And against most things that annhialte is good at, one unit of death knights is better, far better. Enemy has 18 earth elementals? One unit of death knights. If I already had wave of despair I would be extremely sad to get annhilate instead of death knights or eternal night. In fact, you need black prayer (costs a valuable turn at the start. Yes death almost always wants to do this, but that cost is huge - first round spells often make the biggest difference) and eternal night (itself a very rare) in most of your examples - but unless immune, wave of despair does so much damage you don't need penalties to resistance, which means you can cast it first, which is huge. There's no build up, there's no need for another very rare, there's no need for items. Yes, your examples show annihilate has its place - but in the majority of cases, your own examples also show that wave of despair is that much better than annihilate (let alone massacre).
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DEATH Realm
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Quote: one unit of death knights is better, No, it's not. The enemy might have -Nature's Wrath in which case you get your knight but the price is not worth it most likely -Spell Blast in which case you don't even get it -Evil Omens to make it cost even more, requiring like 5-8 turns to summon one -or they might just have combat spells that kill it. Like Annihilate. It has 50% chance to kill a figure of death knight WITHOUT black prayer and eternal night. With those it's 80%. Banish, Holy Word, Petrify can all hurt it severely as well, ironically chaos wizards are probably the least threat to them as they can heal back the doom bolt damage from life stealing...but if they also have call chaos, or disintegrate with at least -1 spell save modifier, that's no longer true either. Also Death Knights is not a combat summon. It won't be there for you in every battle, Annihilate will be. You can't assume you have one in all of your cities that might get attacked, that's unrealistic. Again you compare things that cannot be compared.
Absolutely the enemy might have those things. But IF I already have Wave of Despair, Death Knights will help me out more than Annihilate does, over the course of the game. You can certainly find many situations where Wave of Despair won't work, and Death Knights won't work - but it makes no sense (to me) to think that those two spells are worse than Wave of Despair and Annihilate. I'm not talking about whether a given spell is good on its own. I'm talking about the combination of spells in the realm. Annihilate is better than Wave of Despair, in very particular situations. If I'm going to give up a very rare slot for a spell, I don't want it to be for one that is only better than a Rare spell sometimes. And Wave of Despair doesn't just overlap with Annihilate.
Would you rather have Wave of Despair, Annihilate, and Massacre, OR Wave of Despair, Demon Lord, and Eternal Night? Annihilate and Massacre are great spells, that easily compete with the other Very Rares for utility in an overall game - but as soon as you put the current Wave of Despair in, a huge number of situations where you would use Annihilate and Massacre are suddenly solved (often better!) by Wave of Despair. (November 1st, 2016, 17:49)Nelphine Wrote: Would you rather have Wave of Despair, Annihilate, and Massacre, OR Wave of Despair, Demon Lord, and Eternal Night? The former if I play an Archmage or Chaneller or my other realm(s) have very rare summons or I have any decent spell save item, the latter if I play an Astrologer or my additional realm has good save or die spells (petrify, disintegrate, banish, holy word). Also the former if I play a normal unit based game where I don't need overland summons, like Death mixed with Life. So I'd say it's about 60-40% in favor of the former assuming I know absolutely nothing about the enemies, but ultimately, whichever I do not have in my other realm(s) is the better choice 99% of the time. And that leans towards save-or-die heavily, most realms have few of those and many good summons.
Hey, some questions related to Death popped into my mind:
Does Archmage improve skill gains from Drain Power? The spell is a godsend on impossible - I wonder if it can become even more obscene... Does Bloodlust improve melee attacks against heroes? Heroes seem rather normal, Incarnation excluded, of course. And finally, does the weapon immunity granted by Wraithform help against hero melee and bow attacks? Heroes have the standard melee icon, no alchemy weapons. (November 2nd, 2016, 06:34)Juffos Wrote: Hey, some questions related to Death popped into my mind: No, Archmage has no effect on Drain Power. Yes, Blood Lust works against heroes. No, heroes always count as having magical weapons as far as I remember.
Thanks for the answers, now I have some more questions for you! I know you love answering them
 I saw AI cast healing with shamans on ghouls. I read on the first page that death creatures can't be healed through life. Also, I noticed that my skeletons don't heal over time, even though they lack the death creature icon. Are all death summons death creatures? (November 6th, 2016, 17:18)Juffos Wrote: Thanks for the answers, now I have some more questions for you! I know you love answering them Death summons are Death creatures. All Death creatures heal naturally, EXCEPT specifically Skeletons and Zombies, but anything that is undead does not heal. Death creatures aren't undead unless they are turned into one by a spell. (The only ways you can make them is through using Blood Lust or Animate Dead. Otherwise their Death Immunity converts the undead creating damage they get to normal damage.) Life spells can now target Death creature to heal them (since the last update), but cannot target those that can't heal naturally, to make it more consistent.
November 7th, 2016, 13:31
(This post was last modified: November 7th, 2016, 19:06 by Nelphine.)
So, finally got to experience pestilence. I'm on the receiving end. 11 disenchant areas (at 250 casting skill) later, and I still haven't dispelled it. My opponent is not a specialist, nor is he a runemaster. Neither of us have Aether Binding, or any other globals that affect dispels.
My best city is population 4. Very sad. (It was population 25.) All it's doing is housing, in an effort to try to at least keep SOME taxes going. This spell is awful. Death is awful. I will forever more try to either kill, or make peace with, all death wizards. And he's peaceful to boot! I at least got rid of the famines and the evil presences and the warped nodes, but this pestilence is beyond my ability. Edit: Didn't get him in time. He isn't even at war with me (still Peaceful personality), and he threw pestilence on two more cities. I'm probably going to lose because I won't be able to sustain troops.
Random bug report that I just remembered about: there's an item (IIRC a sword?) that gives you 1x casts of bloodlust. (I think it used to be Berserk) When you cast this in battle, it works fine, but after the battle the unit just becomes a regular undead, with no extra bonus. A nasty gotcha for most races, but pretty nice for me at the time because I was using trolls.
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