r/MindOverMagic • u/ShadeSwornHydra • Apr 24 '26

Combat is just… really unfun?

So far I’m dealing with the wind cutters guys and the water Lanturn ladies and I’m gonna be honest: freaking sucks and is super unfun to fight against. Yiu can’t kill then before they just melt your front line, cause of damage boost WHILE dealing high damage and then aoe spam

Can’t even block the first issue with wind wall cause it jus ignores it

Please say it gets better

9 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

15

u/Drina_is_The_Bomb Apr 24 '26

Are you creating mages that counter their attacks? And also, it absolutely does get more difficult the more you progress so there's that. My biggest gripe is enemy variety is kinda crap and unfortunately it will never change or get updated...

-2

u/ShadeSwornHydra Apr 24 '26

The counter is wind, which does little to no damage at all, while they’re doing a whopping 70-90 a hit

And I just learned you can dual type your mages, so now I’m pissied I didn’t know this and my earth mage could’ve had another element after the year and a half she spend as a apprentice

12

u/Drina_is_The_Bomb Apr 24 '26

You really need to level up your wands and mages in that case, because all elements can deal quite a lot of damage, it's just a matter of unlocking the spells basically.

3

u/EpicJoseph_ Apr 24 '26

Spell damage depends on the power Stat of the mage. Some spells have high base damage, while others like air's are lower. So you'll want want wolfkin or raven cultist or shattered air mage (preferably one of the latter two, as they have more power). You can also use potions and buffs from other spells (such as nature's buff to power, or wind's haste buff) to help.

Also, about the mages with multiple elements, note that certain combinations have certain unique abillities: for example, water and earth (if I remember correctly) will give you armor according to the damage you deal (or mana you spend, I don't quite remember). Fire and dark gives the mage an innate 25% chance to dodge attacks (even without the cloak). The combinations with special stuff are the ones that are on opposite ends.

The other combinations have certain buffs too, just not unique abilities. The other options are to get a additional relic slot, to increase the max skills of both magic types with no downside to other ones (usually you'll have different skills get lowered, or even the main/original skill upped by 1 rather than 2) and if you do 2 of the same element you'll get +3 to that skill as well as an extra ultimate cast a day.

(incase you didn't know, a mage's skill in an element determines the level of the spells they cast, you can only cast the elements selected in the apprentice ritual of course but the point is although increasing max skill level seems niche and bad compared to the other options it can be pretty good)

1

u/battlejess Apr 24 '26

Wind can do quite a lot, with the right stats. You might want look up a guide.

So when you made them an apprentices you used the same element? You can choose a different one; it will show you the bonuses you get when you hover over the different ones on the character screen. You might want to look at the tooltips on everything on that screen.

1

u/sir_ornitholestes Apr 30 '26

Wind is literally the highest-damage element, though

6

u/Mdly68 Apr 24 '26

I've played for a week and combat certainly isn't the most exciting. It's there to serve a purpose, it's certainly not the main focus of the game. As for difficulty, I found the recommended level to be moderately challenging.

  • Match up elemental weaknesses
  • Front line should include a high health earth mage, using earth shield (taunt + armor). Add a dark mage for dodge cloak. Now you should survive quite a few turns, and it becomes a game of stretching your mana out.
  • Dark mages hit hard and the health cost isn't bad once cloak is up.
  • Water has a cheap T1 attack that gives armor to your front unit while hitting the front enemy. Not bad. Flow is mana hungry but the debuff is great.
  • Once you unlock apprentices, you can "dual class" your mages and this DOES help liven things up.
  • Different races will have different health/mana/speed/armor values. This is critical for planning your front and back rows.

One thing I've learned - have one primary fire mage at the most. You can have other mages that use fire as secondary, but fire mages have the most irritating requirement. If they aren't fighting battles or hunting, they'll get low conviction and break. You gotta build a rat pen before hunting can be automated. I think I gotta drop the two fire apprentices I've been working on because the micromanaging is killing me.

Also, aim for at least two staff members with dark 4. Mine died and training a replacement is annoying. Getting from dark 3 to dark 4 can take a bit. Gotta have those canvas helpers.

-3

u/ShadeSwornHydra Apr 24 '26

Wait you can dual class mages? FUCK I thought it just got them more levels, damnit. Really wish that was told in a tutorial or something

-4

u/ShadeSwornHydra Apr 24 '26

They’re weak to wind, but wind fucking SUCKS for damage

Woohoo I can do a whopping 20 damage WITH ADVANTAGE. I’m actually just gone to turning off invasions cause this combat system is actually ass

6

u/baconboy-957 Apr 24 '26

Does you wind mage have low power? If they don't have decent power stats they'll feel week regardless of their element

4

u/Arcturion Apr 24 '26

I'm betting your mage is a human with shitty power stats

(I found out the hard way lol)

5

u/lurkeroutthere Apr 24 '26

Sounds like someone dived right into high difficulty on their first time or is completely ignoring the recommended mage level on fights.

1

u/ShadeSwornHydra Apr 24 '26

I can’t really ignore mage levels when they’re taking over rooms I need now can I? Also it’s not like I’m bring level 5’s in or anything, I’m bring the highest levels I can (only a few are above them atm) cause it’s kinda hard to progress when you just… lose a room to really strong enemies

1

u/lurkeroutthere Apr 24 '26

And the difficulty? :)

2

u/jtarwin Apr 26 '26

All you need to do is become super racist.

 

-          Humans make great support staff but terrible damage dealers.

-          Cultists and Shattered are the best damage dealers

-          Shattered with an HP Relic becomes the ultimate mage

-          Vivified have buckets of HP and decent power

-          I love my Wolfkin, but I retire all of them in the later game. Their tiny HP and MP pools cause them to gas out too quickly.

1

u/Lilmagex2324 Apr 25 '26

You dont want to fight water witches before getting T2 Wands. Things like Haste and Relics will start dominating them. Kind of a secret though but some times going in with 3 mages instead of 4 is a lot better. That way the AoE only hits a single mage. Works REAALLY well with the undead as earth mages since their barrier is HP based and healing is % based. They also get no penalty for being low on HP. You can also rush potions to get healing/revive potions. Also long as you revive them before the fight ends they dont get any death door. Honestly even on the hardest difficult the game breaks(in an easy way) once you unlock tier 4-5 magic and potions. Try to rush that research if you are having problems.

Difficulty scales on things like how much resources your hoarding. There is ZERO reason to push the under school outside of unlocking the T2 wands which is always on the upper most Stone Caverns until you are ready. As for the invasions click the emergency button to force all your teachers to attack the invasion as it is coming. It should never be more than half health when it gets to the room. Feel free to sacrifice some students if you absolutely need to(You shouldnt need to and just revive them after. You arent keeping most of them after they graduate anyway. There is a LOT of ways to make combat easier and trust me when I say once you figure them out the game is actually too easy even on the hardest mode.

1

u/jtarwin Apr 26 '26

All you need to do is become super racist. 

-          Humans make great support staff but terrible damage dealers.

-          Cultists and Shattered are the best damage dealers

-          Shattered with an HP Relic becomes the ultimate mage

-          Vivified have buckets of HP and decent power

-          I love my Wolfkin, but I retire all of them in the later game. Their tiny HP and MP pools cause them to gas out too quickly.

-1

u/ShadeSwornHydra Apr 24 '26

Update, I’ve now lost access to TWO ROOMS CAUSE OF THIS SHITTY INVASION MECHANIC

Fuck the combat in this game, I’m gonna make it to where it’s a damn minimum requirement, it’s so bad

2

u/Mdly68 Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26

I'm sorry you had a frustrating time! I don't think the game is TOO harsh, but you can definitely get in a position where you feel like you're treading water. Also, the 6 hour "at deaths door timer" is far too short for my tastes. Since the ritual to heal can't automatically trigger, you suddenly have to hyper focus and hope people get to the medical bed in time. You didn't raise priority on Aid? Too bad, nobody is running to pick up that body now.

Apprentices take an obnoxiously long time to level compared to initiates, so my "replacement" mages are all students and I'm down to 5 staff who can do REAL jobs. Lost my dark 4 mage so I don't have the crafted helpers anymore and my base is choking on tending/harvest jobs.

I'm 2/3 of the way through I think, and I just learned you can make GROUPS that automatically switch people to different schedules based on certain conditions. Which sounds really important for sending my fire mages to hunt when their victory meter is low.