Heavily Underrated Spells

There were many topics on The Best spell.
I wonder what do ye think is the most underrated spell?
Everyone likes finger of death and adores MM but most absolutely lose the brilliance of hold person and deatrh ward and chaotic commands...

[Tyresian]

One of the spells i love is glyph of warding. It's like a fireball for clerics

[jester1137]

sanctuary, that "fist of god" or whatever it is, better than fire ball as it doesn't damage your party, and repulse undead.

nothing like cornering a lich with lowered resistance with a sanctuaried cleric who is repulsing undead they just try to run away while they get nuked

alot of priest spells are really overlooked, I beat nalias keep with no mages at 9th-10th level, pretty easily. used right clerics are at LEAST offensively powerful, good ac prevents interupts. At higher levels, of course, obviously.

[Elebereth]

As a mage I'll have to argue that while Clerics are more offensivly powerful then some people give them credit for a mage used right is has more offensive power spell wise.

Abi-Dalzims Horrid Wilting is IMO the best offensive spell that can be casted regularly without removing the XP Cap. It ignores most defensive spells like Spell Trap/Spell Deflection. Although at a high level Clerics get some great spells like Earth Quake,Bolt of Glory,(A great spell) Finger of Death, Sunray,and Fire Storm. They still can't compete offensively IMO with Fireball(a classic) skull trap, Lightning Bolt,Incendiary Cloud,Flame Arrow,Sunfire,Chain Lightning, Disintegrate,Flesh to Stone, Delayed Blast Fireball,Prismatic Spray, and Death Fog.

As for the AC Stone skin prevents interuptions and well as most attacks. I'm not saying that Mages are better then clerics but when it comes to spell power mages clearly have the advantage. Clerics on the other hand can use spells like Righteous Magic/Holy Power that makes them pretty potent in Melee, which evens things out.

[jester1137]

also, clerics have more area of effect spells that DON'T damage the party.

Against undead it's not really a contest.

On the other hand, no cleric spell compares to a good old spell trigger loaded with magic missles for that guaranteed nock out.

For all the solos out there tho....just a question....seems a solo druid could use swarm spells to kite. Fire one off, chug an invis potion, let it run it's course, rinse and repeat.....just about perfect

[Ragusa]

At the beginning I mainly used traditional offensive combat magic - I really like cromatic orb, magic missile and skull-trap. Abi Dalzim´s horrid wilting is my fav spell to fight beholders where it deals out enormous damage quickly - and afaik it doesn´t affect own party members too

My fav magic-resistance-breaker for dragons is the combo of (a) pierce magic [lvl-6] and (b) double lower resistance [lvl-5] (in the lvl-8 sequencer), resulting in -71% magic resistance casted by a lvl-17 mage. I used it in Sundalessalar with great success.

For rarer spell combos and spells: Having Aerie in my party I frequently used the the minor sequencer, combining cleric and mage spells in a single attack. Here I found various combinations of the following low-level spells very useful:
lvl-1 cleric spell damnation (?!); blindness; ray of enfeeblement; deafness; hold person, silence.
My favs here: Silence + deafness as a magic knockout for enemy spellcasters. Blindness + ray of enfeeblement are great for enemy tanks.

Nice druid/ cleric spells are: creeping death, insect plague, summon insects, glyphe of warding, miscast magic, poisoning and others.

I haven´t yet tried out many mind affecting spells, but I like emotion, spook (lvl-1), terror (lvl-2 mage), confusion and - the best of all - chaos. I rarely use the domination spells, if so, I cast from scroll.

I almost never use summoning spells - a question of greed: *I* want all the XP

I like conjure earth elemental for the druid. Its funny to watch it beat up everyone