Please nerf shrink/grow !

Or just have shrink not stackable.  

or just have them add the math correctly so that they don't break the units when cast.

Even not stackable only one Shrink makes a 50 attack (ie fearsome) becomes 25 (ie resistible with 20+ def)... Nope, I want a fixed effect !

I would prefer a game about powerful magic users, have powerful magic in it.

Yea me 2, the only problem I see is most of the magic isn't, making some few spells stand out.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

There is nothing to see here.  Move along.  Growth and Shrink should not be stackable (bug); other than that, they are fine.

I thought they weren't stackable, except for that annoying Wilding Shaman's Shrink?

Effects on Juggernauts and similar where it completely zeroes their attacks are a bug due to the inconsistent order of operations, as was pointed out in another thread.

Without Shrink, dragons would be unassailable until you could cast Diamondskin.

An interesting point but you have to balance it, Magic can be powerful and unbroken only if it comes with opportunity costs. The easiest way to do this is to increase mana costs and really require players to invest in mana infrastructure, at the cost of other things, in order to use certain spells.

That's not entirely true, I never use either on them.

To stay on topic though, non-stackable would be nice.

Me too, but Shrink is a low level spell...

Shrink is a level 3 spell, and it adds dodge, while growth gives a -20 penalty to dodge.  If anything we need to boost other spells to be better, not make every spell in the game marginally useful.  Shit, I play many games with barely any magic used at all as it is, the more we nerf these spells, the less magical the game becomes.  

How about an increase of the mana costs, or scaling them with the level (or stats) of the mob that they are cast on?

There's also blindess, or you can have a dragonslayer marksman + champion' lance + giant form  double-strike the dragon.  I've had my Verga kill dragons with one shot, and he did not have access to life magic.

Or Nochd, but that so much of a special case (assassin with leathal) that it does not count as much of an example. 

Hear, hear!

Blindness seems to not be working, as reported by another user.

And you must be fighting different dragons than I am, because every dragon I face has initiative such that they get 2-3 rounds for each of my archer's rounds unless I manage to cast Slow on the dragons and Haste on my archers and, hey, Shrink (and I am not allowed to stack Shrink) and a tank (a tamed Corpse or more powerful spider is my tank of choice, often) really, really helps.

Exactly.  If someone wants to use powerful magic, they should be able to.  If you don't want to use it, too.  Not everybody in the world has to play the game the same way.  Fix the stacking issue, and the spells are fine.

I said "champion's lance". Marksman gives a bonus to spears. The guy I was talking about is a lancer, not an archer.

Are you sure about this? I tried it myself since I read Kongdej's post, and it was working for me, as evidenced by both the detail screen and by my sovereign dodging all attacks until his riposts killed all the enemies.

And I 've used it a lot since release, and there've been no updates.

I use a lot of blindness, but it's not an instant win, and some creatures who have high accuracy and initiative can still be tough even when blinded.

Yes, of course. If you use blindness on a lucky level 15 sovereign with discipline, he will still be hitting you a lot, especially if you are not using a high dodge unit.

I find blindness a smidgeon too good now (it should expire in combat, after a few turns) but it is not a 'I win' button.  It never was, really.  Dodge used to be too good, now it's balanced.

growth should give a penalty to accuracy as well I think

Shrink just needs to be unstackable.

Maybe the benefits of both spells should be based on life shards?

Blindness should scale some to death shards, like 35+ 5 per shard or something.

Funny you say that, as this is what I ran into.  A capitar sov with discipline, mancer blood and capitar's lucky trait, and high level. 

Well, I ran into my own custom, but I guess it was damn close. He had Krax blood (Fortify) instead of Mancer blood, and that did not make things any easier.  I was lucky the AI had not picked Death II yet.

And I was playing standard Verga.

There is nothing wrong with Shrink just make it not stackable--case closed. I personally hate nerfing things instead of using a little common sense and fixing things.

I'm not keen to nerf magic much in this game where it os already not very useful...but think it's a BAD idea to have one (and only one!) spell that just makes "boss fight" a cakewalk. Maybe I could require to buff all other spells instead