Life magic - an overview

My opinions on Life magic is that it's one of the strongest of the bunch and that it has very few weak spells. These spells are good for any sovereign as they don't rely on spell mastery and have  a range of strong effects.

Tier 1:

At tier 1 you get regeneration which is an absolute all star, especially with some life shards - if you stick this on a tank sov they can rapidly become untouchable by basic units. Its one of the most powerful spells in the game IMO.

I've never used paragon myself as it doesnt suit my playstyle although I think it is potentially very good, especially if combined with the natural leader trait to hire high end champs.

Courage is also a pretty good spell for mobs of units too.

Tier 2:

Aura of vitality is a good city enchantment for a fortress but doesnt feel game-breakingly powerful either.

Heal is another powerful spell, especially combined with a regenerating tank champ - another solid spell

Tier 3:

Growth and shrink are incredibly powerful, especially in combination, perhaps these should have casting times attached to them so an opponent has a chance to counter them?

Steal soul feels so out of character for life magic - I personally think it belongs in death as murdering people and eating their souls seems really evil to me

Tier 4:

Call to arms is another incredibly powerful spell that should cost 80 mana as it can churn out mega units super fast.

Wellspring is also very handy - I'm glad it has a casting time as an opponent should get a chance to conter it when it only costs 35 mana

Tier 5:

Crusade - I can't remember the last time I used this and I'm not sure how I feel about it when it costs so much mana - if it also levels up champs and sovs too then I think it's potentially very good - if its just trained units then I think it's too expensive

Death ward - pretty good - another thing to stick on your super tank really

Glory - the only real stinker in the pack - 300 mana for 1 point of prestige is way overpriced and isn't worth consideration

Overall, I think Life magic is solid and much stronger than death magic. It has a wide range of utility and can create some turbo powered combat sovs. All 5 tiers contain useful spells and it only has one or two poor ones. Growth and shrink are incredibly cheap and effective tactical spells with no casting time that last the entire battle which I think is OP really.

Anyway, those are my thoughts what do the rest of you guys think?

Don't forget the combination spells for life 2

Battle Cry - Life2+Air2 - 72 mana cost - Tactical - All units in your army get to act immediately

Glyph of Life - Life2+Fire2 - 30 mana cost - Strategic city enchantment - Defending units start with regeneration

Mantle of Oceans - Life2+Water2 - 25 mana cost / 1 upkeep - Strategic Champion enchantment - The mana costs of all tactical spells this unit casts is reduced by 40

Nature's Call - Life2+Earth2 - 30 mana cost - Tactical summon - Summons a pack of wolves, bear, naja or panther to aid you in battle.

I think you are under-estimating the value of permanent buffs, and the value of boosting all your trained units on a global scale,
I think crusade should cost less, be targetable and have a limit to levels
(like can maximum boost a trained unit to level 5, but costs 50 mana per cast, and gives 1 level to target trained stack).
this would make it a way more interesting choice (Oh which unit will I need to level up magically).
I do hope crusade level boost ignores xp bonuses, which it probably doesn't.

Also glory is really just another mana dump, it should not cost less, I think some of the xp dumps are too cheap as per now, for permanent bonuses, giving incredible power.

lategame mana-income is incredible strong, and being able to spam spells like glory is inappropriate and I would rather see stuff like "Glory" be a global enchant with a mana upkeep.
Say 50 mana cast, increase prestige by 25%, and a 1 or 2 mana upkeep

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Life 1:

Courage - Not worth it for 1 mana upkeep per turn. Better use later in game

Paragon - It's ok, you can base a game around it if you want to

Regeneration - great spell, really helps your champions clear content in act 1

 

Life 2:

Aura of vitality - Great scaling, one of the best spells for fortress unit production

Heal - bad scaling

 

Life 3:

Growth - Great spell

Shrink - Best life spell

Steal soul - I don't use it, but I guess if you have a champ turned useless by injuries...

 

Life 4:

Call to arms - 2nd best life spell, needs to have a scaling cost with what is being produced. 80 mana for a 9-man super-unit is nothing

Wellspring - meh. I guess it's ok if you're trying to steamroll the enemy, otherwise natural life regen in strategic should be enough. There are better spells to use if you're being pressured back, such as regeneration.

 

Life 5:

Crusade - haven't used it

Death Ward - haven't used it

Glory - by the time you can cast it, you shouldn't need to. Should be life4.

Combination spells:

Battle Cry - Great spell for an appropriate cost

Glyph of Life - OK if you have a lot of life shards, otherwise NO.

Mantle of Oceans - This spell is the reason you go water at all

Nature's Call - At 30 mana it is perfectly balanced. The summons basically win a fight for you in the early game, but quickly grow obsolete even if you specialize as summoner

@ Heavenfall

thanks for reminding me I'll stick them on the OP now

nice initiative DGB
It would help if you put in numbers on the spells though, to help balance and people with less knowledge of each single detail give a proper judgement, or just ask for numbers or something.

Courage: This also grants spell resistance, and is a nice little enchant, not too powerful though but really good to beef up trained units.
- 8 mana, +1 mana upkeep: Gives +3 (+1 per life shard) to hp and spell resistance, only castable as an enchantment in the strategic map.
 Probably could give +4 with no problem, or +5 before shards.

Paragon: I think its a shame this spell is life only, it is really powerful when used correctly or lategame.

Regeneration: I think this should be moved to life 2, or even life 3, due to this spell almost completely removing downtime from questing, and this is a pretty powerful ability worth both manacost and 2 picks in sovereign creation.
 - 15 mana, +1 mana upkeep: Heals 1 (+1 per life shard) hp per turn in tactical combat, and each season to enchanted unit, only castable as an enchantment in the strategic map.
 I think this spell relies a bit too much on lifeshards for effectiveness too, if you find a ton of lifeshards the enchanted hero will have a massive regeneration and beat a lot of monsters easily.

Aura of Vitality: My pet peeve with this enchant is the way it scales with essence, I don't like that. (And it needs to be available to empire, or they should have a similar choice in death magic, IMO).

Heal: This could easily be put into Life: 1, with slightly increased manacost,  but only if you removed regeneration from life1 which I think should be done.
 - 12 mana: Heals 8 (+4 per lifeshard) hitpoints to target unit, only castable in tactical combat.

Growth, Shrink: I really like the flavour of these, but I don't like the details used.
I think growth is fine, but shrink should always give +20% dodge (instead of relying on the target to actually HAVE dodge).

Steal Soul: This could go into Death magic as an "opposite" of the Paragon spell, while paragon is way better at least it would be something
I think I am not the only one having trouble seeing this as a "Life" spell.

Call to Arms: this is a really powerful spell, I think it would benefit the balance if it had a 1 turn cast time, or higher manacost.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Battlecry - feels overcosted to me, 72 mana is alot to pay (plus casting time) and I can think of many other tactical spells I'd choose instead over this

Glyph of life - not bad if you're on the defensive, I can see this having merit in the harder settings where city defences become more important

Mantle of oceans - this right here is another illustration of why Life feels OP relative to death, they get exclusive access to this amazing enchantment - I think this should be available to both kingdoms and empires and it should also be nerfed a little too (say 25% discount)

Nature's call - I feel this should be 20 mana as it's tactical only and doesnt scale well

Life 1:

Courage - so and so, need a small buff

Paragon - bad design, just dont like it even if can have a purpose, but dont see this being ever balanced

Regeneration - good spell

 

Life 2:

Aura of vitality - decent but not dunno, i dont really need ever early game, its rare to spam troops that soon

Heal - decent spell,  once support mages get more love this can work, right its always best to nuke with other schools or just wear a plate and tank stuff

 

Life 3:

Growth - situational but can be good

Shrink - its good but not needed so often, melees are too strong, you need need to trade, melees are just jack of all trades and can tank and deal dmg at once

Steal soul - bad mechanics plz just remove it

 

Life 4:

Call to arms - very good, cant say if balanced or not

Wellspring - pretty good in general but in practical its not needed, once the game provide strong magic, strong aoe, strong monsters probably will be needed too

 

Life 5:

Crusade - no idee tbh, dont really like it but could be used
Death Ward - good idea but need tuning

Glory - dont like it

 

 

Combination spells:

Battle Cry - interesting idea but doesnt really apply well to metagame, more than the spell, the rest of gameplay need balance to make it useful

Glyph of Life - nice spell potentially

Mantle of Oceans - quite op

Nature's Call - like every summon is useless soon, but being an early game spell its ok (still EVERY summon need more scaling)

Agreed on all these!
Battlecry is potentially dangerous in big groups, but costs way too much to ever use

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I think Blizzard is the most powerful damage spell in the game, because it has a large area of effect, a high damage (8 + 4) and the damage is multiplied with the number of units.

I think Regeneration is too weak without any life shards. The base effect should be increased to 2.

Heal is too weak without any life shards, too. The base effect should be increased to 10 and the shard effect reduced to 3.

The tactical version of Wellspring is too weak without any life shards, too. The base effect should be increased to 15, the shard effect reduced to 5 and the casting time should be reduced to 0.

Mantle of Oceans is too powerful in my opinion. The effect should be reduced to 25 %.

I would really like spells to scale a little less with shards atm. and be slightly more powerful without shards I think its such a shame you have to have the right shards to really use your magic, shards are already limiting spell-casting by giving access to mana.

I think can be addressed by one of three ways, first being some kind of magic scaling factor based on magic density chosen at the beginning.  Less magic - less shards - contribution by shards will be more.  Lots of magic, lots of shards - contribution less.  Second, go away from shard scaling to something else say level of the caster or level of the caster, plus techs.  Third, some more spells like Corruption but work for each color.

With regards to life there's absolutely zero damaging types of spells.  Zero summons.  Heal is tied in to shards, which is quite limited.  Doesn't help mid to late game.  Regen helps don't get me wrong, but it's default is less than what trolls get.  Like HF said it only helps in early game.  Either needs to scale better or get some inital buff or both.  Life would really have nothing if it wasn't for grow/shrink.  Just wished they were named something else.  Same goes for Steal Soul.  I'd expect that in a death magic list.  Wellspring - casting time is a downer.  if you're units are hurting, are you going to have enough time to heal?  Also since Drain Life does damage and heal for Death magic.  Waay to sloow.  Doesn't compete against death or fire. 

My reactions, for what little they're worth:

Life 1:

Courage: Well balanced early game spell.  Useful when spiderlings and ruffians are still dangerous.

Paragon: Since you're never guaranteed anyway that a champion leveling up will be offered a good trait, and there are both items and other spells that improve experience gain without pain, this one's pretty useless.

Regeneration: Helpful spell.  Again, well balanced.

 

Life 2:

Aura of vitality: Can't say I find this helpful at all.

Heal: The reason to get Life.

 
Life 3:

Growth: Great battle spell.  I like the tradeoff with dodging.

Shrink: Another great battle spell, and resistable.  Which makes sense.

Steal soul: Senseless spell, and utterly out of character for the Life tree.

 

Life 4:

Call to arms: I suppose it makes sense, but it has always seemed easier to me to just pay in cash.

Wellspring: Heal's big sister.  Fine spell for those big battles with lots of enemies.

 

Life 5:

Crusade: If you have this much mana to waste, and that many champions to waste it on to make this scale reasonably, why haven't you already won the game?

Death Ward: Good spell, but I'd like to see a lower level version of this that costs less, and resurrects a unit with just a few points.

Glory: Meaningless.  Seems like more of a placeholder until a real spell can be slotted into the grand finale of the Life tree.

 

Life combo spells: 

Battle Cry: A very specific use spell that can wreck havoc, if employed properly.  I think the cost is appropriate, everything considered.  The AI seems overly fond of it, and not to its advantage.

Glyph of Life: Should be more expensive.

Mantle of Oceans: I like it, but I think the spell cost reduction is too great.  40% right now?  Maybe 25%.

Nature's Call: Underpowered.  You've gotten part way up two spell trees, and all you can summon is something that's inferior to a warg or wolf.

Don't like either Growth or Shrink as Life spells.

Shrink should be a Death spell. (Life Debuff?  Meh.)

Growth should either be an Earth spell, or Earth + Life spell.

Mantle of Oceans should be, at best, 10% + 5% per Water and Life Shard.

Life 1:

Courage - use sometimes

Paragon - sometimes

Regeneration - a lot

 

Life 2:

Aura of vitality - a lot

Heal - a lot

 

Life 3:

Growth - never, but going to start

Shrink - never, but going to start

Steal soul - a lot

 

Life 4:

Call to arms - never

Wellspring - never

 

Life 5:

Crusade - never

Death Ward - never

Glory - never

 

EDIT - thanks Heavenfall

Life combo spells: 

Battle Cry - never

Glyph of Life - never

Mantle of Oceans - never, but going to start

Nature's Call - never

The last game I played, my sov was a life archmage. Using Growth on my strong melee hero and Shrink on tough opponents (e.g the dragonlord) was incredibly good. You can guess, I won the game via Master Quest.

Yes when I first read growth and shrink I thought they were awful but I was using a muggle hero and found a life mage as my only recruited hero and used both of those spells to surprising effect. I liked that shrinking people with zero dodge was a good tactic since it multiplies their dodge (meaning they gained nothing).

Mike.