early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Wrote something like this earlier, saw the preview, and let it go. Drat.

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The forums introduced me to sending out a pretender early, w/o backup to claim territory. Previously, I'd been using my pretender to buff massed units -- often with "legions of steel" and such to good effect, or as a rainbow hunter. I'll lay out my experiences w/ various paths, and I hope ya'll can tell me how to better use them.

In order of apparent effectiveness:
Air -- I used to not value this too much. Then I read the 10path thread, played around with a 10 air virtue, and was amazed. Even at lower amounts of air, mirror image and mistform allow easy protection w/ just Alt3.

Astral -- Ethrealness + Luck + Twist fate are really good. The pretender seems to get injured more often then Air, but still rarely. What else is good for single travel?

Earth -- Ironskin + Earth Might also allow quick expansion at Alt3. Con2 helps w/ fatigue. My Pretender frequently gets injured and I pull back to troop support (a different subject.)

Water -- Quickness is splendid, and low path cost folks often get a little water just for that. Breath of winter is nice. But whenever I try to do just water on a Titan style figure, he gets mobbed and killed. What else to put on him?

Fire -- All I can see is getting Fire Sheild and then sitting back w/ Evo spells.

----These are mostly speculation.
Nature -- I've mostly been practicing with Pythium and Abyssia lately, so I don't want frenzied casters. But nature seems like a weaker (in combat) earth. Protection + Regeneration. Maybe poison resistance. What else?

Death -- Provides fear. And some great life drain stuff at high levels. But aside from spamming undead, what does a low level pretender do?

Blood -- Because of the need to keep resupplying, I haven't thought much about blood buffs for combat expansion. How much am I missing out?

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Thanks. Remember, this is any "tough" chassis in the first 20ish turns. I've been playing 9Inde, so the pretender needs a good setup to survive.

Rylen

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Seems to me you're thinking in terms of pure paths too much. Classic combat pretenders combine Air, water, and earth, and head for Alteration 3 asap. Script quickness, mistform, mirror image, iron skin and off you go. Astral is certainly useful, but you have to be aware of the magic duel issue.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Blood is more or less worthless in combat. Forget about it unless you plan on using your pretender to get some of the bigger blood summons for a nation that normally has trouble getting them.

Death is really only good for spamming and killing undead early on. But don't underestimate the ability of quickness (from boots or the spell) + raise skeletons/dead to allow a pretender to singlehandedly take moderately difficult indies. Later on you get soul vortex, which is nice.

Regeneration from nature is great for preventing your pretender from picking up afflictions. But a lot of pretenders get it naturally and you can get it easily from items, so it isn't quite a necessity.

But what I've seen pretty much agrees with your observations.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

A lot of the good spells require two paths. Air and Fire gives a nice early Sulphur Haze; fire/earth gives magma bolts. High level example in evocation is Nether Darts, and frankly - artillery mages / pretenders are often underrated.

Other spells you neglect : Shadow Bolt, which can be pretty effective on a high-death pretender (because of reduced likelihood of successful MR rolls).

Mostly though, like Truper says - don't think in terms of single path pretenders. Unless what you _really_ want is a powerful bless effect, a single high level path generally isn't nearly as good as 2 or 3 medium high paths, and if you want a soloing pretender, most want more like 4 low level paths.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

If you're using a sturdy chassis, you might skip Twist Fate if you're doing luck - 1/2 the time luck would allow you to miss the damage Twist Fate eliminates. Other spells to consider are Astral Shield / Astral Weapon - the shield is great to paralyze those enemies which swing at you.

If you went single path in earth, Shards is worthwhile to use against lightly armored foes like LI, barbarians, etc. Also, Earth Meld can trap a bunch of them, meaning less get to you at once. And of course, Evocation 4 gives Blade Wind.

(Side note here : You can have a melee SC pretender and _still_ use a couple of spells like Shards, Earth Meld, Sulphur Haze, etc, to slow down or eliminate some of the enemy before you pound them into Lizard Marmalade with your fists.)

Armor and shield? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Titans aren't ideal for melee, not without several paths and preferably a few items.

Beefier chassis's might do quite well with just Quickness and BoW - a Wyrm, Dagon, Ancient Kraken or Blue Dragon. Other chassis's could do it as well, but aren't going to come in pure Water flavors - the carrion dragon, Cyclops, etc.

Sleep Cloud? Poison Cloud (later on). Swarm. Not all paths are suited to solo SCing, especially with a single path.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

I agree with Truper and Cainehill that trying to make a Pretender with one powerful magic path who is also capable of defeating indie provinces by itself is a difficult proposition. If early expansion is your focus, go with multiple paths.

But with that said, it is an interesting idea. And there are probably a few Pretender chasis that could make it work. Mostly the ones that are already very strong fighters. The Carrion Dragon, for instance, doesn't really need Quickness, Ironskin, Mirror Image, and Mistform. It already has 200+ HP, a massive Fear aura, recuperation, etc. So you could probably get away with giving it the one strong path that you're interested in for a Bless effect or some other purpose. But the Carrion Dragon is an extreme case, and there aren't too many other chasis that I think you could pull this off with.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Interesting. I had thought of an artillery pretender as something like a fire-9 moloch (that's pretty much the only one I've used), but a multi-path bLaster is an intriguing option. Do you have any specific examples? I've been looking at a partial rainbow for Man-Tuatha to cover some of the magic gaps, and adding in the artillery aspect fits nicely with Tuatha's power in evocation.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Phoenix is good for early expansion. All it needs is Evo 3 and Alteration 3 and it will mop most indie provinces quite handily on its own. Air Shield and then start raining fire darts and fireballs on the indies, they'll route in no time. Fire darts is especailly good, with Fire 6, you can just sit the Phoenix in the far back corner of the battlefield and start slamming them home, even the indie x-bows need to spend one turn running forward before they are in range (by which time Air Shield will be in place). Any infantry or cavalry that actually gets close is going to get hit with massive immolation, and even if the bird gets whacked, who cares, it's immortal and flying, so getting to the front is no problem. When you get fire shield and cloud trapeze later on, it becomes a virtual expansion engine all on its own while you can concentrate on building up troop strength, mages and research in peace.

My friend used it quite successfully in a co-op game we had on the Cradle map. He was playing Machaka and he had just one real army and the phoenix for a good long time, and easily outpaced my expansion with Abysia.

Edi

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

I actually like an air phoenix much better. It's awe makes close combat spells actually feasible, and shock waves *is* a pretty good spell even against knights.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Well, an F6, A5 Phoenix is no slouch in that department either...

Edi

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

One problem with the phoenix is that it _will_ cast Shock Wave and kill itself when Immolation is just as viable a spell, and much better in that it's immune to fire.

So in a sense, a phoenix geared to air might be better, if you're planning to, mmm, waste a turn casting magic to become immune to lightning. Or if you're wearing a ring of tamed lightning.

Fire/Air combined makes a very nice phoenix; adding earth makes it even sweeter ( some armor spells, magma bolts, summon earthpower, bladewind, and higher level magma eruption are all very nice ). It's late here, but I think there was another path I had success adding to the phoenix as a third path....

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

I'd just like to point out that fighting early indies is not the only thing a pretender is going to do. For example, if I'm doing a pretender for arco, it will most likely have at least death-4 for all those nice thugs. Most other non-nature nations will need some nature in case you will have to face a dead ermor, and for faery queens and the like in the late game. In games with only a few players, e-2 (if you have feet) for hammers. etc etc.

Because of this, when designing, I dont usually think "Now what paths will I have to take so that I will mop indies?", but, "How can I capitalize on these paths so that I can mop up indies?".

My current fave is a Prince of Death with 5-7 death (just put in all points you have no better use for), 5 air and 3-4 earth. Early, give him 2 water swords (or other high-def weapons if water gems are not availale), research alt-3 and off you go. Later, he calls death thugs, forges hammers and staves of elemental mastery, calls air queens and earth kings, and works as a decent battlefield sc/ artillery platform. Works well with arco, caelum, pythium, etc.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Hmm . . . I did present this in terms of distinct paths. In actual play, I've frequently been picking things up in blocks of 4 to get the minimum bless effect. Often Astral + Earth w/ a little Water. (Gets me the coin for an early astral boost, good forging stuff, and claymen in addition to the Ash search.)

So, leaving out the artillery (and there's lots of great artillery), what are the useful early game mixed path combat spells? All the ones mentioned (and the ones I can think of except Last ditch Inner Sun) are ranged.

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Tuna, I agree w/ how you pose the question. I'm trying to expand how well I can capitalize on paths for early expansion.

Edi -- had not tried a combat phoenix. Intresting.

Also, never touched a dragon. The cost of that 2nd path was offputting. But, I should give it a shot.

Rylen

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Green drqagon is nice, all you need to research is personal regen (I forget which school it belongs to) and you're set to go. Just make sure no to use this drake with a nation that has sacred mages or they will go berserk if anyone looks at them funny instead of doing what they should. Even if you get afflictions, you should be able to put up GoH rather quickly (unless you are unlucky to get feebleminded of course). My friend has also used Green and Blue Dragons, so I've seen how effective they can be when used right. Blue is good for Vanheim, having quickness and additional defense for the already formidable van and valkyries is alway s a good thing, and the blue drake is the only way to get that reasonably.

Edi

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Can't rememer a single one... However, of the artillery, I'd just like to point out that acidic stuff is quite good, esp when you have paths that exceed the requirements by much. And it also stays good, because there is not acid resistance in the game. There just are not very many mages in the game that can cast them.

I havent ever taken a 2nd path for a dragon... They are just a chassis for getting blessings. The blue (quickness& cold) and green (regen) do quite well vs indies, esp when you really dont have to care all that much if they live or die. Midgame the blue dragon can be a truly great caster for the falling frost.

Re: early fightin\' pretender spells
 

Belated thread ressurection here, but doesn't anyone find the reinvigoration/life drain/Soul Drain, Phoenix Pyre, and immortal/recuperating SC pretender combo worthwhile?
All the perks of an ordinary SC, repeatedly, until stun damage or afflictions take you out, and all it takes is fire 2 and a grotesque amount of research.