Warriors of the North Skill Analysis Part 3: Magic

Lastly, time for the Magic tree. Unlike the Green tree, no major changes in labeling or concept have changed, and indeed the Skill tree is very nearly identical to Armored Princess', other than some reframings and of course number tweaks.

And no, there isn't a Rune Skill Tree. That would've been kind of interesting, but probably overly ambitious, not to mention a bit out of the bounds of the series trying to keep the core stuff relatively similar.



Wisdom
+6 to max Mana, and +3 to Scroll max.
9 
+12 to max Mana, and +6 to Scroll max.
10 
+18 to max Mana, and +9 to Scroll max.
11 

Skill tree requirements: None.

It's exactly the same as in Armored Princess. That's fine.

Linguistics
+1 Intellect.
1 
4 
+3 Intellect.
2 
8 
+6 Intellect.
3 
12 

Skill tree requirements: None.

Also exactly as the same as in Armored Princess, and again that's fine.

Meditation
Overland Mana regeneration is 10% faster. +4 to max Mana. Mana recovery is additionally 0.5% faster for every rank in a Magic tree Skill purchased.
8 
Overland Mana regeneration is 20% faster. +8 to max Mana. Mana recovery is additionally 1% faster for every rank in a Magic tree Skill purchased.
9 
Overland Mana regeneration is 30% faster. +12 to max Mana. Mana recovery is additionally 2% faster for every rank in a Magic tree Skill purchased.
10 

Skill tree requirements: None.

Mostly the same as in Armored Princess aside being moved back to the beginning (boooo), except with the overland Mana regeneration values crippled only now there's a component of scaling with the entire tree. This is mostly a nerf, though the final value for maxing the entire tree is higher: a non-Soothsayer will get 108% faster Mana regeneration instead of the 100% you got for Meditation 3 in Armored Princess, and the Soothsayer will add another 12% to that for a total of 120%.

I don't really get why Warriors of the North made this complicated change, but overland Mana regeneration values were tolerable even without Meditation in Armored Princess so whatever.

Order Magic
The Hero can learn Order Spells.
4 
4 
The Hero can upgrade Order Spells to Level 2.
6 
6 
The Hero can upgrade Order Spells to Level 3.
9 
9 

Skill tree requirements: Wisdom and Intellect.

Exact same as Armored Princess. That's fine.

Distortion Magic
The Hero can learn Distortion Spells.
2 
2 
5 
The Hero can upgrade Distortion Spells to Level 2.
3 
3 
7 
The Hero can upgrade Distortion Spells to Level 3.
5 
5 
9 

Skill tree requirements: Linguistics and Meditation.

Exact same as Armored Princess.

Rune Magic
The Hero can learn Rune Spells. Additionally passes out 1 random Rune to each friendly soldier.
3 
3 
4 
The Hero can upgrade Rune Spells to Level 2. Additionally passes out 2 random Runes to each friendly soldier.
4 
4 
6 
The Hero can upgrade Rune Spells to Level 3. Additionally passes out 3 random Runes to each friendly soldier.
6 
6 
8 

Skill tree requirements: Order Magic.

The new Spell sphere. The main point of interest here is that it also passes out Runes; this means that unlike other Spell sphere Skills, it actually does something to level it to rank 3 even if you never level any of the Spells inside its sphere to Level 3. As such, if you have no particular Spells you want to pursue in other spheres and are considering leveling a sphere regardless, Rune Magic should be your first choice.

That said, Runes are sufficiently minor that it's not really that influential of a decision, especially in Ice and Fire where the vast majority of units will end up with Runes regardless, and some of the exceptions will fail to get Runes even with Rune Magic ranks.

Transmute
+8 Mana when an allied stack is wiped out, +4 Mana when an enemy stack is wiped out, +1 Mana if a summoned stack is wiped out.
4 
9 
+14 Mana when an allied stack is wiped out, +7 Mana when an enemy stack is wiped out, +2 Mana if a summoned stack is wiped out.
4 
9 
+20 Mana when an allied stack is wiped out, +10 Mana when an enemy stack is wiped out, +3 Mana if a summoned stack is wiped out.
4 
9 

Skill tree requirements: Distortion Magic and Order Magic.

Weirdly enough, I don't find Transmute nearly as useful/important in Warriors of the North. It's just so much more generous with max Mana increases than Armored Princess is that generating new Mana is just not as necessary to sustain your Spellslinging. Furthermore, you can get overall more Intellect, meaning your Mana goes farther. It's also just the case that you're more prone to directly killing enemies with Spells, if you're a Soothsayer -in Armored Princess, combat was sufficiently slow it wasn't unusual for the Mage to heavily soften up enemies with Spells and then finish them with units. In Warriors of the North, it's not unusual for the Soothsayer in the midgame and late game to go into a fight labeled 'match' and have one Blizzard cast completely wipe out 3 out of 5 enemy stacks. Transmute isn't helping much at that point.

As I'm implying, Transmute still doesn't give Mana for kills directly achieved via Spell nuking, though Trap is still an exception.

Generally worth getting the first rank early, at least, and due to the Skald and Viking not tending to kill stacks with Spells in the first place they're more likely to want to get it maxed relatively early for Mana sustainability purposes. Especially if you're fond of some of the expensive supporting Spells like Sheep.

Chaos Magic
The Hero can learn Chaos Spells.
3 
7 
The Hero can upgrade Chaos Spells to Level 2.
5 
9 
The Hero can upgrade Chaos Spells to Level 3.
7 
13 

Skill tree requirements: Distortion Magic.

No change from Armored Princess.

Artifactor
+2 Mana. Items which are below Level 4 provide twice as many Magic Crystals when destroyed. Magic Recipes below Level 3 can be used. Talents that repair Droids are 10% more effective, as is the Engineer's Create Droid Talent.
1 
7 
+4 Mana. Items which are below Level 5 provide twice as many Magic Crystals when destroyed, and Level 4 Items can provide Talent Runes when destroyed. Magic Recipes below Level 5 can be used. Talents that repair Droids are 20% more effective, as is the Engineer's Create Droid Talent.
2 
9 
+6 Mana. Items provide twice as many Magic Crystals when destroyed, and Level 4 and 5 Items can provide Talent Runes when destroyed. Magic Recipes can be used. Talents that repair Droids are 30% more effective, as is the Engineer's Create Droid Talent.
3 
11 

Skill tree requirements: Rune Magic

It amuses me to no end that Artifactor is mostly just 'the broken thing gets GLOWIER' as its visual progression. (It actually gets slightly more complete, too, but it's easy to overlook this)

Also note that the in-game description doesn't properly explicate that, like Neatness, this boosts Droid-repairing/creating Talents; it doesn't mention the exact percentage at all, and only talks vaguely about helping you 'manage mechanisms', which is easy to misunderstand as an allusion to the Item-smashing or otherwise misunderstand. And just like with Neatness, this displaces the usual summon-boosting, in this case from Creation. Of course, with Artifactor in a different tree, this has different implications, making the Soothsayer all-around the best class for supporting unit summoning.

To be completely clear, Artifactor's scaling for smashing items is binary, just like Neatness in Armored Princess. Either you get the boost, or you don't. Levels 2 and 3 don't increase the payoff for smashing low-level items. As such, once you've got the first rank, get smashing! (Well, assuming it's not an Item you can gift to a Valkyrie, anyway)

... except for the Old Boot. The Old Boot is actually fairly important and the game does nothing to indicate this, but never smash or sell the Old Boot in Warriors of the North. (If you get an extra, that's okay to smash, but always keep at least one) You also would ideally have a Bottle of Ink for a Quest late in the game, but it's a lot less important.

Anyway, this is literally Neatness except it's been shuffled from the green tree to Magic and its Rune costs have been flipped. I find it thematically appropriate that it's been shuffled here, and in practice I'm not too bothered by accessibility concerns since Warriors of the North is extremely generous with Runes and the Valkyrie gift mechanics mean you mostly want to hold on to early Items instead of going for the smash regardless. In conjunction with Fat Cat discouraging buying up every crap Item as you find it since it delays maxing out Fat Cat, non-Soothsayer classes are fine with the delay in getting to the first rank.

Overall, this works fine.

As with Armored Princess, smashing a high-level Item without the relevant Artifactor rank will never get you Talent Runes. You can and should treat every single Talent Rune you get from smashed Items as progress toward paying for Artifactor 2/3, not half of those Talent Runes.

Soothsayer
+2 Intellect, +7 Mana, and soldiers have 4% more Magic resistance.
3 
3 
10 
+4 Intellect, +14 Mana, and soldiers have 7% more Magic resistance.
3 
3 
12 
+6 Intellect, +21 Mana, and soldiers have 10% more Magic resistance.
3 
3 
14 

Skill tree requirements: Rune Magic and Chaos Magic.

This is the clear inheritor of Thesis' will, but it throws in minor Magic resistance for... some reason.

The costs have also been overhauled, with it costing overall fewer Magic Runes (-3/-1/+1) but more Talent Runes overall. (+2 to Might and +1 to green at every rank rank; that's +9 Runes relative to the total of -3 Magic Runes)

It's a weird set of changes, but not a big deal, so... okay?

Concentration
+2 Mana per combat turn.
1 
8 
+4 Mana per combat turn.
1 
8 
+8 Mana per combat turn.
2 
16 

Skill tree requirements: Chaos Magic.

Unchanged from Armored Princess in direct terms.

As I noted with Transmute, ongoing Mana generation just isn't as important in Warriors of the North, however. Where Concentration was vital in The Legend and Armored Princess, in Warriors of the North Concentration is one of the last Skills I bother to take ranks in at all as a Soothsayer.

Creation
Non-damaging spells (including summons) are 10% more effective. Additionally, units that summon will summon 10% more.
1 
1 
10 
Non-damaging spells (including summons) are 20% more effective, and duration of spells/effects from spells last 1 turn longer. Additionally, units that summon will summon 20% more.
1 
1 
12 
Non-damaging spells (including summons) are 30% more effective, and duration of spells/effects from spells last 2 turns longer. Additionally, units that summon will summon 30% more.
1 
1 
12 

Skill tree requirements: Artifactor and Soothsayer.

Creation is the inheritor of Magic Light and Summoner's will, only it's more generally effective than either and extends duration on effects. 

For a Soothsayer, it's not very relevant, which is unfortunate because it's so late in the Magic tree and so Magic Rune-intensive that for other classes it's a huge pain to actually get ranks in.

I really like the idea of Creation's handling here, but Warriors of the North's fast-paced combat also just shifts the focus away from disables or summon-stalling and towards making things die. As a Mage in previous games, I'd use stuff like Blind and Sheep on key targets while nuking the rest of the army. As a Soothsayer, I mostly can nuke things to take them out of the fight entirely, even when notably outnumbered. A King's Bounty game that shifted the overall pacing back to The Legend and Armored Princess' more drawn-out combat would have Creation be basically perfect.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're gonna get that.

That said, Creation is much better than you might intuit. Firstly, it affects all Spell durations, even for Spells that don't normally scale duration with Intellect. Level 3 Creation thus doubles the duration of, for example, Sheep, which is pretty ridiculous. This is easy to overlook because the Spellbook summary doesn't include Creation's duration modifier; thus, a player can easily get Creation to Rank 3, glance at Blind, and be disappointed by it apparently not being affected, when in actuality if you cast it you'll get a 4-turn Blind.

Second, as I went over across the Spell sphere posts, Creation has tons of special-casing, so it affects a much wider list of Spells than you might assume, some of which are quite notable.

Third, it boosts damage on certain damaging Spells, so even a Soothsayer just nuking things down wants it maxed.

Fourth, the in-game description, while it mentions the summon-boosting, words it as "the hero's" ability to summon being boosted; this sounds like it just boosts your summoning Spells, but no, it also boosts stuff like Demonologist summoning and Royal Thorn summoning. This is still hampered by Warriors of the North's very fast-paced combat, but firstly it makes it more useful for non-Soothsayer runs than several other Magic skills, and secondly it means that leveling it makes summoner units a more appealing choice. (And thirdly it means if you look at my numbers on units and find it's lower than in your run, this is probably the culprit)

Also note that this chains multiplicatively with the summon-boosting from unit leveling; 30% from Rank 3 Creation plus 30% from leveling will turn 100 Leadership of summoning into 169, not 160. It's a small thing, but contributes to summoners actually getting kind of absurd late in a run.

So yeah, while it's frustrating that Creation doesn't shine as much as it could, it's not remotely bad, just... awkwardly-timed and its true power poorly-communicated.

Destruction
Damaging spells have their spell power increased by 15% and gain a 5% chance to crit. Damage over time effects benefit from the crit boost.
2 
1 
8 
Damaging spells have their spell power increased by 30% and gain a 7% chance to crit. Damage over time effects benefit from the crit boost.
2 
1 
10 .
Damaging spells have their spell power increased by 50% and gain a 10% chance to crit. Damage over time effects benefit from the crit boost.
2 
1 
10 

Skill tree requirements: Soothsayer and Concentration.

It's Destruction, but overall a bit pricier while throwing in a bonus to crit chance. (Which spills over into damage over time effects; even if you're not a Soothsayer, ranks in Destruction can be notably useful for this piece) The Might Rune cost is actually down by 5 total compared to Armored Princess, but it swaps in 3 total Spirit Runes and tacks on 1 total Magic Rune in cost.

Makes sense to me more or less, and I particularly appreciate reducing the Might Rune burden on the Soothsayer, given Mages always had a hard time breaking into the Might tree.


As before, two Magic Skills are exclusive to the Soothsayer, and I'll be using this opportunity to talk about the Soothsayer as a class.

So back in Armored Princess, I talked about the Sexy Shirtless thing, and holy crap look at this guy. This is our mage class, and they're basically shirtless, aside from the utterly inadequate covering of the wolfskin. Imagine a woman wearing this; it would be considered inappropriate for children.

Mechanically, though, while the Soothsayer is a new name they're basically the same as the Mages of prior games. They nuke things with Spells. The main difference, as I mentioned earlier, is that Warriors of the North makes it so much easier to just straight-up kill things that the Soothsayer turns his nose up at disabling Spells in most situations. Why Blind them when Blizzard will kill them and wipe out half the rest of the army?

It does have the unfortunate issue that the endgame tends to be a bit flat, since you don't really change what you do in response to enemy makeup, especially since there's not much that's strongly Ice-resistant and so Blizzard really is your go-to nuke Spell in 90% of situations.

Alchemy
Crystal costs for learning and upgrading spells reduced by 15%.
1 
5 
Crystal costs for learning and upgrading spells reduced by 30%.
1 
5  
Crystal costs for learning and upgrading spells reduced by 50%.
1 
5 

Skill tree requirements: Linguistics.

It's literally Armored Princess's Alchemy, but it's class-locked like in The Legend.

I really preferred Alchemy not being class-locked, though to be fair it's probably more accurate to say I prefer Alchemy to not be a Skill at all, but whatever, it works for a Spell-specialization. It's boring, but functional.

Higher Magic
Twice per battle, the Soothsayer may cast twice in a single turn, so long as the first Spell cast costs 10 Mana or less.
12 
Four times per battle, the Soothsayer may cast twice in a single turn, so long as the first Spell cast costs 15 Mana or less.
14 
Six times per battle, the Soothsayer may cast twice in a single turn, so long as the first Spell cast costs 20 Mana or less.
16 

Skill tree requirements: Soothsayer.

Not been changed from Armored Princess, and since most Spells are little-changed too, it's not even been notably modified by proxy. (eg Fireball is still one of your best options for the first cast)

That's fine. It worked basically perfectly in Armored Princess. It doesn't need to be changed.

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Next time, we move on to Warriors of the North's Bosses.