Occult erosion

- exhausting touch and occult erosion will now be dispelled after the caster's death. Which means that if you manage to kill the Paladin, the lasting effects of the erosion should not be a problem anymore;

wait, wait wait...

how even exhausting can be compared to erosion?

one is insta STR-X while x is mostly 10-18
while the second is about insta -0...

Its ok for Puterfaction while TOU is more important and modification is followed by DAM 5 hit...

but in case of Erosion when many times its suicidal cast - its terrible nerf.

moreover i feel that once again lots of unnesecary nerfs will be applied due to fixing totaly different problems (Wolfen harrasers is 50% better than other so lowering range of their spells wouldb be more about fixing problem than changing whole balance). Ok runing after spell casting may be not intended but for current balance it works ok for any non wolfen W-M units and their cost.

- We also increased some spells / miracles difficulties, and occult erosion was a part of them. It is not spefically directed at this miracle, though - we wanted to offer "Exalted" & "Mastery of the Arcana" as viable alternatives to the other attributes in the trees. Now, we think that you will consider them a little more seriously;

But it would be nice if Exalted/Mastery wont be obligatory ;P

- "Primal" spells will now do damage whose force is always equal to X.
And yes, X is a lower number than your current WIL stat.
We also reduced their frequency (as well as the Seal of Dellarn frequency). This is because we feel that Primal spells should not be your main damage spells at higher levels; they will still be a nice complement for that role, though.

Im not sure if total nerf of Primals on Alachan mage is ok - once again - spell is problematic on Lonewolf and nerfing it on Mage can be problematic. It may be a lev 1 spell but currently it 'grows' with mage (more mana/casts per turn and on lev 5 even bigger damage)... after that new T1 Mage would be even more terrible and going to lev 4 will be more obligatory than before.

Lowering the freq of Danneran is ok - but bigger problem lies in parties of 3 healing sparklings.

Effects gone after palas death is great. Deep blue should be ok with that, Im ok with that becasue now pala is not a suicide occult erosion bomber.

One question: Will the stats be back to normal after pala is killed or will they stay the same as they were right before he was killed? Both should be fine will only force mages to play more cautiously.

Oh and I think that lion mages should get a small nerf btw I think 2shotting people from so far is a bit OP.

I suggest reducing the cast rage of celestial scourge but increasing the cast range of primal attack (maybe to same range?). This should reduce the long range 2shots which is a bit facepalm and allow mages to choose between massive dmg on one unit or more spread dmg on enemy units.

Thank you for doing something about occ erosion, it was forcing a very contained play style from mages.

Edit:

but in case of Erosion when many times its suicidal cast - its terrible nerf

Case and Point.

@jigoku: i'm fine with the changes as it is more or less what i wanted.

Im fine with occult erosion + exausting touch which really balances them and opens to a more tactical gameplay. It makes me even more happy the "nerfed" harassment of warrior-mages/monk. I wonder if their base AP will be reduced also to compensate that reduced "movement" + higher incantation rolls.

Another thing that makes me wonder is related to exalted/mastery of arcana. Mastery/exalted works pretty nicely and (at least for me) is taken heavily into consideration when i am making a high level caster (nobody wants to fail a spell when you paid 100+ AP for one unit, especially an important one like e-touch or incarnation of justice!). As DW stated, it can't feel mandatory... remember that warrior-mages/monks can only cast 1 spell per turn and a failed one heavily impacts on their value. Right now if i remember correctly occult erosion has a 85% chance without exalted. This base chance is ok to me for a black paladin as it allows to choose between exalted or loyal depending on your army without making the +% casting bonus mandatory.

a word of caution, some changes are very welcome, just be sure not to overnerf them as the elites or else it will be even more basic units vs basic units

[Jigoku]

I didn't post everything we did to balance things up - only the things related to what you were discussing about.

For example, we know that Sparklings are another problem, and we fixed it too. But I didn't write about it because it's the Occult Erosion thread and it had not so much to do with that.
If you want more feedback about the Sparklings... they were never intended to cost 17 AP.
It just slipped through the last patch. So, for this example, they will come back to what they should cost. And we did something for their Heal ability too, which we felt was much too strong as it was.
Those are just examples of what we did, not the whole picture.

Also, I never stated that Exalted/MoA would be mandatory; I just said that we wanted you to feel that it was a great addition to your unit, instead of a useless attribute (for example: in Lonewolf skill tree).
Now you'll have to deal with the ability to cast spells/call miracles with a 75% chance when you're charged with a critical wound, or a 95% chance if you took Exalted/MoA. Same will happen with pure casters engaged in melee that suffers -6 WIL on casts.
Exalted/MoA will be what we always wanted it to be: an attribute for those out there that want their cast to succeed no matter what. Of course, then, you won't have Regeneration or any of those awesome attribute that you can find on the same threshold of the skill trees, but it is the point : choices between equally awesome abilities, and not "no-brainer" choices.

EDIT : of course we are still just discussing mainly about what will happen for the Lion and the Ram in this thread, but rest assured that we have done things for the Wolf too. You can imagine some of us were not that happy about the "zerg" metagame / mentality that the patch induced, so we have been working on it too.
We cannot do everything that we want on that matter as of right now, because what we want would involve a lot of code, but we took steps to help reduce this phenomenon.

@Jigoku

thx
i simply fear for another overnerf

@jigoku: ok i also like the exalted/mastery future-trait then. What you provided is a very good trade off. I'm looking forward to other balances (and i assume another trait reset or else people will go nuts )

Ok, so it would appear the more points you invest in 1 single mage unit the more vulnerable you are to occult erosion.
The lion build that focuses on a high level mage will get you lots of easy wins, that is why people use it so often. If you have made a build focusing on the strength of 1 unit then you really should expect to be undone quite easily, that is totally fair enough.
Lima you should maybe also post a thread about the times you just obliterate the enemy from your campsite with spells. If your build is so stacked one way you need to except you will have an opposite number. If you can't handle losses like that make a more balanced build, less reliant on 1 unit.
This whole thread stinks of sour grapes. It sounds like you want an 'I win' strategy that is fool proof. My lion build has it weaknesses but Occult Erosion is not one of them.
What you are doing is effective but not perfect. If Occult Erosion is that devastating to your comp, then change it or accept it as a weakness of your design. Asking the devs to change things to make your 'ideal' build more effective is just silly.
I have being reluctant to use a levelled human mage because the AP cost is high and they can be easily dealt with by some opponents. I also was reluctant to use one because I feel that Seal is probably due a nerf so did not want to get to attached/reliant on it. You may be a good player, but plenty who use a similar build to you are not. I have only being beaten by that type of build once and that was when I was not familiar with the abilities of a levelled wizard. I have beaten players who were hopeless at the game using that build, but IMO the games were not fun and far too much of a struggle considering the players were so bad.
It is basically a noob strat that is far too effective unless you have an easy counter like OE or MW.
I think making it necessary for the AoE human wiz spell to target a unit would be a nice change. As it is it says range 4 but effects people 3 hexes further on from the cast. A mage who has chosen extra damage can blast units he cannot see with this spell, that is a bit off IMO.
A human mega-mage strat is very common place at 400 AP. That means lots of people find it an easy way to win. Also most people are very familiar with what you are doing. That is basic military strategy mate: 'If you do the same things too often, even if they are effective, you are at the same time training the enemy.'
Many games like this favour super units far too much because that is what children want. DoW may need some tweaks but mobbing super units should remain a very valid strat. Anti-mega mage strats should also remain IMO.
A mage can kill a BP really fast so it will be interesting to see if this change goes too far. I am tipping it will. Sounds like a fair change but I think the reality will be much different. BP casts OE, Mage blasts it to pieces removes BP and OE, Mage then puts another log on his campfire.

I applaud at you sir, exactly what i think. A big pumped up mage (which can reach 12 mana in 2 turns with 3 sparklings) can oneshot the paladin with 2 celestial scourges...add the fact that lion will start first...and you will realize it is your tactical mistake being hit by occult erosion unless the player is using lot of palas and priests but then again, it is a flaw of your comp. I just met a guy with a lvl 5 priest with occult erosion...vs my undeads without any caster. About 90 AP wasted on his side, not bad i would say.

I just met a guy with a lvl 5 priest with occult erosion...vs my undeads without any caster. About 90 AP wasted on his side, not bad i would say.

only 90? i dont have game in work once again but im convinced that more than 100

and yes - Erosion Priest is so much risky ;D
Wolf company without lonewolfs and its not even a massacre - its worse and more Pg18+

Honestly, I'd go as far as argue Occult Erosion doesn't do enough in this MU right now.

As has been pointed out, yes you can get an Occult Erosion off on the enemy Wizard with your Black Paladin, but if it is early in the game he is almost certainly going to wipe you out with 2 Celestial Scourges, especially if he has Conscience. If Occult Erosion vanishes after the Black Paladin dies...let's just say I strongly disagree with changing it.

Rather than nerfing Occult Erosion, perhaps the better solution is to nerf the Alahan Magician and stop this easy win strat of turtling and charging up massively with Sparklings.

The best way of dealing with that kind of Wizard as Ram, for me has been actually to kill him with my own Wizard. A Wave of Death Necromancer with Focus and 10 AP is very likely to wipe the Alahan Magician if he can get in range and LoS. Or better yet, a Priest of Salauel with Conscience. But using nuking wizards to counter a nuking wizard has its own problems ofc.