GOOD spells are spells that any mage I play might be interested in picking up, depending on circumstances:
shock, airstrike, arcjolt, blink, bombard, borgnjor’s vile clutch, brom’s barreling boulder, chain lightning, fire storm, fireball, forge lightning spire, foxfire, freeze, freezing cloud, grave claw, ignite poison, ignition, irradiate, iskenderun’s battlesphere, iskenderun’s mystic blast, lee’s rapid deconstruction, lehudib’s crystal spear, magnavolt, malign gateway, dragon’s call, mephitic cloud, orb of destruction, ozocubu’s refrigeration, passage of golubria, passwall, permafrost eruption, plasma beam, poisonous vapours, polar vortex, sandblast, scorch, searing ray, shatter, starburst, sticky flame, stone arrow, tukima’s dance, flame wave, spellspark servitor, hellfire mortar
Comments:
shock is the best level 1 spell. Learn to bounce it.
Borgnjor’s vile clutch is good, but the spell schools are somewhat inconvenient.
OKAY spells are spells that I might pick up, situationally, if I have no good alternative:
summon small mammal, sigil of binding, dispel undead, infestation, kiss of death, mercury arrow, olgreb’s toxic radiance, ozocubu’s armour, soul splinter, vampiric draining, frozen ramparts, fulminant prism, hailstorm, apportation, momentum strike, cause fear, maxwell’s portable piledriver, lesser beckoning, gell’s gavotte
Comments:
summon small mammal can be useful (apart from summoner start) only if you find it very early.
frozen ramparts damage is low. It works well on orcs, not great on anything stronger.
fulminant prism is okay AOE damage, but half the time enemies destroy it
hailstorm is okay if you have literally nothing else. You can’t rely on it for solid damage because it doesn’t work once enemies are next to you.
apportation is good only in extended, for stealing runes.
gell’s gavotte is good, usually in extended because it’s more of a nice to have than an essential, alongside passage of golubria as a way of moving quickly to escape from a situation.
ONLY IF YOU START WITH IT spells are spells I’d never pick up on the side, but would use if I started with them:
confusing touch, ensorcelled hibernation, gloom, jinxbite, kinetic grapnel, magic dart, slow, construct spike launcher
STUPID spells are spells I wouldn’t even pick up if I started with them:
static discharge, alistair’s intoxication, anguish, death’s door, cigotuvi’s putrefaction, curse of agony, detonation catalyst, discord, dispersal, enfeeble, fugue of the fallen, manifold assault, maxwell’s capacitive coupling, metabolic englaciation, petrify, rending blade, silence, swiftness, teleport other, vhi’s electric charge, volatile blastmotes, yara’s violent unravelling, eringya’s noxious bog, inner flame, leda’s liquefaction
Comments:
curse of agony, detonation catalyst, fugue of the fallen, manifold assault, rending blade, and vhi’s electric charge are stupid because they’re melee enhancement spells with moderately high XP requirements. You want better melee? Train melee! Train your weapon skill, wear heavy armor and a shield, get transmutations, get armor, dodging, and shields skills! None of these spells are as good for melee as just training better melee would be.
Static discharge is ok if you’re next to multiple enemies, which you shouldn’t be. It also damages you. If you have static discharge you probably have Shock. Use it.
Alistair’s intoxication is a waste of XP to learn, a waste of MP to cast, and wears off quick. A good similar-level spell like fireball would have just killed the enemies directly.
The same complaint holds for anguish, cause fear, dispersal, enfeeble, metabolic englaciation, yara’s violent unravelling. High level spells can just kill the enemy! If they don’t kill but only impede the enemy, they should be really really good at it, but none of these spells are!
Death’s door leaves you almost-dead around enemies. Better to learn Borgnjor’s instead.
Discord is inferior to a comparable-level direct damage spell, and also sends hasted, mighted enemies at you.
Gell’s Gavotte is a pain to set up, and messes with your position besides.
Maxwell’s Capacitive Coupling takes too long to set up (like 4-5 turns at low power!) and is useless if your target has allies or summons. Perhaps at max power it’s more worth it. But then again, if you’re at max power, why not just cast Chain Lightning? It used to be that you could set this up before the enemy comes into view, so you zap them the moment they turn the corner. But no more; the devs didn’t want you to have fun.
Petrify is a resistible hex, takes several turns to work, and even protects the enemy from taking damage!
Silence gives you a minor boost against certain types of enemies. But you lose the ability to use emergency scrolls. Get a damage spell, man!
Swiftness gives you a minor speed boost at the cost of a turn. The only use for this is making a space between yourself and a speed 10 melee attacker, but you can’t use it in an emergency low-health situation because you can’t afford to get hit as you walk away.
Teleport other is similarly useless. If you’re in an emergency you can’t use it because it’s resistible and takes a few turns to kick in. Better to have a direct damage spell instead.
Volatile blastmotes does laughably low damage and is a pain to set up. Our dear beloved Conjure Flame, how we miss you.
Eringya’s noxious bog has a high spell level, the damage is low (since poison is slow), and it impedes you as well as the enemies!
Leda’s liquefaction is bad for similar reasons.
Inner flame is a good way to have a yak explode in your face. It’s only useful if you can be sure of killing the yak before it gets to your face. But if your spells are strong enough to be sure of that, you don’t need inner flame!
CREATURE spells are spells that summon or create something, not covered by previous categories:
alistair’s walking alembic, animate dead, awaken armor, call canine familiar, call imp, death channel, eringya’s surprising crocodile, forge blazeheart golem, forge monarch bomb, haunt, launch clockwork bee, martyr’s knell, nazja’s percussive tempering, platinum paragon, sculpt simulacrum, sphinx sisters, summon cactus giant, summon forest, summon horrible things, summon hydra, summon ice beast, summon mana viper, summon seismosaurus egg
Many of these are objectively good spells, such as summon horrible things or summon mana viper. I don’t like them though. A lot of enemies will ignore your summons and attack you directly, such as naga sharpshooters or harpies. Summons kill slowly compared to direct damage spells, so if you’re a fragile mage, you can take a lot of damage while you’re waiting! You also can’t really use summons to stair dance, like you can with direct damage spells. Summons also get in the way of your direct damage spells. I also just don’t like the mechanics of managing your summons.
ZIGGURAT spells are spells that you might want in a ziggurat, but with limited value in most other cases:
disjunction, sublimation of blood, borgnjor’s revivification.
QUESTION spells are spells I don’t have much experience with.
diamond sawblades, forge phalanx beetle, fortress blast, fulsome fusillade, hoarfrost cannonade, rimeblight, splinterfrost shell, dimensional bullseye
I’ve cast a few of these but not enough to say for sure if they are good or bad.
And the WORST spell is:
conjure ball lightning
The single worst spell in the game. Cast this spell when enemies are far away, and watch as ranged enemies shoot your lightning balls so they blow up in your face. Or cast this spell when enemies are near, so that they blow up in your face without delay. It might be useful against speed 10 melee packs like death yaks, except by the time you usually get it, those packs are no longer a threat. The main reason to cast this spell is if you have too many hit points and need that number to be lower.
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