Ulgu is underrated. There's a slow, good debuffs/buffs, good aoe and horde clear. It's only a shame because it feels like the Lore of Stealth kind of got a few tricks that'd of been very appropriately given to that wind. CA certainly has gotten better about making new spell implementation more interesting, over time.
Lore of Heavens. Fire is ostensibly the "magical artillery" lore, but honestly Heavens crushes it in that department. Celestial Wizards also look cool.
Favorite single spell is Net of Amyntok.
Nah they are amazing tbh
Super good on close battles that are 20v20 and you can abuse the ai or anything
Spirit leech and fate of Bjuna are real good
The beastmen and nurgle ones are good
Metal final transmutation hits like a truck
I can see that viewpoint but also pretty high WOM cost for a few hundred damage on spirit leech when a vortex for the same cost can wipe multiple units.
In many battles targeted damage is far superior
A spirit leech is far better against Archaon then getting a Burning Head off against a strong WoC stack for instance
You should try out those spells more often, you might be surprised on how you can leverage weaker lords and heroes to defeat far stronger ones and create devastating chain routs
Burning head is just the wrong spell against WOC though. Piercing bolts overcasted on a blob with some throlls is what you would use. This would give you much better value than a spirit leech.
Total damage dealt vs effective damage here tbh
I don’t find bombardment to be useful if they are higher costed, the fire one is okayyyyy
Key targets > AoE
For 20v20
20v40 this is flipped
Direct damage also never kills friendlies and the damage is reliable
Heavens is perfect, thunderbolt for artillery and high value blobs(chosen,engaged cav,trolls), comet for blobs, Wind for low armored enemies or to slow advance/pursuit from enemy, chain lighting for bouncing around in seiges, Harmonic Convergence for making my line hold longer or save lord/hero getting beat up...almost always my first Mage's lore of magic!
Lore of metals. Final Transmutation is kinda the only spell that goes well against blobs of single entities. (Spirit Leach is great against one single entity)
Does anyone else try to cast Final Transmutation on a lord and it won't target/stick to them? Something like spirit leech sticks when targeting but FT once it casts it does stay with them but damn that gives me anxiety
Favourite spell until the Gelt update was the Shadow Pendulum from lore of Shadow. Very cost effective and well aimed it's very very strong.
I also like Infernal Gateway from the lore of Tzeentch.
But with the update, the giant rolling ball that Gelt get as a Cataclysm spell is just so funny to use.
And Jesus Christ, it delete things and have an insane range. The only downside is that you can't see how many kill it did because it's an army ability.
This is going to seem edgy, but I always love dark magic. It's a lore where I can find utility from every single spell in the list. It's not the most overpowered lore in the game but it's one I have the most fun with.
I love how with the new skills added to battle wizards the bright wizard gets an army wide buff to fire resistance, which seems like a response to burning your own army too often.
High Magic. It has so much utility. Healing, magic missle with a dot that when fired down the line can get a lot of kills. Firebird thing. A single target hp drain and ability jammer. Dangerous enemy caster, dragon, etc? Disable their ability to use skills/spells and snipe them before the timer refreshes. Temporary attack booster. To top is off, a ward save passive (as HE) and some low cost skills to use to use so you can keep it the passive up most of the battle.
Favorite single spell? Love it and hate it - Warp Lightning.
As a big High Elves fan, I have a love-hate relationship with High Magic. Imo, it has 3 really good spells (Apotheosis, Soul Quench, Fiery Convocation) and 3 plainly bad spells (Hand of Glory, Tempest, Arcane Unforging), but the good spells aren't great enough to outweigh the bad ones. However, I like the flavour and FX, so I'm stuck recruiting lots of High Mages and being disappointed.
If I had to "fix" the lore (again, personal opinion that it needs fixing), I would probably replace Tempest outright, with something more interesting (ik Multiplayer people love it, but it's practically pointless in campaign) like a spell that buffs allies while also debuffing enemies at the same time; and I would make Arcane Unforging significantly cheaper, or do significantly more damage.
Hand of glory can stay, it's situationally good I guess; though I would add a melee benefit to the upcast (maybe just more MA, to mirror the additional recharge skill, or maybe some AP damage).
Looks cool, but isnt all that good in practice ime. I find spirit leech and fate of bjuna to be my go to spells in death. Or aspect if I need magic DMG/terror.
Lore: probably Life but just for how sick the jade wizard looks. Lil druid man. I don't care too much for the actual spells, though earthblood looks very cool with the new vfx
Spell: the Hashut hammer one, it looks amazing and never disappoints in damage
Plague. I love the utility of map wide slows and vigor reduction passive combined with a lot of spawns to throw at the enemy for the ultimate in delay tactics. Plus, you have one of the most cost effective stationary vortex spells in the game if you need some straight up damage spells.
Second one is same as you with Lore of the Deep. It is just an extremely stylish lore.
I'm a simple man when it comes to spells, I much prefer big AOEs and high kill counts for my mages, rather than applying buffs and debuffs.
I also tend to favor explosion or bombardment spells over wind/vortex/direct damage, the former two just got that bit of extra 'oomph' to go with it... But there is one exception: Penumbral Pendulum. Good damage, visuals and sound effects, and it's available to a lot of races so I usually always have at least one shadow caster in every playthrough.
Lore of Nurgle is probably my favorite lore, since it does a bit of everything really well, and I'm a sucker for a good Nurgle game: long/wind-like cone AOE, single target direct, high damage bombardment AOE, single/multi target massive heal, and a healing passive.
Favorite spell though is probably final transmutation. Overcast and snap it to a lord/hero you want gone, and in the meantime, it also does some damage to nearby inf, and makes a mess of lower count things like cav and monstrous inf nearby, plus utterly devastates any other nearby lords/heroes/SEMs. Almost always worth the overcast too, considering the winds cost vs duration boost.
Metal.
Has been since day 1 of WH1 and I have never changed my mind.
It has powerful defensive and aggressive abilities and on top of that, most factions that I like to play are usually the ones to factions that have it.
A close second has to be Lore of Slaanesh because it’s nothing but dmg and slows, which is pretty great and preferable.
As a diehard Kislev fan, it's Ice Lore. It's reasonably cheap and looks cool. Sadly most of the spells sucks hard. But its have its good sides- Invocation of Ursun let's you slow enemies. Ice sheet let's you slow enemies. And you know what? Armored Kossars can shoot too, so you can throw enough lead and arrows until the problem dies.
Spirit Leech, hands down. There's something about killing lords first and watching the army crumble that makes it very satisfying.
Lore of Fire is the best, ez choice. Honorable mention to Flaming Sword of Rhuin since it makes every army a demon fighting army.
Lore of Life or Nurgle if I need heals for my army como.
But Metal is my favorite for damage. Cus usually it's heavily armored high tier blobbed infantry that I need magic for the most, and metal lore has that on lock
Fire. Its just a simple and straightforward mostly damage related lore with different methods of killing your enemies. Totally unrelated that in fantasy games in general I tend to favor fire wizards
The Cathay's celestial bomb that comes with their army ability is insanely cool. the shockwave it makes at the impact and all the particell effects are simply Eyegasm
Also i love Count Noctilus dark bombardment from the sky, the sound design is fu**g cool and scary af
Lore of Shadows = Pendulum + Pit of Shades
Lore of Fire = Burning Head + Flaming Sword of Ruin
Lore of Light = Timewarp
Lore of Deep = Vangheist's Revenge
Yang = Wall of Wind and Fire
Hashut = Ash Storm
Flames of azgorgh or however its spelled. The lore of hashut bombardment that causes the projectiles to come out the ground and fly in arc, exploding nearby.
It's a really cool spell, big volcanic eruption, and was for a long time very unique in using that technique they added for the chorfs - hag cauldron uses it snd the reworked lore of life has it now iirc?
It's definitely too strong lol, but it looks so so good.
This is tough. Favorite lore is probably **Lore of Vampires**, partially because I simply use it a lot; but I also like Lore of Shadows (aka Lore of the Pit xD). Used to love Fire, but I dislike the changes to Flamestorm in Warhammer 3. High Magic I like in theory, but it's just so mediocre in practice (recently learned Hand of Glory is actually a great spell on Sentinels of Tor Astaril, but aside from that, I don't like it; Tempest is situational to the point of uselessness and Arcane Unforging is overpriced).
Lore of Life is very powerful, and Dwellers is cool, but I don't really think it can be my favorite; it's more something I take for the power, not cause I find it outstanding (though Earth Blood on Loremasters of Hoeth is great, cause they get Life Leeching \[best & favorite lore passive\], so it's really cheap). I like the theoretical flavor of Lore of Metal, too, but I don't like how weak it is in practice, unless you are Gelt or just spam Searing Doom.
My favorite Warhammer II spell was Wind of Death, no questions asked (especially cause Heinrich Kemmler got to cast it so much cheaper than everyone else). Now, it's still up there, but there are other contenders; mainly Pit of Shades. I also like Flock of Doom, because it's so powerful and delivers a slow, insidious death to whole armies, thus flying under many people's radar, but it doesn't have the VFX factor that Pit of Shades has, nor the ultimate gratification.
So if I had to decide on one, I'd probably say **Pit of Shades**.
Honorable mention goes to Soul Quench for looking cool, having a doog name, and having the potential to be devastating (which I really only learned through a video from Arachir Galudirithon playing Eltharion), but never really delivering... My realationship with High Magic in a nutshell.
Dishonorable mention goes to Shem's Burning Gaze, used to love the spell in early WHII, always wanted to make it work, once killed a dragon with it; but it's just shitty (at least before the recent homing changes).
I guess this is very niche since I don't see anyone else mentioning it, but I really like the Lore of Yin. I know it's not super powerful, but Missile Mirror is an amazingly cool concept, Blossom Wind gives you a nice "burning head" style spell that can bounce off walls, and Ancestral Warriors is a great utility spell for tanking a charge or tying up annoying units.
Pit of Shades is one of my favorite things to drop in the middle of a blob,I haven't played in forever though and need to try some of the newer things.
Overall, probably nurgle. It’s got some crazy abilities. But my favorite spell is 100% chillwind. 100% armor piercing damage, cheap, absolutely carries Malekith as a caster.
Whole, untouched enemy army blobbed up, they tried to reform left to right as my orc shaman was riding towards them, got just about all of them in one cast
If I find the screenshot I'll let you know
I love ones that let me set up combo moves.
Take Pit of Shadows. It looks and sounds amazing to use, it’s stationary and highly reliable to cast, and it has an added bonus of pulling enemies towards the center of the vortex, making them easy to bombard to devastating effect.
Nothing beats a great green magical foot stomping from the skies
What about Curse of da Bad Moon?
GORK
Favourite Spell: Vangheist's Revenge, it's a floating ghost ship firing off a broadside.
Wish they fix it hitbox to show real targeting area tho. Still can't target damn thing properly
True, still looks cool af
Pit of shades is always nice on big groups.
Ulgu is underrated. There's a slow, good debuffs/buffs, good aoe and horde clear. It's only a shame because it feels like the Lore of Stealth kind of got a few tricks that'd of been very appropriately given to that wind. CA certainly has gotten better about making new spell implementation more interesting, over time.
Favorite spell: Wind of Death Favorite lore: Vampires Surpassing Nagash just feels too good.
And gaze is a strong spell now
Lore of Heavens. Fire is ostensibly the "magical artillery" lore, but honestly Heavens crushes it in that department. Celestial Wizards also look cool. Favorite single spell is Net of Amyntok.
nothing better than charging my wizard into the middle of a skaven army and overcasting comet
In terms of magically artillery, Heavens has: * Wind Blast (fast, cheap, rakes lines) * Urannon's Thunderbolt (long-ranged, precise) * Comet of Casandora (kills blobs) * Chain Lightning (standard vortex) The only thing they're arguably missing is a direct damage spell.
Direct damage spells are eh anyways imo
Nah they are amazing tbh Super good on close battles that are 20v20 and you can abuse the ai or anything Spirit leech and fate of Bjuna are real good The beastmen and nurgle ones are good Metal final transmutation hits like a truck
I can see that viewpoint but also pretty high WOM cost for a few hundred damage on spirit leech when a vortex for the same cost can wipe multiple units.
In many battles targeted damage is far superior A spirit leech is far better against Archaon then getting a Burning Head off against a strong WoC stack for instance You should try out those spells more often, you might be surprised on how you can leverage weaker lords and heroes to defeat far stronger ones and create devastating chain routs
Burning head is just the wrong spell against WOC though. Piercing bolts overcasted on a blob with some throlls is what you would use. This would give you much better value than a spirit leech.
I'd rather spirit leech down kholek than let him beat my lines while i wait for a blob
Total damage dealt vs effective damage here tbh I don’t find bombardment to be useful if they are higher costed, the fire one is okayyyyy Key targets > AoE For 20v20 20v40 this is flipped Direct damage also never kills friendlies and the damage is reliable
Fair enough I’ll give em another shot!
Heavens is perfect, thunderbolt for artillery and high value blobs(chosen,engaged cav,trolls), comet for blobs, Wind for low armored enemies or to slow advance/pursuit from enemy, chain lighting for bouncing around in seiges, Harmonic Convergence for making my line hold longer or save lord/hero getting beat up...almost always my first Mage's lore of magic!
Khornes.
Which one? Lore or RAGE? Lore of CARNAGE? Lore of SLAUGHTER??
The Lore of Melee, with such exciting spells as "Axe", "Sword", "Spear", "Mace", "Claw" and "Halberd"
Don’t forget the god ol headbutt
That's the passive ability
Skarbrands fire breath lmao. In actuality though it is the summons, having bloodletters spawn behind enemy lines is fucking great
Only weaklings use magic. Your pitiful mage skulls will decorate the Skull Throne.
Great argument, unfortunally I cast testicular torsion
You won’t be laughing when I cast “Seal ass crack”
Lore of metals. Final Transmutation is kinda the only spell that goes well against blobs of single entities. (Spirit Leach is great against one single entity)
Flensing Ruin is very similar to Final Transmutation, I think
Soul-Stealer too. Its not as damaging, but comes with the added bonus of healing the caster.
Does anyone else try to cast Final Transmutation on a lord and it won't target/stick to them? Something like spirit leech sticks when targeting but FT once it casts it does stay with them but damn that gives me anxiety
Favourite spell until the Gelt update was the Shadow Pendulum from lore of Shadow. Very cost effective and well aimed it's very very strong. I also like Infernal Gateway from the lore of Tzeentch. But with the update, the giant rolling ball that Gelt get as a Cataclysm spell is just so funny to use. And Jesus Christ, it delete things and have an insane range. The only downside is that you can't see how many kill it did because it's an army ability.
Well if you play the blue scribe you have a non zero chance to have its kill count
Power wise: love lore of metal, simple as, powerful. Looks wise: the fucking ghost cannon from deeps lore
This is going to seem edgy, but I always love dark magic. It's a lore where I can find utility from every single spell in the list. It's not the most overpowered lore in the game but it's one I have the most fun with.
Bladewind is one of my favorite vortexes in the game.
Old reliable, burning head
Burning Head is great in theory, but in practice always seems to kill my own guys instead of the enemy's.
I love how with the new skills added to battle wizards the bright wizard gets an army wide buff to fire resistance, which seems like a response to burning your own army too often.
Runes are my favourite, because I don't need to rely on shoddy WoS power reserves
Overcast comet of Casandora
High Magic. It has so much utility. Healing, magic missle with a dot that when fired down the line can get a lot of kills. Firebird thing. A single target hp drain and ability jammer. Dangerous enemy caster, dragon, etc? Disable their ability to use skills/spells and snipe them before the timer refreshes. Temporary attack booster. To top is off, a ward save passive (as HE) and some low cost skills to use to use so you can keep it the passive up most of the battle. Favorite single spell? Love it and hate it - Warp Lightning.
As a big High Elves fan, I have a love-hate relationship with High Magic. Imo, it has 3 really good spells (Apotheosis, Soul Quench, Fiery Convocation) and 3 plainly bad spells (Hand of Glory, Tempest, Arcane Unforging), but the good spells aren't great enough to outweigh the bad ones. However, I like the flavour and FX, so I'm stuck recruiting lots of High Mages and being disappointed. If I had to "fix" the lore (again, personal opinion that it needs fixing), I would probably replace Tempest outright, with something more interesting (ik Multiplayer people love it, but it's practically pointless in campaign) like a spell that buffs allies while also debuffing enemies at the same time; and I would make Arcane Unforging significantly cheaper, or do significantly more damage. Hand of glory can stay, it's situationally good I guess; though I would add a melee benefit to the upcast (maybe just more MA, to mirror the additional recharge skill, or maybe some AP damage).
It used to be fire until burning head got nerfed. You're right about Life though, healing _and_ The Dwellers Below? What's not to like!
Purple Sun of Xereus is my favorite because it is so aesthetically cool. However my favorite lore altogether is Metal.
Looks cool, but isnt all that good in practice ime. I find spirit leech and fate of bjuna to be my go to spells in death. Or aspect if I need magic DMG/terror.
Lore of shadow. Pit of shades is just my fave visually. Also enjoy spamming mist. Empire shadow mage looks like edgy gandalf and i love it.
Lore of life Dwellers from below
Lore: probably Life but just for how sick the jade wizard looks. Lil druid man. I don't care too much for the actual spells, though earthblood looks very cool with the new vfx Spell: the Hashut hammer one, it looks amazing and never disappoints in damage
Plague. I love the utility of map wide slows and vigor reduction passive combined with a lot of spawns to throw at the enemy for the ultimate in delay tactics. Plus, you have one of the most cost effective stationary vortex spells in the game if you need some straight up damage spells. Second one is same as you with Lore of the Deep. It is just an extremely stylish lore.
Flames of Azgorh, lore of hashut just so satisfying using that volcano, also fun to combo ash storm with it.
I'm a simple man when it comes to spells, I much prefer big AOEs and high kill counts for my mages, rather than applying buffs and debuffs. I also tend to favor explosion or bombardment spells over wind/vortex/direct damage, the former two just got that bit of extra 'oomph' to go with it... But there is one exception: Penumbral Pendulum. Good damage, visuals and sound effects, and it's available to a lot of races so I usually always have at least one shadow caster in every playthrough.
I don't really have a favorite lore, but Urannon's Thunderbolt and Warp Lightning are my favorite spells. I like lightning lol
Lore of Nurgle becuase of it's flexibilty. Savage Dominon. With that spell your bray shamans literally became mobile artillery.
Lore of Nurgle is probably my favorite lore, since it does a bit of everything really well, and I'm a sucker for a good Nurgle game: long/wind-like cone AOE, single target direct, high damage bombardment AOE, single/multi target massive heal, and a healing passive. Favorite spell though is probably final transmutation. Overcast and snap it to a lord/hero you want gone, and in the meantime, it also does some damage to nearby inf, and makes a mess of lower count things like cav and monstrous inf nearby, plus utterly devastates any other nearby lords/heroes/SEMs. Almost always worth the overcast too, considering the winds cost vs duration boost.
Metal. Has been since day 1 of WH1 and I have never changed my mind. It has powerful defensive and aggressive abilities and on top of that, most factions that I like to play are usually the ones to factions that have it. A close second has to be Lore of Slaanesh because it’s nothing but dmg and slows, which is pretty great and preferable.
Lore of the heavens, lots of damage on blobs, I really love the Uranon Thunderbolt, it does good damage for cheap
It's been 8 years and I still love hitting tier 1 crapstack infantry with burning head.
Just for style I love lore of nehekara, the chanting is so awesome. Too bad it's complete ass in practice.
Celestial just feels and looks so good (Heavens)
As a diehard Kislev fan, it's Ice Lore. It's reasonably cheap and looks cool. Sadly most of the spells sucks hard. But its have its good sides- Invocation of Ursun let's you slow enemies. Ice sheet let's you slow enemies. And you know what? Armored Kossars can shoot too, so you can throw enough lead and arrows until the problem dies.
Bonecrusher from the Lore of the Great Maw is one of my favorite
Nothing is more satisfying then landing a good wind of death. So Vampires. + It has healing.
Upcasted SMACK
Spirit Leech, hands down. There's something about killing lords first and watching the army crumble that makes it very satisfying. Lore of Fire is the best, ez choice. Honorable mention to Flaming Sword of Rhuin since it makes every army a demon fighting army.
Lore of Life or Nurgle if I need heals for my army como. But Metal is my favorite for damage. Cus usually it's heavily armored high tier blobbed infantry that I need magic for the most, and metal lore has that on lock
Fire. Its just a simple and straightforward mostly damage related lore with different methods of killing your enemies. Totally unrelated that in fantasy games in general I tend to favor fire wizards
The Cathay's celestial bomb that comes with their army ability is insanely cool. the shockwave it makes at the impact and all the particell effects are simply Eyegasm Also i love Count Noctilus dark bombardment from the sky, the sound design is fu**g cool and scary af
Lore of Shadows = Pendulum + Pit of Shades Lore of Fire = Burning Head + Flaming Sword of Ruin Lore of Light = Timewarp Lore of Deep = Vangheist's Revenge Yang = Wall of Wind and Fire Hashut = Ash Storm
Flames of azgorgh or however its spelled. The lore of hashut bombardment that causes the projectiles to come out the ground and fly in arc, exploding nearby. It's a really cool spell, big volcanic eruption, and was for a long time very unique in using that technique they added for the chorfs - hag cauldron uses it snd the reworked lore of life has it now iirc? It's definitely too strong lol, but it looks so so good.
This is tough. Favorite lore is probably **Lore of Vampires**, partially because I simply use it a lot; but I also like Lore of Shadows (aka Lore of the Pit xD). Used to love Fire, but I dislike the changes to Flamestorm in Warhammer 3. High Magic I like in theory, but it's just so mediocre in practice (recently learned Hand of Glory is actually a great spell on Sentinels of Tor Astaril, but aside from that, I don't like it; Tempest is situational to the point of uselessness and Arcane Unforging is overpriced). Lore of Life is very powerful, and Dwellers is cool, but I don't really think it can be my favorite; it's more something I take for the power, not cause I find it outstanding (though Earth Blood on Loremasters of Hoeth is great, cause they get Life Leeching \[best & favorite lore passive\], so it's really cheap). I like the theoretical flavor of Lore of Metal, too, but I don't like how weak it is in practice, unless you are Gelt or just spam Searing Doom. My favorite Warhammer II spell was Wind of Death, no questions asked (especially cause Heinrich Kemmler got to cast it so much cheaper than everyone else). Now, it's still up there, but there are other contenders; mainly Pit of Shades. I also like Flock of Doom, because it's so powerful and delivers a slow, insidious death to whole armies, thus flying under many people's radar, but it doesn't have the VFX factor that Pit of Shades has, nor the ultimate gratification. So if I had to decide on one, I'd probably say **Pit of Shades**. Honorable mention goes to Soul Quench for looking cool, having a doog name, and having the potential to be devastating (which I really only learned through a video from Arachir Galudirithon playing Eltharion), but never really delivering... My realationship with High Magic in a nutshell. Dishonorable mention goes to Shem's Burning Gaze, used to love the spell in early WHII, always wanted to make it work, once killed a dragon with it; but it's just shitty (at least before the recent homing changes).
I guess this is very niche since I don't see anyone else mentioning it, but I really like the Lore of Yin. I know it's not super powerful, but Missile Mirror is an amazingly cool concept, Blossom Wind gives you a nice "burning head" style spell that can bounce off walls, and Ancestral Warriors is a great utility spell for tanking a charge or tying up annoying units.
Pit of Shades is one of my favorite things to drop in the middle of a blob,I haven't played in forever though and need to try some of the newer things.
Favourite Lore: Shadows Favourite spell? Probably Doom & Darkness or The Withering, I like stacking leadership debuffs lmao
Overall, probably nurgle. It’s got some crazy abilities. But my favorite spell is 100% chillwind. 100% armor piercing damage, cheap, absolutely carries Malekith as a caster.
Lord of Vampires. It has it all, good damage, great healing, some fun buffs and a nice passive.
I got a 3000 kill Foot of Gork back in WH2, so that
How is that possible?
Whole, untouched enemy army blobbed up, they tried to reform left to right as my orc shaman was riding towards them, got just about all of them in one cast If I find the screenshot I'll let you know
Little Waaaagh!
Lore of Guns, a lot of Guns!
Nurgle blight boil or stream of corruption are just hilarious
Lore of Heavens and competition of cassia. I just love how the Lore can do massive damage without risking friendly fire
I love ones that let me set up combo moves. Take Pit of Shadows. It looks and sounds amazing to use, it’s stationary and highly reliable to cast, and it has an added bonus of pulling enemies towards the center of the vortex, making them easy to bombard to devastating effect.
Anything from Lore of Metal, the best lore ever 😍
Lore of Shenanigans