Magery spell design is highly doubtful

[Thrakkar]

I was playing with my necro-mage and was thinking about what the best spell might be (aside from damage type matching the weakest resist). Since I wanted to know it really detailed, I did some number crunching. These values all come from stratics. So if these aren't correct or I calculated something wrong, bear with me (or stratics respectively).

Here we've got the basic numbers. Pretty self explanatory:

             Avg  Mana  Casttime
Fireball     28.5   9  1.00
Explosion    53.5  20  1.75
Flamestrike  66.5  40  2.00

Now lets assume, some mage wants to do 21346,5 damage (this value is the least common multiple of all three averages). Let's further assume the weakest resist of his foe is fire, so he sticks with the three spells from the above table. Now here's a table of how often he would have to cast a spell, how much mana he will need to eat through 21k hitpoints and how long it would take him:

             Amount  Mana  Casttime
Fireball      749    6741  12:29
Explosion     399    7980  11:38(.25)
Flamestrike   321   12840  10:42

Wow. The mana consumption speaks volumes. Plain cast time isn't that far off. But if you factor in mana regeneration, fireball is steps ahead again.
What does this tell us? Fireball is the most superior fire spell in the game (regarding magery). Why would anyone ever want to cast flamestrike or explosion? (maybe the latter has more of a right to exist because of the damage delay)

If this would be well designed, the spell from the highest circle should be superior (at least a little bit) than his little brothers.


Edit: Just noticed magic arrow is fire too... oO. Thought it is energy or something else

 

[Thrakkar]

Ok, so I completed this list for all direct damage spells, magery has to offer.

             Avg   Mana  Delay  Type  Special
Magic Arrow  16.0    4    0.05  Fire   -
Harm         26.0    6    0.75  Cold   Damage based on tile distance: <2: 100%, =2: 50%, >2: 25%
Fireball     28.5    9    1.00  Fire   -
Lightning    32.0   11    1.25  Enrg   -
Mind Blast   41.0   14    1.50  Cold   Damage based on Magery & Int instead of EvalInt, small delay
Energy Bolt  53.5   20    1.75  Enrg   -
Explosion    53.5   20    1.75  Fire   Damage delayed by 2 sec
Flamestrike  66.5   40    2.00  Fire   -

With so much spells, the least common multiple is... well... a little big
To be precise, it is 728.171.808

              Amount       Mana          Casttime
Magic Arrow   45.510.738   182.042.952   22.755.369
Harm (<2)     28.006.608   168.039.648   21.004.956
Fireball      25.549.888   229.948.992   25.549.888
Lightning     22.755.369   250.309.059   28.444.211
Mind Blast    17.760.288   248.644.032   26.640.432
E.Bolt/Exp.   13.610.688   272.213.760   23.818.704
Flamestrike   10.949.952   437.998.080   21.899.904

Since these numbers are hard to read, I recalculated them for a hitpoint pool of 729. (Besides, which is quite realistic for several mobs in the game)

             Amt. Mana  Time
Magic Arrow   46   184   23
Harm (<2)     29   174   22
Fireball      26   234   26
Lightning     23   253   29
Mind Blast    18   252   27
E.Bolt/Exp.   14   280   25
Flamestrike   11   440   22

Well, Harm is pretty strong, but you have to stay on the same tile or right next to the mob. That could hurt alot. For bigger distances you have to double or quadruple these values.

So, magic arrow wins. Not that it's almost as fast as with the highest spell in the list, it doesn't even consume half of the mana compared to Flamestrike. I have to test that in the field . Thinking about making three macros: 5, 10 and 20 magic arrows in rapid succession. Machine gun FTW! I'm pretty anxious, how well this will play out.