DEATH Realm

[Nelphine]

I'd rather do something like 230/(x+3), and just make it slightly weaker in general.

Also to answer my own question: Final Wave and Massacre are better when heroes stacking spell saves cast them. But that seems a little niche for TWO very rare spells.

[Nelphine]

Nope, Air Ship was literally undamaged, and got one shot. If there's a bug in the spell, that may be why it seems overpowered. However I was wrong about the experience, apparently my merc Air Ships weren't Elite they were only Veteran.

[Seravy]

Nope, Air Ship was literally undamaged, and got one shot.  If there's a bug in the spell, that may be why it seems overpowered.  However I was wrong about the experience, apparently my merc Air Ships weren't Elite they were only Veteran.

I suspect the enemy army had units with Magic Immunity or Cold Immunity in it?
So the effect was not actually divided between 9 units. Units immune to the spell are not counted when dividing damage and won't take any. If there are 7 war mammoths, 1 golem and 1 air ship, the air ship takes the whole damage as though it was alone.

[Nelphine]

Oh I completely forgot that. Yes all 8 other units were war mammoths. There! Knew there was something, although definitely not a bug, just me forgetting cold immunity matters.

Anywho, that's one things sorted out. Overall though, still like to hear thoughts on the comparison to final word and massacre. (Excepting super spell save stacked heroes, as they obviously love massacre forever.)

[Seravy]

Oh I completely forgot that. Yes all 8 other units were war mammoths.  There! Knew there was something, although definitely not a bug, just me forgetting cold immunity matters.

Anywho, that's one things sorted out.  Overall though, still like to hear thoughts on the comparison to final word and massacre. (Excepting super spell save stacked heroes, as they obviously love massacre forever.)

I found massacre to be a better choice to use in about half my battles, so that one is fine.
Never researched Annihilate that game (I assume you mean that spell by final word?), but it should still be slightly better against normal units, or much better if there are many units and you need things to die, not just get damaged and survive anyway. There is a huge extra feature on it however : It works on units that are immune to cold, so it's still the ONLY spell in the realm that affects enemy death creatures. If you need to kill Death Knights or Demon Lords, it's your only option. Plus it's the best thing on mammoths or heroes with cold immunity and below 17 resistance as well. Then there is the ability to use spell save items with it, or combine with mind storm...

[Nelphine]

Right, but that makes Annihilate super niche. Why is the very rare spell better only in niche situations? And massacre is only better in half the battles.. but it's very rare? Very rares should be better than rares in similar situations. Especially when that one rare spell is covering the role of both of those very rares. If you could only get 3 very rare spells, and you already had Wave of Despair, is there ever a game when you wouldn't just cringe if one (or worse, both) of your very rares were Annihilate or Massacre?

Also, I don't think the Air Ship should have died. Its an area of effect spell - why is all the damage focused onto the one that isn't cold immune? I thought the whole point was that it couldn't be controlled. Having cold/magic immune creatures should should actually somewhat help all the units in this case, because it should split the damage, and then the parts that go on the cold/magic immune creatures do nothing. Yes, you'll need to teach the AI that, but, otherwise, in the future, I'll simply never attack with the air ship - which means I'll end up being forced to move the air ship adjacent, attack with the mammoths, then move the air ship in (which leads into the problem where that allows you to continue moving/attacking with the mammoths). I don't think any spell should nigh force play that will result in that kind of abuse of game mechanics that can't be fixed. And yes you can say 'don't do it', and for someone who is active on these forums, that's reasonable - but for people who don't read all of the threads, I don't think it's reasonable.

Also, I do think it's great that cold immunity works on it. In my beastman game, the troll city I got would have been extremely helpful. Given the power of Wave of Despair, having a niche unit that negates it is great.

[Seravy]

If you could only get 3 very rare spells, and you already had Wave of Despair, is there ever a game when you wouldn't just cringe if one (or worse, both) of your very rares were Annihilate or Massacre?

No, I would be happy. It means I can reliably kill any enemy army containing any types of units so I can base my strategy on that. (weaker garrisons, cloud of shadow on cities if I have it, high casting skill)
These are spells that have 3 entirely different purpose and cannot be compared by "which is stronger".

which means I'll end up being forced to move the air ship adjacent, attack with the mammoths, then move the air ship in

The game forces you to play smarter and you think that's a flaw? I don't follow this logic, this should be a great thing. I mean, keeping vulnerable units away from battles against a Death wizard finally being important to do.
Transports being able to carry already used units into another battle is an entirely unrelated problem...

As for why it works this way? Primarily as a "counter" to the very overpowered magic immunity. Yes, you can have your entire army immune to spells, but if it's dispelled from even one unit, at least that unit will be dead. Secondarily, because the spell is there to force the other party to bring more, weaker units into battles that can be killed, in other words to force losses onto the enemy (or player). If you could assign 8 skeletons or magic immune golems along with your hero/very rare creature to keep it safe, while it does all the work and the other units are there just for show, that would mean the spell fails at this goal. And finally, because it is logical that you need protection on the unit you want to protect for it to be safe from a spell : everything else in the game works like that. Your hero won't take less damage from flame strike/fire bolt/etc if you have 8 fire elementals next to him, so having skeletons shouldn't protect from wave of despair.

Or I can be technical and say magic immunity prevents targeting by spells, but damage is distributed between targets only. There is one other spell in the game where this can and does apply : Call Lightning. 8 magic immune units and 1 vulnerable? The vulnerable unit will eat all 5 lightning bolts every turn. (same for the fortress lightning)
Imagine the "wave" as an actual wave of water, and magic immune units as "hills" where water cannot enter. Will the only valley between hills get all the water and become completely submerged? It sure will...

[Nelphine]

I disagree that the transport problem is unrelated. In most fights, transports aren't crazy high on the priority list. And if they are, there aren't that many spells that one shot transports (I can't think of any others, except save or dies, but since air ships don't have low resistance, save or dies require a lot of work - like a stacked hero - to be reliable.)

Which means, I can afford to just bring the transport into most battles. Occasionally, the AI gets lucky, and kills it - ok, I have to replace it. But, against a death wizard with Wave of Despair, if I'm transporting creatures immune to Wave of Despair, the transport will die, every time. That slows down logistics too much - which means, I must stop bringing the transport into battle. But, I'm not going to just not bring the transport back into the stack with the other units. It will die if left alone. Which means, Wave of Despair will force me into situations where I always have extra overland movement on my kill stack, after combat has already happened. Again, it is an abusable mechanic, but up until now, I could just use up my transports movement and that would always end at the same time as the units its transporting. Now, against death wizards with this exact spell, I'll always have extra movement left. The game, due to this combination, is encouraging me to abuse the transport problem.

I do NOT think this spell should be a counter for magic immunity. Magic immunity has lots of problems, yes. But this spell was designed for a variety of other flaws in the death realm - NOT as a solution to a flaw in the sorcery realm. ESPECIALLY since it doesn't actually do anything to the creature with magic immunity - it simply encourages using even more magic immunity on everything.

If you want to fix Magic Immunity, make it Very Rare, make it less powerful (closer to Invulnerability), do something else. I don't think you should design spells around it in other realms that create other situations.


Edit: That being said, if you cannot get around the mechanical issue of targetting, well, that's a done deal. But I think balance wise, and gameplay wise, it's not a good design. (Although I think all you'd have to do is have the damage done based on number of enemy units, not targettable enemies. But I have no idea if that's actually a variable you can use.)

On topic of the very rare spells: When would you be happy having all 3 of Wave of Despair, Annihilate, and Massacre? And NOT having some other Very Rare spell - like Summon Demon Lord or Death Knights, or one of the globals, or Animate Dead (a case could be made that Pestilence is too weak, so you might be happy in that case). Do you actually fight numerous war mammoths? (I rarely see the AI using them, especially not by the time I have very rares - most of their myrror cities are dark elves.) Are the heroes with cold immunity ever actually strong enough to be an issue? (Heck, would AI ever even keep those heroes by the time you have very rares?) You've said that the 3 spells are for different purposes - I don't see it (again, aside from when using a hero stacking spell save items. If that is the niche the very rares are for, I firmly believe that is far too niche) - very rare death units? Without stacking save penalties, you simply aren't going to affect them with the very rare spells (you might get lucky on death knights, if they aren't buffed with resist magic or anything), so that falls into the far too niche I've already mentioned.

[GermanJoey]

I'm not too sure how to feel about the Magic Immunity issue, but the cold immunity issue w/ Wave of Despair seems abuseable against the AI...

Like, imagine you're playing against a fellow death wizard. He's got himself a super-stack with a few uber-heroes, some death knights, a pair of demon lords to round it out. You send in a single golem and boom - bye-bye heroes.

[Seravy]

Which means, I can afford to just bring the transport into most battles.

Interesting, I almost always kept my transport away from battle even before this spell. If the units are strong enough, the AI will target the transport and will kill it. (Nature has ice bolt and petrify, Sorcery will confuse, Chaos has plenty of nukes, only Life is safe enough to bring the transport into battle.)
So for me this is not a new thing. However if you do enter a second battle with your units, you must do it using the transport and it will die, so you actually get less benefit than before - only the movement, but not the ability to fight twice without losing the transport.

But I think balance wise, and gameplay wise, it's not a good design.

The decision favors Death (which was too weak) and makes it a little bit harder for Sorcery (which was overpowered). I think that is helping the balance and gameplay.

Do you actually fight numerous war mammoths?

In the one game I played to test the spell, I fought 1-2 of those every battle, the Myrran wizard started with trolls. However Wave is bad against 9 stacks in general - in fact it becomes better if there are mammoths mixed in. So against any low or mid res 9 stack, I used massacre. Against the 9 stacks containing very rare creatures (no one actually had any which is why I didn't research the spell) or lone mammoths, Annihilate is better. It could have also been a much better solution to the massive amount of Earth Elementals summoned by the enemy every battle, as it has 100% chance to kill them with black prayer and eternal night.

Are the heroes with cold immunity ever actually strong enough to be an issue?

There are some pretty powerful predefined items that contain Inner Fire, so yes.

Without stacking save penalties

If you only get a few very rares, that means you also play other realms. While there aren't too many such spells, it does mean you can use Mind Storm if your other realm is Sorcery. Or Call Chaos in red which has a tiny chance to to Warp Creature for 0 resistance at save -15.
Also, with only a Black Prayer and Eternal Night in play, you already have -8 save total vs fantastic and -10 vs normal units. Enough to have a 20-40% chance to kill most very rare units. (Colossus, Sky Drake and Arch Angel are the three you can't kill this way)