| I'm a particular fan of Skull Trap (mage lvl 3) and Glyph of Warding (Cleric lvl 3) when dealing with hordes. Find bottle-neck area and load them with skulls and glyphs, leaving a path for your scout to get by. Then send out a hasted (or boots of speed) scout to darw in the crowds. He slips by all the traps, then angles over behind them so the pursuing monsters change their path to walk right through the minefield (instead of the path you left open).
I used this method on the bridges in the underground area of the Burial Isle in HOW. It beat up the barrow wights and drowned dead enough that the first waive was normally dead, and the second waive was seriously hurting. Each skull packs the same punch as a fireball, so you can imagine the carnage inflicted when a group of baddies walks into 3 or 4 succesively.
Skull Trap is one of my favorite spells. My mage tosses them into groups like it's a grenade. It's got a smaller area of effect so it works in closer quarters than fireball. There is no way to protect from it though, so it takes some practice to get the range where it blows up the backs of your enemies while missing the front of your allies.
Sometimes the monsters will miss a skull trap or glyph and you're left with a land mine to negotiate. This is easily remedied by summoning a monster right on top of the trap.  |