Counterspell is a boring way to fix aoe spells

Is counterspell guaranteed? Because it really needs to be resistable. I want the feeling of a battle of wills.

its already enough bad to have resist tbh

and you want a rng on counterspell too?

random things are not strategic nor fun, just frustrating

but yeah i sort of agree that the actual system make counterspell too strong sometimes

on the other hand aoe spell are very very strong so i think its overall balanced that way, if you fight a good army followed by a couple of mages you just cant aoe burn down them, it make senso to force more the use of champions as "generals"

This lemming agrees with everything said above.

Another way to make counterspelling more interesting is that every element has a level 1 spell that counters a spell of that element.

And you know that researching Anointed by Fire will give you a Fireball spell that only takes two turns to cast? 

I would make Fireball 2 turns to cast at 2+(2 per Fireshard) in damage. This would prevent Evoker and the new abundance of Fireshards from overpowering the spell. And the bonus to spell damage should only apply to the base damage. This will still rape enemy units, but it won't nuke them. 

Fireball was only overpowered when able to cast it before any of the enemy is able to move.  Once they start moving, it becomes a lot less useful as it become a gamble on whether you'll get enough of the enemy close enough together to make it worth while.

As it stands now /.85 I will not use Fireball anymore because the casting time is too long.  In the time I spend casting, I could have cast 2 or 3 Flame Darts and been sure to hit my target.

its not

just get a lot more initiative on caster and it can do it on first turn

there are lot more items in game for casters now

in my last game i had an air mage buff bitch with tons of initiative, he could cast it 3 times b4 anyone else could move

next turn its my fire mage and with haste he can insta fireball against 90% of enemies

fireball is still op against multi figures

I always thought so, but no one ever mentioned it

Also agree that there needs to be some kind of resistance to Dmg spells (Int based)

My idea was a fire/ice/earth shield spells that give a 50% resistance to their opposite element and weak ability (1+1 Dmg/Init/Def) to all units.

Counterspell/spell leech/mana burn scould still be in the game but as rare mage abilities

Also all magi are overpowerd in current build. Evoker + Unlimited Mana + Shadow Warg + Impulsive

I have to agreed with Aerion Istari about the casting time.

Several times I have cast fireball or blizzard only to have the battle finish before the spell goes off.

One battle taking a capital my sovereign cast haste on himself and then blizzard, his army of 2 mage's(5), 1 galadwenn(5), 1 destiny's guard(5), two melee hero's left only one figure out of something like 3 shield maidens(5), 2 archers(5), 3 hero's(damaged) and the city militia for it to hit.

Now he didn't have impulsive and was using one of the ranged fire staffs (I keep forgetting to take it off him) which didn't help but if the only way to use these spells is with impulsive then impulsive should have been fixed not the casting times.

Shards themselves are the problem- too much mana.  This will be fixed eventually, they intentionally made the maps produce too many shards right now.

Counterspell is resistable BTW, but it might be very hard to resist- I've only seen it resisted by boss monsters.

Agree, i dont use fireball anymore either - actually it also leaves your mage useless, and you cannot adapt to what's going on/ cast another spell.

Fire darts is the way to go. 

I think the amount of mana is not the problem, because with talents like path of the mage (- 25 %), affinity (- 10 %) and the mantel of ocean spell (- 40 %) a mage can cast most spells with a very low mana cost, but the shards improve the spell effects too much IF the player is lucky and gets the right shards.

Spell leech should not counter a spell. It should give the caster an amount of mana equal to the mana cost of the next spell the target casts if it fails a resistance check and half of that amount if the resistance check succeeds.

Mana burn should not counter a spell. It should inflict 12 points of fire damage + 4 per fire shard if the target casts a spell and fails a resistance check and half of that amount if the resistance check succeeds.

you cant agree on something already proved wrong

you probably lack the basic knowledge of the actual game or you are talking about very early game when champions are not customized enough to do what they have to do

again... single target spells do nothing when you are fighting a war since you often get attacked by stacks of 4 5 archer

only fireball is viable or archers will wipe ur army (ofc you can have lots of archer yourself, that is equivalent ofc

I would like to see some more specific protection spells be made available instead of counterspell, which is boring and a bad mechanic. For instance Dampening Rain could reduce fire dmg taken by 60% for all units, castible both tactically and strategically. Grounding could make target unit immune to lightning. The Desert Winds tactical enchantment could reduce cold dmg by 70% for everyone in a 3x3 square. If someone is spamming Pillar of Fire or Fireball then you can counter with Dampening Rain. Much more depth in this system.

I'll say it again, 2+(2 per Fireshard); Casting Time of 2. Simple balance.

Good idea, but where do you place these spells?

Earth magic version- crystalize magic.  Creates a mana crystal if a spell targets the caster as a 1-shot, which can generate mana  (and be sold for coin as an item)

I had explored half of a Large map and fought countless battles.  Do I have to wait until I capture the last enemy city on the map before Fireball is useful?

Excellent ideas, if you add spells like these and make counter-spell resistible you have a much more tactical and fun combat.

Well they would replace the existing counter spells and would be just be normal spells in the spell books. Dampening Deluge could be a lv3 waterspell instead of Mana Leech, which is a totally useless spell. Desert Wind could replace Manaburn or be a mixed lv1 air-fire spell. You could also directly replace counterspell with something like SpellSheild: target unit gains 30% resistance to fire, lightning, and ice dmg.

The downside of this is without those spells the AOE could be OP.  You'd have to make these default spells, and that would crowd out the UI a bit.

Spellshield exists, it's called blessing of nature or something.

I'd prefer it if counter spells were easily resistible spellmastery vs spellmastery so only mages of your own level or higher could use it. Lesser mages could use specific counters like the ones you suggest.

My UI always gets overcrowded late game anyway (only use 3 elements). We need the ability to customize the spell bar.

Yeah this could work.

I would like different solution: 

it would be nice if I can decide how long any spell is being cast with bonus in power for each turn of casting

i would do it like that: if you click left button of mouse the spell will go with default (no delay) power, and if i click right i could postpone a spell - this would make a game really interesting: do i want to wait? how long? Of course, with each turn you risk being disrupted. 

in order not to abuse it i would also increase a cost in mana of casting it depending on time you take to cast it  

more anti-magic shields would be nice too

Again...

I usually cast a wind-something spell that gives mass dodge protection against archers, then if u have 2 caster of fire darts it makes six spells before fireball even can be cast, and then usually it is all done 

And if u have problems with archers i dont think the best idea is to wait 3 turns for them to shoot at you; in this 3 turns my melee troops are on them and more than half of them are dead due to fire darts. Not to mention that in this three turns you can mass curse them, wither or whatever you want to make them totally irrelevant.

Only time i found fireball any remotely useful is when facing a city with really lots of troops, and still, in average game i cast it like 3 times ...