Whats all this hype with Harm.

Seriously, this is a pointless spell so far. Im very much regretting of taking it in the beginning. With MA of 45 it takes 3-4 harms to kill one enemy. Now Sogg with AoF and 2 heals can kill entire groups of enemies. Harm deals 12 damage, and Sogg deals 15dmg/15ftg, and AoF doubles that. Thats not even a contest.

This spell deals way to little damage to be of any use. And is single target. Which is ok since its a lvl1 spell. I can see its use when everyone is buffed, enemies are debuffed, noone needs healing and there is still mana left. (Usually means all mobs are dead already) But in this case casting harm will not make any difference anyway. Im lvl8 now and used it maybe like .. 2 times in the game, at the beginning, for fun. But in any serious encounter, forget it.

So whats the "power" of this spell, and why some ppl say its overpowered.

 

Hmm, infinite ammo, once money problems go away, later in the game. Yeah i can see the point. This makes it better than ranged weapons, but melee doesnt require ammo either. And later in the game, with no mana probs, it is possible to cast stasis, or god forbid disintegrate. Again leaving harm only the support role. I guess i just have to advance some more in the game.

 

Harm does 40 damage at MA100.

 

DE's right. In later levels, with good speed, it's not inconceivable to harm spam a small town off the face of the map without breaking a sweat.

 

Just tested with a cheater menu. lvl50&MA100. Jolt@2 targets surpasses harm. (30vs 2x19). So does a lvl50 Sogg with his lvl8 equipment.(34dmg) So does Lighting.(53)

Sure it is cost efficient(but not as much as a 3target-jolt), but with mana probs out of the way, why would i want to conserve it. Getting master in force would reduce Lightning to how much? 13mana/cast, in addition to a bunch of other useful spells in that magic school.

It lists Harm doing 3-40 damage. However in the game it always dealt a fixed value, which was i would say 40 with resistances applied. I wonder if its intended...

 

Dark Elf
Ah, spell dmg is not random, quite handy. Still, in the test, both Harm and Lightning cost me 4 AP to cast, as do other spells, maybe i missed something.. Which makes Lightning deal more damage per AP.


Putrid Walker, "Read aura" lists zero resistances
Lighting dealt 53 damage, 4 AP
Harm dealt 30 damage, 4 AP

Tested it on a rat, same result.

edited. A ok, Lightning needs a save, well i guess it evens it. Making harm pretty good spell yes, but overpowered?

 

Hmm, i see Fireflash is partyfriendly. Now THATS crazy. As for Harm.. well to each its own, so far the only overpowered thing i saw was a buffed Sogg. But i also play a lowdex char since buffs cost zero APs, once applied.

 

easy/moderate/hard, Fireflash damage to Putrid Walker 67/45/34. All three partyfriendly in my game.

however yes, i do seem to remember posts here which complained about party mages throwing fireflashes into own party. Which would only be annoying if it was partyunfriendly.. Strange. I have nothing but patch 1074 and UAP with extrapack..

 

It isn't. Just tested it. Hard, playing with the UAP.

I was also convinced that it wasn't, but my game says otherwise.

 

Fireflash:

AoE: Tgt_Obj_Radius | Tgt_Obj_No_Invulnerable | Tgt_Non_Party_Critters


Pretty limited target selection. I guess removing the last parameter will make it partyunfriendly. Gonna try it now.. nope, no effect..

 

Friendly fire with AoE spells and grenades can be easily enabled, but it will piss off your party members forever (reaction drops to 0 and they attack you) if you don't have CH20.

 

yeah, just made Fireflash partyunfriendly. Virgil has -1000 reaction.

added:i guess one must additionally adjust NPC behavior.
added:Hmm, sometimes they stay friendly, sometimes they turn hostile.
added:There is something which seems to override NPC behavior, sometimes.

 

I'd say one of the real benefits of harm is that there is no chance of saving for half damage. You ALWAYS get the base damage.

 

Yes, and just because a spell has a higher damage per point of fatigue doesn't always mean you're going to get that full range. If you have 50 max fatigue and 1 spell that averages to 5 dmg per shot and costs 10 FP to cast (call it Harm); and another spell that does 11 dmg per shot but costs 20 FP to cast (call it Lightning), you're getting more bang for your buck from Harm since you can cast it more times for higher cumulative damage before having to spend precious AP on Fatigue potions. You could cast Harm 5 times for a total of 25 damage before running out of FP, but you could only cast Lightning 2 times for a total of 22 damage. Plus, you could also spread out the damage more uniformly with Harm on multiple targets to dispatch those enemies already weakened by your party for minimal FP.

Face it, it's Harm ftw all the way through.