Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

RIP: Belial, killed after being paralyzed by a volva.

RIP: Belphegor(With an amulet of antimagic. 21 magic resistance total), killed after being paralyzed by a volva.

Alive and well: 2 Heliophagii and 4 Archdevils after destroying Pythium. Gotta love the AI spell selection http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Anyway, paralyze has really impressed me. It didn't take many shots to get past the magic resistance in either case...and once you're down it's hopeless. You won't ever wake up in that battle. Kind of makes me wonder if getting my earth mother blinded by machaka wasn't a fluke. I won't take magic resistance for granted ever again!

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

I'm glad someone else has noticed this.
Seems Paralyze has amazing penetration.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

I haven't tried casting Paralyzation directly so much as getting from Astral Shield, but ouch. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything Paralyzed live. I wonder if MR penetration items work with Astral Shield...

The Paralyzing Poison from the Barbed Tail attacks of many demons seems fairly nasty as well. I haven't played around with it, but I'm presuming there is no MR save.

Anyone know of anything else that has Paralyzing Poison?

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Things with "poisoned claws", like ghouls and Ermor priests, have paralyzing poison... but as far as I can tell, it just does fatigue damage (50, perhaps?), not paralysis.

Also, Woodsman Blowdarts do paralyzing poison damage, and I'm not sure which kind. But with 2 AP damage, they can't hit anything armored, anyway...

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Paralyzation is just another hammer in the "Astral is great, for a select few races" coffin. Not only does it only take a few cssts to usually affect all the SC's. But it is cast on Pretenders, Devils, King (Queen) of (Element) and other nasties first (The targeting isn't stupid). It even goes to mages next. And on top of that, once something is parazyled it isn't doing anything. The duration of the spell is almost as good as it's penetration.

[ December 22, 2003, 08:01: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

I think duration and or penetration of paralyze should tone down a bit.
It's a good SC counter, but it must require many more castings or Last less rounds.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Penetration might be pretty high.

Bear in mind, 'tho, that there are assorted personal instant-death spells, such as Soul Slay, Petrify, Disintegrate, Magic Duel, Opposition; as well as delayed-death spells like Maggots and Decay; and spells that come close to instant death for many, like Incinerate. If it weren't for a penetration bonus, Paralysis would be weaker, since there's still a chance of surviving.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Yes I've seen the same thing about Paralyze... even wrote a topic a few days back. What happened in my scenario:

I was attacking the AI enemy at his capital and his pretender had 6 water and 2 astral. Anyways almost instantly my pretender and earth king were PARALYZED solid then my Kharionic Lions were getting targeted. I still won the battle but the enemy pretender was only casting paralyze the entire time.

What makes this spell so powerful:
A) targets the largest monsters then the wizards.
B) anyone paralyzed is not going to wake up... thus if you start to lose you're dead.
C) the spell rarely fails


Personally I feel the spell is way too powerful.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In practice something that takes your opponent out of the conflict and kills them if you win is close to being as good to simply killing them for most approaches based on winning the battle. Sure it means paralyse isn't so deadly as a spoiler used by a losing side but most truly powerful combo's are based around winning battles not losing them.

I have become a bit sceptical about wether SC's are very powerful in Dom2 given the range of counters. I'm back to my Dom1 postion of preferring to provide a mass of targets than a few juicy ones once the game gets developed.

Cheers

Keir

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

I've found that a pretender Lich with magic resistance enhanced to 26 is easily paralyzed by a few Illithid soldiers (using their mind attack) before he can make a single move. I'm still trying to come up with an effective tactic to counter this (besides raising huge armies to fight a few soldiers).

Incidentally, I noticed that when you examine a paralyzed unit and click on the paralyzed icon, it gives you a number. Does anyone know what the number means? I thought it might mean the number of turns you were paralyzed, but when it was 3 the unit was still paralyzed 5 turns later.

In that particlar case, I attacked an army of illithids, trolls, and humans with my Lich pretender and some human commanders and soldiers. The illithids routed all my soldiers and then paralyzed my pretender, but only after he had cast Fire Shield and Breath of Winter. The entire army (60 units) surrounded and attacked my paralyzed pretender, and all of them died trying to finish him off, so I won the battle after my army had been routed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Hmmm.... maybe paralysis has no MR save. That would not be good at all. It certainly neutralizes any small army of powerful units against ryleh or any paralyze-casting nation. Completely neutralizes them.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

It does have a save.

I have found that paralyze will affect a pretender (unaugmented) about 25% of the time. Not shabby.

In contrast spells like soul slay works about 5% of the time.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mind bLast does have a MR save, which is obvious when you watch a replay. Troops often survive a single attack while taking no damage and gaining no paralysis.

Mind bLast has a penetration of 11 or 12, so to get past a MR of 26 takes a lucky roll on the part of one illithid and an unlucky roll on the part of the Lich.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Do either of you know the specific formula for MR save rolls?

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">as a regular attack vs defence formula, nothing specific.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm rather sure that blowdarts add the strength of the unit firing. It comes from my experience where many time the woodmen get past the prot 19 of a group of hoplite (to the point of some were killed by a single shot)

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">25% of success vs MR 18 seems to indicate that the penetration bonus is +4 !

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

I brought one level_2 astral mage into one of my battles to take a castle and had him cast nothing but paralyze. As a result I was able to paralyze 2 out of 3 spellcasters plus other troops.

This spell seems way to powerful.

[ December 23, 2003, 14:32: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Wow paralyze does seem powerful.

Maybe what really needs to be changed is not its power but its targeting. I like that it targets large supercombatants first. That part makes sense to me. No sense in your mages ignoring that huge golden naga casting devatating spells and paralyzing a front-line infantryman.

I just wish it would skip over normal-sized mages in its targeting list. Otherwise, astral nations would seem to have too much of an advantage. But if I (still a newb) have learned anything, it is that in Dominions things are often not as they seem.

What are people using as counters to the major astral nations in MP? How well does an amulet of antimagic work in this circumstance to prevent penetration? When I speak of counters, I am not really talking about protecting the huge supercombatant from the effect if there are two or more magi casting paralyze. That seems futile. I am speaking rather about preventing your combat mages from being completely neutralized.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

My pretender and earth king had over 20 magic resistance yet were still paralyzed during the first few turns of combat.
(only one enemy astral mage)

Other spells like Flare, Fireball, Magma Bolts, Thunder Strike and so on don't target super_combatants or mages........ definitely seems UNFAIR that this one does.

[ December 23, 2003, 15:15: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Hm. If there is a penetration bonus (which does seem likely), it should have been mentioned in the documentation. Spells easily resisted, after all, get marked as "Magic resistance negates easily" (4 pt. penalty, for base penetration of 7 instead of 11).

Could indeed be +4, that'd be symmetric. Base penetration of 15 + (magic-required)/2? If you want more penetration, Rune Smasher and Spell Focus each give +2, and the sorcery and wizardry rings each give +1. (A Crone, with three misc slots, could thus get +6. Ouch. No armor, 'tho; might want to use Amon Hotep or an invulnerability spell.).

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

R'lyh can be very destructive to pretenders. Even with only a 25% chance of success, if you have 10 squidies with 10 mind bLast each success is nearly guaranteed. Throw in a 'greater'(?) otherness or three and there will be one dead pretender faster than you can say, "Cthulhu fghtagn" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, that'd be a given, since I can't say that at all. BTW the complete quote is
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."
-- I happen to have a book of Lovecraft handy... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

Anyway - the best antidote to mindbLasts is to have lots of non-mindless units to either distract the squidheads, or at least get in the way of the other units that are coming for your paralyzed guys. Longbows also work well unless R'lyeh is using the armored squids (which have a steep resource cost, especially for the resource poor ocean) - illithids count as both "archers" (since they have a ranged attack) and "large monsters" (size 4), IIRC.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Either MindbLasts are bugged, or the description should be changed to read "magic resistance negates when Hell freezes over".

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, going by Saber Cherry's table
and the devs statement that mind bLast has a penetration of 11, it seems like a magic resist 9 unit will be paralyzed 75% of the time. This might seema bit much, but Illithid's are also very fragile, and very expensive.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

The Illithid's do a paralyze which almost always has a single digit for the length of the paralyze. Small chance the unit will wake up from the paralyze. {{The number does not indicate the number of turns.}}
The spell paralyze always has double digits which I have seen as high as 35 ! Thus IMPOSSIBLE to wake up from the paralyze.

[ December 29, 2003, 21:09: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Its my experience that units with MR of 22 or 23 are paralyzed 100% of the time. The units in question were a Succubus and Arch Devil each with Amulets of Antimagic. Each faced a single Illithid, and each was paralyzed instantly.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Its my experience that units with MR of 22 or 23 are paralyzed 100% of the time. The units in question were a Succubus and Arch Devil each with Amulets of Antimagic. Each faced a single Illithid, and each was paralyzed instantly. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">When playing with R'lyeh I've had multiple illithds mind bLast a single vaetti or jotun giant several times before they were paralyzed. So it's not 100% even with much lower MR than 22.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Whatz really really bad about paralyze is that 99.8% of units won't wake-up from paralyze. They should change the name of the spell into 'Petrified'.... because once hit that units a statue for the rest of the battle. This spell should at least cost one astral gem since it's so powerful.
.


I believe there is also a bug with paralyze. When clicking on the icon of paralyze it shows a number which I believe was suppose to be turns during a battle. However that is not the case as a Paralyze(2) could easily Last 10 turns.

[ December 31, 2003, 06:07: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

To my knowledge there is no bug in paralyze. It works as follows (or something like this):

(paralyze value + roll) vs (size + roll) / 3 = turns of paralyzation. I'm not sure if /3 is the correct number.

Regarding the spell: paralyze is one level lower than soul slay and easier to research, thus more commonly seen. Lvl 2 mages will cast paralyze, as will lvl 3 mages with some fatigue. It has the same penetration as soul slay, but being one level lower it is slightly easier to paralyze your opponent ((skill-level)/2=penetration bonus).

Paralyze is a SC counter because it is more available, not because it is more powerful (unless something is broken - but the mr mechanics are the same so i see no reason it should be).

Paralyze is of course more effective on SC's relative ordinary units. If you win your units survive, but the SC is often crucial in winning. Ordinary units rarely are.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

The problem, I think, is that the number of turns a unit is paralyzed doesn't go down, so if a unit is paralyzed for 3 turns, it can remain so for much longer than just 3 turns.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Treebeard is correct !

as I wrote earlier:
a paralyze of (2) can easily Last 10 turns

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

>unless something is broken

Check your code. It definitely works much more often than Soul Slay.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

>a paralyze of (2) can easily Last 10 turns

This is true also. The number seems unrelated to how long the paralyze Lasts. Any number over 10 (happens often) seems equal to paralyzed for full length of any battle.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

yeah I think that the main problem about paralize is that its done for the entire battlefield session
with an army of blessed knights (20 mr) only 3 survived the initial paralyse attempt (all where still alive but paralysed)
after 4 turns, only 2,
and after 6 or 7 turns, only 1

I won the battle cause they couldn't kill my knights even paralysed (too high protection I imagine)

there should be a turn limit I think,
the paralyse effect is WAY too long

paralyse isn't equal BUT is nearly equal to an instant death (a unit that does nothing is in 80-90% case a dead unit),
so with a super rate of success Vs high MR, paralysation is a superweapon available from start to R'lyeh

I'm ok about that but it should be tempered a little (like a reduced duration OR the possibility to un-paralyse something with a specific spell)
Or another possibility would be that once paralysed the unit should do an Mr save (with a decreasing penalty) turn(the mr save would allow in case of success to liberate the unit from paralysation):
example :
- unit MR 20
**turn 1 : paralysed
**turn 2 : this paralysed unit does another mr save for the same paralysation effect with (for example) a penalty of 10
**turn 3 : mr save with penalty of 9 ....

that's only an idea I think of


edit : the only work-around I found against paralysation effects is having a gigantic mass of low units (but still not too weak)so that paralysation doesn't seem important vs the number

but if I can have a bigger army, R'lyeh could have more illithids too ...

[ January 01, 2004, 04:26: Message edited by: Whismerhill ]

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Illithids are very expensive and mind bLast is less effective than the paralyze spell. It often takes several tries even with basic low MR soldiers.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">that's certainly true
but who cares about success rate when you have an average of 60 - 70 mind bLast cast every turn (about 40 illithids & quickness for some)

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">that's certainly true
but who cares about success rate when you have an average of 60 - 70 mind bLast cast every turn (about 40 illithids & quickness for some) </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That have cost 2000 to train with an upkeep of 133 every turn. They have to be deadly to be worth the cost.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

something amusing : I actually found out
that a paralysed unit (vampire simple unit for instance) will move to evade trampling !!!!!
LOL that's really funny to see those mindless atlantians running for a single paralysed vampire ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Hi,

I've seen numerous pretenders (including my own, once) go down from paralyze and I've never seen one wake up once zapped. I've also never seen any of the larger summons, either.


Ciao,
V'ger gone

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

Paralyze spell recovery does seem difficult, read: better hope your other units win the battle.

On the other hand, it's not THAT reliable. I've seen quite a few mage/priests try to paralyze the Lord of the Hunt (MR 18) and generally fail. And when the Marignon mage/priests tried to paralyze my Behemoths (MR 13 base, +1 from drain scale), the success rate seemed to be pretty low.

(Heh. Even with 2 Behemoths paralyzed during the battle, I had 26 more... Messy battle; ~50-strong Ulm province defense, with some additional Black Knights and just-in-time reinforcement of a Bane Lord with some 35 Vine Ogres, and 28 Behemoths, versus ~250 Marignon troopers and 12 commanders. Trample trample trample. The behemoths were expensive in gems and mage-turns, but an impressive and very very deadly sight.)

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

The only problem with toning down one-unit spell like paralyze would be that it may make astral overall weaker than earth magic. Earth 2 can be augmented one with boots to produce earth-3, which can cast blade wind at about the same evocation level that paralyze is thaumaturgy level.

And you know what blade wind does to armies. It decimates low-protection forces. And the degree of total decimation with a couple of blade winds is something I don't think Saber Cherry's modeled combats take into account.

I have tried paralyze myself with Pythium. And it does not seem to me that the second target after the pretender is always the mages. Sure...if you have a castle defended by just a few mages and the pretender the next target is the mages. Or if you have undead with a few living mages. But there is even a hint against doing it that way that comes up between turns.

As a defender, the greatest thing about paralyze is that your unit survives, generally unscathed, if you win the battle. And I've seen paralyze fail a few times on Ulmish infantry troops...so it isn't that much of a guarantee.

It doesn't seem all that unbalanced to me. But that's just one person's opinion.

Re: Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think there is much danger of astral being weaker than earth - at present it seems much stronger to me. Blade Winds is very impressive vs not very good units but in PBEM you will rapidly kill all the low prot troops an enemy has with your blade winds and then not see anymore. Blade winds is largely irrelevant vs most staunch troops while astral magic causes carnage with its fatigue and armour negating attacks.

My impression is that Astral was the strongest form of magic even before the horrors of paralyse were discovered. If there is any path of magic I would most like to have access to its astral - excellent battle magic, dispel, travel magic, awesome forging capability and some cool summons.

cheers

Keir