Warriors of the North Spell Analysis Part 2: Order Magic

Note that the Spirit of Rage-derived Spells have gone the way of the dodo. Well. Sort of, in Ice Spikes case, but it's certainly not in Order Magic. Calm Rage is no longer Order Magic, but it's just jumped ship to Distortion. Lastly, Demonslayer is gone, though you can think of it as having been replaced or updated more than actually removed.


Axe of Magic
Crystal Cost: 2 / 4 / 6
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 15
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 100; Axes: 1
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 200; Axes: 2
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 300; Axes: 3

Hits a single enemy unit for Physical damage.

Hasn't changed any, aside the name. Not sure why it got translated as Axe of Magic this time.

Regardless, there's even more Physical damage competition to shunt it even further aside. You're highly unlikely to ever have cause to use Axe of Magic in Warriors of the North.


Lightning
Crystal Cost: 7 / 10 / 20
Mana Cost: 15 / 25 / 35
Level 1 Statistics: Strikes one target; Damage: 100-200; Shock
Level 2 Statistics: Bounces to additional targets twice; Damage: 170-340
Level 3 Statistics: Bounces to additional targets four times; Damage: 240-480

Hits a single target for Magic damage, with a 15% chance to Shock. Higher Levels of the spell will also 'bounce' to additional targets.

Bizarrely, Lightning has changed so its Shock chance no longer rises, not with Intellect, not with the Spell's Level. As Warriors of the North is happy to let a late-game Soothsayer get to 55+ Intellect, this is frustrating; if it weren't for this change, you'd be able to use it as a reliable mass-Shock at last, but nope, it's actually less reliable than ever. I really don't get this change.

It's still got a place in your arsenal, if still a situational one, as there's not really any multi-target Magic damage alternatives to compete with it, but... ouch.


Healing
Crystal Cost: 1 / 2 / 3
Mana Cost: 3 / 2 / 1
Level 1 Statistics: Healing/Damage: 50
Level 2 Statistics: Healing/Damage: 150
Level 3 Statistics: Healing/Damage: 250; Removes Poison, Weakness, and Plague

Targets a single allied organic unit or enemy Undead unit. Allied organic units are healed, though dead units cannot be recovered this way, while enemy Undead take Magic damage instead. Demons and inorganic units cannot be targeted at all.

Still no change. Which is a bit surprising, as I'd expect it to purge Bleeding now.

Its offensive utility is a bit more likely to crop up thanks to how widespread Undead are, particularly for a Skald -they still start the game knowing it like Paladins did in the previous two games even though the Skald's thing is singing and storytelling and history. The healing utility per se is also a bit more likely to see real use, as Warriors of the North is better about pacing things so you have access to bulky-for-your-current-Leadership options up through 4000 or so Leadership, though it's still the case that in the long haul Healing falls off in utility.

But in that early-to-mid-game period as the Skald, you should absolutely keep it in mind.


Resurrection
Crystal Cost: 10 / 15 / 25
Mana Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Level 1 Statistics: Recovers Health: 200; Target's Level: 1-2
Level 2 Statistics: Recovers Health: 400; Target's Level: 1-3
Level 3 Statistics: Recovers Health: 600; Target's Level: 1-4

Targets a single allied organic unit, restoring health to the unit. 'Overflow' healing will resurrect dead members of the unit if it has suffered casualties in the current battle. Can even target corpses, restoring a fallen stack to functionality.

Same as ever.

You're a bit less likely to care, though, as Warriors of the North has a good selection of unit-based ways to dodge casualties. The Legend was kind of Resurrection's apex, honestly, as it just had so little competition.


Dispel
Crystal Cost: 1 / 2 / 5
Mana Cost: 5 / 5 / 5
Level 1 Statistics: Removes all effects on a friendly target.
Level 2 Statistics: Removes all effects on a friendly or enemy target.
Level 3 Statistics: Removes all negative effects on a friendly target or all positive effects on an enemy target.

Targets a single unit, removing some portion of effects on the unit.

Still no change.

As with Armored Princess, that comes with the caveat that there's no direct change. With Freeze being more widespread and inflicting percentile damage, and to a much lesser extent same with Bleeding, Dispel is that much more consistently relevant. Warriors of the North also adds in a decent pool of Talents that are worth Dispelling, such as Loki's Touch on Soothsayers.

It's all undercut somewhat by the fact that Warriors of the North is slanted fairly heavily toward enemy armies being Undead, and the Undead don't inflict Freeze or have any new buffs or debuffs to purge, but still, Dispel genuinely is more worthwhile and important. Warriors of the North is also a bit more fond of unit-derived buffs than previous games, so Level 3 in particular is nice in terms of being able to purge negative effects without losing eg the powerful Fighting Trance on your Contemplators.

The overall result is that Dispel is actually one of handful of Spells I consistently learn before maxing out or giving up on Crystal Collector. Note that almost all the other Spells I'm consistently willing to learn before being done with Crystal Collector are Spells that advance Medals, and Dispel doesn't advance Medals -It's just that important. So in some sense this is actually Dispel's high point in the series.


Life Light
Crystal Cost: 4 / 8 / 16
Mana Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Level 1 Statistics: Damage/Healing: 150
Level 2 Statistics: Damage/Healing: 285
Level 3 Statistics: Damage/Healing: 420

Inflicts Magic damage on Undead in an area, causing them to flee, while healing living units. Demons are entirely unaffected.

The only thing worth noting here is that Undead Lizardmen can be hurt by it. It's not actually changed.

Which means it's still pretty awful, and unlike the basic Healing Spell it's basically guaranteed you won't get it early enough for its healing to meaningfully matter. The area damage, meanwhile, isn't very good no matter how common Undead are, because you get considerably more amazing options in Warriors of the North that work fine on the Undead.

It continues to have the rather strange behavior of being boosted by Items that boost Spell damage, but being affected by the Creation Skill and not the Destruction Skill.


Bless
Crystal Cost: 3 / 3 / 10
Mana Cost: 10 / 10 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Mass; Duration: 3 turns

Affected units always roll for maximum damage on all attacks. (Melee or ranged) Cannot be applied to Undead or inorganic units.

Note that Bless finally applies to damaging Talents. It hasn't experienced any other changes, but that right there makes it a lot more consistently useful. No longer is it 'well, my Bowmen won't benefit on the first two turns, and my Emerald Green Dragons won't benefit on the first three turns, and my Alchemists might never benefit', now you can actually treat Bless as a reasonably consistent boost!

It's also picked up a new limitation, where you can't cast it on inorganic units: no making Cyclops reliable anymore, nor Droids. This isn't huge given that inorganic units tend to have narrow damage ranges overall, but if you liked mass-Blessing while using such units you'll actually get less value than you did in prior games.


Dragon Slayer
Crystal Cost: 3 / 3 / 25
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 25
Level 1 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 20%; Duration: 3 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 30%; Duration: 4 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 30%, Mass; Duration: 4 turns

Affected units gain bonus damage against Dragons.

Now works on Talents, like so many other things in Warriors of the North. It's otherwise unchanged unless you count there being a new dragon to benefit against. Heck, Ice Dragons are Spell-immune, which actually does make it slightly more likely you'll seriously consider using Dragon Slayer.

Of course, there's also several Spells that directly bypass Spell immunity in Warriors of the North, so... maybe not so much.

To be fair, its damage bonus is boosted by both Intellect (+1% per 2 Intellect, caps at 65 Intellect below Level 3 and at 70 at Level 3) and Creation. (+3% per Skill Rank) That works out to +74% for the final potential damage boost; that's a pretty substantial boost. There's a fair few fights, concentrated late in the game, where you fight all-dragon armies; don't just forget Dragonslayer exists, especially if you're playing a Skald. (Who has the largest army and second-easiest access to Intellect boosts and the Magic tree)


Divine Armor
Crystal Cost: 8 / 12 / 20
Mana Cost: 15 / 20 / 30
Level 1 Statistics: All Resistances: 20%; Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: All Resistances: 25%; Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: All Resistances: 30%; Duration: 4 turns

Sets all of a single allied unit's () resistances to a specific number, except for those resistances higher than that number, which are instead unaffected. Cannot be applied to Undead.

Surprisingly, in addition to Ice resistance Warriors of the North's Divine Armor affects Astral resistance now. This isn't relevant very often, but it's nice to take advantage of when it does crop up.

It also means that where in prior games you could slap Divine Armor on something and then use Sacrifice on it at full efficiency, in Warriors of the North you're actually reducing Sacrifice's effectiveness. This can actually be useful if you're trying to avoid overshooting your Leadership! But it can be annoying if you're not really paying attention.

It's too bad the Guardian Medal also throws in Astral resistance, and that in Ice and Fire you can get even more resistance out of Guardian, as the whole 'casting Divine Armor advances progress in making Divine Armor less appealing' thing remains fully an issue and in fact worse than ever before.

On the other hand, it's gained to its credit that its resistance boost rises with Intellect. (And the Creation Skill still) 1% for every 3 points of Intellect, capping at a high 65 below Level 3 and an outrageous 105 at Level 3; if your monstrously brainy Soothsayer hits that cap and maxes Creation, Divine Armor will set all resistances to 74%. That's actually pretty absurd, and gives Divine Armor much greater potential relevancy than it had in Armored Princess. Even more reasonable Intellect values still give it a greater chance to matter; a 50% global resistance is already pretty great.


Battle Cry
Crystal Cost: 3 / 12 / 20
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 15
Level 1 Statistics: Initiative: +1; Adrenaline: +5, Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Initiative: +2; Adrenaline: +7, Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Initiative: +3; Adrenaline: +10, Duration: 3 turns

Increases Initiative of all allied units. Orcs additionally receive Adrenaline.

Now grants Adrenaline to Orcs! At last there's a good way to boost Adrenaline on your units, and indeed at Level 3 it's automatically putting your entire army up an Adrenaline Level. Awesome.

If you're not running Orcs, it's basically the same as ever, which is to say intermittently useful but a bit niche overall. But that's fine, Armored Princess made Battle Cry properly viable all by itself. It didn't need a big change.

Note that Battle Cry is affected by the Creation Skill. Technically speaking, this applies to both the Adrenaline component and the Initiative component, but the game rounds down; 30% of 3 is 0.9, so even Level 3 Battle Cry with Rank 3 Creation doesn't actually gain another point of Initiative. Even so, if you're excited about supporting Orcs, consider maxing Order Magic and the Creation Skill.


Peacefulness
Crystal Cost: 3 / 3 / 3
Mana Cost: 5 / 7 / 10
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: -30%; Health: +30%; Adrenaline: -10, Duration: 3 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: -30%; Health: +40%; Adrenaline: -20, Duration: 4 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: -30%; Health: +50%; Adrenaline: -30, Duration: 5 turns

A single unit -ally or enemy- has its HP increased while its Damage is decreased. Orcs immediately lose Adrenaline as well.

Now Peacefulness has a relatively clear use: don't like how that Orc is ready to use some horrifying Talent? Zap it with Peacefulness! Awesome, and flavorful too.

If you're not fighting Orcs, it's the same as ever; got some weird uses with Sacrifice and whatnot, but just sort of.... there, overall.

That said, the Health increase and Adrenaline decrease are both affected by the Creation Skill. Among other points, this means the tradeoffs are more positive as you gain ranks in Creation; with Rank 3 Creation, Level 3 Peacefulness provides +65% Health. The Adrenaline subtraction reaches -39 at that point too, which will usually be plenty to zero out a key Orc's Adrenaline.


Dragon Arrows
Crystal Cost: 2 / 3 / 4
Mana Cost: 4 / 4 / 4
Level 1 Statistics: Gives Dragon Arrows: 1
Level 2 Statistics: Gives Dragon Arrows: 2
Level 3 Statistics: Gives Dragon Arrows: 3

Grants a single allied archer-class unit (Bowmen, Elves, Hunters, Skeleton Archers, Scouts, Avengers) charge(s) of the Dragon Arrows Talent. This Talent is a ranged attack that entirely ignores the target's Resistance and ignores 30% of the target's Defense, and regardless of the user's own range will never suffer damage penalties from being fired too far. The base damage is derived from the unit's base damage. The damage type is Astral.

Same as in Armored Princess, except there's a couple new bowmen in Ice and Fire.

Of course, both of the new bowmen are inherent Snipers, so Dragon Arrows is mostly useful as a way to push through resistances... which both of the new bowmen have built-in options for...

... Dragon Arrows is still good, but it's not particularly changed in real terms.

That said, the hard cap of 5 charges is something a Soothsayer is going to ram into hard more or less guaranteed, so you probably shouldn't max it. An endgame Soothsayer can in fact have so much Intellect that even Level 2 isn't an improvement over Level 1! (You need 80 Intellect for this; that's a lot, but absolutely possible in Warriors of the North)

Bizarrely, the game is technically coded so that the Creation Skill benefits Dragon Arrows. This doesn't matter twice over; once again, the game arrives at adding 0.9 charges and then rounds it down to 0, and of course you're liable to be hitting the Dragon Arrow charge cap off just its Level and your Intellect by the time you have Rank 3 Creation anyway.

Also note that Dragon Arrows have been indirectly buffed by so many things now applying to Talents; you can use Bless to make your Dragon Arrows reliable, Doom a target to force Dragon Arrows to crit against it, cast Dragon Slayer on your Bowmen so their Dragon Arrow do terrifying amounts of anti-dragon damage...


Fit of Energy
Crystal Cost: 6 / 6 / 6
Mana Cost: 20 / 20 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Gives Action Points: 1
Level 2 Statistics: Gives Action Points: 2
Level 3 Statistics: Gives Action Points: 3

Grants a single allied unit additional Action Points. If its turn was over, it gets an additional turn to use these Action Points.

No change.

Technically, it's coded so Creation benefits it, but once again the game arrives at adding 0.9 and then rounds it down to nothing. Did they have Creation provide a larger percentage boost at some point in development?

Warriors of the North has enough really good unit-based options for additional turns, even aside the nearly-omnipresent Luck Rune factor, that Warriors of the North is probably Fit of Energy's low point. You're generally better off trying to cast a Spell whose functionality can't be replaced by a unit, or where the units that can cover the role aren't very good at it.

Helplesness
Crystal Cost: 1 / 2 / 4
Mana Cost: 2 / 4 / 6
Level 1 Statistics: Defense: -30%; Duration: 3 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Defense: -45%; Duration: 4 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Defense: -60%; Duration: 5 turns

Lowers a single enemy's Defense by a percentage.

Still no change.

Directly.

Indirectly, it now benefits from Creation, and thus can reach a maximum Defense penalty of -75%. Yikes!


Summon Phoenix
Crystal Cost: 10 / 15 / 20
Mana Cost: 20 / 25 / 35
Level 1 Statistics: Summons: Young Phoenix
Level 2 Statistics: Summons: Mature Phoenix
Level 3 Statistics: Summons: Ancient Phoenix

Summons an allied Phoenix in a chosen tile. The tile must be adjacent to an allied unit. You may only have one Phoenix on the field at a time.

The Mana cost at the third Level is higher than before, but otherwise this part is the same as in Armored Princess.

Well, almost. The Summoning Skill has been folded into Creation, and then the Phoenix Spell in particular halves the boosts from Creation. It should also be noted this boost applies to the final Intellect-derived stat modifier; if your Intellect is such that the "the strength of the creature" parameter is at 300%. then Creation will add 15% per rank, for example.

Stat time!


Young Phoenix
Level: 3
Leadership: 1
Attack/Defense: 15 / 10
Initiative/Speed: 5 / 5
Health: 200
Damage: 40-60 Fire
Resistances: 80% Magic, 80% Fire, -100% Ice
Talents: None
Abilities: Flight, Firestorm (Melee attacks and counterattacks not only hit the target but enemies to the side, and have a 70% chance of Burning everyone. No friendly fire), Immune to Fire (80% Fire resistance, cannot be Burned), Magic Immunity (80% Magic resistance, spells don't effect the unit), Rebirth  (The Phoenix can, once, revive after a delay. Resurrecting is not possible if a unit is occupying their corpse's space, and the act of resurrecting consumes their entire turn)

The only obvious change is the that they now have an Ice weakness. Not counting how Summon-boosting has been overhauled.

So basically instead of being a godly-general summon that's always at least passable and performs amazingly against armies with Fire and Magic damage, now there are units that can kill it fairly quickly if you're careless. Fair enough.

And yes, this means that the Phoenix's old, hidden cold resistance effect has vanished just in time for the game it would've actually mattered in. Oh well.

Invisibly, all three Phoenix tiers have also switched to being considered inorganic, among other points making them immune to Plague. Not sure why now, but okay.

Mature Phoenix
Level: 4
Leadership: 1
Attack/Defense: 40 / 30
Initiative/Speed: 6 / 6
Health: 400
Damage: 70-100 Fire
Resistances: 80% Magic, 80% Fire, -100% Ice
Talents: None
Abilities: Flight, Firestorm (Melee attacks and counterattacks not only hit the target but enemies to the side, and have a 85% chance of Burning everyone. No friendly fire), Fire Immunity (80% Fire resistance, cannot be Burned), Magic Immunity (80% Magic resistance, spells don't effect the unit), Rebirth  (The Phoenix can, once, revive after a delay. Resurrecting is not possible if a unit is occupying their corpse's space, and the act of resurrecting consumes their entire turn)

Just inorganic and weak to Ice now, same as the Young Phoenix.


Ancient Phoenix
Level: 5
Leadership: 1
Attack/Defense: 60 / 50
Initiative/Speed: 7 / 7
Health: 800
Damage: 140-240 Fire
Resistances: 80% Magic, 80% Fire, -100% Ice
Talents: None
Abilities: Flight, Firestorm (Melee attacks and counterattacks not only hit the target but enemies to the side, and have a 100% chance of Burning everyone. No friendly fire), Immune to Fire (80% Fire resistance, cannot be Burned), Magic Immunity (80% Magic resistance, spells don't effect the unit), Rebirth  (The Phoenix can, once, revive after a delay. Resurrecting is not possible if a unit is occupying their corpse's space, and the act of resurrecting consumes their entire turn)

They've lost Tears of the Phoenix in addition to becoming inorganic and gaining an Ice Weakness. That's a bit of a disappointment, but they're still very strong.

Though it's worth commentary Warriors of the North is probably the entry with the least proportion of having you fight Fire or Magic damage units. Back in The Legend an early Phoenix Scroll was quite useful no matter my build, and remained relevant periodically for dealing with Fire and/or Magic-heavy battlegroups. In Orcs on the March, it was just about overpowered, though often shunted aside by the Chaos Dragon. In Warriors of the North, I don't often encounter situations where the Phoenix's advantages help it stand out. This stuff is probably more relevant than the loss of Tears of the Phoenix or the addition of an Ice weakness as far as how often you're liable to actually bother to use Phoenix.

Oh well.


Call of Nature
Crystal Cost: 4 / 8 / 12
Mana Cost: 20 / 30 / 40
Level 1 Statistics: Level up to 2; Troop Leadership: 300
Level 2 Statistics: Level up to 3; Troop Leadership: 700
Level 3 Statistics: Level up to 4; Troop Leadership: 1500

Summons a random animal stack into a tile adjacent to an existing player unit. The stack can act on that turn.

No actual changes. Not even the unit list has changed! As a refresher, it's:

bear,bear2,bear_white,wolf,graywolf,unicorn,unicorn2,snake,snake_green,snake_royal,griffin,griffin2,dragonfly_fire,dragonfly_lake,hyena

(Still straight from the .txt)

That's still Bears, Ancient Bears, Polar Bears, Wolves, Werewolf Elves in wolf form, Unicorns, Black Unicorns, Snakes, Swamp Snakes, Royal Snakes, Griffins, Royal Griffins, Fire Dragonflies, Lake Dragonflies, and Hyenas.

Yeah, they didn't add Frost Unicorns or White Wolves. It's weird.

Since a good portion of these animals have been made more useful/powerful, Call of Nature is in real terms a little bit better overall, though not in any particularly concrete way. If you didn't find it quite useful enough in Armored Princess, consider giving it a second try in Warriors of the North.

It should be pointed out that Creation boosts Call of Nature, and specifically is a percentage modifier to the final Leadership value. This is unusual; with most Spells that Creation boosts, it operates purely off their base numbers, even if those numbers can be improved by Intellect. If Call of Nature worked that way, Creation 3 would only add 450 Leadership to Level 3 Call of Nature, even if your Intellect was high enough you were summoning 20,000 Leadership of stuff. Thankfully, it doesn't, so Creation 3 is always bringing it to 30% more than you'd summon if you had no ranks in Creation.

Avenging Angel
Crystal Cost: 7 / 10 / 15
Mana Cost: 15 / 20 / 25
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 80-120, Duration: 4
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 145-215, Duration: 5
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 210-300, Duration: 6

A single target ally is granted a buff which decrements by one turn each time the unit takes damage from any enemy unit via any means. (Except for over time effects like Burning) The injuring unit is retaliated against by Magic damage.

The higher levels have lost some damage.

That's unfortunate, because Avenging Angel was already overpriced and underpowered. I don't really get why Warriors of the North nerfed it.

It does now benefit -strangely enough- from the Creation Skill, so its final damage is actually going to be better once you're solidly in the midgame, admittedly? Still a weird nerf. Also note that it still benefits from affects that boost 'lightning' damage, but not general Spell damage boosters; if you want to make Avenging Angel as strong as possible, you want stuff like the Archmage's Staff Weapon.

Power of Night
Crystal Cost: 3 / 3 / 25
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 25
Level 1 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 10%; Duration: 3 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 20%; Duration: 4 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 20%, Mass; Duration: 4 turns

The unit's base attack does additional damage against Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Vikings, and Snow Elves.

Yes, Power of Night helps murder Vikings yet can be cast on Vikings. It's a bit weird.

The first of two new Spells in Order Magic, and the other one is just Power of Night but in reverse. Order Magic is kinda... not very good in Warriors of the North, honestly, which is a bit unfortunate.

It's also bugged so it doesn't actually boost damage against Snow Elves. Oops!

It also actually has a limit on what species you can cast it on; at Level 3, you can cast it on any unit. At Level 2, you can't cast it on Dwarves or Elves. At Level 1, you additionally can't cast it on Humans or Vikings.

You're actually also not supposed to be able to cast it on Snow Elves when it's below Level 3, but it's bugged there too so you can always use it on Snow Elves. Double oops!

Power of Light
Crystal Cost: 3 / 3 / 25
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 25
Level 1 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 10%; Duration: 3 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 20%; Duration: 4 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Bonus Damage: 20%, Mass; Duration: 4 turns

The unit's base attack does additional damage against Undead, Demons, Lizardmen, Orcs, and Undead Lizardmen.

Yes, it's Power of Night, but in reverse. Note that it's actually outright replaced Demonslayer, and thank goodness, because Demonslayer was silly-narrow, even if this provides a smaller damage bonus than Demonslayer did.

Like Power of Night, Power of Light has Level-based limits on who you can cast it on; at Level 3 you can throw it on anyone. At Level 2, you can't cast it on Demons or Undead. At Level 1, you additionally can't cast it on Lizardmen or Orcs. Also like Power of Night, you're supposed to be unable to cast it on a DLC race prior to Level 3, but in actuality you can cast it on Undead Lizardmen regardless of its Level.

Also note that Power of Light and Power of Night are incompatible with each other in a manner akin to Slow and Haste; if you cast one followed by the other, the older one will be erased.

Also, both of them have their damage bonus boosted by the Creation Skill, and every third point of Intellect raises it by 1% to a limit of 90 Intellect; thus, if fully maxed out they provide +56% damage, which is... decent?

Power of Night and Power of Light are both kinda interesting ideas, but they're still hampered by being minor damage buffs whose value can usually be outshone by doing something like setting an enemy on fire with your mind. At Level 3 they're potentially maybe justifiable to cast if you're fighting an army of relevant units but at lower levels the effect is simply too small for the investment of Mana and a casting turn. Even at Level 3, it's questionable, and Warriors of the North is probably the friendliest entry in the series to mixing units from various species together, even more so than The Legend, so Power of Night/Light is also just out of place with the rest of the game's design.

It's a bit disappointing overall.

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Next time, we see if Distortion is better off than Order.