Team A:
Raven Batmaster: Your spells use Speed, rather than Intelligence.
Artifact - Hammer Lord: Your minions share their artifact starting buffs (Arcane, Shell, Protect, Invisibility).
Stats: Pure Speed.
2x Death Bat: Whenever an ally casts a spell this minion has a 20% chance to cast Necrosis).
Artifact - Lich Hellcaster: This minion casts all death spells an additional 2 times but at a 50% intelligence penalty.
Stats: Pure Speed.
Frenzy Ghoul: Your minions share 5% of their Speed with each other.
Artifact - Imp Necromancer: Your minions can equip Nature and Death spells but cast them at a 25% mana penalty. The Necromancer is currently bugged and increases mana costs for all spells that aren’t nature spells cast by nature minions.
Stats: Pure Speed.
Delusion Occultist: Your minions are immune to Silence and Scorn.
Artifact - Mana Vortex: Whenever an enemy casts a spell, silence the entire enemy team.
Stats: Pure Speed.
Caustic Cerberus: This minion can’t casts spells but your minions gain 5% stat bonuses, dependent on the spells this minon wears. (Nature for Speed)
Artifact - Industrias Sanctus: Your minions are immune to Snare, Frozen, Stun and Sleep.
Stats: Pure Speed.
Main spells: Dark Whisper, Blur, Necromantic Armor, assorted nukes.
The plan is fairly simple, cast Dark Whisper, buff up with Blur/Necromantic Armor and then AoE the other team down. The setup can boast an amazing amount of spells cast per turn, as the bats will fire off 3 Necrosis’ as the norm, 6 with Multicast and Mua Rune. So if both basts trigger, while you cast an AoE, that translates into 15(!) spells cast, at once!
The drawbacks include spending a lot of time watching animations, core-farming being practically impossible and, of course, the team is very, very squishy.
Team B:
Palace Familiar: Your stat-manipulation spells are 25% stronger per Familiar. (150%)
Artifact - Imp Necromancer: Your minions can equip Nature and Death spells at a 25% mana cost penalty. Currently bugged.
Stats: Pure Intelligence.
Palace Familiar: Your stat-manipulation spells are 25% stronger per Familiar. (150%)
Artifact - Raptor Occultist: Your minions gain 7% intelligence for each Sorcery spell that they entered battle with. (needs a replacement)
Stats: Pure Intelligence.
Palace Familiar: Your stat-manipulation spells are 25% stronger per familiar. (150%)
Artifact - Industrias Sanctus: Your minions are immune to Stun, Sleep, Snare and Frozen.
Stats: Pure Intelligence.
Arcane Familiar: Your spells have a 15% chance, per Familiar, to be cast twice. (90%)
Artifact - Mana Vortex: Silence the enemy team for one turn whenever an enemy casts a spell.
Stats: Pure Intelligence.
Flood Familiar: When one of your Familiars cast a spell, your other minions gain mana equal to 20% of that spells cost.
Artifact - Delusion Occultist: Your minions are immune to Silence and Scorn.
Stats: Pure Intelligence.
Mystical Familiar: Your minons regain 2 mana per turn for each Familiar you control. (12)
Artifact - Hammer Lord: Your minions share their artifact starting buffs with each other. (Arcane, Shell, Protect and Invisible)
Stats: Pure Intelligence.
Main spells: Dust Cloak, Unholy Confession, Necromantic Armour, Spell Flow, Nature’s Wrath, Haste and AoE’s.
After getting frustrated with the constant animation spam of team A. Not to mention realizing that it was more Death heavy, than Sorcery, and that it didn’t “feel” particularly magical. I decided to go for Familiars. They look awesome, support spellcasting and have good-times written all over them. Palace Familiar seemed like the right one to go for, as buffing lets me actually do some proper spellcasting. There was, and is, just one problem however.
It turns out that Sorcery is by far THE worst school for a pure spellcasting team, unless you want to go for Raven Batmaster. Great as a secondary school, though.
I kid you not. Your AoE’s are “meh” in terms of AoE-damage (and yes, I know of Mind Storm, thank you), your stat-boosts only affect friendly Speed and enemy Intelligence, a lot of your spells are either very situational or scale with stats other than Intelligence and you have little-to-none survivability. Heck, all the Intelligence boosting spells are found in Life and Death! I legitimately contemplated switching to Warlock (Chaos Mage), so I could have access to Chaos spells for my birdies. And now that I look at builds like Fire, Poison, Frozen and so on, I get this feeling that the Warlock class might be the better spellcaster as you get so many more options build-wise. And that is in spite of Echo, Mania and Meditation.
…also, Wild Magic is the games worst perk - by far. Okay, there’s Guiding Light, but at least that one does something cool and unique.
But fret’ not! Imp Necromancer is here to save the day with his buggy access to Dust Cloak, Necromantic Armour, Unholy Confessions, Rain of Blood, Nature’s Wrath and more! Sure, I waste mana like it’s nobody’s bussiness (because bug) but that’s why I’ve got all those mana-regen sources. The plan is simple: Survive the first turn, buff up, cast Dust Cloak with the last Familiar, rinse and repeat.
If only Judge Familiar gave your Familiars access to Life and/or Death spells. If only…
Oh, Spell Blast is bugged by the way. It deals insane amounts of damage, even at full mana.
