Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Let's review the basics here:

Dust to Dust deals physical NON-MAGICAL damage to undead creatures. Etherealness protects against non-magical damage, ergo Dust to Dust cast against a GK misses totally 75% of the time. So only 25% of DtD will hit at all and deal varying amounts of damage. Read the spell description, it says DtD causes damage against undead, but rarely affects ethereal undead creatures.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Dust to Dust, Description:

The Mage destroys undead beings by unraveling the magic that holds them together. The Spell affects all undead in a small area. Neither magic resistence nor armor offer any protection from this spell.

Thats all there to read. I wonder why you have a different Description?

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

That sounds like the description for Maggots.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Hmm, I must have confused that with Wither Bones. My mistake. Hard to check since I don't have Dom3 at work. Sorry. Still, it could be that it deals non-magical damage, in which case ethereality would protect against it. I don't know.

EDIT: Or confused it with maggots. Which spell affected demons? Was it maggots or something else?

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

I thought Maggots was especially for undead. Dunno about Wither Bones.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

AFAIK neither maggots nor wither bones nor dust to dust affect demons

(edit)
Oh, unless it's changed since Doms2 dust to dust almost certainly doesn't do physical damage. I remember well an AI caster zapping a square of 6 shade hounds with the spell and killing them all outright. That would be extremely unlikely to happen if there was only a 1/4 chance of each hound being affected.

Not sure why we're talking about dust-to-dust here though. The gorgon isn't undead is she?

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

No, but she could use that spell against undead pretenders that would be good to kill her.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Ok, in my current game where my friend resigned in late winter of year 7, I had a situation with marigon attacking me with a huge army. 471 castle bought troops and 18 commanders, many of which cast paralyze(an overpowered spell that needs a nerf). they were about to storm the giant's capitol that i had captured earlier.

Flew my gorgon there just in time. I had dom 8 in the square, and had both gift of health and haunted forest up.

The Gorgon had 144 hps, regenerated 29 hps a turn, 28 ac, 12 revig, 31 defense, 26 mr, 100 percent resistance to poison, fire, lightning, 50 percent resist to cold.

ember, barrier shield, lightning helm, silver hauberk, boots antaues, krupps bracer, ring regeneration, scripted,summon earthpower, mistform, mirror image, fire shield, and iron will, attack closest.

Of course right off the bat i get paralyzed. But my regen unbuffed was still 27 a turn, and despite my defense being zero, the gorgon was never hurt badly, she petrified all of the calvary that got to her, crossbow bolts fell harmlessly around her. She won the fight against 471 troops 18 commanders with ease, despite being paralyzed.

of course a few bane lords with wraith swords, and she would have died. But this is a perfect example of how a flying gorgon can pick her fights, and beat down a huge army late in the game that is not tailor made to kill her.

most scs, being paralyzed, would have died. But against mr 10 armies, the gorgon killed them before they could hurt her.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

your opponent was stupid for not preparing for the possiblity of a gorgon, if he knew you had one.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

he is not a die hard Dom III player. He has played many times, but he plays wow more than any other game.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Wonder what this thread should achieve...higher design point cost simlar to VQ? If you convience enough people Gorgon is extremely strong we maybe can see this in a next patch.

Actually i would have no problem with that, why VQ lost ethereal and cost 175 design points and Gorgon still rambles around? While there are possiblities to kill her it seems just that petrification is too much overall as an ablitiy. It even works on magic res16 units, some people should have a look how high national troops magic res is! So what can be done is to make Gorgon cost more or nerf that petrify ability. Or restore old power of VQ.

Makes me also a bit wonder why you exclude immortal Pretenders in your games, but not Gorgon, i find the Gorgon more brutal overall. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

It could well already be toned down in the Conceptual Balance Mod.

I kinda doubt that the devs will turn their attention to balance changes in the patches. So far it hasn't been a priority for them.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Conceptual Balance Mod is great for its purpose. Its a collaborative effort by veteran players and has been an ongoing project since early in Dom2 days. It seeks to balance the nations for competitive player-vs-player play in small quick blitz games.

When many small fast games are played, imbalances can be quickly found and abused that would ruin the game when they wouldnt be a big deal on larger and more fun-style play. Everyone uses mods to alter the game abit when it gets stale. The CB mod is most likely the singular mod keeping blitz games interesting for veteran players.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

yeah, this isn't an MMORPG, the devs let the players decide what is balanced.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Why? Because it can be used to beat a gorgon? If paralyze is overpowered, what about spells that offer no MR save?

You should try playing with people who know Dom3 as well as, or better, than you, and see if the gorgon still seems as good. I see no need for a nerf.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Yeah, I don't play Mp myself so I'm hardly a top strategist, but expecting the gorgon I'd include a high-mr thug or two with heavily damaging weapons in every army fighting in your dominion, maybe script a few 'horror mark' spells as well and try to dispell gift of health on top of that.

(edit), sorry forgot to read page 5 before replying! This is in reference to the battle vs 18 commanders 400-odd troops referenced there

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Unlike immortal pretenders, if you kill the gorgon, even in her own dominion, she is dead.

And she is, with 30 hps, limited to her own dominion. Her point cost is already a bit steep with a starting dom of only 2, and 80 points for a new path, effectively limiting her to 1 additional path, and that at a fairly high cost given Pangaea gets zero free design points from weather scale.

And a god with a high fire shield and regen, with more hps, likely could have survived the fight paralyzed as well. Dom 8, haunted forest, gift of health, and 4 unique artifacts are a pretty big boost for any sc pretender.

As for mp games, I have time for them. But i typically like to play bigger maps and the games go on for a long time. With real life friends, we can schedule play sessions for 5-6 hours and get in many many turns in 1 day. If you have a game with 10 humans, it would markedly change the strategy a player could use, but the game would also go much slower, with turns being harder to coordinate.

I have played dominions II for years, so I am not sure that there are many players that have played the game more. Though, i have not even tried to play EA or LA, or many of the new races. Playing a race i am familiar with, on the bigger maps i like, i doubt i would experience many new surprises. Though i agree when you play against the same people over and over, their strategies become predictable.

But I would be glad to join a game MA, on a 250-275 province map, with 3-4 humans and the rest AI races. And, I do not think the gorgon is unbeatable, btw. As i said in another thread if winning was the only goal, id play MA acrosphale, using astral mages, elephants, and double blessed heart companions, and mid game, wrath of gods.

Mostly, I just enjoy playing MA Pangaea, and the gorgon.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Slipping in a well armored thug with some of those special bows seems to always help. Like the one that does 999 damage, or the one that does madness so the target loses their magic. Or disease. A few attacks with fire and retreat will usually get a hit in. Of ocurse you might have to insure there is enough sword-fodder on the field for distraction but it does tend to work as a tactic for taking a big boy down a notch.

Sometimes add flying boots with the 3rd scripted command being a straight attack so you can jump in close.

If he leaves slots open you can always try suicide bombers to try and slip him something debilitating.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

I do not leave slots open, and the silver hauberk prevents arrows from hitting my SC. With low hp, the Gorgon would be toast if hit by a volley of crossbolts. That is the main reason i take 3 air with the gorgon.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

A bunch of astral-2 mages? Be glad he didn't give one two gems and orders to cast Light of the northern star, with the rest spamming soul slay http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Yes, even if you have high MR, like 24+, if you have a dozen astral mages casting soul slay. One of them will get lucky sooner or later and take out your SC. I know, its happened to me more than once and they both had troops with them!

Is it me or do spells like paralyze, soul slay etc...seem to have a greater chance of targeting larger tagets, size 4 and above? Or is it because they are at the front of the battlefield slaying the opposition?

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Or Horror Mark?

Longer term damage, but...

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

yeah the AI aims for bigger targets (when in range) with 100 accuracy spells.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

I think paralyze is a bit overpowered. It takes 2 astral magic to cast, is only a 4th level spell, and it can basically take a top notch troop or a sc out of combat for 25 rounds?

And it is free to cast? What spell does nature get that is comparable? Vine arrow? At level 7 you get charm, but that is way further down the line and takes 3 nature to cast.

Acrosphale with about 15 of those level 3-4 astral mages all spamming paralyze, soul slay, and enslave mind, sitting in a castle can be a bit much. Though a few blade winds can end that spam in a hurry.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

So, what's the problem then?

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

I think the duration of paralyze is the problem. I can see 3-4 rounds of combat, but not 20-30.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Nature has Sleep. 100+ fatigue is pretty much equal to paralyze, and it's lower in research. Precision is not 100, but Eagle Eyes helps with that.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

However if you play Marverni you can script stoneskin or ironskin or invulnerabilty first then spam paralyze. You then laugh at bladewind. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

However, I personally think paralyze is perfectly fine as it is.

Shadowblast paralyzes as well btw and inflicts serious amounts of damage, of course its low precision.

Everything has its pros and cons in Dominions.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

I've seen paralysis last anywhere from 1 to 27 rounds, so it's not as if it always puts the target in ice for half the combat. You were asking the question earlier about how to take down a gorgon, now that this viable tactic is offered, suddenly it needs a nerf? Why?

Dom3 is a rock-paper-scissors type of game so that everything does not need to be equally balanced against everything else.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

the other thing about paralyze is its range, its 100 precision, coupled with the ability to paralyze for 30 plus turns. And they stack. If you have a unit paralyzed for 7 turns and he gets hit again he can be paralyzed for 25 more.

It just seems a bit out of whack for a 2 astral spell you can get fairly early and has no gem cost. I think it is a good equalizer for scs, but it would be fine with a cap of like 5 turns per cast.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

As to the suggestion that he should have had one of his mages cast a spell that cost gems, sometimes when you fight 3-4 fights to get to a key battle, you mages have wasted all of the gems you give them.

Say you want a nature mage to cast mass protection, but no other spell that used gems. Unless there is a command i do not know of, typically the mage will waste all of the gems he has casting spells like swarm etc.

I guess one answer could be to give nature games to another commander, and ration the gems to a nature spellcaster, but if you hate micro managing, then that would be a pain.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

Keeping gems on a scout is a good idea.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

It would be nice if a mage would only use gems to cast if you script that spell to be cast. Would save a good bit of hassle.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

60 avalon knights can handle her. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif If man manage to have gift of health active and not panagea so gorgon has no additonal hp she can quickly die against mulitple good units. Or maybe just units with good att and damage with good res lots of AP and blessed with an astral bless plus anti magic spell affecting whole battlefied. Should deal with the situation too. Problem is, she has always a good chance to escape as flyer.

I played a Gorgon yesterday and a friend just had 20 avalon knights and like 100 longbows attacked with single gorgon and dominionI in that province(positive for me) she killed all avalon knights and she managed to fly away with just 1hp left, surprisingly she was even wounded with air shield, mistform, invulneriblity, mirror image, personal regeneration up, and longbowmen did the damage not avalon knights, they quickly died, however in another testgame 60 of them could kill her. Probably anything with good stats and magic res and flying can kill her too.

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

It seems to me that some of the posts in this thread assume conditions that are rather... unlikely.

Touting the strength of a unit that requires, for example, two globals, seven items, the aegis, four uniques, or somesuch seems to me not unlike me declaring that my triple power wished gift of reasoned S9 abomination prophet of DOOM (tm) is overpowered.

Perhaps if we limited the tests to say, magic level four, we would get more applicable results.

However, in the spirit of the thread, I propose this counter:

The gorgon costs: ember (20), barrier shield (20), lightning helm (20), silver hauberk (15?), boots of antaeus (15), krupp's bracers (10), ring of regeneration (10).
Gift of Health (probably about 60 to keep it for a few turns) Haunted forest (maybe 100).

That is.... 270 gems.

I propose...
let's see... If I take an S9 A3 D4 destroyer of worlds, and I power wish, and I give it Mage Bane, Aegis, The Summit, Barrier, Amon Hotep, Robe of Callius, Boots of Quickness, and the Heart of Life... Script to Soul Vortex, Body Ethereal, Personal Luck, Mirror Image, Mistform, Astral Shield, Attack.

The Gorgon Dies!

(note: Do not take the above seriously. I realize that the globals can hardly be counted in the price of the Gorgon. And she probably doesn't need all those artifacts.)

Re: Could u stop Gorgon?
 

...You know that construction8(or just6) is WAY easier to come by than alteration9 AND conjuration9??? And 1 wish 100 Astral Pearls? If you have all that i'd say start a new game, i wouldn't play it.