Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

The task for which it was primarily intended isn't worth the investment and can't be made so. In order for people to make use of it, it therefore needs to be improved in other areas.

Has anyone ever used the imp axe to pillage? Apart from to test it?

See above. It isn't possible to make repel worth the investment without breaking the item in terms of att and dmg. Also def has nothing to do with repel. If it had att 99 dmg 99 len 6 the repel would be better than awe 0 (anyone passing a non modified morale check will take 1 damage and ignore it, anyone else will take 1 damage and that particular attack they made will be stopped). Still worse than awe 1 though. If it had att 4 and dmg 15 (reasonable stats) then the repel would be much, much worse than awe 0. The actual attacking and doing damage with the weapon is always going to outweigh the repel side of it by miles, simply because of the way repel works.

A one handed weapon and a reinvig item take the same number of slots as the wraithsword (2) and are cheaper and better.

Throwing out anything that doesn't do /exactly/ what the wraithsword does while being cheaper and claiming that means the wraithsword has a use does not make sense. Nothing else does exactly what the imp axe does - does that mean it would be fine at 25 death gems and 6 research too?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

A common Eriu/Van thug with a fire brand does around 30 AP damage. Rarely will you see a SC with the protection over 30, so that is 15 hp of damage, which gives your thug a decent chance of killing a SC. Set your thug to attack rear and he'll get a few free hits while the SC kills your chaff. You will either manage to kill the SC if he doesn't regenerate much or retreat once enough chaff is killed.

That's a situation when you don't specifically plan for fighting a SC. If you plan for him, you can equip 3 thugs with scourges for 9 fire gems and script them to flight, attack large. If you can add in a water mage for quickening (it doesn't even require gems now, another thing that should be nerfed back), let me see what SC is going to stand up to 12 hits dealing so much damage per turn. How cheap a counter is that to a SC that costs dozens of gems. I am assuming an undead/demon SC as those are most common, use moon blade for magic beings, etc.

It's really a simple task outfitting a couple thugs to kill a SC. The harder part will be actually engaging him in combat (returning, stealthy SCs). I think people are used to gem-gen games and don't realize how sparse gems can be without them. A recruitable-everywhere teleportable stealthy thug is a huge thing.

Fire brand + vine shield is a no-brainer for any type of opposition. Is that a good thing?

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I cannot say that I have used the axe, but then I am not that good at pillaging. However that may be, if the ability is worthless as you say, why even keep the axe in the game?


Apologies, I did not mean to say that defence directly helps with repelling, but the defence helps when your opponents make their morale save. Also it lessens the defence difference with a shield.

Your bog standard shield has parry 4, defence -1 and encumbrance 1, increasing your total defence and parry value with 3. As a sort of standard measure I would say that increasing the defence of a 2-hander with 2 in comparison with a 1-handed variant makes them about equal. You get 1 less total defence and parry value, but since it is pure defence, the top is slightly better and you do get less encumbrance. Making the Enchanted Pike e.g. 3/4 in attack/defence would certainly make it an option over the Enchanted Spear and depending on how you value weapon length it should be in the match with the Enchanted Sword.

While I certainly agree with your assessment of awe as better than repel, I do not think it relevant in this case. None of the items we are comparing have it after all.

Also, repel is certainly not worthless. It is not something that lets you wade into mêlée at leisure, but it does help your defence.


Look, I keep having to repeat this over and over again: It is not cheaper if you do not have the relevant gems. No matter how many times cheapness is invoked, it still remains untrue in various cases of gem income distribution. A reinvigoration item for 5 nature gems costs you 20 death gems, if that are all the gems you have. A 1-hander is then at least another 5 gems.

I have never required exactly the same as lifedrain, I just require its rough equivalent. Let us examine the aforementioned Fomorian King with a water pick:

We do not have any earth and nature gems to spend on him (and no blood mages in sight either). Not because we do not have any such income, but because it is not good enough to provide for all the Kings and thuggish commanders we produce from our castles and want to be sent to the front in a thuggish capacity. We will be able to provide a lot of the Kings with earth or nature items, but not all of them. So let us put that huge income of death gems to use. 20 of them we convert to nature and a pair of Boots of the Messenger, which nets us reinvigoration 4. Let us further assume that we can scrape together 5 water gems for a Frost Brand for a total cost of 20 death and 5 water gems. So 4 attack and 2 defence from the brand and -1 defence and +4 parry for a total of 4/5 attack/defence. Encumbrance is 5 which translates to 8 for casting purposes. Net fatigue gain is 1 per turn. Casting Quicken self is not a good idea, as that would render the fatigue gain 6 per turn. The 28 fatigue you get from casting it is not easily reinvigorated either.

The other version is just putting down 25 death gems for a Wraith Sword. Attack and defence is 2/3 and encumbrance 4, 6 for casting purposes. Whenever he hits (for 34 damage, which is less than 41, but quite enough to hurt a lot of things), he is reinvigorated for 10. One hit every other turn is enough to get a better reinvigoration rate than the frost version and he is gaining fatigue slower. Now, the wraith version benefits greatly from casting Quicken Self. He would gain fatigue at a rate of 8 per turn, so as long as he manages to do a total of 4 damage over his 2 attacks in a turn, he is set. Quickening also means an improvement of attack/defence of 3/3, bringing the total up to 5/6, which is better than the other, and no shield hits to worry about. Direct damage is now 2x34 instead of 41, which means that for protection values of 27 and under it is as good as or better than with the Frost Brand.

Of course, this does not mean that the Wraith Sword is always a better choice even under the given gem-constraints. The frost version will still be generally better at clearing chaff non-resistant to cold and targets with protection values a bit higher than 27. Fielding troops and thugs with cold resistance against nations utilizing Frost Brands, Rime Hauberks and Breath of Winter should not be unusual though. And there are plenty of nations that do not have the capability of fielding legions of 30+ protection units.

Again, it is a question of gem-scarcity and solving a problem that actually exists. Getting reinvigoration is just not particularly cheap when you lack the needed supply of nature or earth gems or the paths and research for the right spells. And at least in my experience, thugs and SCs that accrue fatigue to quickly tend to die.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

A Fomoria without Earth bless would be quite interesting. I wouldn't care to try that though.

There is absolutely zero chance I would craft a wraith sword over a frostbrand as Fomoria. The brand gives the King total frost immunity, which opens up a lot of other possibilities too :)

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

And that is exactly the problem.

You are painting a best case scenario containing 1 out of 3 producable Fomorian cap only SC`s with several given gem-constraints where the Wraith Sword should be an instant no-brainer under better balanced conditions.
And it still is not!

Even with your example of a rare situation there is still a lot left,that can be done different:

-Earth blessing,pretty advisable with that nation anyways,gives further reinvig which do change quite a lot with your math
-Instead of using the W random Giants,you could use the D randoms and cast soul vortex,equipping these guys with other equipment in addition,making them superior.
-You could give the W guys boots of quickness,a W1 path isnt ideal for casting water buffs in battle anyways.
-The rainbow armor is pretty nice for the giants in general instead of boots of the messenger,if available,can be alchemized,too.
-Girdle of might is cheaper to alchemize and might leave gems for 1 more item,while just offering 1 less reinvig.
-etc.

I understand what you are talking about gem sparsity and such, but why not still making the Wraith sword better?
Do you really think those fomorian giants would be overpowered with like double the base damage for the wraith sword or with making it like 10-15 death gems?
As you said,with that inherent strength, you get the max partial life drain,if you hit,anyways already most of the time.
Different from fomorioa though like 95% of the other nations would benefit quite some time from such an improvement ...and for those nations the wraith sword is just never,ever an option atm,even under the most special conditions!

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

While I have not played Fomoria completely without earth bless, I have done so with an E4 bless and that worked out ok. 2 extra reinvigoration from a bless does not really change much about the above concerning Quicken Self, though.

There are lots of ways to reach cold immunity with Fomorian Kings. Both Breath of Winter and cold resistance are easily castable for the Kings with water picks. And Rime Hauberks sometimes make sense.


I do not agree that it should be an instant no-brainer.
Death is powerful enough as is.

A smallish does not.
And I hope you are not suggesting that high earth bless should be mandatory.

Death gems only, remember.
And, well, you might not have alteration 6 researched and have some other research target in sight for the moment.

Again the addition of more non-death gems.

Yes lots of things could be different, they also could not.

It is death that I do not think warrants the boost.
Sure, if it were any other path, we might discuss going down to 15 gems, but since it is not, I do not.
I also would not mind a minor buff to it (say +1 to attack and maybe +3 to damage), but nothing in line with what has been presented as of yet.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Because it's a fear causing weapon with an interesting description? You're saying it's fine because it has a specific thing it helps with a lot. I'm saying that thing is basically worthless and no-one uses it for that. In cases like this it makes sense to improve the weapon so it's usable for other reasons, with the pillage as a tiny niche bonus.


Yes, but that has nothing to do with repel, that's the point. Repel isn't /worthless/, it's just so totally overshadowed by everything else that it's not worth trying to boost. If you increased the stats that actually had anything to do with repel, the improvement would be like 95% damage dealt, 5% repel. So why try to tailor the boost to do anything related to repelling? Why pretend that the added att and dmg is there to make the repel better?

Sure. And 1 extra hp helps your survivability and isn't worthless. Who cares? It's too slight a difference to be meaningful and definitely not the feature around which you'd balance an item.

You keep talking about this situation where you have lots of death and apparently no gems of other sorts. If you're that focused on death why the hell would you be using it on a wraithsword when your thugs are going to be enc 0 undead? Why pay a premium to try and get reinvig when you can just sidestep it? You're comparing wraithsword to alchemising gems wholescale into a different type (something truly inefficient) and it's still barely coming out ahead in cost, even with apparently the ideal SC chassis to carry it.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I've made an implementor axe, for the fear (only once the whole time I've played dom, but still.) I don't think I've ever made a pike though.

Wraith swords are junk. The stuff they work well on in any over-convoluted example is the same stuff you're going to wade through with pretty much any gear kit. They are also a problem because your fatigue is all front-loaded if you cast buffs before combat, whereas with reinvig items you don't have to wait for melee to bleed off the extra fatigue. Your theoretical life drain potential in rounds 7-50 of a combat doesn't matter if you die to crits on round 6.

Swords of swiftness are awesome weapons, I don't understand how they even came up in this conversation.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

I'd like to know what games Amorphous is playing where he has excess death gems and no other type. I've *never* had that problem!

Edit: Micah, when would you ever use a damage 8 weapon, even if it does have 2 attacks? 1 damage +16 attack is almost certainly better than 2 damage +8 attacks in almost any circumstance, even before counting the AoE cold damage.

Re: Magic Items under CBM
 

Thats much more complicated.
Essentially,every built Wraith sword means less Tartarians to field.
Seriously,you have so many uses for death gems,that making the wraith sword better only makes the decision more difficult what to do with them.
Keep in mind also,that lowering the cost means lowering the casting requirements.E.g. D2 mages are better to come by for every nation.
Death alyways will be a very strong path,no matter how you alter the items,thats just how it is in DOM3.
I would be much more hesitant to add a new and very good fire item on the other hand since that would have a much bigger impact on the overall balance already known in this game.

Say u take only E4 bless,just +2 reinvig ,makes your example already slightly in favor of the frost brand +boots of messenger build imo.Although i still cant figure out,what shield u did take,when you are mentioning parry.
And thats not even the best build following your (not advisable)alchemize strategy imo: instead of alchemizing the gems for the boots you could alchemize for the cheap girdle,leaving you more gems left,not less(!), or you could alchemize for the rainbow armor,adding MR in addition to reinvig,which is also nice to have for the giants.


Sure,Soul vortex might not yet be researched.
Isnt it just better then to wait for soul vortex to be researched or to make it an early research goal before mass producing SC`s with expensive weapons that become obsolete?


@ Micah
I am also curious about the Sword of Swiftness?
Its 10 gems,9 damage,1/4 Att/Def,2 attacks.
You probably mean the def reducing ability for every attack after the first for quickened thugs wielding it?
That might be enough to be on par with the frost brand..after nerfing it to 12-14 damage.Its still more expensive though than the AoE and Cold resistance offering brand.
Currently i would lean towards improving the SoS by just a tiny bit further.