Warriors of the North Spell Analysis Part 3: Distortion Magic

Note: Awaken Dragon is gone, and I don't just mean because your Rage Skills are no longer conceptualized as a Dragon doing things. There's no Rest-wiping Spell at all, thanks to Warriors of the North having a more The Legend-like approach to Rage. So too is Balance of Power, sort of (There's a roughly analogous Spell in Rune Magic), and the Spirit of Rage-based Spells, mostly-sorta. (Glot's Armor has a roughly analogous Spell in, again, Rune Magic)

Meanwhile, Warriors of the North's only 'added' Spell to Distortion is it stealing Calm Rage from Order.


Ghost Blade
Crystal Cost: 3 / 6 / 9
Mana Cost: 10 / 10 / 10
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 100; Ignores 50% Resistance
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 200; Ignores 75% Resistance
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 300; Ignores 100% Resistance

A single enemy unit is attacked for Physical damage, ignoring some portion of the target's Physical resistance if it has any.

Still unchanged.

Though there's so many better ways to do damage without worrying about any given resistance applies that it's often pretty difficult to justify using Ghost Blade in particular.


Geyser
Crystal Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Mana Cost: 20 / 30 / 40
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 100-200; Geysers: 4
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 190-380 Geysers: 6
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 280-560; Geysers: 8

A randomly chosen set of enemies are hit for Physical/Ice damage, inflicting Freeze on any units whose Fire Resistance is at least 50%. The number of Geysers spawned is the maximum number of separate units that can be hit. Ignores Spell immunity.

Geyser has lost a little bit of overall damage compared to Armored Princess, but now it does half its damage as Ice. Since Ice is mostly poorly-resisted, and eg Demons are uniformly weak to Ice, overall this tends to be in Geyser's favor. And of course Spells can crit now, so its actual damage potential is higher than ever, and due to firing off multiple separate hits, that's actually a reasonably consistent boost to its damage, if unpredictable in distribution. There's still no Spell that can match it for ability to strike scattered enemies, either, as Black Hole is gone and hasn't been replaced.

Even better, its ability to inflict Freeze can basically makes up for its lost damage, since Freeze inflicts damage over time now. It's beaten out by Blizzard for reliability at inflicting Freeze (Blizzard can basically be assumed to have a 100% Freeze chance at Level 3, even though that's technically not its Freeze rate, while Geyser only Freezes Fire-resistant units), but Blizzard has a tighter targeting range so it's not like Blizzard invalidates Geyser. It just means the Freeze chance is a useful bonus, rather than a reason to look to Geyser in specific.

On top of all that, it inexplicably now ignores immunity to Spells, making it a useful option to keep in mind in battles involving such enemies.

The main strike against Geyser is actually how fast battles are in Warriors of the North. In the previous two games, it was normal for at least two turns to pass with there still being meaningful resistance left to push through, allowing enemies to get spread out and mixed up with your own front lines, at which point Geyser's targeting behavior was perfect. In Warriors of the North it's not unusual for a Soothsayer to have taken out multiple stacks on the first turn with a cheap attacking Spell followed up by a Blizzard to hit the whole group, even when fighting encounters rated Deadly. At that point Geyser is... pretty irrelevant, unfortunately, and non-Soothsayers aren't strongly interested in it either.

It'll still be useful intermittently, but a bit less so than you might expect from how much of a buff it's gotten on paper.

Note that a minor bug with Geyser is that Items that boost Ice Spell damage, though they do in fact apply to Geyser, actually boost its Physical damage, not its Ice damage. Oops. Not a big deal overall, but it does generally make such effects slightly less useful to Geyser given Ice is a more poorly-resisted damage type and all.

Pain Mirror
Crystal Cost: 2 / 7 / 10
Mana Cost: 5 / 7 / 10
Level 1 Statistics: Returns Damage: 60%
Level 2 Statistics: Returns Damage: 80%
Level 3 Statistics: Returns Damage: 100%

Inflicts Magic damage to a single enemy unit, said damage being derived from the damage the unit dealt most recently.

No change.

With how many options there are for doing percentile damage reliably, it's honestly pretty hard to justify using Pain Mirror in Warriors of the North. Especially since Rage walling in Warriors of the North tends to be based on Ice Spikes from Lord of the North or Fire Traps from Loki's Aid, minimizing opportunities for eg a Viking to use Pain Mirror on a unit that broke a tough wall.

It can still be nice for a Viking or Skald, but a lot less often than in Armored Princess, let alone The Legend.

Note that the Destruction Skill actually applies to Pain Mirror, specifically running off its base numbers rather than post-Intellect-boosting numbers. It also scales with Intellect, but it only gains 1% damage for every 2 points of Intellect; this means Rank 3 Destruction provides the equivalent of +100 Intellect to Level 3 Pain Mirror. A Soothsayer's Intellect advantage is thus pretty low-impact; if you want to use Pain Mirror as a Viking or Skald, just remember to max Destruction.


Trap
Crystal Cost: 4 / 8 / 14
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 15
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 80-120; Duration: 3 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 175-265; Duration: 4 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 245-310; Duration: 5 turns. Poisons target

Places an invisible trap in a tile. If a unit enters the tile on foot, the trap triggers, doing Physical damage and immediately ending the unit's turn. The trap vanishes after triggering or after a number of turns have passed.

No direct change. Interestingly, the Scout's bonus to Trap damage is actually in the Spell's code, making it trivial to add in new units or modify the damage value if you're so inclined. But outside that bit of technical information, it's just like Armored Princess.

Mind, with Undead now causing Zlogn generation to be a thing in general, something to be aware of is that eg Ghosts and Vampire Bats dying over a Trap are potentially destroying it by spawning a Zlogn.

On the flipside, it's worth noting that Traps can overwrite Zlogn! This was true in Armored Princess, but it's way more relevant to Warriors of the North, since units can just drop Zlogn at random. So feel free to drop Traps where a freshly-spawned Zlogn is if you want to deny the AI the Zlogn, or use a Trap to clear away a Zlogn that would otherwise latch onto one of your own troops that turn, or whatever.

By the same token as with Zlogn, Trap can also be used to overwrite Fire Traps. This is a bit more limited in utility, but not completely worthless. A bit of an unpleasant surprise if you were hoping to combine them, though.


Hypnosis
Crystal Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Mana Cost: 20 / 30 / 40
Level 1 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-2; Leadership: 40% of hero's total
Level 2 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-3; Leadership: 60% of hero's total
Level 3 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-4; Leadership: 80% of hero's total

Takes control of a single enemy unit that is within the Leadership limit, the Level limit, and which is not immune to Mind spells, for 2 turns.

The only direct change to Hypnosis is, interestingly enough, that it's no longer classed as a positive effect, meaning it won't cancel out Morale penalties from negative effects. It's actually not classed as a negative effect, either, though it uses a red frame like negative effects normally do.

Probably the biggest point in its favor is the overhaul to how classes are focused; in prior games the class best-suited to trying to leverage Hypnosis was the Warrior due to their superior Leadership, but not only was this offset by a hidden internal modifier that made Hypnosis less effective in the Warrior's hands and more effective in the Mage's hands but the Warrior is really supposed to be focused on Rage. In Warriors of the North, the Skald is the best class at Leadership and their class specialties otherwise don't get in the way of using Hypnosis.

The fact that combat is faster in Warriors of the North is more of a mixed bag for it. On the one hand, it's a lot more plausible to eg knock a unit down to Hypnosis range right away, even against a force that has a significant Leadership advantage over you. On the other hand, Hypnosis is a lot more useful as a way to stall for time by tying up enemies with their own forces than it is for trying to finish a battle quickly, and stalling for time in Warriors of the North is both less useful overall and heavily covered by Rage anyway as a largely incidental point.

Also not helping is how often you fight Undead, given they're flatly immune...

Frustratingly, though Creation is supposed to apply to Hypnosis, and the Spellbook preview will in fact reflect this behavior, it... doesn't actually raise its Leadership limit. Oops.


Magic Shackles
Crystal Cost: 2 / 10 / 35
Mana Cost: 10 / 10 / 35
Level 1 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-3
Level 2 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-4
Level 3 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-4, Mass

Affected units are unable to use their Talents for 2 turns. (Before Intellect extension) Does not affect inorganic units, Plants,, the Undead or units with the Persistence of Mind Ability. Capped by Hero Leadership, as modified by class: the Viking is capped at 100% of their Leadership, the Skald at 140% of their Leadership, and the Soothsayer at 200% of their Leadership.

No (direct) change from Armored Princess.

The fast pace of Warriors of the North's combat tends to hurt its utility, though. Why disable your enemies when you can just kill them? Warriors of the North is also biased away from having you fight a lot of the unit types that are more worth trying to disable, such as Demonesses, so Magic Shackles is only occasionally useful in Warriors of the North. Don't completely forget it exists, but it's not liable to be a staple in your arsenal.

Also not helping is the still-unmentioned failure to work on units with Persistence of Mind has finally been made to apply to Undead the way it was almost certainly always meant to do. As you fight the Undead a lot in Warriors of the North, that's a lot of fights in which it's useless! Do note that the Necromancer's Talent version is not affected by this change; Magic Shackles has always struggled a bit as a Spell because the Necromancer is better at applying it prior to Level 3 turning it into a mass-cast, but it's particularly egregious in Warriors of the North.

It's pretty strange that Warriors of the North kept the class modifiers from Armored Princess, as the Skald was made the class with the most Leadership. As such, in real terms a Skald is probably king of Magic Shackles use.

Also, just like Hypnosis, Creation is supposed to boost the Leadership limit on Magic Shackles, and the Spellbook preview will reflect this, but it... doesn't actually work in real play. Kicking Magic Shackles while its down.


Slow
Crystal Cost: 2 / 5 / 12
Mana Cost: 5 / 7 / 12
Level 1 Statistics: Speed: -1; Duration: 2 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Speed: -2; Duration: 3 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Speed: -3; Duration: 3 turns

Lowers a single enemy unit's Speed. At Level 3, the Spell's duration is doubled if the target's Speed is lower than the penalty being imposed.

The only change is Level 3 picking up its nifty qualifier. It's a qualifier I quite like, since it addresses exactly the problem I brought up back in The Legend: that most units aren't fast enough for -3 Speed to be an improvement over -2, with most of the faster units being too fast for it to be all that impressive.

That said, the faster pace of combat means it's rarely worth using Slow anyway. Yadda yadda why do shenanigans when you can just kill everything etc.

Weirdly, Slow's doubled duration won't kick in if the target's base Speed is 1. Not that you have any reason to Slow such a unit, but... weird. It's also yet another Spell that Creation technically applies to, but where the game rounds down the final result and so doesn't actually add anything ever.


Pygmy
Crystal Cost: 4 / 8 / 12
Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-2; Health: -20%; Damage: -20%
Level 2 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-3; Health: -30%; Damage: -30%
Level 3 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-4; Health: -40%; Damage: -40%

Lowers a single enemy unit's Health and the damage of their basic attacks for 2 turns. Also disables certain Talents.

Still no (direct) change.

With Rage being noticeably stronger in Warriors of the North than in Armored Princess, a Viking in particular may well actually use Pygmy to bolster their damage output. At Spell Level 3 it's not far off from doubling your damage, even if it's only to a single target. And with how common enemy Undead are for a sizable portion of the game and how difficult it is to get good supplies of Necromancers, Plaguing things really isn't a superior-by-default option, unlike the prior two games.

The indirect change is that the Creation Skill applies to Pygmy. In... a weird way. Technically, it does the expected thing of boosting by a percentage of the base values, but then it has a special capping effect where the final result can't be more than 15 times the Spell Level plus 5 -as 15*1+5 is 20, this means Level 1 Pygmy doesn't benefit from Creation at all. Level 2 should reach -39% with Rank 3 Creation, but then gets capped at -35%. Level 3 should reach -52% with Rank 3 Creation, but gets capped at -50%.

So basically Creation Rank 3 adds 0/5/10 to Pygmy's penalties at Levels 1/2/3.

I'm not sure why this special cap is in place at all. In conjunction with all these Spells Creation applies to in the code but doesn't have the math work out to an actual change... seriously, did they try out Creation having a higher final boost?

Blind

Crystal Cost: 4 / 8 / 12

Mana Cost: 10 / 15 / 20

Level 1 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-2

Level 2 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-3

Level 3 Statistics: Target's Level: 1-4

A single enemy unit is completely disabled for 2 turns. The effect ends if it takes damage.

No change still.

It's actually pretty difficult to justify using Blind, though. Not only is there the 'why disable when you can kill' issue, but Warriors of the North is heavily biased towards seriously area of effect damage effects for both Rage and offensive Spell effects, and you'll pretty much constantly be Freezing and/or Burning enemies. As such, Blind will rarely last more than one turn in Warriors of the North, whether because you end up interrupting it by tearing through your enemies with a Blizzard or because Gudrida's Rage set every enemy on fire and so Blind will be ended by the Burn.

It's still worth keeping in mind in the early game when you're trying to build up Grand Strategian ranks since it can be used on Skeletons and Skeleton Archers even at Level 1, and they're the Undead most prone to causing literally just the one casualty before you win, but once you're past the point of caring about Grand Strategian it tends to fall to the wayside pretty hard, no matter your class.

Berserk

Crystal Cost: 2 / 5 / 8

Mana Cost: 2 / 5 / 8

Level 1 Statistics: Attack: +75%; Target's Level: 1-2; Adrenaline: 10, Duration: 3 turns

Level 2 Statistics: Attack: +100%; Target's Level: 1-3; Adrenaline: 15, Duration: 4 turns

Level 3 Statistics: Attack: +125%; Target's Level: 1-4; Adrenaline: 20, Duration: 5 turns

A single allied unit increases its Attack, but control is removed from the player. Orc units also immediately gain some Adrenaline. Units that are immune to Mind spells can't be affected.

It's picked up Adrenaline-granting ability! I'd... basically always rather use Battle Cry, to be honest, but I can see some edge cases involving eg AI exploitation. (eg Lake Fairies will often choose to Dispel Berserk, which won't get rid of the Adrenaline spike) I do like the flavor of going berserk providing an adrenaline spike.

One of your Valkyries has bolstered its viability a bit, though, so that's another point in its favor, if only intermittently. We'll get to that.

It also now benefits from the Creation Skill. This adds a proportion of the base Attack boost; for Rank 3 Creation, Level 3 Berserk gets 37.5 added to the percent number. So that's another boost to Berserk's relevancy?

Intellect-wise, it gains +1 to its percent value for every 2 points of Intellect. This caps at +100% Attack, at an absurd 200 Intellect; you will never hit this cap. Still, nice to imagine Berserk raising Attack by 262.5%, eh?

Also Creation affects its Adrenaline component. (Intellect does not) This is straightforwardly 10% of the base value per rank of Creation; Rank 3 Creation thus adds 6 Adrenaline to Level 3 Berserk. Not enough to take an Orc from 0 Adrenaline to Adrenaline Level 3, alas, but 26 Adrenaline is pretty nice.

Haste

Crystal Cost: 2 / 5 / 15

Mana Cost: 3 / 5 / 10

Level 1 Statistics: Speed: +1; Duration: 3 turns

Level 2 Statistics: Speed: +2; Duration: 4 turns

Level 3 Statistics: Speed: +2, Mass; Duration: 4 turns

Affected allies gain additional Speed/Action Points. (This won't give units an additional turn if they've already ended their turn)

Still no change.

Warriors of the North's faster-paced combat does make it more appealingly relevant if you want to go heavy on melee units in the late game, though. You also tend to get a lot of Mana in Warriors of the North no matter your class, making it a lot easier to toss it out without worrying too much about the cost.

It's also yet another Spell Creation technically applies to but nothing actually happens; 30% of 2 is 0.6, gets rounded to 0, etc. If Creation did have a higher value at some point, this suggests it was at least a 50% boost; that's the minimum necessary for Creation to actually do something with Haste's values, which were probably never considered for modification.

Precision

Crystal Cost: 2 / 4 / 16

Mana Cost: 2 / 4 / 16

Level 1 Statistics: Damage: +25%; Duration: 3 turns

Level 2 Statistics: Damage: +30%; Duration: 4 turns

Level 3 Statistics: Damage: +30%, Mass; Duration: 4 turns

Affected ranged units have the base damage of their attacks and Talents increased.

Much like crits and Bless, it affects Talents now, making it that bit more widely useful. You can combine it with Dragon Arrows now, for example.

It's worth noting that Avengers can impose almost the exact same effect without burning a Spellcasting turn on it, and Avengers are widely a good unit you'll reliably get early access to in Merlassar. Also crucial is that the Avenger is mass-casting their Precision effect, where the Spell has to wait until Level 3 to do the same.

On the other hand, the Avenger's version doesn't boost Talents, and Talent access is very widespread in Warriors of the North. Since Talents can crit now, damage boosting Talents doesn't have to worry about whether a non-Talent attack could get ahead via a crit. So it's not like the Avenger makes the Spell obsolete.

Additionally, player-cast Precision is affected by both Intellect and the Creation Skill. The boost from Creation runs off the base numbers; thus, Rank 3 Creation adds 9% to Level 2 and 3 Precision. The Intellect boost is +1% for every 2 points of Intellect, but caps the final result at a 45% boost. (Creation's boost is not counted for this cap) So you'll hit that cap with just 30 Intellect if you've got the Spell above Level 1; with how generous with Intellect boosts Warriors of the North is, you may never see anything but the capped values! In conjunction with the Creation boost, you arrive at +54% damage on your ranged units; not bad!

Magic Spring

Crystal Cost: 3 / 7 / 12

Mana Cost: 5 / 7 / 9

Level 1 Statistics: Defense: +5; Duration: 3 turns

Level 2 Statistics: Defense: +10; Duration: 4 turns

Level 3 Statistics: Defense: +15; Duration: 5 turns

A single allied unit bolsters its Defense by a flat value. Every time the affected unit takes damage, the unit's controller gains 5 Mana and the duration of the buff decreases by 1 turn.

No (direct) change from Armored Princess.

The main point in its favor is that it's an option for grinding a Medal, and in particular is cheap and has a quick animation.

Another indirect change is that Creation applies to it, specifically raising the Defense boost. Rank 3 Creation will bring Level 3 Magic Spring to a total of +19 Defense; that's something, I guess?

Stone Skin

Crystal Cost: 1 / 2 / 4

Mana Cost: 3 / 5 / 7

Level 1 Statistics: Defense and Physical Resistance: +20%; Duration: 3 turns

Level 2 Statistics: Defense and Physical Resistance: +30%; Duration: 4 turns

Level 3 Statistics: Defense and Physical Resistance: +40%; Duration: 4 turns

A single allied unit has its Defense and Physical Resistance increased by a percentage, but its Initiative is lowered by 1.

The third Level no longer increases duration, oddly.

It's indirectly been slightly nerfed by Ice damage being a thing, making it that little bit less normal for Physical to be getting thrown around. It's not terribly significant in real terms, but it does matter.

It's also another case of a Spell now being affected by the Creation Skill. With Rank 3 Creation, Level 3 Stone Skin is an astonishing +52% to Physical Resistance and Defense; against Physical attackers, that's considerably more than doubling the unit's durability!

Invisibility

Crystal Cost: 3 / 6 / 9

Mana Cost: 10 / 20 / 30

Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2 turns

Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 3 turns

Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 4 turns

A single allied unit is rendered invisible to the enemy, rendering them un-targetable. The effect ends prematurely if they attack or use any Talent.

Still no change.

Target

Crystal Cost: 2 / 6 / 12

Mana Cost: 3 / 6 / 12

Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 1 turns. Level limit: 2

Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 2 turns. Level limit: 3

Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 3 turns. Level limit: 4

A single allied unit is made more appealing of a target.

No obvious changes.

Hey, for all I know the AI has been overhauled or something. Warriors of the North did refactor the code, with a number of obvious changes to the AI and some more mechanical changes to boot.

I've never bothered testing, though, because it's just so much easier to kill everything.

Phantom

Crystal Cost: 3 / 6 / 9

Mana Cost: 15 / 20 / 25

Level 1 Statistics: Phantom Health: 20%

Level 2 Statistics: Phantom Health: 30%

Level 3 Statistics: Phantom Health: 40%

Targets an allied unit to generate a phantom version of the unit that lasts for three turns. The phantom's stack size is derived from a percentage of the unit being copied, going off of Health, though the initial unit number is only ever 'whole numbers'. (The new stack can be eg 1 troop or 2 troops, not 2 troops where the second one has only half health) This phantom is a completely fresh unit (Its Talents are fresh, even if the unit being copied has used up all its Talents), but it leaves no corpse when it dies.

Still unchanged. Note that Phantoms won't start with Runes or benefit from the target unit's levels, however, As such, if you're playing Ice and Fire it's basically been nerfed.

The main strike against it, though, is really how Warrior of the North's combat is fast-paced. Phantom is mostly useful for some Talent abuse (eg making a Phantom of a Paladin for more mass-resurrection even though their Talent is charge-based) and for stalling enemies, which the latter is less useful in Warriors of the North.

Note that the Health modifier goes up by 1% for every 3 points of Intellect, and then the Creation Skill looks at the final number and modifies that. Say you have 90 Intellect; that's high, but not unreasonable for an endgame Soothsayer. At that point your Phantoms have 70% of the target stack's Health for their base number, and each rank of Creation adds 10% of that; so +7 per rank, resulting in this example having Creation 3 Phantoms have 91% of the Health of the targeted stack. That's potentially very abusable!

Teleport

Crystal Cost: 2 / 5 / 15

Mana Cost: 5 / 8 / 12

Level 1 Statistics: Range: 4

Level 2 Statistics: Range: 6

Level 3 Statistics: Range: Unlimited

Moves a friendly unit to a targeted cell within a certain number of tiles of the units starting location.

No change from Armored Princess.

The faster-paced combat has upsides and downsides for Teleport. On the one hand, it's a lot easier to justify Teleporting a unit on top of an enemy to attack it in melee. On the other hand, just going for a ranged-heavy force that doesn't need Teleport support tends to work just fine in Warriors of the North and leave you able to burn Spellcasting turns on, you know, even more actual damage output, or on other Spells that are more widely useful. The Soothsayer in particular is unlikely to get meaningful use out of Teleport.

Bizarrely, there's disabled code for having Creation apply to Teleport, with a comment that it was disabled for being overpowered. I'm... pretty confused by this conclusion...

Oil Mist

Crystal Cost: 2 / 4 / 6

Mana Cost: 5 / 5 / 5

Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2. Ranged attack: -30%. Fire resist: -20%

Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 3. Ranged attack: -50%. Fire resist: -30%

Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 4. Ranged attack: -70%. Fire resist: -40%

Designates a seven-tile circle with an Oil Mist. This Oil Mist reduces damage dealt by ranged attackers firing from within the mist and also reduces the Fire resistance of units within the mist. Has no effect on Level 5 units.

No change.

The faster-paced combat makes it pretty difficult to justify using. The slightly improved array of ranged Fire-damage units helps, if you're eg wanting to field an army that's Pyro Mages, Imps, etc, mixed together. Not much, but enough to be worth considering if you're wanting to all-in on Fire damage for some reason. But for typical play you... probably just aren't using it.

Note that the Fire resistance penalty -and only that part- scales with Intellect and the Creation skill. 1% additional penalty for every 2 points of Intellect, while Creation uses the base value for its percentage boost, meaning Rank 3 Creation will cause Level 3 Oil Mist to gain 12% additional Fire resistance penalty. It's plausible for an endgame Soothsayer to get the Fire resistance penalty to over 100%, making it potentially sensible to cast before eg Fire Rain. Too bad Fire damage Spells aren't your best Spell damage options in this game...

Exorcism

Crystal Cost: 8 / 14 / 20

Mana Cost: 10 / 20 / 30

Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 200, Antisummon Bonus: +50%

Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 400, Antisummon Bonus: +75%

Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 600, Antisummon Bonus: +100%

Does Magic damage to a single target Undead, Demon, or summoned unit. In the case of summoned units, does bonus damage.

Now Exorcism's anti-summon damage is dependent on Spell Level, only reaching double damage at Level 3. Not really sure why. Whatever the case, this is a direct nerf to the first two levels, with the third being unchanged.

Even more bizarre is that Exorcism now benefits from Creation and Destruction. The combination is additive, meaning if you have both maxed it's +80% to its final damage; Exorcism is thus twice over a Spell now stacked toward the late game. Early in a run, you're liable to find it lackluster in spite of Undead being everywhere; late in a run, it's one of your best possible damage options against (valid) single targets, and indeed is the best if the target is classed as a summon.

It's too bad probably most players try it out in the early-to-midgame and write it off as weirdly irrelevant; the game doesn't do anything to communicate this oddity of Creation and Destruction both applying to it, for one.

Turn Back Time

Crystal Cost: 10 / 20 / 30

Mana Cost: 30 / 30 / 30

Level 1 Statistics: Max target Level: 3

Level 2 Statistics: Max target Level: 4

Level 3 Statistics: Max target Level: 5

Returns a target unit to the position and condition it began its last turn at.

Same as it was in Armored Princess.

Runes make it a bit more useful in real terms, since backing a unit up will also give it back a Rune if it spent one. It's minor, but it can be nice, particularly if you're fishing for Luck Rune triggers.

A wrinkle exclusive to the Skald is that if you use Turn Back Time to set a unit to its first-turn state, this permanently eats its Edda bonuses. It's thus ill-advised to use Turn Back Time in the first couple turns of battle as a Skald... which is a pretty big flaw given how often battles in Warriors of the North only last a couple of turns, particularly in the late game where you're liable to actually have Turn Back Time.

Though on the other hand it does mean you can selectively remove an Edda's penalties from a unit, if you like. Something to potentially keep in mind.

Calm Rage
Crystal Cost: 15 / 20 / 30
Mana Cost: 1 / 1 / 1
Level 1 Statistics: Converts up to 35 Rage into up to 15 Mana
Level 2 Statistics: Converts up to 45 Rage into up to 20 Mana
Level 3 Statistics: Converts up to 55 Rage into up to 25 Mana

Drains a portion of the player's Rage, and based on that value gives them an amount of Mana.

Other than being a Distortion Spell instead of Order, it's pretty familiar.

That said, the Mana generation is boosted by both Intellect and Creation; each point of Intellect adds 1% to the final Mana generation, except then Creation modifies this final number. So if you have 100 Intellect, the Mana generation is doubled before Creation ranks get in on the action. This can result in fairly silly levels of Rage-to-Mana efficiency late in a run...

I'm a little surprised Warriors of the North didn't add even a single genuinely new Spell to Distortion. Not complaining, just surprised.

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Distortion is a bit of a mixed bag as far as how Warriors of the North impacted it, but it could certainly be worse.

Next time, we check out the new type of magic: Rune Magic.