Re: phenix pyre
 

Soul drain does have a very high casting cost, and you need troops surrounding you, so it is only situational. Or you need very tough fast close combat units. (Like reverse sabbathed wereform skrattir, with all the other nature boosts also activated).

Re: phenix pyre
 

You are thinking of soul vortex. Soul drain is quite another beast - a battlefield-wide enchantment. It also requires an uncommon path combination (3S3D).

Re: phenix pyre
 

Hmm, does any SC chassis have access to that path combination besides Pretenders?

Re: phenix pyre
 

Lucky tartarians.
Ether Lords (more a high-end thug, but anything with Soul Drain can act an awful lot like an SC).

Anything else?

Re: phenix pyre
 

Illithid mages, but they're not really SC material.

Re: phenix pyre
 

Ether Lords are the main one, and I'd consider them a light SC more than a high-end thug regardless. That said, Soul Vortex is broader, and also has some pretty nice used - Wraith Lords, for instance.

Re: phenix pyre
 

Ether Lords don't get fire though, so you can't take advantage of near infinite reinvigoration Phoenix Pyre, and you'll end up magic dueled to death.

Which I guess leaves really lucky Tarts or a pretender. Too bad, it sounds amusingly powerful.

Re: phenix pyre
 

I once got a Tartarian Titan (male) with fire, astral, and death... But that's one Tartarian out of many games.

For all practical purposes, to get a Phoenix Pyre/Soul Drain killer commander you need either to design your pretender to be capable of it or to take up empowering big time.

It is really a niche use, even in CBM, which made Soul Drain considerably easier to cast.

And without some sort of native reinvigoration, it can easily be countered by deploying only lifeless units.

But when you have an immortal pretender with multiple strong magic paths defending his own dominion against the invading forces of the three other remaining nations in the game, it can be a game changer if you hold it in reserve while forcing your enemies to concentrate their forces and then spring it as a surprise. :D

Re: phenix pyre
 

is it like soul vortex where it keeps going or is it a one-time cast. The wiki makes it look like a one-time cast, not a buff.

Re: phenix pyre
 

Doh. Thanks!

On the path requirements. If the sc has astral, you can probably reverse commune the phoenix pyre onto it. Just give the fire mage a matrix. (as you want earth+astral access in the endgame anyway).