as is. The change to Great Wasting - more corruption - means it's no longer a good counter for it - the unrest reduction will be gone but the city will still lose all land terrain unless another, rarer spell is also on the city to clean it up. Famine and Evil Presence do much more than just add unrest, and if the Death wizard wants to reduce population, they can do so with Pestilence instead of relying on the much slower starvation effect.

[Nelphine]

How about overflowing health?

[Seravy]

How about overflowing health?

That looks like way too many characters.

[Catwalk]

Life spells are way unbalanced.
1) Raise Heroism upkeep to 2 and restrict it to non-heroes. Casting Heroism on a hero is silly, after all. The point is to turn ordinary troops into heroes, which it does.
2) Merge Holy Weapon into True Sight, so True Sight gives +1 to hit and stacks with Holy Arms. Also let it boost magic ranged attacks. Remove Holy Weapon.
3) Add something cool to replace Holy Weapon. Suggestion: Sanctuary. Costs 5 mana. Target unit gets -2 to hit and loses all remaining mana. If it dies and you win the battle, it returns to life. Can be used proactively against Crack's Call or other lethal spells. Fits the protective role of Life and makes hero strategies stronger in a balanced manner. Don't know how balanced this is or if there's any way to abuse it, and the AI might not be able to use it well. Criticize away, or come up with other spell ideas.

[Nelphine]

I kind of like the merge holy weapon into true sight, keep it uncommon idea. Would give true sight more flexibility.

However, it would leave life, the buffing realm, without a direct attack buff in common. I dislike that idea.

Given that as the two options I'd rather leave holy weapon as is.

I'm inclined to agree on heroism not being useable on heroes. Its an absolutely huge buff to heroes. (Things like sagemaster become utterly incredible, even if you don't risk the hero in combat.)

I'd also agree with the 2 mana upkeep (could even see 3), even though it only affects normal units and not heroes. Its basically as good as Lionheart when used on a new unit - how can that be worth only 1 upkeep?

[Domon]

2) Merge Holy Weapon into True Sight, so True Sight gives +1 to hit and stacks with Holy Arms. Also let it boost magic ranged attacks. Remove Holy Weapon.

this is a good idea. also, i can't cast holy weapon on heroes when holy arms is up, it that fixable? (or: are heroes affected by holy weapon?)

1) Raise Heroism upkeep to 2 and restrict it to non-heroes. Casting Heroism on a hero is silly, after all. The point is to turn ordinary troops into heroes, which it does.

upkeep increase wouldn't riun it. casting it on heroes is quite powerful, but i can live with it.

actually, making many power up, including this one, no usable on heroes could be a starting step if seravy decides that in the end, heroes are too powerful and warp the game. but in that case i'd overhaul them in more depth than that. (like, weakening their endgame powerlevel a lot and making them better as stackleaders than pressed together, but moviing resurrection to arcane so that you get less from investing in them, but you don't lose as much when you lose them)

3) Add something cool to replace Holy Weapon. Suggestion: Sanctuary. Costs 5 mana. Target unit gets -2 to hit and loses all remaining mana. If it dies and you win the battle, it returns to life. Can be used proactively against Crack's Call or other lethal spells. Fits the protective role of Life and makes hero strategies stronger in a balanced manner. Don't know how balanced this is or if there's any way to abuse it, and the AI might not be able to use it well. Criticize away, or come up with other spell ideas.

i'd rather have, i dunno, a niche combat summon (a spell that fills your ranks with randomly placed spearmen from random races? - "angry mob") than yet another powerup. life is stuffed with that.
maybe a combat enchantement that interferes with opponent forces, if mildly, for a change.

[Catwalk]

Why should Life have a direct attack buff in common? Life is the realm of protection, only reason we think it should make your units monsters is because MoM's poor design made it that way. And Life still has the amazing Heroism (still a very good common spell) that buffs attack handsomely. As you say yourself, True Sight would actually be a fun spell this way. It would be appropriately costed at 75, maybe with an upkeep of 1 mana.

I'm glad you agree on Heroism on heroes being silly, I feel that removing this is the best way to turn heroes into a balanced aspect of the game.

[Domon]

Why should Life have a direct attack buff in common?

maybe it shouldn't, but then, it would only mean it's better moved as uncommon.
consolidating spell effects a little doesn't just have effects on game balanc (that can still be adressed), but leavs slot open for new spells and more variety, so i think it's worthy tinkering on it.

[GermanJoey]

Catwalk, have you tried any of the other realms in depth? All realms have crazy spells. I don't think Life overall is unbalanced compared to the other realms, or even think it is the strongest realm.

That said, I totally agree about Heroism being broken on Heroes though. Not even counting combat, the passive effects it can give are absurd. For example, even a cheap hero like Zaldron can break the game when he comes early to a Life player, as his Sage trait will give you 24 rp/turn with Heroism - which might be more than double your entire power income by itself at that point.

[Catwalk]

Guilty as charged, I'm a sucker for life. You're probably right that I should try other realms more. However, my point was not that Life was overpowered. It was that Life was unbalanced internally in terms of spell rarity. Common spells feel stronger than Uncommon ones. You should always be excited to get higher rarity spells. In general, I feel the balance should be that more Common spells are cheap and cost efficient but less time efficient and stack efficient. For example, casting Fire Boly in combat should be quite cost efficient compared with, say, Warp Lightning but Warp Lightning should do damage much quicker. Fire Bolt shouldn't be rendered obsolete by Warp Lightning (you may want to conserve mana in easy battles).

Similar, early summons should be cost effective but you'll be hitting a stack limit of 9 units eventually. Cheaper summons should still have their place for being able to cover a larger area of less tactical importance, whereas the strong expensive summons have their place in your doom stacks.

For enchantments, the upkeep is the balancing factor. Higher rarity spells should offer more for the time it takes to cast them, at a cost of having significantly higher upkeep costs. That way the cheaper spells can still be a good use of your skill if you're limited on mana, if your mana base is strong you can freely blast through the more expensive options.

Does that make more sense?