Commander Spells
From Savage 2 Strategy Wiki
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Commander Spells, Buffs and Debuffs
As commander and caretaker of your team, you're provided with a variety of spells that allow you to heal and assist your team, as well as damage and debuff the enemy team. The following are descriptions for all of the buffs commanders have access to.
All buffs require mana to cast, and have a cooldown period after casting before you can apply the buff again.
Heal
This spell will replenish some of the health of a single teammate. Once the spell is selected, click on the teammate to cast.
- This spell takes a small period of time to replenish a teammate's health, and thus should be used when that teammate can survive for a few seconds. If the player is a hit away from death, it's very likely that you could waste the spell if enemies are nearby.
- Can be used to reward teammates who complete an objective at the expense of most of their health. This is especially true for teammates who you'd ordinarily have to plead with to get them to cooperate (usually ones concerned with their kill/death ratio or hate waiting for respawn times).
- Can be used pretty frequently with a low mana cost - is certainly a staple spell.
Centurion Armor
This buff will temporarily increase the armor of a group of teammates. With the buff selected, click in the center of an area with teammates within the buff radius indicator. Teammates that will be affected will be highlighted before you apply the buff.
- One of the best uses for this spell is for when a group of teammates is close enough to a group of enemies to be targeted by ranged weapons but not close enough for melee attacks.
- It's important to use this on more than just one or two teammates who are being fired upon, as you need to make the most use of the high mana cost to make the spell worthwhile.
Speed Boost
This buff allows you to temporarily provide a speed boost to a single teammate. With the buff selected, click a teammate to apply the buff.
- Especially useful for helping officers travel the map to assault targets and place spawn portals.
- Can be used to help teammates chase down enemies who are fleeing or moving to attack your base.
Dispel
This spell removes all positive (buffs) and negative (debuffs) effects from any units within a small area. To use this spell, select it from the list of commander buffs and then click in center of an area that you'd like to affect.
- Great for revealing stealthed scouts and polymorphed shapeshifters. If you find that you're being repeatedly assaulted by enemies trying to sneak into your base, you may want to ignore other potential targets and keep dispel available exclusively to prevent enemies from attacking your base.
- It's important to make sure to know how your enemy plans to use their debuffs. They may lay down a lesser debuff in order to bait you into using dispel before using their intended debuff, causing you to be unable to assist your teammate(s).
- You may want to consider targeting players who have a series of buffs or debuffs stacked on them and target them with your dispel. This way, you thwart as much of the enemy commander's effort and spent mana as possible, using a single spell with a low cooldown and mana cost (lifeleak/cripple and heal/speed boost are good candidates for this).
Life Leak
This debuff causes an enemy unit to slowly lose health over a short period of time. Units affected by this debuff will be unable to use abilities whose cooldowns reset on damage, and will award a kill to the commander if the unit dies as a result of the health loss. To apply this buff, select it and then click on an enemy unit.
- Great for picking off stragglers who run from teammates to avoid death.
- Can soften up enemies who are attacking your base.
- Can help kill enemies who are busy clearing NPCs at mines.
- Prevents players from using abilities whose cooldowns reset on damage (such as the officer spawn portal).
Piercing Fear
This debuff allows the commander to temporarily reduce the armor of a group of enemy players, making them more susceptible to damage (particularly ranged damage). To cast, select the debuff and click in the center of a group of enemy units.
- One of the best uses for this spell is when a close group of enemy players is close enough to a group of teammates to be targeted by ranged weapons but far enough away to avoid melee.
- It's especially important to target a group of players, as it's not worth the mana investment on one or two enemies.
Cripple
This debuff significantly reduces the movement speed of a single enemy unit for a short period of time. To cast this debuff, select it and then click on an enemy player.
- Great for slowing down enemies who are attacking your base - if you're attacked frequently, you may want to just keep this spell available and ignore other targets to minimize the damage from base assaults.
- Can be used to slow scouts, stop enemies from escaping, and prevent support from reaching the enemy.
Resurrect
This spell allows the commander to bring a recently fallen teammate back to life. To use this spell, select it and then click on a teammate's corpse. Only corpses with a "revive" icon shown above them can be resurrected.
- It's important to use this spell only when the target is away from enemies - the revived player can't defend themselves until the revive animation completes.
- Great for reviving officers who can place spawn portals for their squad.
Recall
This spell allows the commander to call a teammate back to their stronghold/lair or a garrison/sublair. To cast this spell, select it from the list and click on a teammate.
- A particularly effective strategy for this spell is to have an officer in a fast class such as a scout or shapeshifter quickly sneak up to a backdoor location to lay down a spawn portal, then be recalled by the commander. That player can then change their class to a builder or conjurer and quickly build a sub-lair or garrison. Teammates can also use the spawn portal to defend or assist with construction.
- Especially useful for calling back a teammate to defend the team's base or expansions.
- Can be used to call back teammates who've completed a task such as destroying an expansion but are far away from their next objective (recall to respawn at a much closer spawn location).
Reveal
This spell allows the commander to clear the fog of war in a large area for a short period of time. To reveal an area, select the spell and then click in the center of the area that you wish to view.
- Particularly effective for revealing sneak attacks and backdoor garrisons and sub-lairs.
- Can be used to keep tabs on scars to prevent enemy hell shrines.
- Should not be used to replace competent use of electric eyes and eyes of the bat.
