I always used the Dance Macabre on the dire wolves. They are already stupidly fast, so the bonus to speed is chunky and the added melee makes their charges brutal against squishier ranged units or artillery pieces. Not to mention, perfect to speed them up in pursuit of fleeing fast enemy units, like heavy or light cavalry for those sweet, sweet extra casualties.
Wanted to say this too. Best used for that initial charge for any of the creatures with high charge bonus just before the collision. Can turn a disadvantageous fight into a win, an equal fight into a clear victory and a clear victory into a slaughter.
@@Welkor yes its perfect for when you want to close the distance fast to reach melee and avoid taking ranged fire, as well as hit hard in the charge, AND keep getting an extra melee advantage
Both Dance and Curse of Years are for cavalry duels in my opinion, which is one of the areas that Vampire Counts can really punish you. Vampire Count mobility is VERY strong and using these spells plus Nehek can really swing cavalry duels.
It's a cheap buff for bad units, the problem with him is he is all "Oh yeah, put it on your units who already have high attack and doesn't need the attack, anyways." Also it's one of the better spells to prok the passive with out spending a lot of winds and some times Invocation of Nehek is not worth on a unit that lost like 1-5 models mid fight. Some times your carts will end up cap healing zombies who aren't getting hit anymore and just letting your passive let their heals revive is rather nice.
Danse macabre is a really good spell for it's cost at least in campaign and especially at the start of the game for Ghorst. It can make your zombies actually kill stuff.
After a maxed out Ghorst you got zombies having like +40 attack which puts them in the normal range of attack, granted even with low damage, some damage is better then none
Danse Macabre is key to zombie/skeleton blob. So I wouldnt underestimate it. It also triggers the map-wide healing for lore of vampires with the cheapest casting cost. Fun fact - you can get it to costing zero casting points as Kemmler. Then it's beyond broken.
I thought someone lowed the coast but 0 winds? 1 wind would be strong but 0? I'ma have to try out Kemmler I basically never play counts out side of Zombie boy
Dance Macabre is a great spell, the speed bonus is to get your units into engagment range and and tear into them with 24 melee attack, it's cheapness also synergises well with lore of vamp passive, espeically with Helman Ghorst zombies with their regen and toughness
invocation of nehek can be used on regenerating units that are fully regenerated but missing models. it can bring back 2-3 monstrous infantry that will then regenerate to full. But yeah, niche case.
It's also a good emergency bail-out situation, when your big regenerating monster gets caught out in a bad position and is about to crumble you pop a fat heal on it so it doesn't die. Yes it reaches it's healing cap faster, but dead units don't have a healing cap so it's always a good option to have.
Thanks for the break down, observation on wind of death: Looks like it adds double the base damage (24 + 48) as non-armor piercing damage (72, 33% armor piercing). So 5 winds of magic to gain 48 base dmg
Dance Macabre is meant to be used on cavalry (or generally fast melee units), like Blood Knights for example. Since the speed increase is percentage based, it's more useful on units that are already fast. So what DM does is that it helps this kind of units reach the enemy even faster and with the increased melee damage + charge bonus, do more damage in a short amount of time.
The +cooldown abilities usually ADD the cooldown. So like when you hit a char, it increases any cooldowns by 15 and sets all their ready stuff on a 15s cooldown. Very hard to use, but if you say plop that on Grimgor just before he enters combat and pops all his CDs, you're gonna get serious value.
Lowering enemy damage output with curse of years > healing friendly damaged units with nehek because the healing cap exists. Factor in the +15 second cooldown to enemy lords & heroes: its then a better option over nehek if; being cast on a blob of infantry in melee with an enemy character in the mix (especially if that character just entered the fight) as they're usually about to spam all their character abilities.
Thanks for doing these types of Magic videos Zerk, I know they don't get a ton of views but I always enjoy them. Can't wait until the Chaos Dwarves update when well have a whole new Faction Army video to watch!
Jumping on the train of sticking up for dance macabre. In campaign especially its super great for skelly/zombie death stars it's the cheapest way of proccing the lore of vampires passive for the map wide heal and it hits all units in an area. Massively underrated to have 4 units × 160 zombie models which now have 40+ melee attack.
Curse of Years isn't really a spell you want to use defensively, but offensively. Its for dumpstering a high-priority target's ability to fight you, and then preventing them from running away as you gang up on them with your lords/monsters. Excellent for taking out heroes or SEMs before they can do any real damage.
I like dance macabre although I can see wanting to use magic elsewhere. I’m pretty sure curse of years put abilities on cooldowns, like if you put it on a spell caster they won’t be casting for 15 seconds, but I’m not completely dure
And you should ALWAYS use the overcast version, as it tripples the damage. Even if the damage added is non-ap, there are very few infantry units in the game that have enough armor to make this not worth it.
I like curse of years to help fast units and flankers to disengage to minimize the damage they take while disengaging and making it easier for them to get away and set up another charge. Good for crypt ghouls and Calvary that i don't want embroiled in melee for too long.
NEVER use the basic version of Winds of Death, it doesn't do enough damage to be worth the cost! Always overcast it, since it does 3x as much damage. And yes, even though the added damage doesn't pierce armor, there are very few infantry units in the game that have enough armor to make this not worth doing. You need around 100 armor for the damage reduction to make this a bad trade.
Curse of Years is situational, I typically use it on an enemy lord or hero or single entity; great for flying lords because if they wish to flee, they are slower. also nice to debuff the frontline if they are Greenskins, Khorne, Dark Elves, Wood Elves... anything that kills fast. Sure, you can always just heal or damage the enemy, but sometimes a debuff creates an opportunity vs an enemy that should run away when it happens, and it cannot cause of speed. If it was 2 winds of magic reduced, would be much better, so anything that reduces its cost is helpful
Dance Macabre is slept on, You don't use it on strong units with low model counter, you use it on low to mid tier units who have a ton of models. Like Wolves or zombies. When their damage is not big, a defense unit that can land damage is rather scary to roughly 4 winds of magic. Also good to prok vamp passive with out spending that much winds. One of the only buff spells I bother ever using, tbh. It's cheap and works great for the faction it's on.
Not sure if I agree on Danse Macabre. I can see how it is not THAT useful in multiplayer, but it works wonders on a blob for trash melee in campaign. Quite cheap even overcasted. There are better buffs but this one is quite good.
Curse of years is great for vampire coast, slowing down enemies to let your gunpowder units have more time to shoot them Raise dead coast version is awesome. Basic version is basically the same but overcast gives the pistol guys which deals pretty good damage
it's crazy how they nerfed Winds of Death. Back in game 2, it could obliterate dozen of units if aimed right. I remember battles where my vampire lords could have 1K, 2K or even 3K kills easily with it
I was worried you would go through the more widely spread magic lores before getting to this one. Vampire Counts are my favorite faction both in lore and Total War (Vlad is the rightful Emperor, fight me) so this coming out today made my day. Thank you!
Blood Knights would be brutal anti-large if they had armor piercing. they're decent as they are...but in a faction lacking anti-large options, they don't cut the mustard. also wind of death works well when they blob against your blob, so a "line" isn't super necessary. thing to look for in that situation is how many units are stacked in into the area. the area of the spell seems to be much wider when overcast than shown by the indicator from what I can tell of the actual damaged area as it passes (its like 25%-50% wider than the tooltip shows).
Speed and melee buffs/debuffs aren't useless imo. You need the speed to catch enemies in order to melee attack. It's a 30s buff that costs 4 winds for dance. I get that you usually want to save winds for healing but if I can use this to position some of my faster units to maximize their damage, then yeah its a good use of magic.
The invok of nehek is significantly higher value, if you consider the passive from the lore, that heals (and resurects) 0.05%/ sec for 7 sec in a large area, so you can use a single nehek on the main frontline, while the other lesser losses are also healed and resurected back by the passive procs (same goes for single use dance macabre for only 4 wind, etc.
If you reduce cooldown it will add that even if it's not already on cooldown, as far as I have seen (items), should be easy enough to test with a second person. Could be nice if you want to stop an enemy lord or hero from using powerful items, abilities, or spells at a critical time?
Thx for the breakdown! Just a few cents from my side in addition what you brought up Lore of vampires is by far the most flexible lore of them all - a few remarks on my own: - wind of death -> VC are perfect for bogging down enemies; always overcast this spell to annihilate their infantry (melee or archer) formations when they are stuck with your frontline. Its while weaker in wh3 its absolutely brutal. Dont bother with monstrous infantry or single entities. There is another trick - more below - dance macabre -> its a two in one spell so it gives more flexibility while a lore only has 5 spells. The speed is useful for running down enemies (hounds!!) or make your frontline clash sooner with the enemy. The melee attack is good for the grind feast while you are locked down For most optimal use, use it on a charging unit (speed affects charge bonus) and leave the chargers in melee for a bit -> curse of years -> its the opposite of dance macabre and certainly useful in some fights. It cannot be overcast while always being aeo That is an advantage or disadvantage depending on the situation. If there is a dangerous unit charging your flanks its a bit wasteful to cast it on a single unit But nonetheless its aspect of lowering melee attack is really useful where wind of death cannot be used anymore because the enemy either has no infantry on the field anymore or no real on in the roster at all (like ogres). In those fights you can support your troops during the grind with a combination of coy and dance m. and give them the edge where they need it! And here the aoe effect is a blessing because that helps your frontline immensely Try it out - you really may be surprised And tbh its really easy to get 100 winds of magic in each fight. Just channel 1 turn in each province and you are good to go - VC need that juice, so try not to enter fights without enough wom!
I thought Speed effected your Charge Bonus? I was under the impression that the idea was to use Danse Macabre on your Blood Knights or Vargeists right as they're charging in, and to use Curse of Years on enemy cavalry and monsters as they're charging into you.
i love wind of death especially in siege battles, it travels a lot further than most wind spells so you can bounce it off walls and hit so much with it
Wind of Death is also real good to use when the enemy blobs on front of the gate as you break in. Shoot it through, bounch it off the walls and back on for a double dose. Don't know of they fixed that on warhammer 3 but it was my favourite thing to do back then.
The Vampire Coast having unique access to the Gunnery Mob summon was worth highlighting since they're the only faction with a generic ranged summon spell.
Gaze of Nagash is terrible though: the damage is lackluster and the projectiles can oftentimes whiff through even the most massive of enemies. As shown in the video itself.
Y'know, if they wanted to make Curse of Years actually _USEFUL,_ as well as keeping it thematic, I reckon it should have an overcast version that _lowers_ enemy Vigor over the course of it's duration, say at a rate of 1% per second. As anyone who's been playing the game for a while probably already knows, Vigor loss is actually a VERY underrated debuff, one that can seriously impact a unit's overall performance in the late game... having a spell that could push enemies into that "Exhausted" bracket sooner would tie in very nicely to the Count's overall game plan, which is really just all about dragging your opponents down through sheer attrition... least, that's how I would implement it! Thoughts..? *Edit* - seriously, f*ck off bots
I have to say though. When using Zombie spam and stacking up, I sometimes use Vanhel's Dance Macabre to have the zombies actually hit something. Assuming I know I am good on winds of magic and can afford to speed up the combat slightly. Of course Wind of Death is prioritized but not always a good spending of Winds of Magic.
Winds of death bounces off walls so in sieges/city battles you can make it bounce repeatedly over the same few units and 100 > 0 like 3 or 4 units if they are stacked with 1 single cast.
What I think is always lacking in these things are the passives. I think I remember the passive healing 1%, which armywide makes it a potential 20% heal. More then invocation of nehek itself heals.
Wind of Death looks like a faster moving, maybe shorter distance burning head. If Burning head is a useful spell then Wind of Death should be equally useful. I would think Danse Macabre would be useful on chaff vs chaff, so that the VC chaff would actually beat up enemy chaff and survive in big enough numbers to go be annoying elsewhere. How about a who's da best chaff fight using the cheapest combat buff spell in each lore book?
Did the passive get removed in WH3? Because I didn’t hear anything about it. It’s kinda of a big deal in WH2. It completely changes the way I view Dance Macabre, for example. For four winds, you get a map wide regeneration AND resurrection (albeit weak)… and an okay buff to one unit.
IMO you did Vanhel's Danse Macabre dirty in this video. "Can't use both effects at the same time" is not true for Blood Knights, Dire Wolves, Fell Bats, Vargheists, Hexwraiths, Black Knights... basically any unit with speed above the enemy infantry on the field can use both effects at the same time when running them down or charging. And even if fast units are in prolonged melee, if you applied the spell before engaging, they used the speed to engage faster and hit more often when they engaged. If you compare this buff spell with others in the game this is actually one of the best ones there is - and cheaper than any that come close (like Birona's Timewarp). One thing you will also notice for VC units is they have quite low melee attack compared other factions (especially the ethereal units) to balance for their heavy regeneration powers from magic, so this spell is perfect for improving that aspect of themselves. Another thing is the spell is the cheapest in the lore, which means it's the go to spell for triggering the regeneration passive.
I would of liked a comment on if you think the passive is worth procing more often vs overcasts. IE does the passive justify more often and lower impact spells.
One time I was fighting a Vampire army as the Empire. I believe it was one of Karl's quest battles as a matter of fact. Anyway, part of my strategy was to use my pistoliers to soften the enemy's Hexwraiths who were just a little slower than my pistoliers. When I tried that part of the plan in action, the wraiths were actually able to catch up. As it turned out, the AI army used Vanhel's Macabre on the wraiths so that they could catch up with the skirmish units. A clever use of the spell, particularly by the AI.
I've had this game since release but only started playing it and came across Skaragg very early on as Katarina about turn 24 and he had 3 Gorger units that ripped my army apart and I shot the absolute shit out of them. I then replayed the battle on Normal even Easy battle difficulty and they still did so much fucking damage it was ridiculous. The rest of the army is pretty weak but they seem very unbalanced and this was an army that only had 18/24 of them due to a previous battle.
Just click on the button again to overcast. Backfire damage is almost never an issue, especially since the Spell comes out regardless and mages rarely fight anyway, and they will likely have fled if they had a few hundred HP left and were at risk of dying to a backfire.
its per caster. And since you easily get Necromancers, having a couple of them in your army is quite easy to get. The most value it brings, though, is to drop them on enemy archers. Sadly, Necromancers don't get flying mounts, and are as such less useful for that usecase.
WoD is goat on single player, you got flying character with lore of vampires and you are fighting enemy with reinforcements? Zig-zag to the reinforcement place, few secons before they deploy drop down a zombie and as they all goon up on the zombies in a nice blob you give 'em the blood fart. Mannfred campaign is easy as is but it is definately fun as hell to just blow all those tomb kings and ratmen who come in thousands into the battle. Obviously the cheese of stacking low tier cheap infantry in a ball somewhere with mrotis engine while WoDing the enemies who gather around is still a thing but not for lactose intolerant. Also something I've done way less in WH3 with better melee infantry and cavalry.
I'll never understand how they gave arkhan lore of death and not of vampires; MORTAL necromancers have it. It even has a spell with nagash in its name. this is ridiculous
£12.99 it was for a Chaos pack that should have already been in the game so a full New race pack must be double so that is probably more like £24.99/$30. I only bought packs I wanted in WH2 that interested me. I don't like playing as Chaos, Daemons or beasts so always skipped them and one Lizard/Skaven DLC. However I really like Dwarves and I think Chaos Dwarves could be really cool. I know nothing of WH lore but I'm expecting something cool. Hopefully we get more than 3 RoR like the base WH3 Lazy fucking CA.
