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Let's rate spells! 1.31 or insecticide version. My post will be very long in the end so this is a work in progress.
My ratings are based on accessibility (spell research, meaning I may overrate 'commons' and underrate 'very rares'), versatility, potential for abuse, cost, and sheer power.
1 - Broken - too underpowered or useless
1.5 - Poor - but not completely useless
2 - Weak
2.5 - Ok - Below average or limited in use
3 - Meets expectations - normal
3.5 - Exceeds expectations of a spell
4 - Excellent
4.5 - Really impressive and/or overpowered
5 - Broken - too overpowered and easy to abuse
Overall: Life > Sorcery >>> Chaos > Nature > Death
Arcane
Spell of Return - 1.5 - needs lower cost
Magic Spirit - 3.5 - don't think programmers thought of exploration exploit
Dispel Magic - 3 - balanced
Summoning Circle - 2.5
Disenchant Area - 3 - balanced
Recall Hero - 3 balanced
Detect Magic - 3 - great with spell blast
Enchant Item - 2.5 - this early in the game, I take rewards and use mana for other uses
Summon Hero - 3
Awareness - 2 - way too expensive
Disjunction - 2.5 - should have more exponential potency, lowest cost is most efficient
Create Artifact - 3.5 - better as it is more versatile, allowing ease explloits
Summon Champion - 4 - risky but a good champion can win you the game
Nature
Common - spotty beginning: a few very good spells, but lacks good combat and summoning spells. Nature wizards have serious challenge.
Earth to Mud - 3 - makes ranged units even better
Resist Elements - 3 - I think this one is underrated. It's so cheap and useful against nature nodes (sprites, basilisks, cockatrices, gorgons, etc) and some other units like priests/shamans.
Wall of Stone - 3
Giant Strength - 3 - early on, you have spearmen and they need this spell
Web - 4 - useful, versatile, cost-effective
War Bears - 2.5 - unexciting but sometimes a better alternative to spending food early on to take neutral towns. 1 upk with conjurer.
Stone Skin - 1.5 - this spell sucks, especially as a combat spell
Water walking - 3
Sprites - 2 - overpriced but they work pretty well within nature nodes and the mana earned from them will cover their cost
Earth Lore - 4 - excellent spell to figure out where the towns are and determine where everything is.
Uncommon: Covers some of the early weaknesses, plus Path-finding, but there's also a handful of weak spells. Therefore, nature realm continues having problems, making it very difficult to play nature wizards.
Crack's Call - 4 - Not a big fun of such randomness but I admit this spell is very very good when it works.
Nature's Eye - 1 - Who would use this?
Ice Bolt - 3.5 - A direct-damage spell for such a realm is a big relief, especially when you can max out the attack.
Giant Spiders - 1.5 - a free 'web' spell is nice but the unit itself disappoints to a massive degree.
Change Terrain - 3.5 - I'd rather use this than summon units (well, until I get basilisks)
Path Finding - 5 - ridiculous and too cheap, breaks game balance but it's a good thing a weak realm gets it
Cockatrices - 2 - Too expensive for a suicide unit and too risky when ranged units are involved. Gave it 2 stars simply because its attack is among the most powerful in the game.
Transmute - 3 - getting gems or mithril is very welcome!
Nature's Cures - 3 - Rather pricey but you can become dependent to this with fast, path-finding units.
Basilisk - 3.5 - Balanced out by the poor resistance. One of the few 'uncommon' summons that is worth using.
Rare - too many weak spells and there's a chance you will not get its best, essential spells - nature realm is simply underwhelming.
Elemental Armor - 1.5 - While the effect is nice, usage are too limited and spell is too expensive.
Petrify - 1 - Pointless when you have Crack's Call, Basilisk, Gorgons, Cockatrices, need I say more? Petrification gets boring by now.
Stone Giant - 2.5 - Not a bad unit, but the realm has better stuff. Unit is unfocused and you have to time well those ranged attacks (7.5 avg dmg can be good)
Iron Skin - 3.5 - +5 armor is nothing to laugh at! Best used in conjunction with top-tier heroes and summoning units (gorgons and above)
Ice Storm - 1.5 - very underwhelming damage for its cost
Earthquake - 2.5 - Half-powered cracks call to all prior to conquest is nice, but you can lose some seriously good buildings in the way
Gorgons - 3.5 - Extremely expensive and you'd wish it had 1 more resistant point, but attacks are devastating and this unit is so hard to kill, so the price is still worth it. Unit of choice to conquer nature nodes.
Move Fortress - 2 - too expensive to successfully pull off an escape when about to lose your capital. However, useful if starting with an unfriendly race
Gaia's Blessing - 4 - Very powerful city spell
Earth Elemental - 3.5 - Its attack and hp ratings are insanely high, accounting for high research cost.
Very Rare - Nature gets very good by this point, but usually one wins the game this late regardless of what spells you have.
Regeneration - 3.5 - expensive but it's such a good unit buff
Behemoth - 3 - Quite satisfactory, but boring?
Entangle - 3 - nice one as many units can end up immobile. Works great with 'call lightning'
Nature Awareness - 1 - too expensive and it also slows down the game too much. I never use this.
Call Lightning - 4.5 - If you also have entangle or 'earth to mud' or simply fast units, you can win battles with no casualties. One of the best combat spells in the game
Colossus - 3 - Very well-rounded unit with powerful 'first strike'.
Earth Gate - 3 - Convenient city enchantment for finishing off a game
Herb Mastery - 2 - Obviously a good spell, but 1000 mana is a large price to pay for that benefit.
Great Wyrm - 4 - Probably the overall best 'very rare' summoning unit in the game
Nature's Wrath - 4 - Limited, but the sheer devastation wins you the game against remaining chaos/death wizards. Particularly good as nature has many weaknesses against death wizards.
Chaos
Common - Very good beginning thanks to hell hounds.
Warp Wood - 3.5 - Guaranteed to make some ranged units useless (if low melee). Useful throughout the game.
Disrupt - 1.5 - Very expensive for destroying just 1 section of a wall.
Fire Bolt - 2.5 - If maxed, not a bad direct damage spell against low-figure units.
Hell Hounds - 4.5 - On par with ghouls, nagas, war bears but costing half as much. Too overpowered and begs to be used early in game.
Corruption - 2 - Limited use for players, but not for opponents.
Eldritch Weapon - 3.5 - In general, the effect is 67% as powerful as having 'armor piercing', not bad for 1 upkeep! Best used overland and for multi-figured units.
Wall of Fire - 2.5 - Very expensive but worth considering on 'hard' and 'impossible' settings if your towns get attacked by neutral forces often.
Shatter - 3.5 - Capable of making a military unit useless in combat for just 12 mana. Might as well consider such unit dead.
Warp Creature - 2 - too costly and random to be much of use
Fire Elemental - 3 - Sometimes a better choice than fire bolt.
Uncommon - Very hit-or miss - the most easily researchable 4 spells being the better ones.
Lightning Bolt - 4.5 - Massive damage potential for 300 research cost.
Fire Giant - 3.5 - Rather weak melee unit but with a lot of potential - wall crusher, well-timed 4dmg rocks, and rare mountaineer skill that can allow pathfinding if alongside a forester unit.
Chaos Channels - 4.5 (4 with insecticide) - 2/3 chance that you'll get a very good bonus for no upkeep: flying or +3 armor. Firebreath is not terrible with a 6-8 figure unit. Even better when combined with 'warp reality'
Flame Blade - 4 - expensive to cast in combat, but excellent overland unit buff, especially for ranged units!
Gargoyle - 1.5 - high armor, but low hp so it's not as sturdy as it pretends to be. Unforgivably low melee.
Fire Ball - 2 - Lightning bolt (and flame strike) is so much better
Doom Bat - 1.5 - borders on useless, not to mention how overpriced it is.
Raise Volcano - 1.5 - too expensive as an economy-attack
Immolation - 1 (2.5 with ranged bug) - Weak attack easily blocked by armor, but more useful with the ranged immolation bug.
Chimeras - 2.5 - well-balanced but very expensive flying units.
Rare - Some overpowered spells in here make chaos a pretty good realm to use late in the game
Warp Lightning - 2.5 - Less damaging than lightning bolt and doom bolt, less predictable than the latter
Metal Fires - 1 - simply pathetic
Chaos Spawn - 2 - Unreliable. Can defeat many units with ease but many units can defeat this one with ease. Moves too slow.
Doom Bolt - 4.5 - about as cost-effective as lightning bolt but without the variance. Predictable nature is a great thing as a finishing move against injured unit.
Magic Vortex - 3.5 - Great spell against a concentration of units. Risky otherwise.
Efreet - 1 - useless
Fire Storm - 3 - Not the most versatile and also with high casting cost, but against an army of vulnerable multi-figures before combat it's excellent
Warp Reality - 5 - Cripples enemy units damage potential to an extreme extent while your chaos-channeled or summoning units emerge as victors.
Flame Strike - 5 - opponent wizards' unit stacks tend to focus on 4 to 8 figure units. Flame Strike mostly obliterates them.
Chaos Rift - 3 - much superior city destroyer than raise volcano
Very Rare - Somewhat disappointing, but great drake combined with 'warp reality' makes the game pretty easy to win
Hydra - 3 - 90hp but too slow overland and in combat. Ranged units can damage unit to such an extent that melee potential is not fully reached due to lack of heads.
Disintegrate - 4 - There are a handful of strong summoning units with 9 resistance. Having a guaranteed kill is a great thing.
Meteor Storm - 2 - Not very useful in the hands of a player, but pretty harsh when coming from an opponent.
Great Wasting - 2.5 - Not very useful in the hands of a player, but pretty harsh when coming from an opponent.
Call Chaos - 1.5 - too random, too expensive
Chaos Surge - 3 - Very expensive, but great in conjunction with chaos channels and hydra (and warp reality)
Doom Mastery - 3.5 - a different approach to cast chaos-channels.
Great Drake - 4 - Game over if you have warp reality.
Call The Void - 4 - overpowered but fun spell, yet I wish for it to eventually make a city disappear for some reason.
Armageddon - 3.5 - Has an added benefit of giving you mana on top of weakening enemies' economy. A good choice if planning to win via spell of mastery.
Sorcery
Common - early spells tend to be consistently advanced and/or overpowered, providing a major early advantage given some spells remain useful throughout game
Resist Magic - 3.5 - powerful and cost-effective situational unit buff
Dispel Magic True - 4.5 - massive boost to regular version remains useful throughout game
Floating Island - 4.5 - being able to circumvent time, money, and food spent on building shipyard and galleys and allowing it to appear anywhere. Simply outstanding.
Guardian Wind - 4 - can't be dispelled, powerful early effect.
Phantom Warriors - 5 - overpowered damage potential for its cost when a player uses it well. Few enemies with immunity. Player can cast it many times in a row.
Confusion - 5 - resistance of -4 is insanely broken for the kind of effect you get.
Word of Recall - 4 - Very versatile spell with a great benefit of moving units across long distance with ease.
Counter Magic - 4.5 - More useful during mid to late game stages.
Nagas - 2 - slow and expensive but very damaging to low-tier units (neutral town defenders)
Psionic Blast - 3.5 - Unusually advanced cost and damage potential but less cost-effective than phantom warriors.
Uncommon - ironically a weaker set than the 'common' spells of sorcery
Blur - 1 - damage reduction marginal.
Disenchant True - 4.5 - massive boost to regular version remains useful throughout game
Vertigo - 2 - powerful to-hit penalty, but unit doesn't get a resistance penalty
Spell Lock - 2 - limited and situational, but worth casting if you have various unit enchantments.
Enchant Road - 1.5 - Terrible use of precious mana, can backfire too.
Flight - 4 - Excellent ability to give your unit, movement bonus better than your typical flying unit.
Wind Mastery - 1.5
Spell Blast - 4 - Requires 'detect magic' to be useful. You can keep your enemies in check and prevent devastating spells like 'great wasting'
Aura of Majesty - 3 - Sometimes you need to buy time so it's a pretty useful spell. Good spell for trading!
Phantom Beast - 4 - Great combat summon, but phantom warriors are better in most situations.
Rare - Well above average set of 'rare' spells help solidify 'sorcery' realm as best non-life realm
Disjunction True - 4.5 - Situational, but a clear lifesaver
Invisibility - 4 - Expensive but opens the door for many exploits
Wind Walking - 3.5 - Usually worth the expense if you have a 3+ movement unit in your stack of doom (a hero?)
Banish - 4 - Very powerful resist-or-die spell
Storm Giant - 2.5 - It's an adequate ranged magical unit. Nothing more, nothing less
Air Elemental - 4 - Exceptionally powerful against normal units as well as ranged units.
Mind Storm - 5 - too overpowered
Stasis - there's a potential exploit, not too familiar with this to rate it.
Magic Immunity - 4.5 - exceptionally powerful benefit that didn't get a '5' simply because it's too expensive in combat to cast. Upkeep is unusually low.
Haste - 4 - Excellent benefit, especially for well-experienced heroes or units with first strike.
Very Rare
Djinn - 1.5 - It can be versatile, but these are pathetic combatants
Spell Ward - 2 - too expensive for a city protection spell. Too limited in usage against AI
Creature Binding - 2 - the resistance penalty isn't all that impressive for its cost
Mass invisibility - 4.5 - Very tide-turning of a spell.
Great Unsummoning - 3.5 - Devastating effect against conjurer wizards. Sky drakes are immune.
Spell Binding - 3 - disjunction true is cheaper, but this spell is worth researching to steal a global enchantment you can't cast from another realm (e.g. crusade)
Flying Fortress - 1
Sky Drake - 4 - One of the best summoning units in the game thanks to magic immunity and high mobility. Great units to combine with 'time stop'
Suppress Magic - 4.5 - Extremely crippling to enemy wizards. More cost effective than 'spell blast'
Time Stop - 4.5 - getting free time is exceptionally powerful.
Death - Has three major weaknesses: lack of node associated with realm, weaknesses against life realm, and major diplomatic penalties
Common - Not good enough to protect you early on, especially regarding combat spells.
Skeleton - 3.5 - A very cheap summoning spell you will depend on early on to conquer neutral towns and maybe even a wizard's city.
Weakness - 4 - Removing 2 melee/ranged points can often make a multi-figure unit nearly useless for a dirt-cheap and difficult to resist curse. Needed to conquer nearby neutral towns.
Dark Rituals - 3 - only useful later in game or in conjunction with Infernal Power retort.
Cloak of Fear - 3.5 - Insecticide version is not bugged so I expect this spell to be quite useful early in the game.
Black Sleep - 4.5 - Very dangerous throughout the game due to -2 resistance penalty.
Ghouls - 3 -In conjunction with skeletons and 'weakness/black sleep', you get free units. Pretty good combatant as well but cannot self-heal.
Life Drain - 2.5 - Low potential damage from it. The 'skill' bonus is pretty neat though.
Terror - 1.5 - Gives a resistance bonus, not worth it!
Mana Leak - 3.5 - Best against ranged magical units, but can also drain from opponents as well.
Darkness - 3 - Decent overall boost to all your units. Main beneficiaries are skeletons early on and later werewolves/shadow demons.
Uncommon - Some good spells and summoning units for sure, but not strong enough to redeem severe diplomatic penalty of death
Drain Power - 3 - Good spell to cast before combat if enemy doesn't have much mana. Great spell if 1vs1 as opponent loses more mana than you.
Possession - 3.5 - better than outright killing a unit
Lycanthropy - 4 - At first glance, it's a rather average unit. However, If you are an alchemist or recruit units from a city with alchemist guid, they have +2 to hit. They also get up to +9 armor against non-enchanted military units. So much potential!
Black Prayer - 4 - Harsh resistance penalty on top of various other penalties.
Black Channels - 1.5 - Only useful for regenerating units and on top of that, it's very expensive.
Night Stalkers - 3.5 - Given that you will likely utilize black prayer, these units with very low upkeep can decimate foes.
Subversion - 1.5 - Very expensive for a subtle effect that is less significant in higher difficulties.
Wall of Darkness - 2 - powerful but too situational for its cost.
Berserk - 3.5 - Many units greatly benefit from this, one example being the werewolves.
Shadow Demons - 4 - Another greatly needed summoning spell to survive the early to mid stages of the game.
Rare - An excellent summoning unit, very hit-or-miss set of spells. Bad luck (no wraiths) can ruin you.
Wraith Form - 2.5 - benefits somewhat underwhelming other than 'pathfinding-like' effect.
Wrack - 2.5 - Situational given units must resist +1 and only useful against multi-figure units.
Evil Presence - 1 - useless
Wraiths - 5 - Exceeds expectations to the point of being too powerful. Extreme melee damage against low-resistance units.
Cloud of Shadows - 1 - useless
Warp Node - 2 - nuisance spell
Black Wind - 3.5 - Superior to fire and ice storm spells in most cases.
Zombie Mastery - 3 - Very expensive upkeep, but viable spell for protecting conquered cities.
Famine - 3 - One of the better city curse spells from a player's perspective, stagnating a city and potentially having a few units starve.
Cursed Lands - 2 - Not that big of an impact of a city curse.
Very Rare - Very hit-and-miss again. Death is clearly the worst realm, other than a couple of impressive summoning units.
Cruel Unminding - 2 - Very expensive late-game curse, it's usually better to cast famine or summon units.
Word of Death - 3.5 - Powerful instant-kill spell that has the chance to instantly kill the most powerful units with 10 or more resistance.
Death Knights - 5 - best summoning unit in the game: fast flyer, extreme damage potential, self-healing abilities coupled with first strike, and high hit points while costing much less mana.
Death Spell - 4 - Resistance penalty combined with the ability to hit all units makes it superior to 'word of death'. Devastating with black prayer
Animate Dead - 4 - Very low cost for the potential benefits of spell. If opponent uses the most intimidating units (e.g. great drake) and you manage to defeat one, this can turn the tide of battle.
Pestilence - 2.5 - Powerful town curse, but I personally prefer 'famine' as that one doesn't really damage a city once you conquer it.
Eternal Night - 1 - too expensive for its surprisingly weak benefits.
Evil Omens - 3 - nice disadvantage to life and/or nature opponents, but not too crippling. Death deserves a bit better counter against life wizards.
Death Wish - 4 - A serious improvement over 'black wind' and a good counter against life and sorcery wizards who often don't rely on summoning units. Not too useful against elite units.
Demon Lord - 4 (2 stars before insecticide due to fear bug) - Pretty amazing ranged unit and a lot of useful abilities but the serious lack of hit points makes it suffer. Death Knights are so overpowered that you don't need demon lords.
Life - The best realm with many broken spells and low mana cost. On top of that, you get major diplomatic bonuses
Common - Powerful anti-chaos/death spells,cost-effective spells, and a few incredibly advanced spells
Bless - 4 - Very nice and cost-effective, if situational +3 armor and resistance.
Star Fires - 4 - Very damaging for its cost., even if situational.
Endurance - 4 - Very low cost for a spell that can usually double movement, overland or in combat.
Holy Weapon - 4 - Having a +1 to hit bonus (+33%dmg before shields) is very good, especially for ranged units and heroes.
Healing - 4 - Powerful healing spell for just 15 mana, meaning you may use it many times.
Holy Armor - 3 - Pretty average unit buff, typical expectations for an early spell met.
Just Cause - 5 - It does not make sense that this spell is 'common' and costs this much. Automatic +10 gold and whatever you earn by adding a +50% tax increase.
True Light - 1.5 -at least it makes skeletons and maybe zombies and shadow demons less threatening.
Guardian Spirit - 3.5 - Stronger in combat (on par with war bears and nagas) and stronger meld enchantment, but the 80mana cost is a penalty.
Heroism - 5 - It's baffling how programmers thought 2 upkeep is balanced. If you add 'holy weapon' and 'bless', your early unit can create havoc.
Uncommon - Some redundancies weaken the less impressive 'uncommon' tier, but there are a few spells that are too good.
True Sight - 3 - Very situational, but you'll be glad you have it at times.
Plane Shift - 3.5 - By far the best of the 3 spells that help you shift between planes
Resurrection - 4.5 - Absolutely a must for wizards relying on heroes, which is likely if you use this realm. You don't have to fear losing a hero too much. Score lower if you load your game when it doesn't go your way.
Dispel Evil - 5 - A near or fully guaranteed kill against a death unit. An excellent good resist-or-die against a chaos unit.
Planar Seal - 3.5 - It's a big investment, but can be a life-saver
Unicorns - 3 - Pretty decent teleporting unit with a remarkable +2 resist to all support ability for its cost.
Raise Dead - 4 - Analternative to resurrection that can also apply to normal units.
Planar Travel - 2 - Very expensive, much inferior cost-wise to plane shift.
Heavenly Light - 1 - a joke. City defense spells tend to disappoint.
Prayer - 5 (6 for pre-insecticide?) - Extremely low cost for massive damage and armor benefits. Before the unofficial patch, the 'to defend' bug made it nearly twice as good.
Rare - An amazing set of spells that make the realm very unbalanced, better than sorcery?
Lionheart - 5 - The attack and especially hit point bonuses are really insane for multi-figure units, especially if combined with 'holy weapon' and 'heroism'
Incarnation - 5 - Torin is possibly the best melee hero in the game and costs less than summoning a champion which may be hit-or-miss
Invulnerability - 4.5 - Much better than iron-skin. Yet another unit buff you can combine with lionheart, holy armor, heroism, etc.
Righteousness - 2 - ok, I get it: anti-chaos and anti-death realm. Redundant and expensive.
Prosperity - 4.5 - unusually low cost for such a great economic benefit.
Altar of Battle - 4.5 - yet another outstanding spell that encourages military units.
Angel - 1.5 - laughable, other than its ability to make almost guaranteed instant-kill to death units.
Stream of Life - 5 - two insanely powerful bonuses that combine well with 'prosperity' and the healing bonus on top has its uses.
Mass Healing - 2 - Very expensive to justify its cost - you don't normally have a bunch of injured units.
Holy Word - 5 - Slightly weaker than dispel evil, but still nearly guaranteed to kill death units.
Very Rare - A mix of spectacular and not so impressive spells, but mostly the former. The three global enchantments that benefit primarily your normal units win you the game, especially when combined.
High Prayer - 5 (6 before insecticide) - Much stronger than prayer, but comes with doubled cost. Insecticide fixes the bug.
Inspirations - 2 - What it does to your city is nothing to scoff at, but it comes so late that it's really not going to change the outcome of the game. Works best with 'altar of battle'.
Astral Gate - 1.5 - Redundant and extremely expensive spell this late in the game. You're usually better off using 'plane shift'.
Holy Arms - 3 - nice, practical, and cost-effective - automatically giving all your units +1 to hit and dissipating their 'holy weapon' spells.
Consecration - 2.5 - comes a bit too late in the game and much more expensive than disenchant area. The upkeep is generally not worth it to protect one city (you probably have dozens)
Life Force - 4 - death wizards no longer intimidating. Extremely crippling effect.
Tranquility - 4 - chaos wizards no longer intimidating. Extremely crippling effect.
Crusade - 4.5 - Very affordable for such an outstanding benefit that wins you the game.
Arch-Angel - 3.5 - Fortunately, the top-tier summoning unit is based on the theme of 'life': improving other units in combat. All of these army-boosting spells combine in such a way spearmen might defeat top-tier units. Archangels with self-casting invulnerability are very good against certain enemies.
Charm of Life - 4.5 - Very affordable for such a great bonus, especially if coupled with crusade.
With my own scoring system -
Common: Sorcery > Life >>>>> Death > Chaos > Nature
Uncommon: Life >>> Nature > Death > Chaos > Sorcery
Rare: Life > Sorcery >>>> Chaos >>> Death > Nature
Very Rare : Life > Death > Sorcery > Nature > Chaos
Overall: Life > Sorcery >>> Chaos > Nature > Death
Life: diplomatic bonus balanced out by challenge of not having nodes within realm and lack of elemental masteries.
Death: minus 50 points due to challenge of not having nodes within realm, lack of elemental masteries, major diplomatic penalties that challenge early survival, and many anti-death spells.
Life: 444 points
Sorcery: 391 points
Chaos: 283 points
Nature: 257 points
Death: 286 minus 50 = 236
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