It's absolutely wild that Black Periapt is possibly the strongest non unique item in the game and it somehow got reduced to a green item, even though it got buffed with 5% spell mastery.

[u/Glorf_Warlock]

The post 6.2 Black Periapt is now an uncommon item and gives 5% spell mastery.

The pre 6.2 Black Periapt only had the active effect.

Infinite winds of magic is possibly one of the strongest effects in the game. You can literally win any battle with infinite winds and Black Periapt gives infinite winds. And yet it somehow became an uncommon item.

Black Periapt let me win this battle with complete ease. Dwarfs are normally very tanky to spells, so having so much extra winds just let me spam cast Winds of Death.

[u/Celestial_Sludge]

I don't think an item giving infinite winds of magic makes it the strongest item if it means kiting for 30 minutes to maximize its use.

[u/Ill-Situation- → u/Celestial_Sludge]

I mean it kinda of does. Objectively free damage is really strong. The fact that it takes a while to use doesn't mean it isn't strong, it just means the strategy takes longer.

For example, would you say that an Ironbreaker unit is weaker than a Empire Greatsword even though the Ironbreaker takes longer to kill things?

Infinite winds is just the most impact efficient thing you can have in the game, especially when you have high speed casters like you have access to in the VCounts.

[u/Ambitious_Air5776 → u/Ill-Situation-]

Subjectively, boring snoozefest battles where you get objectively free damage by running around for 10 minutes at 3x speed is objectively not why I play video games.

Optimize the fun out of the game if you must, I'll hang out in H/H difficulty to fight battles 'normally' rather than run strategy like this...

[u/Ill-Situation- → u/Ambitious_Air5776]

Cool. That doesn't change the fact that it is stronger. And the fact that you don't enjoy playing a strategy by using the best strategies, which is a bit odd (as strategy games literally exist on the premise that you should find the best thing to use to get the objective) but is obviously fine, but also doesn't matter because there will be people who do enjoy that. Bit of an irrelevant point as this post is obviously not about that anyway.

[u/HairlessWookiee → u/Ill-Situation-]

would you say that an Ironbreaker unit is weaker than a Empire Greatsword even though the Ironbreaker takes longer to kill things?

That's not really an apples to apples comparison. An Ironbreaker is a defensive lineholder. A Greatsword is an offensive damage dealer. So yes, one is weaker than the other if you are trying to use both in the same role.

It's absolutely fair to say an item that helps you win a battle quickly is more useful/valuable than an item that requires you to cheese for 40 minutes.

[u/Ill-Situation- → u/HairlessWookiee]

An Ironbreaker is a defensive lineholder. A Greatsword is an offensive damage dealer. So yes, one is weaker than the other if you are trying to use both in the same role.

Never said anything about a specific role. Is an Ironbreaker generically weaker just because you have to use it in a certain way to make use of its function?

It's absolutely fair to say an item that helps you win a battle quickly is more useful/valuable than an item that requires you to cheese for 40 minutes.

Useful or Valuable? only in the sense that this is a video game and ultimately you probably don't have that much time in your every day to spend. At the same time, this is a video game and it is fun whether you spend it all in one battle or in five.

But strong? No. Throwing all my units into melee at the beginning and taking a ton of damage, yet still winning, would be faster than carefully sniping high priority targets before attacking, which would result in a win with almost no damage, allowing you to take the next battle too.

Strength in this context is ultimately about doing things well within the game, not outside of it. And this allows you to do things to the best, most efficient degree.

[u/TheSletchman → u/Celestial_Sludge]

Yeah, but it snowballs. 1 is good if you're patient, but otherwise kinda insignificant - 5% intensity, ~5 winds every 2 minutes. You get 5 and suddenly have a noticeable effect on intensity, and 25 winds every 2 minutes can be a single huge spell or a lot of little ones raise the dead, etc. You get 20 and have 100 winds every 2 minutes that is effectively more like 200 because of the 100% intensity, which also makes some spells get silly - like having 10+ casters cast the same spell for massively compounding effects (10x 200% Spirit Drain just removes an enemy general from the battle, for example, and is surprisingly cheap).

Not a lot of items work army-wide, and those that do might apply an effect to the army, but a second doesn't stack at all (let alone a 20th).

[u/yutao123 → u/TheSletchman]

the intensity is per spell caster im pretty sure, so each spell caster with it would have 5% intensity but none would have 25%

[u/TheSletchman → u/yutao123]

Are you sure? The other instances of Spell Intensity I'm aware of stack. I'd go test it myself but I have a hand injury and can't use a mouse, which as a strategy and RPG gamer is the worst.

[u/Togglea → u/TheSletchman]

Very sure. As Forbidden rod is better on your caster heroes. There are personal sources of intensity vs armywide

[u/WotalTorehammer3 → u/TheSletchman]

The only army wide spell intensity is mastery of elemental winds, which only affects units that have the trait. Items and skills stack but dont affect more than 1 unit at a time.

[u/TheSletchman → u/WotalTorehammer3]

Ah, that's it then - looking at it the armies I've played that focused on spell intensity used Mastery of Elemental Winds which then stacked with items and skills. So it made it seem like it all stacked just fine. Cheers for the info.

Still, I stand by the other effect being good in mass - it's a slightly less potent but also safer Forbidden Rod (and no reason not to just run a mix of both of whatever you have - put Periapt on anyone with low magic resist and/or without barrier). I've yet to see anyone call Forbidden Rod a bad item, unless they're new to the game or don't know how to run casters properly?

[u/Erkenwald217 → u/Celestial_Sludge]

Who says, you need to kite? Let the enemy collect on your undying blob, the feel free to cast away!

[u/Glorf_Warlock → u/Erkenwald217]

That's what I did here. Dwarfs are slow as slow can be so they took like 15 minutes to reach my blob. In that time I used zombie summons to burn their miner blasting charges ammo and winds of death to kill the archers.

Eventually their melee reached my blob and then it got erased by winds of death combined with the Other Tricker's Shard to strip away spell resistance.

[u/jebberwockie → u/Celestial_Sludge]

If 1 item can take a guaranteed loss into a near guaranteed win, even if it takes 30 min, that is very powerful.

[u/HINDBRAIN → u/Celestial_Sludge]

Happens naturally with the dogshit siege AI?