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What do you people thinly is the best lore of magic in the game?

I reckon that its a toss up between high magic, Nurgle magic and Life

What's your opinion(s)?

I think it kind of depends on the army as for ogres i feel gut/beasts are the best lores as an example.

But all in all i love lore of light as it can work with nearly all armies.

Life is an all round good lore but i wouldnt put it as the best lore, its just abit too safe and boring, high magic is definetly good.

So list specific for example shadow with elves rocks.

Shadow / Death.

The lore of cheese!

But in all seriousness it depends on the army. Shadow is brutal on my darkelves. I've had some luck with light on my Tomb Kings. Though it would seem Lore of Fire is a good all comers lore since you can continually blast your opponent into dust.

High magic for lizardmen; hands down best.
Why? Because the lore is solid, and if you don't like the spells you have, the Lore Attribute lets you cycle them out for other spells; of high magic or another lore.

Being able to go and choose Searing Doom, Miasma, Spirit Leech, or Shems Burning Gaze; mid-game, is awesome.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
High magic for lizardmen; hands down best.
Why? Because the lore is solid, and if you don't like the spells you have, the Lore Attribute lets you cycle them out for other spells; of high magic or another lore.

Being able to go and choose Searing Doom, Miasma, Spirit Leech, or Shems Burning Gaze; mid-game, is awesome.

-Matt

Are you sure you don't recycle for other High Magic spells? It seems to make a lot more sense to me...

Back on topic, it's very hard to say which is the best lore, as different lores synergise with different armies. Overall, I'd have to say Shadow, since there's such a range of useful spells. Okkams makes most unit nasty in combat, and anyone can make good use of lowering the opponent's stats by D3. There's also a Test or Die Template spell, so what's not to like?!

Life comes a close second, imo. It has possibly the nastiest spell in the game, as well as loads of other spells that have use in most armies (Flesh to Stone, Throne of Vines etc). The Lore does largely rely on having Throne of Vines to access its full potential, which is its only shortcoming.

In a general sense Death and Shadow are by far the best overall lores in the game. However certain armies demand something different. For instance, a mounted lance army like Brets gets more out of Beasts as Wildform helps mitigate the reliance on lances on turns in which you haven't charged.

They're pretty good at making the special lores good for that army. Necromancy or whatever is hand's down best for VC. Nek lore for TK. Butt magic for Ogres. I really like High Magic in HE.

If you mean general purpose BRB I think it's hard to get better than Life. Dwellers is one of the better doom spells. The lore attribute is great at protecting caster OR another nearby hero. Throne of vines protects from miscasts, it has a lot of good buffs and the spells aren't super expensive to cast.

Pfffft, you're all wrong. Clearly the best lore is Lore of Vampire.
[/bias]

(Seriously though lots of low cast value buffs that can become average cast value AoEs, a magic missile, a remains in play damage spell and a vortex, not to mention the ease of spamming invocation, what's not to love?)

Metal is the best lore. It's six spell is bested only by dwellers, it buffs your guys, it nerfs theirs, and it has blasty spells. The only real weakness is that the signature spell is worthless against a handful of armies.

 spyguyyoda wrote:
Metal is the best lore. It's six spell is bested only by dwellers, it buffs your guys, it nerfs theirs, and it has blasty spells. The only real weakness is that the signature spell is worthless against a handful of armies.

The real weakness of metal is that 3 spells are good, and the rest are situational or bad.
If you only have 4 spells (or less), it is a risky lore.

Also, lore of metal doesn't kill whole units in the same way that mindrazor or purple sun does.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 spyguyyoda wrote:
Metal is the best lore. It's six spell is bested only by dwellers, it buffs your guys, it nerfs theirs, and it has blasty spells. The only real weakness is that the signature spell is worthless against a handful of armies.

The real weakness of metal is that 3 spells are good, and the rest are situational or bad.
If you only have 4 spells (or less), it is a risky lore.

Also, lore of metal doesn't kill whole units in the same way that mindrazor or purple sun does.

-Matt

Final transmutation kills more than people sun. I agree it's risky, but so are all the lores.

 spyguyyoda wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 spyguyyoda wrote:
Metal is the best lore. It's six spell is bested only by dwellers, it buffs your guys, it nerfs theirs, and it has blasty spells. The only real weakness is that the signature spell is worthless against a handful of armies.

The real weakness of metal is that 3 spells are good, and the rest are situational or bad.
If you only have 4 spells (or less), it is a risky lore.

Also, lore of metal doesn't kill whole units in the same way that mindrazor or purple sun does.

-Matt

Final transmutation kills more than people sun. I agree it's risky, but so are all the lores.

Kills more? Doubtful. Transmutation kills on a 5+, or 6+ if the model has multiple wounds.
Purple Sun kills on a failed init test, and can hit multiple units, and can hit again in your opponents turn.
Elves and Warriors of chaos are the only largely init 5 armies, but they also tend to be the armies that run smaller units, where hitting more units is much better.
And of course, the power dice you get back after getting a purple sun off is stupidly good.

People down on Life these days?

ComTrav wrote:
People down on Life these days?

Always. You need to cast a single spell to make most of the lore worthwhile. That automatically rules it out of best lore in the game.

If I had to pick the best lore, it would either be, shadow, metal and death. In that order. Because those interact with my army the best.

If someone plays a different army, then they will have a different answer.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

ComTrav wrote:
People down on Life these days?

Always. You need to cast a single spell to make most of the lore worthwhile. That automatically rules it out of best lore in the game.

If I had to pick the best lore, it would either be, shadow, metal and death. In that order. Because those interact with my army the best.

If someone plays a different army, then they will have a different answer.

Shadow is pretty universally awesome.
I think the only downside is the lack of ability to affect multiple units.
Metal has two buffs that can boost most of an army.
Death has the area of effect soul blight (which is awesome), and a vortex.
Shadow snipes individual units.

-Matt

You don't need Throne of Vines to make Life good. You need it to make Life OP. Only the fact you can dispel it next round makes it not a big deal.

+2T at 8+ cast is pretty amazing. Guttmagic has +1T for 12+ cast (though the expanded version is all units in radius). 5+ regen for 8+ cast is pretty amazing. And both of those you get to heal your caster or another model nearby. Regrowth is so-so, mostly because the numbers are so small. Dwellers is obviously fantastic.

If Ogres could get Life magic, or Daemons, or WoC, they would be really nasty.

DukeRustfield wrote:
You don't need Throne of Vines to make Life good. You need it to make Life OP. Only the fact you can dispel it next round makes it not a big deal.

+2T at 8+ cast is pretty amazing. Guttmagic has +1T for 12+ cast (though the expanded version is all units in radius). 5+ regen for 8+ cast is pretty amazing. And both of those you get to heal your caster or another model nearby. Regrowth is so-so, mostly because the numbers are so small. Dwellers is obviously fantastic.

If Ogres could get Life magic, or Daemons, or WoC, they would be really nasty.

The problems with the 5+ regen, is that it's the signature and that you can't target anything with it; it's only the caster and his unit.
I prefer to keep my casters safe and I'd rather have the unit I choose to put in harms way be able to get the regen.

-Matt

DukeRustfield wrote:
You don't need Throne of Vines to make Life good. You need it to make Life OP. Only the fact you can dispel it next round makes it not a big deal.

+2T at 8+ cast is pretty amazing. Guttmagic has +1T for 12+ cast (though the expanded version is all units in radius). 5+ regen for 8+ cast is pretty amazing. And both of those you get to heal your caster or another model nearby. Regrowth is so-so, mostly because the numbers are so small. Dwellers is obviously fantastic.

If Ogres could get Life magic, or Daemons, or WoC, they would be really nasty.

+2 toughness and 5+ regen is far too meh. It can be so easily countered with Wildform, Soulblight, Withering, or the obvious choice of Mindrazor, and lore of fire, respectively.

+4 toughness, and 4+ regen are worth casting, the problem is, that you need Throne to get them. Even then, there are better lores out there, namely the rest of them.


Plus Ogres and WoC both get access to stuff like beasts and heavens, and warriors gain access to metal, death and shadow.

Now, if I have access to any of those lores, I will take them over life, as they do things.

I don't think you get what +2T is. If you had a 50% chance to wound you go to a 16%. +4 won't increase that. It's only if you're fighting something stronger or with AP. The number of things with S5-8 drops off pretty quickly.

One reason it's such a gimme for Lizardmen is it turns them into T6 core saurus. You all of a sudden have your basic models as tough as Dragons.

If you could make warriors of chaos WS6 I6 T6 with armor save 3+ and either regen or ward/parry of 5+, for like 17pts each, nothing is going to beat them. Likewise Bloodletters with T5 is pretty much game over.

Despite it's terrible range, I tend to find Nehekrakara to be the best lore. Excellent Augments and Hexes. Decent casting value. But skullstorm sucks so bad I'd rather have a magic missile there.

DukeRustfield wrote:
I don't think you get what +2T is. If you had a 50% chance to wound you go to a 16%. +4 won't increase that. It's only if you're fighting something stronger or with AP. The number of things with S5-8 drops off pretty quickly.

One reason it's such a gimme for Lizardmen is it turns them into T6 core saurus. You all of a sudden have your basic models as tough as Dragons.

If you could make warriors of chaos WS6 I6 T6 with armor save 3+ and either regen or ward/parry of 5+, for like 17pts each, nothing is going to beat them. Likewise Bloodletters with T5 is pretty much game over.

Having played with lore of life, and against it a lot, I know what the lore is capable of. And without throne or dwellers, it's precious little. And T5 bloodletters don't worry me. As I have enough attacks in my army, and enough magic to deal with them. Same goes for T6 saurus.

But, back on thread, it depends on the army. There is no 'best lore'. Each lore interacts with armies differently, and the debate about lore of life, shows that different people regard the same thing differently.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

But, back on thread, it depends on the army. There is no 'best lore'. Each lore interacts with armies differently, and the debate about lore of life, shows that different people regard the same thing differently.

If you look at the best lore for each army, it's not hard from that to see which shows up the most and declare it the best over-all.

-Matt

I've used life before with my lizardmen but I'm kind of unsure about it. It feels too defensive and defense isn't something my saurus are really lacking. It doesn't help with my skinks because if my skinks are in combat, I've already lost. I've always felt my saurus need more killing power. Light has been helpful with that and the one time I tried Fire was fun. I'm really looking forward to getting High Magic and rolling with a few Lore of Beast Skink priests in a few days.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
If you look at the best lore for each army, it's not hard from that to see which shows up the most and declare it the best over-all.

Well, not really. Cuz some armies simply can't take other lores. And some armies are played less than others. I think if you looked at like Empire and saw what people used most, you'd get a good ballpark of the BRB lores.

 shamroll wrote:
I've used life before with my lizardmen but I'm kind of unsure about it. It feels too defensive and defense isn't something my saurus are really lacking. It doesn't help with my skinks because if my skinks are in combat, I've already lost. I've always felt my saurus need more killing power. Light has been helpful with that and the one time I tried Fire was fun. I'm really looking forward to getting High Magic and rolling with a few Lore of Beast Skink priests in a few days.

I'm actually looking forward to running a fire slaan, and fire skinks. Chotec all the way.
Yeah, I'll actually use the engine to drop the casting value of lore of fire too.
If the slaan gets a spell off, then the priests can pile in the fireballs single die style. Level 1 with a +D3 to cast, and the basic fireball reduced to 4+ via the engine.
That only needs a 3 to go off (since a 1 and 2 fail anyway), and with the extra D3, it should burn stuff up pretty well.
Fire may be fun; but it's still no lore of shadow.

-Matt

There is no *best* lore.

There are a few that are certainly more useful than the others.

Top 2 are probably life and shadow - death is quite popular too.

The rest are a crapshoot. It all depends on your list and play style.

Death + Nurgle then shadow for me.
Live may buff your toughness, but death withers it.
Nurgle buffs toughness and gives regen but also does toughness test damage - 50% chance of killing elves with a vortex, hoorah!

The only reason why Life is so popular is Dwellers. That's it. If you really, really suck at WHFB, you can still go for LoL and Dweller around to kill stuff. A blind monkey would choose LoL. Without Dwellers, nobody would take LoL.