How does a Cat Bandit size up to a Pteranodon? What does he have against a Storm Elemental? What makes a Draconian better than a Fire Elemental, or an Ice Colossus better than an Icehorn?
I reset my training points, Happy Birthday, and I'd rather not waste points on Polymorphs that will stop being useful after I get something better. Especially if it isn't even a prerequisite, like in the case of the "secret" Elementals and the Azteca Polymorphs.
Should I spend any training points in the Portico, or no?
Polymorphs seems like a good school to go into at first, but honestly why train in spells that take away some of your stats for 6 rounds?
I suggest you take up the sun school instead. It boosts your spell's damage and healing abilities. And the Azteca spells give sharpen blades, which is great for blade stacking!
I'll compare the Cat with the Storm Elemental first. According to the Wiki, the Cat Bandit has 20% Storm Damage and ~150 Storm Critical (I have no idea how much that is as a percent or if your level affects the percentage), while the Storm Elemental has 40% Storm Damage, ~15% Storm Accuracy apparently, and only ~45 Critical (definitely low). Defensively, they both have 2500 Health, and boost damage from Myth and Life. The Cat Bandit boosts only by 20% though, while the Storm Elemental boosts by 40%. The Cat Bandit seems not to resist anything, while the Storm Elemental has an amazing 80% Storm Resist. When it comes to spells, they're both about the same. The Cat Bandit has a 4-pip spell similar to Brimstone Revenant and Keeper of the Flame, 320 Storm Damage with a 25% Storm Trap. It also has a replacement Kraken. Both spells have 100% accuracy, which stands out more considering these polymorphs are Storm. The Storm Elemental's natural attacks with 100% accuracy are a copy of Lightning Bats and Stormzilla, except with no randomness in the base damage. The Cat has Tempest, while the Elemental has Wild Bolt, so the Cat is probably a better choice.
Despite being from a later world, the Pteranodon doesn't have any recorded stat boosts. Not sure if they're just not mentioned or if it really doesn't have any. It doesn't mention the boost from Myth it receives, or if there's any from Life, and only resists 50% of Storm damage. It also has 2500 Health. It has both Tempest and Wild Bolt, as well as more damage buffs than the other two (including Feint!). Its only 100% accuracy natural attack has damage in the middle of Kraken's damage range, and gives a 10% Storm Spear. Catalan and Leviathan is also kinda ok here, especially with the extra damage buffs. If it does have inbuilt stats that the wiki just hasn't mentioned, then it's easily the best choice.
When it comes to resistances, the Draconian is similar to the Cat Bandit, while the Fire Elemental is alike its Storm cousin. They also have 2500 Health each. The Fire Elemental has 40% Fire Damage and ~90 Critical, while the Draconian has 15% Fire Damage and ~110 Critical. The Draconian has a pseudo-Hephaestus, as well as a weaker clone of Midnight Sprite. I've used this before, and the Draconian is good at stacking up buffs (bubble, Fireblade+Trap, and 20% Curse) and unleashing fury with its Firezilla cards. Yes, 4-pip Firezillas with Stormzilla's base damage. It also hilariously has Helephant, despite it being weaker and more expensive than Firezilla. The Draconian has no AoE hits, while the Fire Elemental does. Speaking of the Fire Elemental, while it doesn't have Firezilla, it has access to some pretty mean DoTs. It has a 100% accuracy natural attack that does 60+270 damage over 3 rounds for just 2 pips, and another one at 5 pips that puts Burning Rampage to shame (well, you can enchant Burning Rampage with damage enchants so nevermind).
The Colossus, according to the Wiki, has 40% Ice Damage and ~70 Critical. It has 80% Ice Resist, 20% Resist to everything but Fire and Myth (40% boost), and 3200 Health. In addition to your blade and trap, it gets Balefrost, two weak natural attacks, and Blizzard. I imagine it's nice for being a tank, but then you unmorph and promptly get messed up. The Icehorn has 4000 Health, but it only keeps the Ice Resist (it also apparently doesn't boost Myth?). The Icehorn plays more of a support role, trading Iceblade+Trap for Elemental Blade, Hex, and Bladestorm. It also has access to Tower+Legion+both tri-shields, Stun Block, and even Frozen Armor for a pseudo-heal. It has a prototype of Angry Snowpig, Fomori, and Frostbite. Definitely much better.
Ultimately, however, I've found that polymorphs are only worth it until you're high enough level to actually train them, as they replace your stats with something usually much worse.
I LOVE polymorph spells, at least in theory. In practice however, they're very underwhelming, especially at higher levels. At level 58 polymorphs can still be a fun and viable to go about pvp and pve, however seeing as the stats of polymorphing are static, the spells are a deathwish at higher levels.
Instead of polymorphing into what's essentially a player controlled mob with obsolete stats, I wish the stats of a polymorph could scale with the player's own level and stats. For example:
If someone wants to use polymorph bandit, I think instead of getting static stats, their stats ought to be derived from their existing stats. Maybe it would look something like
As Polymorphed: Max health is reduced to 85% of the player's maximum Storm damage becomes 20% higher than the player's previous highest damage value Resistances are dropped by 5% from the player's normal resistances Critical becomes 25% higher than the player's previous highest critical rating Block becomes 10% lower
These numbers are all just spitballing, but the bigger picture is scaling polymorph spells that retain their usefulness late game. Say for example a life player is all alone in polaris, It would be super cool for them to be able to polymorph into the bandit and take out a bunch of enemies with their powerful spells.
Or maybe a myth wizard in mirage is low on health, and uses polymorph treant to recover their health. I'd love for both of these scenarios to be possible, but it's sadly unrealistic given the current and obsolete systems of moon magics.
I love polymorphs but unfortunately they require allot of skill and timing to use in the later worlds of the game. It's definitely possible to use them but you have to know when. Once you get to Khrysalis shift spells become available, which are basically one round morphs that deal damage plus a secondary effect, such as a trap, a blade or a dot for example.
Polymorphs are kind of nice in a party even in the later worlds. I've been using them in a group and it's been fun. They kind of act like a weird gimmicky balance wizard. For example, if you're in a group and your hitter is a storm, you could polymorph into a storm polymorph and give some extra buffs to help them out.
Certain polymorphs also have special effects with their natural attacks. Draconian pretty much has a Hephaestus as a natural attack (damage and bubble) and also has an attack that throws a mini hex (20%.)
So polymorphs aren't entirely useless. You just need to plan ahead and have a healer handy in case you get one shot on accident. Because it does happen (even if you don't polymorph lol.)
I definitely agree that Polymorphs should scale, perhaps with the level of the Wizards that use them.
I also think they should avoid redundant Polymorphs (Cat Bandit, Storm Elemental, Pteranodon) especially when the lower level spells aren't even a prerequisite.
I'm just using the Storm Polymorphs as an example.
