Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

After having a look to Edi's and Sunray's units dB (nice work, BTW) I realized that the Anointed Of Rhuax, an expensive Abysian battlemage, has a very good offensive melee potential: Attack value of 16, rF(100), sur(w), h(+13), FSh(10), dk(50). On top of that he's a sacred level 3 priest, so a F9 bless will be a nice addition to wreak havoc with an attack rating of 20(!!) plus Flaming Weapons

Unfortunately, this little guy has a very low protection and defense values (1 and 11 respectively), extra help is needed to make him last longer in melee.

Apart from equipping him accordingly (Fire Plate and the like) for extra protection, he's a good fire mage and he can cast Phoenix Pyre (Alt 7) to obtain limited, and fatigue-dependant, immortality. I think he'll need some reinvigoration to make this kind of immortality useful. Abysia only gets Fire gems and has very limited access to Earth/Astral at the very beginning so it'll be difficult to forge any nature and/or earth based item... Any ideas to make this strategy work? Or it won't work anyway?

I have another question regarding Abysia National spells; Inner Furnace and Summon Scorpion Man look quite good, but are they worthy?

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

You could give him the Robe of Shadows to make him ethereal, if you can make it, and have him cast Ironskin to give himself protection 20 in battle. If he had a pendant of luck as well, he might be reasonably survivable. Casting fire shield would probably stack with his natural fire shield as well, which would be brutal. His main problem is a lack of hit points - sooner or later a hit would get through, then it'd be no more Anointed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif .

Defense isn't so key really. In battle every attacker after the first gives -2 to defense, so if he ends up fighting a crowd then most of them will hit him whatever you do. The trick is to make their hits not count for anything.

Reinvigoration is a good point. An amulet of resilience and boots of the messenger would do a good job. Then so long as it took more than three or four rounds to kill him each time he'd last forever.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Do items survive on a mage after death/ressurection from Phoenix Pyre?

If they do, try double Hearts of Life....

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Llamabeast and Selfishgene, thanx a lot for your comments!! Now I see that the Rhuax thing was just a foolish idea of mine...

Your words suggest me a couple of additional questions:
1) Does Phoenix Pyre respawning heal afflictions? Cumulative afflictions in each new life is not funny at all...
2) Is Defense NOT as useful (generally speaking) as Protection? At least Protection stays always in place regardless of fatigue and multiple attacks
Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to this scenario an E9 Bless is preferable before a W9 Bless, is that so?

Cheers

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Defense is great for line units, which generally won't be facing greater than 6:1 odds even if they're on the corner of a formation. Protection is generally better for SCs because of the swarm factor, although e.g. an anti-Jotun SC probably never faces more than 7 opponents at once and so a defense of 36 would still be quite nice. Note, however, that Protection drops with fatigue just like defense does, although the mechanism is different. Critical hits, page 76. At 60 fatigue, 25% of hits are critical, so it's vital for a melee SC to keep fatigue low through reinvigoration items and/or life drain.

I know that Phoenix Pyre leaves some afflictions in place. It may or may not have a chance of healing some afflictions, but you definitely do pick up afflictions. Also, the manual says it's 10 squares of 50 AP damage which sounds great; in practice I haven't found it to be anything near 50 AP. Perhaps 15-25, which is not bad but not good enough that I'd regard Phoenix Pyre + getting killed as a viable offensive technique. The damage is more a perk than the main effect.

That said, the idea of an Ironskinned, Boots-of-the-Messenger'ed, Phoenix-Pyre'd Anointed of Rhuax is kind of a fun one. I'd probably give him a Standard of the Damned instead of a melee weapon so he'll drain life instead of meleeing, to recoup his fatigue losses. [later] A quick test with Svartalfs (since that's what I have in the game I'm currently playing) shows that 1.) the afflictions you pick up from dying multiple times take a lot of the fun out of it (5+ afflictions gained just killing off a bunch of crummy militia and light cavalry, even with Invulnerability) and 2.) I don't know of any good way to force casters to use Drain Life instead of other mass-damage spells after the 5 scripted rounds are over. Their fatigue goes up and then they die.

Take that for what it's worth.

-Max

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

By the way, Hearts of Life still get used up if he's using Phoenix Pyre. I don't know whether they kick in before Phoenix Pyre or simultaneous to it, but they get used up well before he runs out of fatigue, so it's probably a waste of items.

-Max

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

They get +6 def, strength, attack and movement in a heat-3 dominion. Which is massive, frankly.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Thanks for pointing this out, I thought that heat scales in Abysia just affected the income/resources and also the magnitude of the "heat" ability.
This additional +6 bonus is truly amazing!! Defense 17, Strength 21 and Attack 22 (w/o bless)for the Anointeds it's a start at least... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Unfortunately I have seen that the heat-3 dominion bonuses don't apply to the remaining Abysian units/commanders in the same way:
- Burning Ones gain +3 bonuses instead of +6 bonuses
- Anathemant Dragons get no bonuses at all!!
- Even my Solar Disc pretender just benefit from a +1 in Strength and +6 in attack

What's going on? I can't see a clear pattern here! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Abysians only get increased Heat in warm provinces. Lava Warriors of later ages, and Burning Ones of Early age, are special and gain increased benefits from the warmth. Anointed of Rhuax are anointed of Rhuax, and get double the normal bonus.

Getting temperature bonuses is very rare. Just remember to stay away from cold provinces, and beware the Alteration spell Wolven Winter... It's a two-edged sword, a curse as well as a blessing.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Max,
Many thanks also to you for the explanations on defense, the testing and for highlighting the fatigue FX on protection, I definitively missed that bit reading the manual! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Yes, I found quite funny trying to transform the Anointed from a very good battlemage with some melee capability into a high explosive meat grinder... The Kamikaze of Rhuax... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Although getting severe afflictions in the process makes this idea unfeasible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

On the original topic - the annointed of rhuax is significantly tougher than other battle-mage chasis (except for giants, obviously), which *is* a big advantage, because it means he can run forward and then drop short-range fire zap spells.

Of these, Immolation (Alteration 3) is really worth the trouble. 14 points of AP damage with an AoE of 7.

The big merit of this is that you can do it early - late in the game you can rain this kind of fiery death from a distance. So I think forging stuff to toughen the guy up may not be the best use of your time. OTOH, if you have an enemy who manages fire resistance, you can convert them to effective thugs (not SC), especially if you have a sexy blessing like E9N9.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Immolation isn't really that good. It's AoE 7, true, but that AoE is centered on the caster... usually it only affects 2-3 enemy squares. It's decent for level 3, but Abysia doesn't get that much use out of Alteration.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Thanks for the recommendation, now I'm planning to shift my strategy to achieve full Evocation support ASAP.

Bearing this in mind my Pretender design will be as follows:
Awaken Solar Disc (for early research), F9, Dominion 5 (higher dominion it's not important since blessed troops' cost), Order 3, Production 3 (Abysia needs tons resources), Heat 3, Death 2 (survival), Magic 1 (research).

I'd rather prefer to play offensively with a F9 blessing, it's just a matter of playstile, taking (even more) advantage of the two attacks that The Burning Ones have. Unfortunately they're quite slow but this is mitigated a bit in Heat-3 Dominions as Endoperez highlighted before.

Suggestions?

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Very good explanations Endoperez!!

Wow, I didn't realized Abysia's extreme heat dependance; cold/heat scales can make a difference between life and death for those lava beings!
Second Sun it's definitively a must and count on me for banning Wolven Winter!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Due to Abysians natural heat tolerance, does Heat From Hell have a lesser impact on them?

Is there any formula how the "heat" ability from the Abysian units is modified according to heat/cold scales? Because I always read the same values!!
And how its damage works, is it AP?

Sorry for answering with more questions...

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Manual has answers to the heat aura question. Heat increases the chance of making people catch fire, and perhaps the area the heat effect affects as well.

Read page 78 on rules for being in fire, page 57 for rules about heat, cold and poison auras.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Heat from Hell causes pure fire-based fatigue damage. That is, fire resistance/vulnerability applies in full.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

The one suggestion I have is that you might considered taking a dormant pretender and putting the points into your Dominion. Even though it doesn't increase the amount of sacred troops you'll be making, it pushes your heat dominion, and Abysia benefits a lot from fighting in heat.

-Max

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

The Solar Disc pretender is probably getting bonuses from his dominion, not the heat scale. Disregarding that, it seems that Anointed get +2 to attack/defense/move/strength per heat scale, and Burning Ones get +1. Oddly enough, they don't get any bonus to Protection (like Caelian or Niefel ice armor).

-Max

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

The strength bonus the solar disc is getting sounds like dominion but i dont think dominion grants extra attack, thats either from his extra fire magic, experience or the heat.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

You're right, the +6 attack bonus is granted by fire's indirect magic bonus (Page 85 on the manual). I wrongly thought that this bonus was linked with a heat-3 scale

No idea about the strength bonus, yet.

Re: Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax
 

Thanx for the suggestion Max, I agree with you, but my Pretender build was more magic-oriented; trying to replace swords for hellish battlefield enchantments in a short term basis. It was a personal preference on playstile.
For that reason I considered to have an Awaken Pretender critical, to start researching from the word go!
I know it's quite expensive but casting Second Sun (Evocation 8) solves this lack of heat issue http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

If I'd plan to winning via military might then I'd take a better dominion...