Marak, just don’t forget that these spells are not designed to be cost-effective solution for dealing damage. The purpose of spells is to iron out inconvenient peaks in enemy concentration. And they might be quite useful in tough spots especially in linear run games, too. There are occasions when it’s not the “I want to invest my 100 PSI well into future damage” but “I need to weaken the mob right now”.
Did anyone use spells?
But that’s just it; in general, it doesn’t weaken anything enough in a reasonable time frame when shit is hitting the fan.
I’m glad that you guys can find these spots where you’re thinking that you’re going to “leak” mobs and somehow have 100 Psi saved up for a “save my ass” Dragonfire. I have never, ever found myself in a situation where using Psi on a Damage spell was worth it versus Boosting a unit or using a real “oh shit button” spell (Knockback, Frenzy, even Crystal).
— Begin quote from "Marak"
But that’s just it; in general, it doesn’t weaken anything enough in a reasonable time frame when shit is hitting the fan.
I’m glad that you guys can find these spots where you’re thinking that you’re going to “leak” mobs and somehow have 100 Psi saved up for a “save my ass” Dragonfire. I have never, ever found myself in a situation where using Psi on a Damage spell was worth it versus Boosting a unit or using a real “oh shit button” spell (Knockback, Frenzy, even Crystal).
— End quote
I’ve lightning-ed-down a couple of leaked crawlers before, does that count?
Though as soon as I had all the spells unlocked I reset her skill points and slopped them all into Frenzy followed by push.
— Begin quote from "Marak"
I’m glad that you guys can find these spots where you’re thinking that you’re going to “leak” mobs and somehow have 100 Psi saved up for a “save my ass” Dragonfire. I have never, ever found myself in a situation where using Psi on a Damage spell was worth it versus Boosting a unit or using a real “oh shit button” spell (Knockback, Frenzy, even Crystal).
— End quote
It just mean you take too much time to react for the spell. As for the psi… I just don’t know how you happen not to overflow with psi on the last mission.
Because I generally know which unit I want to boost next and watch the little blue Psi “globes” flying into Azra’s bar like a hawk so I can select the unit and mash the B button the moment I have enough Psi for the upgrade?
I never sit on Psi, ever, unless I suddenly get a massive spike of it, like the one you get for killing the Hand or a really, really large mass of units dies to my AoE in a very short time frame, or something equally rare/unusual.
But anyway, this is all besides the point. I still say the spells, with no scaling, simply do not have enough “oomph” to do their job properly in any situation outside of a low-to-no grinding Normal playthrough, and even then the damage starts to get questionable once you hit the Cultist and Boss Fight maps. If you’re doing anything on Advanced or Extreme (other than the first several maps), the damage is trivial.
Will you occasionally be able to chip off some health with them? I guess. Will it make a difference if you’ve covered your lanes properly and built your unit skill trees in a reasonably optimal manner? Generally not. Can you use them in very rare occasions to pick off a low-health mob or three? Only if you’re lucky.
They just seem underwhelming, even during a Normal play through, and then they rapidly degrade from “underwhelming” to “a complete waste of Psi” as you advance to tougher maps/difficulties.
There seem to be two schools of thought, and I think they overlay two schools of play.
-
“Spells are useful” --> the player is generally playing on lower difficulty settings and/or seeks to maximize “fun” by minimizing gameplay time.
-
“Spells are worthless” --> the player is generally playing on the highest available difficulty and seeks to maximize “fun” by maximizing gameplay performance, at the expense of time.
The challenge is to figure out a way to include BOTH schools of thought in a single spell dynamic without being over or under powered relative to the content the players are experiencing.
— Begin quote from "Syntropy"
- “Spells are useful” --> the player is generally playing on lower difficulty settings and/or seeks to maximize “fun” by minimizing gameplay time.
— End quote
I have 90 stars and I am in this stance. (and I am redoing the game with differents gearing and experiences choices)
I believe your split is way too simple.
Tell me, how effective do you find Dragon Fire and Lightning Bolt on wave 500 in endless mode? 
— Begin quote from "Syntropy"
Tell me, how effective do you find Dragon Fire and Lightning Bolt on wave 500 in endless mode?
— End quote
You mean, the mode that is so easy that it stop only when mobs one shot everything ?
Way to dodge the question there turbo.
Let me restate it: how useful do you find healing, lightning bolt, crystal, and dragon fire on the final level of the game on extreme?
— Begin quote from "Syntropy"
Way to dodge the question there turbo.
Let me restate it: how useful do you find healing, lightning bolt, crystal, and dragon fire on the final level of the game on extreme?
— End quote
That’s a very extreme example indeed, a map full of extra tough creeps. But even there, going for perfect, the ability to dish out something like 500 + 2250 dmg (is that so? on level 7 it does 400 + 2240) might make a big difference. Sure not in the early waves, but there might be moments (especially with spawned worms and fast creeps in general) where this amount of dmg inflicted across the board, right now, makes a big difference. Sure, using that 100 PSI to boost a defender would produce more in the long run, but you could happen to be dead in the long run.
Mind you, I’m definitely on the side of “damage spells should scale” (my preferred solution is for the damage to be linear with monster level). But absence of that doesn’t make the spells useless right now. I had more than a few occasions when the 100 PSI spent on dragonfire was a very good choice .
And when it comes to heal, yea, I cast that plenty of times too when circumstances disallowed me from optimal healer coverage. Cheap enough to be affordable as a way to protect one’s big investments into a character when you need the healer elsewhere. Of course, heal usage could be avoided if one had the maps memorized and knew exactly what he could afford to place where without healer coverage, but I don’t think that many people really bother with calculating damage potential of an enemy wave and deciding “ok, so if I put the knight with the better armor there, he’ll just narrowly survive”.
— Begin quote from "Syntropy"
Let me restate it: how useful do you find healing, lightning bolt, crystal, and dragon fire on the final level of the game on extreme?
— End quote
They have made the difference between a perfect run and a non perfect run. Simple as that. (especially the damage one, since the heal is pretty weak, especially on 4 healer)
Here’s an idea for spells… have passive spells you can toggle that just sap away PSI per second. Problem with things like frenzy is you forget to use it
— Begin quote from "Ohlmann"
— Begin quote from "Syntropy"
Let me restate it: how useful do you find healing, lightning bolt, crystal, and dragon fire on the final level of the game on extreme?
— End quote
They have made the difference between a perfect run and a non perfect run. Simple as that. (especially the damage one, since the heal is pretty weak, especially on 4 healer)
— End quote
I can do a perfect run using no spells whatsoever 100% of the time.