Caster of Magic Release thread : latest version 6.06!

[Seravy]

Completed the thread about races, normal units and buildings. I've marked everything I have doubts about, and consider to possible need change in red.
If you have time, please read the thread, and tell me what you think, especially about the parts in red.

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...#pid583287

I'm planning to make a similar thread for spells later.
A short summary of things I consider potential candidates for change :
-The lizardmen, halfling, nomad races as the first might be too weak and the other two kinda lack a reason to play them (nomad units are good, but elf and human units are better)
-high elves might be too good to be the only race that has a resistance bonus on arcanus
-halberdiers might be a little bit too expensive
-pegasai might have a bit too good melee attack for their price
-War Mammoths might still not be powerful enough to be worth producing instead of War Trolls

[Drax]

There seems to be a bug in CoM 1.41 in combat I can't cast Syphon Life on a possessed unit. it's supposed to be a combat spell, not an enchantment but there seems to be a bug with detecting it as such. Screenshot: http://prntscr.com/ae62vb

Also why would you change the elven archer to magical attack? I find it very odd since in vanilla that was one of the best heroes. As a mage she's not better than others. Before I did like it for hunting sky drakes...

[Seravy]

There seems to be a bug in CoM 1.41 in combat I can't cast Syphon Life on a possessed unit. it's supposed to be a combat spell, not an enchantment but there seems to be a bug with detecting it as such. Screenshot: http://prntscr.com/ae62vb

Also why would you change the elven archer to magical attack? I find it very odd since in vanilla that was one of the best heroes. As a mage she's not better than others. Before I did like it for hunting sky drakes...

Thanks, this will be fixed in the next release.

Magical attacks are almost always superior because they have no range penalty, unfortunately the Sky Drake is an exception. I made it so because there was no hero with a bow slot and magical ranged attacks, and thought that would be interesting. Makes your bow items more versatile, since normal bow heroes are close to worthless if the enemy knows Warp Wood or Guardian Wind. I guess you can now achieve the same result with the common spell Focus Magic, but that wasn't in the game when I made the change, and this opens up the opportunity to non-Sorcery players. The downside is weakness to Magic Immunity, but that is far less common than Guardian Wind, Missile Immunity and Warp Wood are.
If you are looking for a good archer hero, try the Huntress. She also has Blademaster, has an inbuilt +1 to hit, and uses bows the normal way.

[Drax]

Magical attacks are almost always superior because they have no range penalty

I disagree. Magical attacks are most of the time inferior when it comes to fantastic creatures. Also bow attack is benefits from fire blade, eldrich/holy weapon and leadership. And one of the primary roles for heroes is clearing up ruins. Also there are many good mage heroes, but bow heroes are few so you are starved for staffs and bows are less used. I think there was unique value lost in this change.

[Seravy]

Magical attacks are almost always superior because they have no range penalty

I disagree. Magical attacks are most of the time inferior when it comes to fantastic creatures. Also bow attack is benefits from fire blade, eldrich/holy weapon and leadership. And one of the primary roles for heroes is clearing up ruins. Also there are many good mage heroes, but bow heroes are few so you are starved for staffs and bows are less used. I think there was unique value lost in this change.

I guess the optimal solution would be if the hero could cast Focus Magic on herself, but that spell is overland only and I can't make it work in combat. What if this hero always came with Focus Magic precast on her, so you can either keep it or turn it off?
On the downside, this would have a maintenance and would cause the hero to have +15 MP.
I think it's better to just turn her back to a normal archer, if someone wants magical archers, they can pick Sorcery books.

My only problem with changing it back is, wouldn't that make the hero far too...unimpressive for a champion?
Blademaster is good but that's her only fixed ability, aside from it, she only has the ranged attack and caster, and ofc, 3 random abilities, but those are...random, and certainly not something that makes a champion unique.
The Swordmen has Raise Dead, Paladin has Illusions Immunity, First Strike and Armor Piercing, Illusionists have Illusion and Quick Casting, Black Knights have Death Immunity, First Strike and Armor Piercing, Necromancers have Life Steal, Animate Dead, and Super Soul Linker, Chaos Warriors pierce armor at range, and Priestess has Divine Barrier and Prayer. Even the Knight at least has a good preset mix of support abilities (Super Leadership, Super Legendary and Armsmaster).
If I take away the magical shots from the Elven Archer, she needs something that makes her interesting and valuable. Otherwise she is just a Huntress with a mana pool and 2 more random skills but lower Hit....not to mention Forester is inferior to Pathfinding, too. I guess she knows at least 2 decent spells, but still...

Edit : I decided to change the hero like this
"now has Super Capacity, +1 to hit, and can have ANY type of random ability instead of Mage type. Uses arrows again. "
as there are no heroes with that ability being guaranteed yet (not even on normal level). I'm not a fan of arrow attacks though, there are far too many things immune to missiles and two common spells that completely negate it.

[kjara]

Magical attacks are almost always superior because they have no range penalty

I disagree. Magical attacks are most of the time inferior when it comes to fantastic creatures. Also bow attack is benefits from fire blade, eldrich/holy weapon and leadership. And one of the primary roles for heroes is clearing up ruins. Also there are many good mage heroes, but bow heroes are few so you are starved for staffs and bows are less used. I think there was unique value lost in this change.

I guess the optimal solution would be if the hero could cast Focus Magic on herself, but that spell is overland only and I can't make it work in combat. What if this hero always came with Focus Magic precast on her, so you can either keep it or turn it off?
On the downside, this would have a maintenance and would cause the hero to have +15 MP.
I think it's better to just turn her back to a normal archer, if someone wants magical archers, they can pick Sorcery books.

My only problem with changing it back is, wouldn't that make the hero far too...unimpressive for a champion?
Blademaster is good but that's her only fixed ability, aside from it, she only has the ranged attack and caster, and ofc, 3 random abilities, but those are...random, and certainly not something that makes a champion unique.
The Swordmen has Raise Dead, Paladin has Illusions Immunity, First Strike and Armor Piercing, Illusionists have Illusion and Quick Casting, Black Knights have Death Immunity, First Strike and Armor Piercing, Necromancers have Life Steal, Animate Dead, and Super Soul Linker, Chaos Warriors pierce armor at range, and Priestess has Divine Barrier and Prayer. Even the Knight at least has a good preset mix of support abilities (Super Leadership, Super Legendary and Armsmaster).
If I take away the magical shots from the Elven Archer, she needs something that makes her interesting and valuable. Otherwise she is just a Huntress with a mana pool and 2 more random skills but lower Hit....not to mention Forester is inferior to Pathfinding, too. I guess she knows at least 2 decent spells, but still...

Edit : I decided to change the hero like this
"now has Super Capacity, +1 to hit, and can have ANY type of random ability instead of Mage type. Uses arrows again. "
as there are no heroes with that ability being guaranteed yet (not even on normal level). I'm not a fan of arrow attacks though, there are far too many things immune to missiles and two common spells that completely negate it.

If you really want to make her unique, could change her ranged type to boulder (catapult/warship type)? That lets her avoid both missile and magic immunity.

[Seravy]

If you really want to make her unique, could change her ranged type to boulder (catapult/warship type)? That lets her avoid both missile and magic immunity.

Interesting idea but would look really silly on a hero. Especially one named archer.
I think Super Capacity is fine, being able to shoot up to 6 extra ammo at max level is great for a hero with a high To Hit bonus.

[kjara]

If you really want to make her unique, could change her ranged type to boulder (catapult/warship type)? That lets her avoid both missile and magic immunity.

Interesting idea but would look really silly on a hero. Especially one named archer.
I think Super Capacity is fine, being able to shoot up to 6 extra ammo at max level is great for a hero with a high To Hit bonus.

Would have to rename it to something like halfling slinger? Super cap should be interesting though yeah.

[Drax]

Edit : I decided to change the hero like this
"now has Super Capacity, +1 to hit, and can have ANY type of random ability instead of Mage type. Uses arrows again. "
as there are no heroes with that ability being guaranteed yet (not even on normal level). I'm not a fan of arrow attacks though, there are far too many things immune to missiles and two common spells that completely negate it.

+1 to hit as elves racial bonus was the only thing I would have suggested. I find her to be a good champion. She's my favourite of them all. Some of your new abilities would fit great with her too.

Talking about missile immunity maybe it is good merit to make flame blade pierce it? Is this possible? Or maybe it should work like defense 50 instead of absolute immunity.

Another solution is to make Guardian wind/Missile immunity to act as +4 to ranged def(or -4 to hit) if possible. It would actually carry the meaning of wind distorting arrows like invisibility and blur apply. It should work exactly the same on lower defense, attack and to hit bonuses. Right?

Another possibility is to make warp wood do a resistance roll when cast.

Just tossing ideas at you. I hope they make sense.

If you really want to make her unique, could change her ranged type to boulder (catapult/warship type)? That lets her avoid both missile and magic immunity.

I don't think making boulder attack fits the theme at all. If it's possible to fix the problem this will open better variety in the game.

[Drax]

Here are some comments about new hero skills:
AEther Master - I think base 8SP is way too much. This is way too beneficial especially early in the game. This is more valuable than the same amount of points in research IMO(i.e. Sage Master). It's just too much. 3-4SP/level might be more sensible.
Battlemage - I find this one to be weak. Maybe if it could also add +1 ranged attacks number up to the maximum of the hero it would be more versatile. So the hero could engage in melee and recharge his/her used ranged attacks.
Divine Barrier - seems OK balanced.
Guiding Beacon - wokks ok. Basically ranged leadership.
Ritual Master - It's quite valuable. Maybe a bit overpowered also. I would ALWAYS like to have 4 points of power per level of the hero instead of just about ANY other ability 90% of the time. Maybe 3 points is better balanced.
Soul linker - I think it should be flat bonus because it makes sense to use it earlier in game and you can't and it looks a bit ridiculous later http://prntscr.com/aehmzl maybe same bonus as luck for fantastic creatures is powerful enough or even flat +1 to hit and +1 to def.

This is from my tests so far. Still on v1.41.