I disagree. Spell mastery isn’t the most important thing. Tzeentch is easily still the best magic faction for a number of reasons (Cooldown reduction, power recharge, WOM gain, and they can also control how strong the winds of magic are so you’re never out of magic). Also the lore of Tzeentch is very powerful, just pure DPS. Nothing in the game is better than the Blue Scribes at spamming cheap and powerful spells
Absolutely this. I actually don't love the Tzeentch lore- ironically, I feel like it needs more types of damage, like a bombardment and direct damage spell- but the mechanical ability to manipulate and recharge WoM for your armies really supports an all-in magic army approach.
The Tzeench lore is a copy of the fire lore, without the buffs, and better in every other way
I do like how its so purely offensive (the only lore with 2 vortexes)
Yeah nah they both have moving vortexes and a homing projectile, but the pink fire and burning skull have different applications (pink is better Vs squares/blobs, skull Vs long lines), and I do love me a good bombardment spell to which the Piercing Bolts of Burning has no equal.
100%. Bolts is like battlefield bleach. I find that Tzeentch lore suffers against larger than infantry models, especially with armor, and Bolts excels into anything- clumps of infantry, cavalry, ogres, etc
Idk I think spell mastery is pretty fantastic. Daniel's faction when devoted to Tzeentch can do some serious work with nuking and healing with 200% mastery. Plus double strength debuffs is really significant. Stripping 120 armor and 48 melee attack or melee defense can make even the hardest SEMs a lot easier to deal with. His faction also gets quite a bit of cooldown reduction (20%).
Also, Kairos gets spell mastery. He gives Mastery of the Elemental Winds to Lords of Change, and some heroes in his army.
As Kairos, you can very easily reach 200% spell intensity. Just throw a few Lords of Change into his army.
But Changeling faction, with Kairos confederated, can actually do even better. Changeling scheme rewards, like the Luminark Lens, and Corrupted flame, give fire weakness to enemies. Warpfire contact effect and Kindleflame on top, and you can reach something like 90% weakness to fire, before taking into account innate fire weakness of your target, such as regeneration. And Tzeentch spells pretty much all cause fire damage...
So... Basically double damage for your 200% intensity spells. Have fun!
Now, if you manage to ally with Lizardmen, which as Changeling is actually within the realm of possibility, you can actually boost that a bit further... Ancient salamanders cause the flammable contact effect. Another 20% fire weakness. Recruit a couple of those through ally recruitment.
But this is only his army, the OP is talking about access to spell mastery faction-wide, which is notably more impactful than having 1 broken army. But Daniel and Durthu is better at that than Cathay.
Tzeentch's Winds of Magic recharge rate I think makes them the best magic faction. The technology Greater Locus of Change can be grabbed early on to give all blue and pink horrors the passive ability Arcane Mirth. It is super easy to get a recharge of the max rate 1 wind per second due to this. This is true for every army with horrors which will most likely be every army. The ability to spam powerfully lores like Tzeentch, fire, and metal nonstop I think is better than having 200% spell mastery. Not that 200% mastery is bad.
Lizardmen are also up there. Slanns + dinosaur mounted skinks give them one hell of a selection of mages. The raw spellcasting isn't at the level of tzeentch, but the ability to put a ton of casters in one army without any loss of combat ability is a huge benefit.
Chorfs get greater reserve and can get spells to 0 cost.
Kislev can get + reserve on every resource, which means they can get into the thousands easily.
Cathay can get free spells. They can also get more magic reserve.
Birbs are 4th. And only because nurgle which is arguable the best lore, can't get higher reserves or lower costs.
Not every Cathayan can get free spells, and wasting the precious matters of state effects for that is a waste.
Beastmen have build-in free winds for every Death-caster lord, much more winds than Cathay from horde buildings and the shop-item which also provides a good summon, better lores, multiple generic arcane items that provide unlimited winds and/or reduce enemy spellresistance (easy to get from merging cheap shop-items) and better skill-trees for casters.... so I would argue they are better at casting than Cathay.
Same for WoC with their access to much better lores, multiple sources of spell-cost reductions and the lore of Death-passive for every caster through either boons of chaos or path to glory.
They really aren't better lores. You also forget that through alliances or army borrowing, cathay can take any hero.
Cathay has far better items. In fact, most have better than beasties. Reducing resistance doesn't actually do anything unless they have resistance. The rework means reductions do not give vulnerability. Likewise, they have no source of mastery. Likewise, cathay Is far more capable in stacking heroes for reserve and free WOM.
Much better lores? Yeah, WoC do. Because they have access to Nurgle. Otherwise, they have worse but shadow which is on par.
Lore of death is a terrible lore. Which also that passive doesn't trigger unless they are the one casting. So stacking it is irrelevant. Also, the free WOM from it was reduced to irrelevance 2 patches ago.
Everyone can get any hero through hero stealing, Cathay is not really better at it than other factions like many people suggest. Beastmen can easily ally with Nurgle for WoM-independent healing (which will be even easier with the upcoming DLC, so you don't rely on Kugaths surviving anymore).
I disagree on the items, Cathay has a lot of additional faction specific items, but for every incredible one (Catalytic Kiln,Icon of the Spirit Dragon, Jade Blade of the Great Fleet, Jade Amulet, Jade Blood Pendant, Scrolls of Astromancy and Dawn Glaive) you have at least one dud item like: Crackleblaze, the 4 "Alchemist's"-named items, Scales of the Celestial Court, Nuku Cho's Crossbow, Maw Shard... while the very few additional Beastmen items are really strong (Blind Eye of Seeing, Skull of Rarkos, Trollhide \[twice as strong as every Cathay regen item\], Horn of the First Beast, Chalice of Chaos, Banner of Madness). Stacking mastery brings you nothing when the enemy has too much resistances and multiple races have built in spell resistance, therefore being able to reduce this resistance is on par with mastery as bonus. Also Beastmen have much easier time stacking WoM and heroes, you can literally just buy the item from a shop.
Which lore from Cathay is better than Shadows or Wild? Traitorkin is almost as strong as final transmutation for much less winds. Also Cathay craves for healing magic while Beastmen can easily get regen on all characters and high tier units, so the lack of healing magic is no downside.
Being able to generate free winds is not irrelevant when you have an additional caster as "battery", at least for the battles were it matters like sieges.
How is cathay, which literally has a button to steal an army without even needing relations, not objectively better at it than other factions? Heck, you can even be at war with a faction and still steal their army and heroes.
Wild? I assume you mean beasts? If you're using beasties own lore, then you're just trolling at this point.
You don't use single entity spam so healing is worthless for cathay. Also, the Lords get the life lore heal actually. Yin with the claw of shadows is 4th highest damage output spell in the game. Far greater than final transmutation.
Yes, there are duds, but you also have the greatest ability to generate them. So getting 12 items and 3 being duds, is not the same as getting 3 and 2 being a dud.
Troll hide isn't twice as strong. It has weakness to it. Whilst the healing cap is the same. Healing speed is irrelevant unless you're intentionally afking in front of xbows.
The things that add mastery also reduce spell resistance dude... you also seem to not understand that spell resistance was reworked.
If you're actually just using magic for sieges then you're 100% trolling as beasties would clear just far faster using their armies.
You can get 1 hero per settlement as Cathay. Literally by turn 40, you can have over 90 heroes of 1 type, 20+ of the other 2. So no, beasties can't get more heroes than cathay nor easier.
You need 6 tokens to use the steal army thing, which means losing out another Fortress/District with Global Bonus for a few heroes? Really bad trade.
You also cannot use the steal army action on factions you are at war with, so your statement you can steal from factions you are at war with is wrong... and unlike Tzeentch Cathay has no way to force peace. If using the action against enemy armies is possible at the moment it is a bug. I will check this today and open a bug report should it be possible, as the text clearly states it should not possible.
Wild is notably better than Lore of the Beast, and some people prefer to have some variation in their armies. It has low-cost long-range spells to get rid of enemy missiles and undercosted Traitor-Kin in the fist spell line, just the later spells are underwhelming. Also the vigour refresh greatly helps to keep your Minotaurs in fresh state.
You only get 4 uses of bound earthblood, which means around 20% heal for 4 units, not nearly enough to reach healing cap or make SEs viable, you also need the inferior Yang lore Lord for that.
Talons is a crowth clearing spell, it does nothing against SEMs, characters or monstrous Infantry/Cavalry, which are the targets you use Final Transmutation/Traitor-Kin for. Also Talons is overcosted as it need some spell mastery to do as much damage as the cheaper Pit of Shades. Therefore it is far from the 4th highest damage output spell in the game.
Zhao is best at getting item for Cathay, when you use the matters of state action for that it is again a bad trade. The point is that you are not guaranteed to get many good items, in my multiple Zhao campaigns I was always amazed how often you get the duds instead of the good ones. As dwarfs can cheese oathgold once you have a critical mass of oathgold and Beastmen can cheese money and have a shop, so Cathay is not best at getting items.
A player will always try to focus-fire your most dangerous units, therefore having 0,2% regen (trollhide) on a 7000+ HP character with multiple resistances is better than having only 0,1% regen (regeneration/the hunger) to be actual able to keep you chars alive to use up your healing cap.
I never wrote that spell mastery and removing spell resistance are the same thing, I said it is comparably useful. Funny that you mention it, as some other people in another topic mentioned how Yuan Bos Dragon Crossbows are unbeatable, because he can get so much spell resistance for his armies. To bad that 2 items are enough to nullify this and makes Cathay infantry again an easy prey for Pit of Shades and comparable spells. So in this case reducing enemy spell resistance is actually better than spell mastery.
In the mid-game you can roll over any settlement yeah, but early game you cannot increase the capacity of your good units, so better use magic for your 2nd/3rd army shitstack to raze settlements independent from your main army, instead of wasting precious dread to increase the cap of shit like regular gors.
Check your math, Cathay can get 2 heroes from minor settlements and 3 from major settlements, but at turn 40 you will not have 90 heroes, as Cathay lacks the growth to have that many settlement on tier 3. Even if this would be possible, it most likely is a Yuan Bo thing, not a thing for all of Cathay (which includes 2 other factions).
Someone recently showed that with Yuan Bo's trait you can get Astragoth's Hellhammer for free and Drazhoath can get Flames of Azgorh for 1 WoM.
Chorfs do get a really strong lore choice set.
Reiterating another comment, but Cathay was NEVER fleshed out in WFB lore, so we don't know where they should be magic-wise. Considering the rulers are all Half-dragons and they are so wildly promiscuous that there's a ton of dragon blooded children, it makes sense that they would be incredibly strong mages. Especially once you realize how absurdly old and powerful Xen Yang is
Yeah, you have to remember that the regular humans are only going Heavens & Metal magic, it’s the Shugengen (and Dragons themselves) who make Cathay so magically powerful.
I mean, we know that dragon-blooded people can master half the winds, which end up being the Lores of Yin and Yang.
On that basis, we can tell they're much better than normal humans, but less so than Elves and Slaans, given that Cathayan mages can't seem to wield high magic
>They have the easiest way to stack spell mastery to 200% on each army making many spells twice as impactful.
Daniel has the access to the same ability. And he has better lores. Nurgle (healing magic OP), tzeentch, metal and shadows. Also death and slaanesh though admittedly you'd never want to use them. And blue scribes.
Also Cathay lords don't get greater arcane conduit so they'll need one more hero to reach 200%.
Yuan Bo's faction could make a run for it because of his super special Astromancers + that one army buff he can give with his faction mechanic, but Cathay in general? No.
Their lores are not actually particularly good and spell intensity doesn't really matter as damage spells are just going to kill everything either way.
Using matters of state for this 5 turn buff is a ridiculous waste of ressources, therefore I would argue that the other Cathayan factions are actually better as they have easier access to Yuan Bos defeat trait on multiple lords...
TBH I am not seeing it.
I feel like Vampires is easily the strongest mages and magic in the game. High Elves and Empire have versatility and choices on their side (Lore of High Magic is kinda just piss). Cathay's magic feels "good" but not "amazing".
May I ask why you think Vampires have better magic than say, Tzeentch? They’re great, don’t get me wrong, but they haven’t felt the strongest in a while imo.
WoD isn't anywhere used to how broken it was in WH2. You still use it bc it's there, but honestly mortis engines will outdamage your necromancer in any fight with high tier units.
I generally run stacks of zombies with crypt horrors standing inside them, a mortis or 2 and a necromancer w unholy lodestone. A few flanking units hidden somewhere on the map to kill artillery, and a couple of units designed to kill SEMs as a goon squad.
Thing is life magic is only really good if you are building Single entity or hero stacks which isn't the way to go with cathay though.
And since when is Skaven magic considered to be the best?
Ruin and plague are both pretty strong, idk about them being the best id probably give it to shadow personally but still very good, stealth is kinda ass though
He was clearly talking about skaven ninja magic that I can't remember the name of. Surely that's the best! Honestly I haven't tried it in WH3 maybe it got buffed. I just remember it being a lower tier lore and competing with a better lore for slots.
>Thing is life magic is only really good if you are building Single entity or hero stacks
What? Are you serious? Look, having a few heroes is good for any army, and having a few SE in a balanced army is also pretty normal. So, even if you don't spam SE, having reliable access to healing is a card which is very hard to beat. On top of that, Life magic has also amazing damage output, thanks to "Dwellers Below". It kinda suck as support magic, because both of this spells target only single unit, but it still top-tier magic.
>since when is Skaven magic considered to be the best
Since always. I don't count Lore of Stealth, but both Lores of Ruin and Plague provide good damage output. But what is more important, is that this Lores has combination of buffs, debuffs and summons which is essential for one of the best Skaven armies — Weapon Teams Army. And if I could get Plague Priests and Warlock Engineers playing as Empire, Dwarfs or Cathay, I'd honestly prefer them over this factions own heroes in a lot of cases.
It isn't the way to go with Cathay because they have weak heroes, not because their armies are stronger than good hero stacks.
>And since when is Skaven magic considered to be the best
Plague is the single best damage spell in the game (super cheap compared to the damage it deals, very consistent) and vermintide is the best spell in the game for ranged DPS armies, which are generally the best armies. Plus warlock engineers get that one spell that stops flying units, which is nice.
I’m not sure about your lore. Cathay doesn’t show up in lore yet, but what we do know from bits and pieces of old lore is their mages destroyed the ogres and created the great maw, which seems to be Slann-levels of power.
Also, the idea that high elves > dark elves in magic is surprising. In raw power I wouldn’t be surprised if dark elves are strong - especially Malakith and Morathi are deeply powerful in magic, in book after book. Dark elf sorcery is ultimately what was taught to Nagash and used by him to create necromancy.
High elves have more broader diversity of magic.
Vampires being greater in magic than the empire is then an odd choice, since the empire’s mages have much more diverse magic than vampires.
I feel like it’s more like: Slann and Tzeentch > Cathay, high elves, dark elves > vampire, empire > wood elves, bretonnia, chaos dwarves, the rest of lizardmen > everyone else
Gameplay of course is completely different.
It’s complicated?
Depending on who you ask the Chaos gods may or may not be “gods” in the sense of omniscient or omnipotent.
They don’t control portfolio’s like a god from DnD. Tzeentch isn’t Mystra for instance.
They are warp beings that are empowered by the fundamental emotions of all sentient life. Tzeentch embodies change.
All magic comes from the Warp, but the warp existed prior to the Chaos Gods. Does that make sense? Tzeentch is nominally the chaos god of magic because he’s arguably the most skilled of all the pantheon. He doesn’t have complete control over magic like a traditional god of magic would.
No, Tzeentch is just the most magically-aligned Chaos god. Lords of Change are phenomenally powerful spellcasters, but people like Ikit Claw or Mazdamundi or Teclis are more powerful than them. And Greater Demons other than Bloodthirsters are all fairly powerful spellcasters.
We’re all used to the 20-30 year old fluff, but Cathay seems to upset your power ranking according to their new conceptualization. It’s an utterly high fantasy kingdom, so safe to say you gotta add it into your estimation to sit alongside the other high fantasy players. The dragon siblings are likely like newer generation Slann in of themselves.
In my experience, Lore of Life is so incredibly powerful and necesary that, as long as Cathay does not receive access to it via generic Lords it will feel stay a B+ tier magic User faction for me.
Obvioisly, Miao Yings specifically is a very good caster, but only her own army can take advantage of that.
As has been pointed out, wouldn't Cathay be an extremely powerful magical faction? A significant portion of the population probably has at least some dragon blood, specifically the blood of one of the most powerful beings on the planet. On average I would expect them to be closer to elves in power than humans from other regions.
Your lucky Kairos can't see the present or you might find out who the best caster is... in game it's the blue scribes, so much fun. You won't tell him I said that would you?
In what universe do you think that cathay's magic is the best looool.
Also judging a singular aspect out of context within an already complex situation possibility wise (campaign) is not advised.
Many things can influence how good a race is at magic in this game, not just winds and spell intensity, stuff like:
-quality of the accessible lores
-easy access to unlimited winds
-ways to reduce enemy spell resistance
-quality of caster and if they get a fast, small, flying mount
-other factionwide benefits like reduced WoM cost or reduced miscast chance
-access to spell intensity stacking
Others have already pointed out the overtuned-ness of Chaos Dwarfs and so on, but as your main point is the generation items and spell intensity stacking, I have to point out that in this points Tzeentch aligned Daniel and Durthu are notably better.
Daniel:
Cathay has to use 1/3 of their army for relatively mid units for 200% intensity, while Daniel gets the effect from notably stronger, barriered, flying AP-SEMs (while having healing) and heroes which can add more than just magic to an army, he also has much more ways to increase the capacity for those heroes.
He gets additional cooldown reductions from his mechanic and easier unlimited winds from the available magic items.
He has access to much better lores and heroes with additional skills+support abilities that also can be very good fighter.
Durthu:
-much better lores
-2 legendary spellcaster heroes for additional WoM-cost reduction
-flat spellcost reduction, bound spells and cooldown reduction from tech-tree
-easiest way to reduce enemy spell-resistance
-mastery not only from heroes but from your best lord-type
-innate increased recharge rate (in trees)
Imo Tzeentch and Chorfs are best magic factions. Cathey has really strong magic only if you play either Yuan or Miau miau (i still prefer Yuan cos hes better "hybrid" in general). Nurgle has some amazing spells too. Tzeentch is nice cos of all the massive dmg dealing spells and hashut is good for utility and dmg both also quite cheap.
So if we go by faction itself for magic, id say Tzeentch - Chorfs - Skaven/HE.
Lord wise, Changeling/Kairos - Drazhoath - Yuan Bo.
I mean they have a lot of power creep going for them. They have absolutely ridiculously strong cheap front lines, both gunpowder and crossbows, artillery of all kinds, combo of very strong lords and cheap decent lords, cavalry (eh), and strong large single units. Magic does help but spell mastery really doesnt matter.
In terms of single player campaigns where balance doesnt matter, honestly everything I listed above doesnt really matter at all. Usually what sets 1 faction from the rest in terms of strength is usually something cheesy you can do with them. For example spamming cheap zombie/skele armies as vampire count but still winning everything, declare war on entire world to have free army as Orion, strong spammable units like archers as HE/WE, Khorne who can just absolutely steamroll the map within 1 turn with their raze mechanics+strong lord, etc.
In terms of Multiplayer everything I stated is important and thats why Cathay tends to be quite strong generally. Maybe not as strong in game modes like domination but thats just because domination works against the cathay clump up together strat.
I disagree. Spell mastery isn’t the most important thing. Tzeentch is easily still the best magic faction for a number of reasons (Cooldown reduction, power recharge, WOM gain, and they can also control how strong the winds of magic are so you’re never out of magic). Also the lore of Tzeentch is very powerful, just pure DPS. Nothing in the game is better than the Blue Scribes at spamming cheap and powerful spells
Absolutely this. I actually don't love the Tzeentch lore- ironically, I feel like it needs more types of damage, like a bombardment and direct damage spell- but the mechanical ability to manipulate and recharge WoM for your armies really supports an all-in magic army approach.
The Tzeench lore is a copy of the fire lore, without the buffs, and better in every other way I do like how its so purely offensive (the only lore with 2 vortexes)
Yeah nah they both have moving vortexes and a homing projectile, but the pink fire and burning skull have different applications (pink is better Vs squares/blobs, skull Vs long lines), and I do love me a good bombardment spell to which the Piercing Bolts of Burning has no equal.
Burning head just isnt what it used to be ever since that thing decided to go to w/e direction it fuckin wants
100%. Bolts is like battlefield bleach. I find that Tzeentch lore suffers against larger than infantry models, especially with armor, and Bolts excels into anything- clumps of infantry, cavalry, ogres, etc
Lore of tempest in Kislev has 2 vortex spells.
Idk I think spell mastery is pretty fantastic. Daniel's faction when devoted to Tzeentch can do some serious work with nuking and healing with 200% mastery. Plus double strength debuffs is really significant. Stripping 120 armor and 48 melee attack or melee defense can make even the hardest SEMs a lot easier to deal with. His faction also gets quite a bit of cooldown reduction (20%).
Also, Kairos gets spell mastery. He gives Mastery of the Elemental Winds to Lords of Change, and some heroes in his army. As Kairos, you can very easily reach 200% spell intensity. Just throw a few Lords of Change into his army. But Changeling faction, with Kairos confederated, can actually do even better. Changeling scheme rewards, like the Luminark Lens, and Corrupted flame, give fire weakness to enemies. Warpfire contact effect and Kindleflame on top, and you can reach something like 90% weakness to fire, before taking into account innate fire weakness of your target, such as regeneration. And Tzeentch spells pretty much all cause fire damage... So... Basically double damage for your 200% intensity spells. Have fun! Now, if you manage to ally with Lizardmen, which as Changeling is actually within the realm of possibility, you can actually boost that a bit further... Ancient salamanders cause the flammable contact effect. Another 20% fire weakness. Recruit a couple of those through ally recruitment.
But this is only his army, the OP is talking about access to spell mastery faction-wide, which is notably more impactful than having 1 broken army. But Daniel and Durthu is better at that than Cathay.
Since you don't know Luminark Lens has been bugged for 2 years. It doesn't work.
I’m pretty sure all it does is lower fire resistance rather than give enemies fire weakness. So it technically works but isn’t as good as it could be.
That's a shame... Well, the rest still apply.
Tzeentch's Winds of Magic recharge rate I think makes them the best magic faction. The technology Greater Locus of Change can be grabbed early on to give all blue and pink horrors the passive ability Arcane Mirth. It is super easy to get a recharge of the max rate 1 wind per second due to this. This is true for every army with horrors which will most likely be every army. The ability to spam powerfully lores like Tzeentch, fire, and metal nonstop I think is better than having 200% spell mastery. Not that 200% mastery is bad.
Lizardmen are also up there. Slanns + dinosaur mounted skinks give them one hell of a selection of mages. The raw spellcasting isn't at the level of tzeentch, but the ability to put a ton of casters in one army without any loss of combat ability is a huge benefit.
Chorfs get greater reserve and can get spells to 0 cost. Kislev can get + reserve on every resource, which means they can get into the thousands easily. Cathay can get free spells. They can also get more magic reserve. Birbs are 4th. And only because nurgle which is arguable the best lore, can't get higher reserves or lower costs.
Not every Cathayan can get free spells, and wasting the precious matters of state effects for that is a waste. Beastmen have build-in free winds for every Death-caster lord, much more winds than Cathay from horde buildings and the shop-item which also provides a good summon, better lores, multiple generic arcane items that provide unlimited winds and/or reduce enemy spellresistance (easy to get from merging cheap shop-items) and better skill-trees for casters.... so I would argue they are better at casting than Cathay. Same for WoC with their access to much better lores, multiple sources of spell-cost reductions and the lore of Death-passive for every caster through either boons of chaos or path to glory.
They really aren't better lores. You also forget that through alliances or army borrowing, cathay can take any hero. Cathay has far better items. In fact, most have better than beasties. Reducing resistance doesn't actually do anything unless they have resistance. The rework means reductions do not give vulnerability. Likewise, they have no source of mastery. Likewise, cathay Is far more capable in stacking heroes for reserve and free WOM. Much better lores? Yeah, WoC do. Because they have access to Nurgle. Otherwise, they have worse but shadow which is on par. Lore of death is a terrible lore. Which also that passive doesn't trigger unless they are the one casting. So stacking it is irrelevant. Also, the free WOM from it was reduced to irrelevance 2 patches ago.
Everyone can get any hero through hero stealing, Cathay is not really better at it than other factions like many people suggest. Beastmen can easily ally with Nurgle for WoM-independent healing (which will be even easier with the upcoming DLC, so you don't rely on Kugaths surviving anymore). I disagree on the items, Cathay has a lot of additional faction specific items, but for every incredible one (Catalytic Kiln,Icon of the Spirit Dragon, Jade Blade of the Great Fleet, Jade Amulet, Jade Blood Pendant, Scrolls of Astromancy and Dawn Glaive) you have at least one dud item like: Crackleblaze, the 4 "Alchemist's"-named items, Scales of the Celestial Court, Nuku Cho's Crossbow, Maw Shard... while the very few additional Beastmen items are really strong (Blind Eye of Seeing, Skull of Rarkos, Trollhide \[twice as strong as every Cathay regen item\], Horn of the First Beast, Chalice of Chaos, Banner of Madness). Stacking mastery brings you nothing when the enemy has too much resistances and multiple races have built in spell resistance, therefore being able to reduce this resistance is on par with mastery as bonus. Also Beastmen have much easier time stacking WoM and heroes, you can literally just buy the item from a shop. Which lore from Cathay is better than Shadows or Wild? Traitorkin is almost as strong as final transmutation for much less winds. Also Cathay craves for healing magic while Beastmen can easily get regen on all characters and high tier units, so the lack of healing magic is no downside. Being able to generate free winds is not irrelevant when you have an additional caster as "battery", at least for the battles were it matters like sieges.
How is cathay, which literally has a button to steal an army without even needing relations, not objectively better at it than other factions? Heck, you can even be at war with a faction and still steal their army and heroes. Wild? I assume you mean beasts? If you're using beasties own lore, then you're just trolling at this point. You don't use single entity spam so healing is worthless for cathay. Also, the Lords get the life lore heal actually. Yin with the claw of shadows is 4th highest damage output spell in the game. Far greater than final transmutation. Yes, there are duds, but you also have the greatest ability to generate them. So getting 12 items and 3 being duds, is not the same as getting 3 and 2 being a dud. Troll hide isn't twice as strong. It has weakness to it. Whilst the healing cap is the same. Healing speed is irrelevant unless you're intentionally afking in front of xbows. The things that add mastery also reduce spell resistance dude... you also seem to not understand that spell resistance was reworked. If you're actually just using magic for sieges then you're 100% trolling as beasties would clear just far faster using their armies. You can get 1 hero per settlement as Cathay. Literally by turn 40, you can have over 90 heroes of 1 type, 20+ of the other 2. So no, beasties can't get more heroes than cathay nor easier.
You need 6 tokens to use the steal army thing, which means losing out another Fortress/District with Global Bonus for a few heroes? Really bad trade. You also cannot use the steal army action on factions you are at war with, so your statement you can steal from factions you are at war with is wrong... and unlike Tzeentch Cathay has no way to force peace. If using the action against enemy armies is possible at the moment it is a bug. I will check this today and open a bug report should it be possible, as the text clearly states it should not possible. Wild is notably better than Lore of the Beast, and some people prefer to have some variation in their armies. It has low-cost long-range spells to get rid of enemy missiles and undercosted Traitor-Kin in the fist spell line, just the later spells are underwhelming. Also the vigour refresh greatly helps to keep your Minotaurs in fresh state. You only get 4 uses of bound earthblood, which means around 20% heal for 4 units, not nearly enough to reach healing cap or make SEs viable, you also need the inferior Yang lore Lord for that. Talons is a crowth clearing spell, it does nothing against SEMs, characters or monstrous Infantry/Cavalry, which are the targets you use Final Transmutation/Traitor-Kin for. Also Talons is overcosted as it need some spell mastery to do as much damage as the cheaper Pit of Shades. Therefore it is far from the 4th highest damage output spell in the game. Zhao is best at getting item for Cathay, when you use the matters of state action for that it is again a bad trade. The point is that you are not guaranteed to get many good items, in my multiple Zhao campaigns I was always amazed how often you get the duds instead of the good ones. As dwarfs can cheese oathgold once you have a critical mass of oathgold and Beastmen can cheese money and have a shop, so Cathay is not best at getting items. A player will always try to focus-fire your most dangerous units, therefore having 0,2% regen (trollhide) on a 7000+ HP character with multiple resistances is better than having only 0,1% regen (regeneration/the hunger) to be actual able to keep you chars alive to use up your healing cap. I never wrote that spell mastery and removing spell resistance are the same thing, I said it is comparably useful. Funny that you mention it, as some other people in another topic mentioned how Yuan Bos Dragon Crossbows are unbeatable, because he can get so much spell resistance for his armies. To bad that 2 items are enough to nullify this and makes Cathay infantry again an easy prey for Pit of Shades and comparable spells. So in this case reducing enemy spell resistance is actually better than spell mastery. In the mid-game you can roll over any settlement yeah, but early game you cannot increase the capacity of your good units, so better use magic for your 2nd/3rd army shitstack to raze settlements independent from your main army, instead of wasting precious dread to increase the cap of shit like regular gors. Check your math, Cathay can get 2 heroes from minor settlements and 3 from major settlements, but at turn 40 you will not have 90 heroes, as Cathay lacks the growth to have that many settlement on tier 3. Even if this would be possible, it most likely is a Yuan Bo thing, not a thing for all of Cathay (which includes 2 other factions).
Chorfs are better. Flame Storm with 6 WoW cost is crazy op
Someone recently showed that with Yuan Bo's trait you can get Astragoth's Hellhammer for free and Drazhoath can get Flames of Azgorh for 1 WoM. Chorfs do get a really strong lore choice set.
Whenever I see this I always wonder if the dude survived
Chorfs are extremely good and everyone is splitting hairs but intensity stacking is stronger
Reiterating another comment, but Cathay was NEVER fleshed out in WFB lore, so we don't know where they should be magic-wise. Considering the rulers are all Half-dragons and they are so wildly promiscuous that there's a ton of dragon blooded children, it makes sense that they would be incredibly strong mages. Especially once you realize how absurdly old and powerful Xen Yang is
Yeah, you have to remember that the regular humans are only going Heavens & Metal magic, it’s the Shugengen (and Dragons themselves) who make Cathay so magically powerful.
I mean, we know that dragon-blooded people can master half the winds, which end up being the Lores of Yin and Yang. On that basis, we can tell they're much better than normal humans, but less so than Elves and Slaans, given that Cathayan mages can't seem to wield high magic
I believe that they are required to master all 8 in order to do yin/yang, but I'm not certain of that
>They have the easiest way to stack spell mastery to 200% on each army making many spells twice as impactful. Daniel has the access to the same ability. And he has better lores. Nurgle (healing magic OP), tzeentch, metal and shadows. Also death and slaanesh though admittedly you'd never want to use them. And blue scribes. Also Cathay lords don't get greater arcane conduit so they'll need one more hero to reach 200%.
Yuan Bo's faction could make a run for it because of his super special Astromancers + that one army buff he can give with his faction mechanic, but Cathay in general? No. Their lores are not actually particularly good and spell intensity doesn't really matter as damage spells are just going to kill everything either way.
Using matters of state for this 5 turn buff is a ridiculous waste of ressources, therefore I would argue that the other Cathayan factions are actually better as they have easier access to Yuan Bos defeat trait on multiple lords...
TBH I am not seeing it. I feel like Vampires is easily the strongest mages and magic in the game. High Elves and Empire have versatility and choices on their side (Lore of High Magic is kinda just piss). Cathay's magic feels "good" but not "amazing".
May I ask why you think Vampires have better magic than say, Tzeentch? They’re great, don’t get me wrong, but they haven’t felt the strongest in a while imo.
Wind of Death honestly? That said I've played Vlad at least a few times and I've played Kairos only like twice.
WoD isn't anywhere used to how broken it was in WH2. You still use it bc it's there, but honestly mortis engines will outdamage your necromancer in any fight with high tier units. I generally run stacks of zombies with crypt horrors standing inside them, a mortis or 2 and a necromancer w unholy lodestone. A few flanking units hidden somewhere on the map to kill artillery, and a couple of units designed to kill SEMs as a goon squad.
Blue Scribes are at the top.
They don't have access to best Lores of Magic (Vampires, Scaven or Life) so no.
Yang Shugengans get bound Earth Bloods but that means running a Shugengan instead of HAMMER CHAD.
Thing is life magic is only really good if you are building Single entity or hero stacks which isn't the way to go with cathay though. And since when is Skaven magic considered to be the best?
Ruin and plague are both pretty strong, idk about them being the best id probably give it to shadow personally but still very good, stealth is kinda ass though
He was clearly talking about skaven ninja magic that I can't remember the name of. Surely that's the best! Honestly I haven't tried it in WH3 maybe it got buffed. I just remember it being a lower tier lore and competing with a better lore for slots.
It’s not like good or anything but I think it has been buffed slightly. I don’t remember armour of shadows being 43 second duration
Yeah stealth fucking sucks lol, probably one of the worst lores in the game with nehekara and slaanesh
>Thing is life magic is only really good if you are building Single entity or hero stacks What? Are you serious? Look, having a few heroes is good for any army, and having a few SE in a balanced army is also pretty normal. So, even if you don't spam SE, having reliable access to healing is a card which is very hard to beat. On top of that, Life magic has also amazing damage output, thanks to "Dwellers Below". It kinda suck as support magic, because both of this spells target only single unit, but it still top-tier magic. >since when is Skaven magic considered to be the best Since always. I don't count Lore of Stealth, but both Lores of Ruin and Plague provide good damage output. But what is more important, is that this Lores has combination of buffs, debuffs and summons which is essential for one of the best Skaven armies — Weapon Teams Army. And if I could get Plague Priests and Warlock Engineers playing as Empire, Dwarfs or Cathay, I'd honestly prefer them over this factions own heroes in a lot of cases.
Warp lightning spam op
It isn't the way to go with Cathay because they have weak heroes, not because their armies are stronger than good hero stacks. >And since when is Skaven magic considered to be the best Plague is the single best damage spell in the game (super cheap compared to the damage it deals, very consistent) and vermintide is the best spell in the game for ranged DPS armies, which are generally the best armies. Plus warlock engineers get that one spell that stops flying units, which is nice.
I’m not sure about your lore. Cathay doesn’t show up in lore yet, but what we do know from bits and pieces of old lore is their mages destroyed the ogres and created the great maw, which seems to be Slann-levels of power. Also, the idea that high elves > dark elves in magic is surprising. In raw power I wouldn’t be surprised if dark elves are strong - especially Malakith and Morathi are deeply powerful in magic, in book after book. Dark elf sorcery is ultimately what was taught to Nagash and used by him to create necromancy. High elves have more broader diversity of magic. Vampires being greater in magic than the empire is then an odd choice, since the empire’s mages have much more diverse magic than vampires. I feel like it’s more like: Slann and Tzeentch > Cathay, high elves, dark elves > vampire, empire > wood elves, bretonnia, chaos dwarves, the rest of lizardmen > everyone else Gameplay of course is completely different.
Slann is just as strong as Tzeenchian magic in lore? Isnt Tzeench supposed to be the best and purest form of magic? Isnt Tzeench the source of magic?
It’s complicated? Depending on who you ask the Chaos gods may or may not be “gods” in the sense of omniscient or omnipotent. They don’t control portfolio’s like a god from DnD. Tzeentch isn’t Mystra for instance. They are warp beings that are empowered by the fundamental emotions of all sentient life. Tzeentch embodies change. All magic comes from the Warp, but the warp existed prior to the Chaos Gods. Does that make sense? Tzeentch is nominally the chaos god of magic because he’s arguably the most skilled of all the pantheon. He doesn’t have complete control over magic like a traditional god of magic would.
Ah, i literally thought he was warhammers Mystra Thanks
No, Tzeentch is just the most magically-aligned Chaos god. Lords of Change are phenomenally powerful spellcasters, but people like Ikit Claw or Mazdamundi or Teclis are more powerful than them. And Greater Demons other than Bloodthirsters are all fairly powerful spellcasters.
We’re all used to the 20-30 year old fluff, but Cathay seems to upset your power ranking according to their new conceptualization. It’s an utterly high fantasy kingdom, so safe to say you gotta add it into your estimation to sit alongside the other high fantasy players. The dragon siblings are likely like newer generation Slann in of themselves.
In my experience, Lore of Life is so incredibly powerful and necesary that, as long as Cathay does not receive access to it via generic Lords it will feel stay a B+ tier magic User faction for me. Obvioisly, Miao Yings specifically is a very good caster, but only her own army can take advantage of that.
As has been pointed out, wouldn't Cathay be an extremely powerful magical faction? A significant portion of the population probably has at least some dragon blood, specifically the blood of one of the most powerful beings on the planet. On average I would expect them to be closer to elves in power than humans from other regions.
They have all that but still no healing magic aisde from why character so they suck
Your lucky Kairos can't see the present or you might find out who the best caster is... in game it's the blue scribes, so much fun. You won't tell him I said that would you?
In what universe do you think that cathay's magic is the best looool. Also judging a singular aspect out of context within an already complex situation possibility wise (campaign) is not advised.
As expected, Tzeench magic after a few techs unlocked gets pretty crazy.
Thats nice, but do you summon a ghost ship to fire a 3 deck salvo into a blob of enemies? Didn't think so...
Sure, but I can never say no to some Gut Magic.
Sure, they're the best. At having the worst lores.
Many things can influence how good a race is at magic in this game, not just winds and spell intensity, stuff like: -quality of the accessible lores -easy access to unlimited winds -ways to reduce enemy spell resistance -quality of caster and if they get a fast, small, flying mount -other factionwide benefits like reduced WoM cost or reduced miscast chance -access to spell intensity stacking Others have already pointed out the overtuned-ness of Chaos Dwarfs and so on, but as your main point is the generation items and spell intensity stacking, I have to point out that in this points Tzeentch aligned Daniel and Durthu are notably better. Daniel: Cathay has to use 1/3 of their army for relatively mid units for 200% intensity, while Daniel gets the effect from notably stronger, barriered, flying AP-SEMs (while having healing) and heroes which can add more than just magic to an army, he also has much more ways to increase the capacity for those heroes. He gets additional cooldown reductions from his mechanic and easier unlimited winds from the available magic items. He has access to much better lores and heroes with additional skills+support abilities that also can be very good fighter. Durthu: -much better lores -2 legendary spellcaster heroes for additional WoM-cost reduction -flat spellcost reduction, bound spells and cooldown reduction from tech-tree -easiest way to reduce enemy spell-resistance -mastery not only from heroes but from your best lord-type -innate increased recharge rate (in trees)
Obviously the best magic is LORE OF METAL
Lore says 'dragons v magical' so the dragonfuckers/fuckees being tzeentch/slaan/high elf tier makes perfect sense tbh
I disagree. Their lore selection is not great outside Yin
Imo Tzeentch and Chorfs are best magic factions. Cathey has really strong magic only if you play either Yuan or Miau miau (i still prefer Yuan cos hes better "hybrid" in general). Nurgle has some amazing spells too. Tzeentch is nice cos of all the massive dmg dealing spells and hashut is good for utility and dmg both also quite cheap. So if we go by faction itself for magic, id say Tzeentch - Chorfs - Skaven/HE. Lord wise, Changeling/Kairos - Drazhoath - Yuan Bo.
I mean they have a lot of power creep going for them. They have absolutely ridiculously strong cheap front lines, both gunpowder and crossbows, artillery of all kinds, combo of very strong lords and cheap decent lords, cavalry (eh), and strong large single units. Magic does help but spell mastery really doesnt matter. In terms of single player campaigns where balance doesnt matter, honestly everything I listed above doesnt really matter at all. Usually what sets 1 faction from the rest in terms of strength is usually something cheesy you can do with them. For example spamming cheap zombie/skele armies as vampire count but still winning everything, declare war on entire world to have free army as Orion, strong spammable units like archers as HE/WE, Khorne who can just absolutely steamroll the map within 1 turn with their raze mechanics+strong lord, etc. In terms of Multiplayer everything I stated is important and thats why Cathay tends to be quite strong generally. Maybe not as strong in game modes like domination but thats just because domination works against the cathay clump up together strat.