[1.02][Bug/Balance] Shadowbolt Not Resistable?

The idea of shadowbolt is to do some damage and set up an enemy for a whole world of hurt if they have some spell resistance.  It can only be used every other turn, which limits its usefulness,  I'd say that it's a fair trade-off considering that the Death magic doesn't give you any way to heal your troops, Heal being a Life spell with no cooldown and there being no way to stop it apart from the usual 'shoot the healer first' method.

Wildling Shamans typically have the Shadowbolt spell and considering the ease with which you can dispatch them when you have archers, it's fair that they get to throw a spell at you which isn't resistable and sets up Blindness.

What's the point of a spell that decreases resistance that is resistible?

It does like half as much damage as flame dart too. I'd say it's good design.

This.

Making a spell which gives you a way to deal with unit with high spell resistance, and then making it not work on those same targets would be a mistake (imo).  If shadowbolt was to good I would lower the damage or the amount of spell resistance it lowers, I wouldn't make it resistable (and I dont think it need to be nerfed).

My reasoning is that spell resist is usually pretty hard to come by, so to be able to able to lower it by 5 (which is often >25%) without a resist check seems a bit awkward to me.

 But I do see your point.

The debuff of Spell Resist does wear off fairly quickly, depending of course on how quickly the other player gets their turns (I think).  Typically when I do play Empire, I need to get my debuff or damage spell in there next turn or the Shadowbolt is wasted.

Eh?  The effect has a duration of -1, meaning it lasts the whole battle.

It's useless to be honest....

I've never felt that shadowbolt was broken, and the reduced resist and unresistable gives it some flavor so it's not just a "Death" Firebolt.

i'd keep an eye on it balance-wise in case it becomse a problem.

Compared to firebolt (or is it firedart?); it does less damage, BUT it does the exact amount of damage always.  if shadowbolt says 20, it does 20.  Whereas most damage spells do their listed amount to half that amount at random, just like attacks do.

That's what happens when a damage spell is resisted. Most of the time damage spells has conditions where if it got resisted it still does half damage instead of nothing. Something that can easily be used to reduce the effectiveness of one part of shadowbolt (maybe if you resist you don't lose mres, or maybe you still lose it, but take less damage). Of course I don't think it's that bad at all, so I'm fine with it being left alone.

If you want to see an OP spell, you should really check out sunder. A good hero/sovereign will probably 2 hit most of the wildland bosses with that spell. It only works on elementals... but there's so many to use it on.

Its actually near-useless for a mage.

Flame dart is better all the time. In fact, two flame darts are ALWAYS better than shadowbolt + anything for single target.  Keep in mind that with high mastery, you will not get much deviation when casting your spells. My flamedarts hit for 250+ damage and up to 280 or 290 at high level. My shadowbolt is around half or less.

The only use for it, is against magic immune creatures.

On the LH board you'll notice the many recommendations to make something other flame-dart useful as there no reason to cast any other spell in combat besides perhaps a certain aoe. All other single target damage have terrible damage and terrilbe damage to mana ratios.