Familiar vs. Spy

from Elemental Forums

Am I alone in thinking that this is the biggest imbalance between the Kingdoms and Empires?

 

The summon familiar spell gets you a weak little demon-looking-thing that does triple damage on counter-attacks.

The summon spy spell gets you a weak little demon-looking-thing that can cast a spell to damage every enemy on the screen for 10 points.

 

That 10-points-to-all ability is so powerful, especially at early levels, but it's useful all throughout the game.  The Kingdom's familiar really needs to be buffed to match it.

elemental
7,195 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I dunno. I kinda like the fact that the Empires have a magical advantage over the kingdoms...you know since the fallen were CREATED to be that way by the Titans and all. besides 10 points isnt really that bad.

 

You can either

A. research Party and create squads of troops

B. Fight one random encounter before taking on an empire stack, that way all your units will have leveld up beyond 10 points of health.

 

 

I would like a mag def stat or piece of armor for my units tho.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

It's not game-breaking, it just seems really off to me since it's a "counterpart" spell; the same basic spell, but the Kingdom flavor vs. the Empire flavor, and one is way more powerful.

Every time I play as Kingdom I find myself really missing the ability to wipe out the huge pack of wolves/spiders on the first move of the first turn.

 

Once you have 3 or 4 champions that have each summoned a spy, and enough building essence improvements to raise their mana from 5 up over 6, even the later fights become trivial.  3 spies that can cast the spell twice causes 60 damage to everything on the screen on the first turn of combat.  Enemy sovereigns, higher level monsters like trolls, they all fall down. 

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Well remember Each Champion can summon a spy, ones Imbude that is, and then you can stack 5 in an army, with 5 Party of Demons,
and have a 50 pts of non blockable Damage, then some heavy hitters. That 50pts will clear out most champs, and the Sov.

Seems a bit much, and I have seen with XP those Spys cast more than once a battle, so now 2 Turns 100pts dam to all foes.

 

Lee

 

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting mrbuh, reply 2
It's not game-breaking, it just seems really off to me since it's a "counterpart" spell; the same basic spell, but the Kingdom flavor vs. the Empire flavor, and one is way more powerful.

Every time I play as Kingdom I find myself really missing the ability to wipe out the huge pack of wolves/spiders on the first move of the first turn.

 

Once you have 3 or 4 champions that have each summoned a spy, and enough building essence improvements to raise their mana from 5 up over 6, even the later fights become trivial.  3 spies that can cast the spell twice causes 60 damage to everything on the screen on the first turn of combat.  Enemy sovereigns, higher level monsters like trolls, they all fall down. 
End of mrbuh's quote

 

oops Beat me to it~!

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

I have to admit I do think the spy is over powered, he can slay whole armies of weaker creatures by himself in one turn. Actually one issue with combat rating is it often isn't a good reflection of the real units power. Archers for instance are more powerful than they are credited as is the spy, in his case much more powerful.

As for the imp I didn't even bother in the last game currently he is next to useless to be honest.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the Kingdom's familiar is fine as is..However, the Spy should be nerfed into the ground. The power to hit everyone on the field for 10 damage is far too strong, and even considering that most champions are within range of 10-20hp (unless you spend most of your attribute points on constitution) it can kill them with relative ease. Consider that the Spy is a very low tier summon, it's power is grossly disproportionate to it's tier.

 

Also, the summons seem to suffer from the same weakness as the champions, though even more so as they get hardly any bonus to damage done based on level. You also get to the point where you can deal many, many times the damage it would take to kill a targeted summon/champion, and I think that is a bit much. The Health stats of the units need to either scale up better, or the overall damage that most units do (baring the rare and powerful things such as dragons, elder demons, etc.) to allow for a more fantasy feel of trading blows.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

The Vigilant Minion's Arcane Doom has been discussed a lot already, and SD has said that they will be looking at it, but haven't stated anything specifically because they are planning to overhaul the magic system in general. Still, it's pretty clear that they will be nerfed in one way or another...

 

... having said that, I went through the files and apparently the Imp Familiar is suppose to evolve into a much stronger version if you manage to level him to level 30, just like their description indicates. Too bad my longest games usually ends when my guys are nearing lvl20 so I have no idea if that actually works.