It's time for the next magic school, and the last "elemental" one in the lineup.
CHAOS
Chaos represents the forces of hell. In practical terms, this means channeling fiery, destructive powers, summoning demonic creatures, and warping its own forces with demonic power. Chaos is a difficult school to play, as most of its Common tier spells are quite weak, but once it can climb out of that, it has some decent bases to work off of. However, its strengths are not particularly straightforward, relying either on combat damage, mass buffing units, or a mixture of the two.
Common Tier
1. Animate Ammo:
Cost: 5 MP
Effect: Steals the ammunition of the targeted unit and converts it into casting skill. Heroes and summons ignore this effect.
Analysis: Chaos really doesn't start out impressing with this extremely niche effect. It would be good if it affected more targets, either at once, or by type. Heroes and summons tend to be far stronger, and being able to kill their ranged damage would actually have some great utility. As it stands, this is something that could be useful situationally, but is rarely worth serious consideration, and is easily forgotten past the very early portions of the game.
2. Disrupt:
Cost: 5 MP
Effect: Breaks the targeted section of a city wall in combat, lowering its defensive bonus to +1 and letting units cross it freely.
Analysis: Completely worthless. Yes, walls can be quite a formidable defensive boost, and yes, they do tend to narrow battles down to a chokepoint. But they really aren't that hard to deal with, and further, this spell doesn't actually weaken them all that much. If it made half the walls fall apart, then it could have some reasonable utility. Opening one single tile doesn't really change the course of battle much, and by the time this can be cast enough to break apart a substantial portion of the enemy walls, too many turns would have been lost standing around and being exposed to enemy fire and spells. Just forget this spell exists.
3. Fire Bolt:
Cost: 10 MP
Effect: Deals 24 Fire damage to the target. Fire Immune targets ignore it.
Analysis: Chaos' signature spell, this is theoretically the strongest Common tier damage spell in the game. It's not too weak for its purpose, but it's still pretty weak, and is blocked by a fairly common immunity. That Chaos wizards still rely heavily on it is very indicative of how poor its initial spell selection is.
4. Hell Hounds:
Cost: 40 MP
Effect: Summons a Hell Hound unit to the overworld.
Analysis: Chaos' fighting summon. Hell Hounds are...unbelievably bad. Their attack is quite weak, at 4x4, and while they get 4x4 fire breath, with both at 40% to hit, that's not enough to reasonably fight any other summon besides Skeletons. They have absurdly bad defense, at 2, and very lackluster HP, at 4x4. On top of all that, they still cost mana upkeep per turn, so you can't even use them as throwaway garrisons. Just forget about them. If you need some units to reliably fight flyers in the early game, pick the Barbarian or Draconian races instead, even their spearmen and swordsmen will fight much better than them!
5. Corruption:
Cost: 40 MP
Effect: Denies all resources on the affected tile until cleared.
Analysis: As a resource denial spell, it's honestly not particularly bad, and is actually quite potent while killing off powerful resource tiles like adamantium or crysx. The problem is, the AI gets significantly more resources than you on any difficulty beyond Normal, and as such denying resources matters much less to them than to you. It can still be useful for the player, but it's another situational spell that's unlikely to see much use.
6. Flame Blade:
Cost: 10(in combat)/50 MP
Effect: Buffs the enchanted unit's melee attacks by +3 and physical small projectile attacks by +2. Also lets the enchanted unit ignore Weapon Immunity. Only works on regular units and heroes.
Analysis: Chaos' first good spell! Flame Blade's boosts are amazing, particularly on multifigure units where the attack buff gets boosted considerably by the number of figures. It doesn't do anything to make its target more durable, which makes it somewhat tricky to use on melee units, but it's still a very potent buff.
7. Wall of Fire:
Cost: 20(in combat)/60 MP
Effect: Surrounds the city perimeter with a damaging wall that deals 10 Fire damage per figure to enemy units crossing through or attacking through it. Flying and Fire Immune units ignore this effect.
Analysis: This is quite potent as an anti personnel damage field, killing or heavily damaging most regular units. They tend to have lots of figures, and so are most vulnerable to it. Against summons, it's a lot more questionable, and against heroes it's obviously completely ineffectual. Further, it only works in melee units, it does nothing to block ranged units attacking outside the perimeter. Its limited target coverage makes it way too situational, it's not worth casting unless you are specifically dealing with raiders or wizards relying heavily on melee multifigure units.
8. Shatter:
Cost: 8 MP
Effect: Attempts to reduce the targeted unit's attacks to 1 at a -2 resistance penalty. Only works on regular units.
Analysis: Yet another potentially decent spell ruined by limited target selection. Debuffing all attack strength sounds amazing, but regular units are either not potent enough to debuff, or have too much resistance to have this land reliably. Making it effect summons would give it an actually worthwhile niche, especially in combination with a later spell. Instead, it's yet another frustratingly narrow tool in Chaos' toolbox. Use it sparingly, and don't worry much about it.
9. Warp Creature:
Cost: 10 MP
Effect: Attempts to warp the targeted unit at a -5 resistance penalty. Warping causes one of three effects: it either cuts the target's defense to a third, cuts the target's attack by half, or removes all their resistance. Different warp effects can stack on recasts, and warping lasts for the duration of the combat.
Analysis: This is a fairly powerful, if unreliable debuff. Having to rely on two rolls is a bit too unpredictable for my taste, especially since one of the three results is usually useless in most battles. Further, it doesn't leave the affected unit helpless, so you still need decent attackers to take advantage of it. This leaves it as a rather situational tool on the whole, though in combination with other powerful resistance targeting curses it becomes extremely effective. At least this has more applications than the situational spells covered so far.
10. Fire Elemental:
Cost: 14 MP
Effect: Summons a fire elemental in combat that fights to the death.
Analysis: At first glance, this doesn't seem that great. 12 attack, 5 defense and a mere 10 HP on a single figure unit? However, it packs an excellent set of immunities that make it shine in combat. Poison and Fire Immunity are quite considerable, being rather common damage types, but Stoning Immunity gives a potent little defense against Nature's petrifying attacks. Further, it's a good target for a powerful buff that will be covered later. This is actually a surprisingly good unit!
Uncommon Tier
1. Lightning Bolt:
Cost: 25 MP
Effect: Deals 36 Lightning damage to the target. The target's defense is effectively halved while being struck by this spell. Lightning Resistant units ignore the defense halving effect.
Analysis: This is the first genuinely powerful direct damage spell covered in this series. Halving defense makes this hurt a wide variety of targets quite thoroughly, and it can't be blocked by any immunities either. If only Chaos had something like this at Common tier, with worse stats, it would have shined considerably more.
2. Fire Giant:
Cost: 110 MP
Effect: Summons a fire giant unit to the overworld.
Analysis: Fire Giants are thoroughly mediocre. Their attack is fairly decent actually, at 18 melee and 12 magical ranged with 40% to hit on both, but their defense and health are both middling, at 5 defense and 18 HP. They do have a charge of Fireball, which helps assaulting armies of regular units, and the Fire Immunity blocks a fair amount of damage sources, but they're not a good core for any army. They can be amassed to form a decently robust ranged stack, but doing that costs a lot of mana.
3. Chaos Channels:
Cost: 50 MP
Effect: Bestows Chaos' powers to the enchanted unit. The enchanted unit either: gains flight, gains 3 defense, or gains a 4 attack fire breath per figure. The enchanted unit also gets converted into a Chaos creature.
Analysis: This is an understatedly powerful enchantment. While only one of the buffs grants stats, all of them add meaningful utility when applied to the right units. Further, turning into a Chaos creature has strong subtle implications - they get to avoid all the curses specifically targeting regular units and enjoy all the buffs that specifically target summons. Nor does this come at much of a price - they can still be buffed with regular unit specific buffs, which in turn can make them shockingly strong.
Chaos essentially has two ways to victory - either mass buff its units with this and overwhelm other armies, especially with combat spell support, or use throwaway units as spell conduits to wear them down. As such, this is a must pick for any aspiring Chaos wizard, and they should strive to utilize it as much as they can.
Chaos essentially has two ways to victory - either mass buff its units with this and overwhelm other armies, especially with combat spell support, or use throwaway units as spell conduits to wear them down. As such, this is a must pick for any aspiring Chaos wizard, and they should strive to utilize it as much as they can.
4. Mystic Surge:
Cost: 25 MP
Effect: Raises the enchanted unit's speed by 3, defense by 2, and lowers the effective To Defend of their targets by 10% when they attack. The unit also gains a random set of buffs. However, it can't be healed during combat, loses 2 resistance, has a random chance of getting all its resistance warped, and is reduced to 1 HP at the end of combat.
Analysis: This spell is nothing short of awesome. It can turn almost any unit indestructible, and is guaranteed to make them quite speedy. While there are definitely some gambles to be made casting this, the odds of it paying off are more often than not in your favor. Especially since this can roll top tier buffs that outright negate any of the supposed disadvantages, including and up to Magic Immunity and Regeneration! If the Chaos wizard relies on armies to win, this is an absolute pick.
5. Gargoyles:
Cost: 100 MP
Effect: Summons a gargoyles unit on the overworld.
Analysis: Gargoyles are incredible in the right situations. They aren't really good for direct combat, not in their raw state. However, with 9 defense, 9 resistance, Poison Immunity, and 4x4 HP, they are quite hard to kill. They also fly, meaning they get a lot of freedom in choosing their engagements. They can be used in one of two ways, either as a tough spell conduit that lets the Chaos wizard sling all sorts of nasty damage spells, or as a tank for drawing fire and attacking the enemy's squishier units. Further, with some good offensive buffs on them, they actually fare well against most regular units and Nature wizards, with the Stoning Immunity coming in handy against the latter. While Chaos' summons are all generally utilitarian in nature, this is the best of them for a long while.
6. Fireball:
Cost: 15 MP
Effect: Deals 12 Fire damage per figure to the targeted unit. Fire Immune units ignore this effect.
Analysis: It's fine. It's effective for its purpose, i.e. killing most regular units, but struggles to do anything more than that. It doesn't help that all magicians know this spell by default, making its acquisition a much less exciting affair.
7. Raise Volcano:
Cost: 50 MP
Effect: Turns the targeted tile into a volcano, destroying all resources on it while granting its caster 3 power. Raising volcanoes has a slim chance of unearthing new minerals, and the volcanoes also grants a 7% production bonus to the caster's cities.
Analysis: An upgraded Corruption that pays its caster back. The mineral raising quirk makes it worth considering using on poor terrain in vicinity of the caster's cities, but the low odds make the payoff unlikely, unless casted often.
8. Immolation:
Cost: 12(in combat)/60 MP
Effect: Enchants the unit with a damaging aura dealing 10 Fire damage per figure on any units it attacks in melee. The unit also gains Cold Immunity. Fire immune targets attacked by the unit ignore the aura's damage.
Analysis: It's Fireball, but as a buff. The Cold Immunity, while niche, is welcome against Nature wizards, and is potentially very powerful against Death wizards.
9. Chimeras:
Cost: 180 MP
Effect: Summons a chimeras unit on the overworld.
Analysis: Chimeras have fairly solid, if not impressive stats. 10x4 attack and 6x4 fire breath at 40% to hit make their melee strikes ferocious, and while their defensive attributes aren't great, they aren't shabby either, at 5 defense and 8x4 HP. Flying also lets them fight most melee battles on their terms. However, they are acquired quite late in most games, thanks to their high research cost. Even if a wizard finds them early from a lair, the high casting cost means that they are unfeasible to amass early on, and while they are strong in the early game, they're not so strong as to solo serious armies, unlike heroes. Thus, in practice they end up being souped up Hell Hounds, offensive units that are rather lackluster by the time they become relevant.
Once in a while, circumstances will line up just right, and they will come at just the right time to let the Chaos wizard utterly crush their enemies and snowball their way to victory. But such circumstances are few and far in between, and they should be considered more of a novelty than a serious option.
Once in a while, circumstances will line up just right, and they will come at just the right time to let the Chaos wizard utterly crush their enemies and snowball their way to victory. But such circumstances are few and far in between, and they should be considered more of a novelty than a serious option.
10. Fate Mastery:
Cost: 250 MP
Effect: Causes three fire bolts to randomly fall on enemy armies engaged by the caster's army during combat. Also gives all resistance targeting spells a second chance to succeed.
Analysis: This spell is bizarre. It's certainly not bad by any means, the random fire bolts, while not strong, do help the wizard to wear down their enemies, and the double roll makes many curses considerably more dangerous. But...Chaos doesn't have many of them. At least, not anything that stays relevant by this tier, except maybe Warp Creature. Now, this has obvious combination potential with other curse heavy realms, especially Death, and works great in that context, but it doesn't help Chaos all that much on its own. It's just really odd here.
Chaos is certainly a neat school, with lots of options to wear down enemy armies or crush them with strong armies of its own. However, it's quite blatantly weak during the early game, having very little worth casting. While there are ways to survive that and grow into a reasonably strong position, this does count as a severe disadvantage, especially since most AI already start out ahead of the player and can quickly rocket to a position of near invincibility if left unchecked.
Further, anything that cuts into its spell damage considerably weakens it. Life, for example, can block a fair amount of its spell damage via Bless, and even reverse it with Healing. The less said about Regenerating units, the better.
So that's an overview of its strengths and weaknesses. How does one bolster the former while papering over the latter? That shall be answered in due time. Until then!
Comments
Post a Comment