Talk:Fey/@comment-75.185.190.52-20140302045340/@comment-5395153-20140302160239

Gemcutting synergy is great but I question the usefulness of the magic compared to a Merchant's access to Wealth and natural Merchant skill.

I'd think Illusion doesn't have the most useful spells ever. That said, a large conversion radius thanks to high Charisma would fix a lot of it. I can see Awe and Dragonfear being used very well, but Scare won't really do very much unless the player is for some reason using a melee-dominant army. Sort of mixed usefulness in that sphere to me (but only with a high conversion radius otherwise the hero would have to go close to the enemy and would be slaughtered by missiles before being capable of even using Awe).

Ice Magic has almost the same effectiveness and ability regardless of which race is chosen. All Ice Magic would really add to the arsenal are some damage spells and Ice Floe. No idea whether a thunderstorm powers Electrical attacks up or whether it raises their combat or not but if it does, that could be abused with Lightning Hawks. Many of the other spells are somewhat misplaced, ineffective and directly outclassed (Ice Armour, Calm, Freeze, Wall of Ice and Freeze Magic for example).

I can't see Arcane Magic doing very much at all really. Most of it just powers up spells for a large amount of mana, and the spells in Illusion and Ice Magic don't often require a power up. Illusion stuff mostly just gives opponents negative effects which can't be boosted anyway so Arcane is a bit of a dodgy spell sphere to invest in for a Fey Ice Mage. In any case, I don't see a reason why a Fey Ice Mage would invest points in Arcane past Corruption really. Dispel is almost as rarely used as See Invisible (and it also costs a fortune to cast as well), Mana Leech is pointless for nearly any wizard, Empower is extremely expensive and can't really enhance Illusion very well and Destruction will be doing a maximum of around 249 damage on a good day (let alone the danger of walking around with 1HP, so I'd imagine a health potion would have to be used the moment after. Pretty good for an Alchemist which can brew said potions or anyone with Healing magic, but usually not so good for everyone else).

Overall I think the Fey Ice Mage is worth mentioning as an alternative to the Merchant if access to spells and an increased hero complexity is desired. I think it's certainly usable but may require some good judgement when placing skill points.