Dark Side Spell Analysis Part 3: Distortion Magic

Before starting: Exorcism is in the code, but commented-out, presumably because it doesn't fit thematically to give the player a Spell for purging the unholy while playing the unholy. Its actual numbers are untouched from Warriors of the North, though I don't know if that means they just commented-out the Spell and then ignored it or if it means they'd planned on keeping it in at some point -maybe reframing the aesthetic?- and simply felt the numbers themselves were fine. It's particularly striking because Exorcism is still in Distortion's portion of the .txt file, and not shuffled off to the end like many of the Rune Magic Spells are.

Additionally, Oil Mist has been replaced with Flammable Oil. It's... uh... a confusing change, as you'll see.


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.

Unchanged.

In practice, you're fairly unlikely to use Ghost Blade in Dark Side simply because Chaos Missiles is so insanely ridiculous. Level 3 Chaos Missiles is 675 damage for 15 Mana. The only way Ghost Blade would do better is if either the RNG hates you or the target has more than 50% in every non-Astral resistance. That latter scenario doesn't happen, and the former is going to happen only rarely.

So Ghost Blade is pretty irrelevant, since Level 3 is what it always took to justify itself.


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, with a chance of inflicting Freeze on targets equal to their Fire Resistance. The number of Geysers spawned is the maximum number of separate units that can be hit.

The in-game description at last informs the player that Geyser will Freeze 'heat-loving' units. This is that 'Freezes based of Fire Resistance' quality that's always been there, but went unmentioned in prior entries. It's... needlessly vague, but this is still an improvement.

... of course, it's been overhauled so now it's never a guaranteed Freeze and instead is more likely to occur the higher the target's Fire resistance is, contributing to it being unfortunate how vague it is and all, but hey. I do actually like this model overall, as the 50% threshold was weird and had some odd implications, especially in Armored Princess where a distressing number of enemy Heroes have Geyser, like making it so being close to a 50% Fire resistance but not actually at it was better than having that higher resistance.

Geyser's primary draw in Dark Side is, as always, its disconnected targeting. Damage-wise you've got better options, and unfortunately Ice-weak enemies are fairly rare in Dark Side, but nothing can quite displace Geyser for ability to safely target widely-spread enemies. Hopefully you'll be luckier than I and get it reasonably early in a Daert run.

Note that the Warriors of the North bug where boosts to Ice damage on Spells instead boost Geyser's Physical damage still applies.


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.

Not even Dark Side's devs saw any reason to tweak Pain Mirror.

Well. Not its raw numbers. It now no longer scales to Intellect, though, making its late-game potential much lower. It does at least benefit from Wight, but 130% returned damage isn't the 200+% of prior late-game Pain Mirrors.

I personally never had much cause to use it with all the percentage damage effects available in Dark Side, but it could be handy for Bagyr or Neoline in conjunction with summons used to get the damage done safely. Or in conjunction with Turn Back Time, I suppose, but that would be a slow, awkward way of delivering damage, and still expensive.


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: 270-410; Duration: 5 turns. Inflicts Bleed on 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.

Prior to Level 3, nothing has changed, but Level 3 has had its damage bumped up to a modest extent and instead of inflicting the cute-but-largely-irrelevant Poison it now inflicts Bleed. So that's interesting.

I personally almost never actually cast Trap in Dark Side between how many Traps you can have placed for free at the start of the battle and assorted other differences/trends in Dark Side that reduce its utility relative to prior games. (Dark Side is much more fond of huge and largely-empty battlefields, for example, which makes it easier to misjudge where a given enemy will decide to walk) Still, it has its uses, and I do at least appreciate in principle the improvement to Level 3 given Trap was always awkward about Level 2 being a big jump in performance and then Level 3 was kind of whatever.


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.

Hypnosis is highly impractical in Dark Side, particularly if you're not playing Neoline. Enemy battlegroup sizes increasingly vastly outstrip your Leadership in an attempt to maintain some margin of challenge, and furthermore Dark Side provides alternate options for turning enemies against each other -and for instance Jealousy doesn't care about Leadership at all. Hypnosis' utility for Sacrifice fodder is also largely irrelevant since Priestesses of Blood can just use summons. 

It's pretty irrelevant in Dark Side, in short.

Not helping is that it's very, very bugged; it's supposed to be boosted by Puppeteer but is bugged and does not, it's supposed to modify its Leadership max based on class/character (100%/140%/200% of listed percentages above for Bagyr/Neoline/Daert) but actually does not, and there's a major discrepancy between the Spellbook display and the in-game reality because the Spellbook is operating on (almost) the correct calculations that aren't used when actually casting the Spell. Almost the correct calculations because the class/character multiplier isn't properly used, instead consulting Hypnosis' Level numbers of 40%/60%/80%! This particular error means the Spellbook vastly underestimates Hypnosis' upper limit -only Daert with Puppeteer at Rank 3 is an exception,, where the Spellbook's prediction will be very slightly higher than his true limit. (3.2% higher, specifically)


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, or units with the Persistence of Mind Ability. (But does affect the Undead) Can only apply to units whose Leadership is equal to or less than 100%/140%/200% of the hero's Leadership. (For Bagyr/Neoline/Daert, respectively)

Compared to Warriors of the North, its effectiveness against Undead has reverted: it works on them once more. You don't fight Undead very often, certainly nowhere as often as in Warriors of the North, but it does come up and it can be nice to, for example, lock down a Black Knight stack so they can't use their ranged Talent.

I don't use it very often, nonetheless, as there's lots of alternate means of avoiding Talents creating problems. Like using Jealousy on the key enemy. Still, there's occasionally moments it matters.

Magic Shackles is supposed to be affected by Puppeteer, but is bugged and doesn't do so in reality. Oops.


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: -2; 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.

Bugged so Level 3 doesn't actually improve its Speed penalty. Oops.

Warlock at Rank 3 will at least raise it to -3 Speed...


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.

Unchanged to the very end.

Note that Defiler can add another turn of duration, while Rank 3 Warlock will bring the Health and Damage penalty at Level 3 from -40% to -52%. So that's nice.

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. Curiously, there's a line in the code that seems to suggest they considered making Blind persist even if the unit was damaged, but there's no actual change that I can tell.

It does get an extra turn of duration from Defiler, though.

Berserk
Crystal Cost: 2 / 5 / 8
Mana Cost: 2 / 5 / 8
Level 1 Statistics: Attack: +75%; Target's Level: 1-2; Adrenaline/Frenzy: +10%, Duration: 3 turns
Level 2 Statistics: Attack: +100%; Target's Level: 1-3; Adrenaline/Frenzy: +15%, Duration: 4 turns
Level 3 Statistics: Attack: +125%; Target's Level: 1-4; Adrenaline/Frenzy: +20%, Duration: 5 turns

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

As with prior Adrenaline-affecting buffs, Berserk affects the new Frenzy mechanic and acts as a percentile modification of generation, rather than providing Adrenaline on demand. No other changes.

Could be worth considering casting on summoned Demons, actually. You generally won't have control over them anyway, and they'll be benefiting not only from increased Attack but also from improved Frenzy generation. I've never bothered, but it honestly hadn't occurred to me to try until I was writing this post.

Berserk is the last Scroll, alongside Sacrifice and Battle Cry, that a late-game Quest calls for giving up. So hold onto a copy if you care.

Interestingly, Warlock affects the Attack bonus; Rank 3 Warlock backing Level 3 Berserk results in +163% Attack. Less interesting is that Defiler can add one more turn of duration to it, for a total of 6 turns.

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, Duration: 4 turns, Area: 7

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

Haste's third level now provides a 7-tile 'blast radius' for targeting, rather than simply bolstering every allied unit in the battle. This is a fairly significant nerf to the Spell, but I actually like it: for the player, it mostly just encourages making use of eg Tactics to get proper benefit out of it, rather than the third level being laziness to the max in usage, and critically it's a huge shift in Gremlin fights, as Friendly Gremlin presence/absence is no longer starkly binary, where any existing can be ruinous to your forces on a moment's notice, but having more than one doesn't really scale that threat.

As such, it's a much-appreciated change.

Note that Warlock can raise the Speed bonus to +3 total.

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 archers have the base damage of their attack and Talents increased.

Almost unchanged from Warriors of the North, but... it no longer scales its boost with Intellect. Warlock can bring it up to a maximum of +39% damage, but... still less of a boost than you could get in Warriors of the North.

Though unlike in Ice and Fire, there's no Avengers to compete with it, bolstering its relevance a little.

On the other hand, some of your best and most widely relevant 'ranged units' in Dark Side are Imps and Scoffer Imps, and they can't benefit from Precision, so that hurts it.

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 change.

In practice, Magic Spring is close to worthless in Dark Side. You have shocking amounts of Mana to work with no matter class/character you play, and unlike prior games your Spellslinging class actually has more support for Mana sustainability than your other classes, rather than relying solely on greater ease in purchasing the universally-available Skills. If you find Magic Spring really early on, you might use it, as it takes a bit for Dark Side's Mana generosity to really kick in, but past the early game it's essentially irrelevant, contrasting sharply with the first two games and to a lesser extent Warriors of the North.

Warlock being able to ultimately bring its Defense bonus to +20 doesn't really help, alas.

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: 5 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 now extends duration one turn as it did in The Legend and Armored Princess. No other change.

One issue with Stone Skin is that Dark Side is unusually prone to non-Physical combatants in enemy battlegroups, relative to other entries. Human armies will almost always include Priests or Inquisitors, Dwarven armies are strongly biased toward including Engineers and/or Alchemists, and Elven armies almost always have Druids/Ents/Ancient Ents, all of which can perform non-Physical damage at range. As such, it's much rarer to have the opportunity to really leverage Stone Skin's biggest advantage. Since it also doesn't contribute to your resistance-bolstering Medal, there's very little cause to use it in Dark Side.

On the other hand, Warlock can ultimately bring its boosts to +52%, which is just wild, especially if used on eg Knights or if backed by resistance-boosting gear. When you are fighting a Physical-heavy army, this can result in a unit that's nearly immune to harm pretty readily!

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.

Untouched.

Defiler can add a turn of duration, if you care.

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.

Still no change.

As far as I'm aware, anyway. For all I know Dark Side has made AI or other code changes that broke Target or something. It's not like I've been testing Target much throughout the series.

Oh, and Defiler can add another turn of duration to it.

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.

Unmodified.

Particularly notable for its utility in conjunction with Blood Priestesses, as I've alluded to before.

Also note that Puppeteer boosts the percentage of Health used for the Phantom count, ultimately raising it to 52%, while Defiler can add another turn of duration. I've personally always found the baseline Phantom duration of three turns a bit awkward and can buy this is a pretty noticeable bump in their performance. (Though I've never really used Phantom much in Dark Side myself; a lot of its utility from prior games is preempted by Rage moves, for one)

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 modification.


Flammable Oil
Crystal Cost: 2 / 4 / 6
Mana Cost: 5 / 5 / 5
Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2, Burn Strength: 20%
Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 4, Burn Strength: 40%
Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 6, Burn Strength: 60%

Targets all units in a 7-tile circle, inflicting them with a negative effect. Anytime an afflicted unit suffers Fire damage, it's automatically inflicted with a Burn, and the duration of the Flammable Oil effect on that unit is reduced by 1 turn.

Here's our replacement for Oil Mist. The duration is longer overall, but instead of lowering Fire resistance and reducing ranged damage, we've got a way to inflict Burn reliably, assuming you combine it with Fire damage. Okay?

I don't really get Flammable Oil, to be honest, and the 'Burn Strength' effect I've listed... what it means is that at Level 1 the resulting Burn only does 20% of the usual 5-10% damage (ie 1-2%), which is pretty awful. Oil Mist was a bit niche and gimmicky, but occasionally usable. Flammable Oil I can't imagine ever using.

Warlock does boost the Burn Strength parameter, but the final result of 78% Burn Strength is still pretty lackluster.

I like the idea of a Spell that makes the enemy highly flammable to then combine with setting them on fire, but the execution doesn't really work. If it had been something like 'units with Flammable Oil on them take increased damage from Burn', or 'units with Flammable Oil on them immediately take Burn damage each time Fire damage is done to them', it would be a nifty if somewhat gimmicky utility Spell. What it actually does is just baffling.


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.

No change.

Turn Back Time remains an incredibly useful, if expensive, Spell.


Calm Rage
Crystal Cost: 15 / 20 / 30
Mana Cost: 1 / 1 / 1
Level 1 Statistics: Drains Rage equal to 30% of maximum Rage to give Mana equal to 15% of maximum Mana
Level 2 Statistics: Drains Rage equal to 40% of maximum Rage to give Mana equal to 20% of maximum Mana
Level 3 Statistics: Drains Rage equal to 50% of maximum Rage to give Mana equal to 25% of maximum Mana

Drains a percentage of the player's Rage to restore a percentage of their Mana.

Completely overhauled, and... I'm not a fan, unfortunately. Upgrading it isn't a clear improvement, and instead of it supporting the Rage class keeping their Mana topped off it's actively punishing to having high Rage because the cost and payout have nothing to do with each other.

To be fair, Dark Side's combat is sufficiently faced-paced and Daert is sufficiently good at sustaining his Mana Calm Rage isn't an important tool like it was in Armored Princess, but still not a fan.

Not helping is that Intellect and Skills don't do anything to improve it.


Cloud of Poison
Crystal Cost: 5 / 15 / 20
Mana Cost: 10 / 15 / 20
Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2, Poison Strength: 5%, Ranged Reduction: 10%
Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 3, Poison Strength: 10%, Ranged Reduction: 15%
Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 4, Poison Strength: 15%, Ranged Reduction: 20%

Generates a 7-tile circle of a cloud that hovers in place, lowering the ranged damage output of units in its radius and applying a Poisoning effect between every unit's turn. Units with at least 80% Poison resistance will not be Poisoned.

Note that its duration extends with Intellect. (Its other effects are not boosted by Intellect)

Cloud of Poison has been stolen from Chaos Magic and notably overhauled. It still repeatedly inflicts Poison on everything in its radius, but its duration is turn-based rather than number-of-Poisoning-attempts based, and critically it's actually inherited the will of Oil Mist, being Dark Side's method of weakening ranged attackers en mass. Arguably this is a more natural synergy, too, as Poisoning units lowers their Attack and causes them to take damage before they get a chance to act: that's three ways Cloud of Poison lowers the damage of ranged attackers, two of which apply to everything in its radius!

The Poisoning damage is horribly weak though (That's still '5% means 5% of regular Poison damage'), and unlike mass Bleeding (ie Life Light/Dark Shroud) mass Poisoning doesn't effectively enhance the damage of everything else you do to the units, so while Poison Cloud is no longer worthless like it was in Warriors of the North it's still a Spell you won't have interest in using too often. Dark Shroud will usually be better, after all.

It does admittedly get boosted by Wight, Warlock and Defiler; Wight boosts the Poison Strength to a maximum of 20% strength (ie 1-2% of the affected stack's Health in damage, so still barely anything), Warlock boosts the ranged damage reduction to up to 26%, while Defiler adds up to 1 more turn of duration. This... doesn't really help much...


Snow Storm
Crystal Cost: 2 / 4 / 6
Mana Cost: 5 / 5 / 5
Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 2 turns, Freeze Strength: 10%, Fire Resistance: +10%
Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 3 turns, Freeze Strength: 15%, Fire Resistance: +15%
Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 4 turns, Freeze Strength: 20%, Fire Resistance: +20%

Generates a Snow Storm in a 7-tile region. Units currently in the Snow Storm are Fire resistant, but at casting and once per turn the Snow Storm will also inflict Freeze on units in its radius.

Snow Storm has been stolen from Rune Magic and seriously modified, taking it from a somewhat situational Spell that was nice for anti-Demon work and supporting Snow Elves to being only really useful for inflicting Freeze en mass on enemies. Only a handful of units in Dark Side are immune to Freeze, and percentile damage from Freeze is a lot more threatening than whatever Fire damage the enemy does, so it doesn't really make sense to use it to protect your own units. It's a weird overhaul: is there any point beyond thematics to Snow Storm providing Fire resistance?

Inflicting mass Freeze is certainly useful, as it's basically a mass Slow that can't be canceled out by Haste or cleared by Dispel effects, though note that the actual damage over time is weaker than what other Spells that inflict Freeze will do. As such, you should primarily treat Snow Storm as a mass Slow effect, with any damage done being a bonus instead of the point.

Wight boosts this damage, allowing for a maximum Freeze strength of 26%... so 1.3%-2.6% of the affected units max Health in damage each turn. Still far too low to care.


Ice Spikes
Crystal Cost: 5 / 10 / 15
Mana Cost: 8 / 16 / 24
Level 1 Statistics: Ice Spikes: 3
Level 2 Statistics: Ice Spikes: 6
Level 3 Statistics: Ice Spikes: 9

Generates a number of Ice Spikes. At Level 1, they will be clustered in a triangle. At Level 2, they will surround a single tile. At Level 3, they will surround a triangle of tiles.

Another Spell stolen from Rune Magic. Curiously, its Mana and Crystal costs have both gone up a fair amount (As has its internal level and Scroll cost, making it harder to find and harder to buy), while the Spell itself is unmodified. This is especially strange since Dark Side doesn't have any units with gimmicks centered around making use of Ice Spikes, meaning it's already been de-facto nerfed.

I've occasionally had cause to use it, so it's not unbearable, but it's still an odd decision.


Sonic Boom
Crystal Cost: 10 / 20 / 30
Mana Cost: 10 / 25 / 40
Level 1 Statistics: Damage: 120, Blast: 1 tile, Shove: 33%
Level 2 Statistics: Damage: 250, Blast: 7 tiles, Shove: 66%
Level 3 Statistics: Damage: 385, Blast: 19 tiles, Shove: 100%

Does Physical damage to all units in the blast radius and has a chance to shove them away from the center. Damage drops off by 20% for each tile away from the center. (As in 100%/80%/60% damage for center/1 tile out/2 tiles out)

Sonic Boom no longer ignores Spell immunity, which... kinda sucks, to be honest, since that was one of the main things about it that could justify using it over eg Blizzard. Its shove mechanics are also still buggy, prone to getting confused and failing to shove a unit it really should be able to shove, so it's never actually fully reliable. Also, it still continues to claim in-game that it can Stun units, and this continues to be untrue. And its English description informs you that its thrust (ie shove chance) is reduced away from the center, rather than its damage, even though the reverse is true.

Anyway, the only other change is that Distortion mugged Rune Magic for it.

On the plus side, a big point in Sonic Boom's favor is that Dark Side is extremely fond of battlegroups made of a large number of densely-packed stacks. While Blizzard will almost always outperform it if available, if it's not Sonic Boom will beat out everything else you might have for damage output in such situations -and it may well also shove enemies into your Traps for even more damage!

As such, while the inability to bypass Spell Immunity hurts it a fair amount, Sonic Boom is actually a lot more likely to be a staple attacking Spell in Dark Side runs than in Warriors of the North runs. It's pretty nice!


Blur
Crystal Cost: 3 / 5 / 15
Mana Cost: 3 / 5 / 15
Level 1 Statistics: Duration: 3, Evasion: 5%, Crit Evade: 15%
Level 2 Statistics: Duration: 4, Evasion: 10%, Crit Evade: 30%
Level 3 Statistics: Duration: 5, Evasion: 15%, Crit Evade: 45%

A single target ally is less likely to be crit by enemies and has a chance to be Missed when attacked.

Note that what I'm labeling 'Crit Evade' is a percentage reduction to the attacker's crit chance; that is, Level 3 Blur will reduce a 50% chance to crit to 27 or 28 (Depending on rounding) because that's 55% of 50, rather than reducing it to 5%. Also note that Blur evasion is rolled separately from any inherent evasion on a unit, which a player might intuit because Blurred units with a natural evasion effect will sometimes play their evasion animation and sometimes not.

Speaking of, Blur is visually quite... buggy. First of all, the above: Blur-based Misses have no animation at all, and in fact they mess up the way combat animations play so that often the unit being targeted is retaliating before their attacker has even properly gotten into position. (eg when attacking on the move) Second of all, when Blur is cast, the visual effect it produces lingers in the tile it was placed until the currently-active unit finishes its turn. Or sometimes just moving without finishing its turn will work instead. It's not entirely consistent.

Blur itself is primarily useful for feeding the Keeper of the Dark Medal. The Spell is unreliable (Unless you're expecting a unit to be outright dogpiled, even at Level 3 you can't count on a Miss happening even once over the course of the Spell's duration), and there's just plain better options for protecting your units.

It's also the biggest reason why Hex isn't worth considering. While Blur has only half the dodge chance provided, the fact that it's a buff means that eg you can slap it on a unit that then gets attacked four times in a turn, which is far more likely to get a useful Miss rolled than slapping Hex on a single enemy in an equivalent situation. And since Blur is one of your best options for grinding up Keeper of the Dark, you're probably going to be using it regardless for a good chunk of the game.

Note that Warlock affects both the evasion and crit reduction, where Rank 3 Warlock backing Level 3 Blur results in a 20% evasion rate and a 58% reduction in attacker crit chance.


Whirlwind
Crystal Cost: 1 / 3 / 5
Mana Cost: 5 / 5 / 5
Level 1 Statistics: Level: 1, Damage: 50
Level 2 Statistics: Level: 1-2, Damage: 100
Level 3 Statistics: Level: 1-3, Damage: 150

A single target unit -enemy or ally- takes Physical damage and, if it's within the relevant Level range, is pushed one tile in a direction of the caster's choice. Can only be cast on units up to 1 Level above what will be shoved.

Whirlwind is an interesting Spell in that it can be used as a cheap form of mobility enhancement on your own units if you're willing to take damage, and preferably are playing somebody other than Daert so the damage is minimal. Overall this isn't that useful or important in practice, not once you've got Haste, Teleport, etc, but it's an interesting idea anyway.

As an offensive Spell, it's dubious, but that's okay, because it's cheap damage that does knockback. No other Spell quite manages to compete with it, even though it's not that great. Certainly, it's one more strike against Axe of Magic: why pay 18 Mana for a base damage of 300 Physical when you could pay less than a third that to get half the damage while doing knockback to most targets?

It is, however, pretty badly held back by the harsh Level limitation, and the game doesn't provide feedback on which direction you'll push the target, so while I really like the idea of it the execution is shaky.

It's also, unsurprisingly, quite buggy. It's not actually supposed to have such a constricted shove list, but whoops it's checking its own Spell Level for 'what Level can I shove?'. It's similarly not supposed to have units it can be cast on for pure damage; this is a result of its check for 'can I shove?' and 'can I cast on?' being desynced, where if the shove logic wasn't mis-coded it would shove anything it could be cast on.

Lastly, it's actually supposed to provide directional feedback exactly as per the standard directional attack icon and associated behavior, but is wrongly pointed to the global attacks icon -that is, the crossed swords whacking each other that appear when hovering over an enemy battlegroup in the field. Oops.


Time Shift
Crystal Cost: 2 / 5 / 12
Mana Cost: 5 / 7 / 12
Level 1 Statistics: Duration Modification: 2, Extends Friendly Effects
Level 2 Statistics: Duration Modification: 4, Extends Friendly Effects and Reduces Hostile Effects
Level 3 Statistics: Duration Modification: 6, Extends Friendly Effects, Reduces Hostile Effects, Reverse On Enemies

A single target unit has the duration of its effects modified. Reduction does not compete with extension. Which effects are chosen is random, where applicable. Freeze, Bleeding, Burn, and Poisoning are not affected by Time Shift.

To be a bit clearer: at Level 1, Time Shift will extend the duration of positive effects on allies. At Level 2, it will also reduce the duration of negative effects on your units, and if the duration reduction takes the effect to 0, the effect goes away instantly. At Level 3, you gain the ability to cast it on enemies, and when you cast it on them it instead extends negative effects and reduces the duration of positive effects. It's actually one of the cooler Spell progressions in the series, where each step is very clear and distinct.

Surprisingly, the duration modification is affected by Intellect scaling, and by the Warlock skill (ie up to a maximum of +30% to duration modification), so you can get fairly absurd durations. (Not that you'll be able to see it directly, as the series caps displayed duration at 9 turns, but it does properly track 10+ turn durations)

Once Time Shift hits Level 2, it's sort of like a Level 3 Dispel you can only cast on your own units, but better because it outright benefits your positive effects instead of merely leaving them alone. And at Level 3 it can be combined with all kinds of nasty Spells like Blind to do amazing stuff. It's really one of my favorite Spells in Dark Side, being incredibly versatile and interesting and yet surprisingly unobtrusive: sometimes I'm using Time Shift constantly because it keeps being useful, sometimes I practically forget it exists because I don't really need what it does. It doesn't entirely redefine the 'meta' of the game, and that's cool.

Note that since Kamikaze is considered to be a negative effect, casting Kamikaze on an enemy and then Time Shifting them will delay the explosion. If you want to set off Kamikaze early with Time Shift, you'll need to cast it on one of your own units, preferably a summon you don't mind taking damage.

An unobtrusive point about Time Shift is it actually has 2 animations, one used if it mostly reduced durations, and another if it mostly extended durations. (If they're equal, it picks randomly) It's a surprising detail given most Spells have just the one animation, even in cases where a Spell has  multiple distinct behaviors you might expect to justify one or more additional animations.

----------------------------

As yet more evidence Dark Side isn't complete:





These Spellbook icons are in the code, but go unused. The first is labeled '01_Strengthening', the second '02_Sharpening'. I assume these were meant to be two new buff Spells, though I'm not entirely sure what the difference between them would've been. Attack boosting vs Damage boosting, maybe?

In any event, next time we check out what Dark Side has done with Rage. It's pretty awesome.

Comments

  1. Exorcism code is just copied from WotN. Unlike some cut spells like Runic Word or Zlogn, it has no DS-specific code.

    Geyser freeze chance was actually changed it DS - now it rolls freeze against any units with chance equal to said units fire resistance. 20% fire resistance = 20% chance of freeze and the like.

    Pain Mirror no longer scales with Intellect - no more 200%+ hits. Scales with Wight skill through, to the max result of 130%. "+spell damage" items work too, as usual.

    Level 3 Trap deals 270-410 damage and now cause bleed, not poison.
    It still does not get boost from "+spell damage" items but does from Wight skill.
    Unused count parameter existed ever since the Legend. There was once an idea of higher level Trap allowing to set multiple traps, but it was removed before release. All later games just copied the parameters.

    Hypnosis indeed uses leadership limit of 40/60/80% of hero leadership, not affected by anything. Yes, Puppeteer does nothing for it. This is not intended; like I wrote in WotN comment, game does two different calculation - spellbook info shows the result of intended one*, but the spell itself uses wrong minimalistic one - one that shouln't even be calcualted in the first place. This bug is inherited from WotN and is one of those when a person may not even think about unless being pointed or randomly stumbling upon.
    Intended calculation multiplies the result of previous step by class modifier (remember it from AP?) and then adds Puppeteer bonus, if it's present. Class modifier is 100% for Bagyr, 140% for Neolina and 200% for Daert. In other words, if intended version would work, for Neoline limit would have been 56/84/112% of her leadership. For Daert - 80/120/160% of his leadership.
    *Well, ther is another bug here - spellbook shows the result as if class modifiers were equal to Hypnosis base numbers - 40% for Bagyr, 60% for Neolina and 80% for Daert.
    So if Neolina with Puppeteer 3 and 10000 leadership casts level 3 Hypnosis, spellbook will show leadership limit as [her leadership*0.8*0.6*1.3] = 6240, while intended number is [her leadership*0.8*1.4*1.3]=14560 but in practice spell will use just [her leadership*0.8]=8000.
    Puppet mistress Neolina with 146%-Hypnosis could be interesting. Puppet master Daert's 208% would not be as amazing in practice due to his low leadership, but still.
    So in summary:
    1) calculations are bugged and messed up
    2) leadership limit should depend on hero class but doesn't
    3) in practice it's always just 40/60/80% of leadership
    4) spellbook numbers are nonsense; real limit will be higher than shown, unless it's Daert with Puppeteer 3, for whom shown limit will about 3.2% higher than real one
    5) for Neolina and especially for Daert Hypnosis leadership limit is much lower than intended
    6) Puppeteer skill does nothing here
    ...What a mess.

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    Replies
    1. Magic Shackles still have leadership limit that does not grow with levels and is equal to 100/140/200% of hero's leadership for Bagyr/Neolina/Daert respectively.
      Unlike earlier versions, DS Magic Shackles works on undead. It's only blocked by direct Persistance of Mind and Immune to Spells. Plants and inorganic actually have it as separate invisible ability, so they (except for Cyclops) are immune.
      It supposed to be boosted by Puppeteer and technically is, but because of the same bug as with Hypnosis (multiple calculations) only spellbook hint use correct numbers; spell itself will always use just base percent of hero's leadership.

      Level 3 Slow should indeed give -3 to speed, but actually gives only -2 because it wrongly uses numbers parameter of Haste. Warlock 3 will boost it to -3 through. If made to use correct parameters, Warlock will boost it from -3 to -4.
      So level 3 only adds doubled duration againt enemies whose speed is below spell's penaly.
      ...I think one of the things for which I enjoy going through KB code is that almost every time I feel bad about some minor failure of mine, I see something in the code that makes me feel better about myself. No offence to people who made it.

      Pygmy is boosed by Warlock skill to the max result of -52% to health and damage.
      Defiler 3 can increase duration to 3 turns.

      Blind too can receive third turn from Defiler.

      Berserker attack bonus is affected by Warlock skill to the max result of +163%.
      Defiler skill can increase duration to 6 turns.
      I actually used it on summoned demons even back in previous games.

      Haste is affected by Warlock to the max result of +3 to speed.

      Precision no longer scales with INT. Warlock can boost it to the max result of 39%.

      Mana Spring defense bonus is boosted by Warlock to the max result of +20.

      Stoneskin can get up to +52% with the help of Warlock skill.

      Invisibility can last up to 5 turns with Defiler skill.

      Target duration can go up to 4 turns with Defiler skill.

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    2. Phantom health is increased by Puppeteer up to 52%.
      Duration is affected by Defiler skill to the max result of 4.

      Teleport block in spell.txt is the same is in WotN. Where exactly was this new parameter with the untranslatable comment?

      Your understanding Flammable Oil is correct - it's Burn is indeed weaker than generic one. Warlock skill (not Wight for some reason) can boost it to the max result of 78%.
      I too found it to be a pretty pointless spell. If it would atleast apply empowered Burn, it could be useful occasionally.

      Turn Back Time for some reason was renamed in the original to something like "Time Return".

      Calm Rage works differently in DS. Instead of flat numbers, now it can take up to 30/40/50*% of maximum Rage and in return gives up to 15/20/25% on maximum mana. So having low maximum Rage and high maximum mana will give more mana points per Rage point. Reverse is true as well.
      *not 35/45/55
      It is not affected by Intellect or any skills anymore.

      Cloud of Poison damage is just ridiculously bad. It too deals only a percent of generic Poison DoT, so level 1 deals damage equal to 0.25-0.5% of unit's total health.
      Anyway, Poison streangh is boosted by Wight to the max result of 20% aka 1-2% of unit's total health. Meh.
      Ranged damage reduction is boosted by Warlock to the max result of -26%.
      Other than for duration, this spell is not affected by INT. Defiler works, of course.
      Cloud of Poison still won't poison units with 80+% of poison resistance even if they don't have Poison Immunity.

      Snowstorm freeze damage is boosted by Wight to the max result of 26%. Terryfing. 'yawns'

      Ice Spikes - in addition to getting higher mana/crystal cost (no Higher Magic for level 3 anymore), it also got it's internal level increased from 2 to 4. And it's scroll cost gone from 1200 to 10000. I really don't get it. Was there some people who believed that Ice Spikes was OP? Hard to believe.

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    3. Sound Boom damage is 120/250/385. It is still wrongly uses Ice Snake level damage growth (+110% of base) instead of it's own (+60% of base). If fixed, damage will be 120/190/265.
      Only central tile receives full damage. Tiles around it (spell level 2+) receive only 80% of damage. Units in outer ring (spell level 3) receive 60%. That said, level 3 version still can get confused distance and wrongly deal 80% to a unit in outer ring or 60% to a unit in inner ring.
      Sound Boom still can't stun anyone - it only shoves units. Instead of old "20%+INT scaling" we now have level-dependant chances of 33/66/100%. Like in WotN, level 3 spell still often doesn't shove anyone, wrongly believeing there is no space around, so 100% chance is not as good as it sounds. Or not as bad, as keeping enemies stacked together usually better for a mage.
      Oh, and shove chance is not reduced with distance anymore, despite atleast Russian description implying it is.
      Spellbook hint still wrongly shows the same numbers for "chance to shove" and "damage penalty for each tile of distance". At level 3 it shows penalty as 100%, which may be quite confusing if one do not know about the bug. "So it's AoE spell. That deals 100% less damage to units around the center. And, like, -200% to units in outer ring? What???"

      Blur's crit evade works not like you describe. It reduces attacker crit chance by relative percent. So if Blurred (level 3) unit is attacked by someone with crit chance of 20%, Blur will reduce it to 11%. And even code aside, I had my units under level 3 Blur getting crits from enemies with crit chance of 10% and the like. Rarely through, as it should be.
      You are correct about Blur evasion being rolled separately from inherent.
      Both evasion and crit evade are boosted by Warlock to the max result of 20% and 58% respectively.

      Whirlwind intended to push units of levels from 1 to 2/3/4, but mistake in the code makes the spell instead use it's own level for checks.
      You didn't mention that Whirlwind can not be used on a unit outside level range (easy to test) - and in this case game uses intended parameter for shoving; so level 2 spell, for example, can't be used on level 4-5 units. That said, I don't think this limit is supposed to be here, not to mention it doesn't makes sense.
      In case I'm confusing again - it sohuld usable on any units but shove only units of up to 2/3/4. It's bugged so that level 1 spell can only be cast on level 1-2 units and shoves level 1. Level 2 spell can be cast on level 1-3 and shoves level 1-2. Level 3 spell can be cast on level 1-4 and shoves level 1-3. Yes, it's silly.
      It also can't used against objects.
      In case you are wondering, it being castable on allies is intended.
      About lack of feedback on direction - by that point you will propably either facepalm or start to laugh, but it is a bug too. Whirlwind is supposed to use ordinary sword-looking combat attack cursor; the very same that units use to attack in melee. Direction of cursor is direction of Whirlwind's push. Only, it wrongly uses 'global map' attack cursor (crossed swords). Well, atleast if you ever thought "why crossed swords? it's completely random!" - now you have the answer.
      Honestly, it is almost amazing how such a simple spell, pretty much Pet Dragon's kick in spell form, can be so bugged.

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    4. Time Shift is affected by Warlock skill in addition to Intellect. Strangely, calculation adds (Warlock buff bonus + Warlock debuff bonus)/2. Both of Warlock bonuses are the same, so it's standart +10/20/30% in the end. Maybe at some point Warlock had diffent numbers for buff and debuff bonuses? Still strange idea through.
      An effect CAN last for longer than 9 turns, it's just description can't show higher numbers and always shows 9. It was this way ever since the Legend.
      I don't know if you noticed, but Time Shift has 2 different animations. One is played if the spell extended more than it reduced, another in opposite situation. If both numbers are equal, animation is chosen randomly.
      As far as I see, there is no bugs in this spell. Judging by the internal comment, they clearly were here earlier but were squashed by devs themselves. Nice.
      This spell is another example of good side of DS devs' way of thinking IMO. Bad side is Flammable Oil and quests that require 100500 gold each. Still, I like their creativity. I wish I could see more of it.

      Bonus: Rune Magic still exist as separate school of magic. If we enable it's spells, we can still use them. Well, try to - most of them requre Runes to use and thus can't actually be used. Or just do not work. They also have broken spellbook hints. And they can't be upgraded as they require [nonexistent skill]. And they do not have they own section in the spellbook, so we can only see them if we chose to show all spells. Interestingly, despite having the most broken spellbook hint, Permafrost is fully functional and summons perfectly fine allied Lizardmen without any additional modding required.

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    5. Mostly gotten through up to Cloud of Poison, but I do need to double-check the Magic Shackles on Undead thing (I'm quite certain I specifically used it to lock off Necromancers in prior games), and double-check the Teleport .txt bit and report back.

      I've tested the max duration thing before. It didn't matter how many turns I added to a duration, it would visually stop at 9 and then decrement to 8, not sit on 9 multiple turns in a row. I wasn't just assuming the display was accurate.

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    6. About duration - than it's another GOG thing? Hint showing 9 turns but spell going for longer than that is a know thing, so your words sound strange to me.
      But I checked the code right now just in case - there are no upper limit on effects' duration. Tested in game- https://youtu.be/WsejBAJiyKY - Haste with duration of 10+. As you can see, it is shown as 9 and remaind as such after units skip their turns.

      Phantom is boosted by Puppeteer, not Warlock.
      With Hypnosis and Magic Shackles being bugged, Phantom is the only non-summon spell actually affected by Puppeteer. Maybe I should've pointed it in Magic Skills comment.

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    7. Sonic Boom's English description actually seems to be slightly less screwed-up than the Russian description, oddly, though still very wrong, as it informs you of the 'thrust' (ie shove chance) in the center and then informs you that it goes down by so-and-so percentage per tile out. Which is wrong since that's what the damage does, not the shove chance, but is otherwise correct. Still claims to have a Stun chance, mind...

      Anyway, still need to double-check the Magic Shackles thing and the Teleport .txt bit, but otherwise gotten this fully updated, including retesting the duration thing -which yeah, with Time Shift I got the 'rises to 9 displayed, then stays at 9 displayed when the unit's turn ended' behavior. Which I'm confused by as I know this came up with Drunkenness extenders in Ice And Fire where I've watched the AI give itself 12+ turns of Drunkenness and seen units dropping from 9 turns to 8 when they should've still had 10+ turns. Is Drunkenness just a weird exception?

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    8. Just checked Drunkiness - yes, it actually does have special duration limit - no more than 9 turns. I missed it in the past. 'sigh'

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    9. Ah. That's... okay. Bizarre. Time to go update the WotN Dwarves post, then.

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    10. Just confirmed Magic Shackles work fine on the Undead in The Legend, so... unless AP or WotN added such a limit in, this isn't a Dark Side change.

      Also got to the Teleport .txt bit, and I've no clue why I wrote that -directly comparing the Ice and Fire Spell file to the DS Spell file, the Teleport section is identical. So I've cut that commentary from the post.

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    11. Magic Shackles - I checked the spell in all games (I kinda hate it and Hypnosis after going through all the cluster**** with their bugged leadership calculations in WotN/DS).

      The Legend, AP - it's blocked by Magic Immunity, being an object or by direct Mind Immunity. By direct I mean Persistence of Mind ability works but being Undead, Pland or inorganic unit doesn't.
      WotN - now additionally blocked by being Undead, Plant or inorganic unit.
      DS gone back to the Legend/AP version - Magic Immunity/Persistence of Mind work, unit type doesn't.

      This is how it should work. 100%. If it works other way - it is bugged.

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    12. Like I said earlier, Plants/inorganics should have hidden Mind Immunity separately to protect them anyway. With Plants it should always work correctly. With inorganics there may be some holes, so to speak.
      WotN is the most dedicated to properly setting everything everywhere. Yes, there are tons of bugs in this game, but the game is the most BIG in all aspects. I actually think if it had Legend's scale, it could be the most stable and bug-free game in the series.

      If you want, I can try to dive into all this again and make a list of units that should be mind-immune but may have "holes" with their unit-type/hidden immunity interactions, so Mind Effects will still work on them.

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    13. Just confirmed it does indeed refuse to work on the Undead in WotN. (Necromancer Magic Shackles work fine, though... oops) So time to update all the Magic Shackles descriptions.

      Honestly, yeah, it'd be nice to have this mental effects thing firmly settled -it's one of the more opaque/confusing things in the game even before the bugs. So that'd be cool while we're getting these posts more completely accurate anyway.

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    14. I seem to vaguely recall that we already spoke about hero/Necromancer version differences.
      Anyway, Magic Shackles-the-talent (be it Necromancer's or Witch Hunter's) check for Magic Immunity/being an object and separately (very separatley I would say) - for direct Mind Immunity. It works like this in all games.
      I'm fairly sure that atleast in some versions this weird separate Mind check was faulty and thus the talent worked on units with Persistence of Mind. It was adressed by some patches I think.
      I'm 99.9% sure that it properly respects Persistence of Mind in DS. You may want to check it in other games if you want to be sure.

      Allright, I'll check Plants/Inorganics. I'm pretty sure that Undead units never have hidden mind-protecting abilities (but I will check too). Usually such mechanics should check for Undead-type too, but in the Legend/AP Magic Shackles are exception. And in DS a lot (most?) MInd effects do not care about target unit-type at all.

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    15. Alright, I checked the units in question in all games. A thing I missed before - in the Legend and AP Phoenix (all 3 versions) is not considered to be inorganic. In WotN and DS he is. Other results:

      Most Undead units indeed does not have direct Mind Immunity. There are some exception starting from the second game:
      - Pirate Ghost have it in Crossworlds. He lost it in original!WotN. Got it back in Ice and Fire. And lost again in Dark Side. Okaaay.
      - Evil Eye and Ram-Thor have direct Mind Immunity in addition to be Undead.
      - in DS Vampiress have it in her Cloud form but not in humanoid one.

      All Plants in all games indeed have hidden direct Mind Immunity on top of being, well, Plants. Nice.

      Most inorganics have direct Mind Immunity. There are 2 exception:
      - Cyclops does not have it in the Legend/AP/original!WotN. It was finally fixed in Ice and Fire but lost in DS during the apparent reassembling of the unit.
      - Phoenix (all 3 versions) still does not have direct Mind Immunity in WotN and DS. But his Magic Immunity should enough.

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    16. Alright, still need to figure out where to put the general inorganics info and update the WotN and Dark Side posts about the Phoenix, but incorporated the rest of this.

      Does it even matter Cyclops lack proper mental immunity? Most (All?) mental effects refuse to work on Level 5 units anyway. Am I forgetting an exception?

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    17. Updated the Phoenix stuff (Including confirming the inorganic shift with Plague), and confirmed that Magic Lock is blocked by proper immunity to mental effects and working to update posts appropriately.

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    18. Well, you can apply Fear on Cyclops you you for some reason want.
      Primal Fear of Tirex should work too.
      In the original WotN Spear of Wrath afterkill effect (from Warrior Maiden) should work too.
      I don't really want to check every single mind effect (I'm still in lazy holiday mood lol) but I don't think there is anything really significant. Still, some occasional stuff will leak through level-5-protection.

      May potentially also screw Book of Evil priorities as it checks for immunities when it choses a spell? I'm not sure.

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    19. Huh. I thought Fear didn't work on Level 5 units, but so it does. Time for more post updating.

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