Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

Still addicted to FIs, George? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

BTW, I don't agree with Zurai's view that earth and blood don't combo well. Blood Stones are excellent production/booster items. When playing Ulm I often empower a smith in blood just so he can forge some for all my battlesmiths. And Demon Knights are OK troops.

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">With the amount of snow we've gotten this winter, it's pretty much my only chance to remind me what the ground looks like!

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

Yeah, my mistake - I forgot about Demon Knights, which are good, and I wasn't thinking of items at all due to my newbieness. Still, 3B4E is pretty difficult to come by outside of a pretender or a lot of empowering. I'd just like to see something "special" to them like the other Elemental Royalty have. Illearth has nothing and Anthrax only has the Banefire shield, which isn't really that impressive. IIRC he has to be *hit* for the shield to fire off, which means he's taking damage which isn't something you want to happen outside of berserkers.

Hmm. Berserking Lord of Banefire. That might be interesting....

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

Remember that you don't need BBBBEEE, only EE with Earth boots (EE mage can forge) and that there are many blood-enchancing items in there... Brazen Vessel and Blood thorn come to mind (20 slaves each. There is more expensive Armor of the souls (40 slaves) that also raises the blood mage's power. With those items, you only need EEBB on a mage for summon, and a mage with BBB to forge those empowering items. Also, when you remember that Blood and Earth can forge the before-mentioned Blood Stone, one earth is enough. So in fact, you need a mage with two blood and one earth, plus a blood mage. Or then any mage with EB and some 30 slaves for empowering.

Sure, that is lots of work, but only 110 slaves, and any that are needed to summon your Father Illearth. As you will propably want to give him a shield, he can use Blood Thorn as a one-handed life-draining weapon.

Anthrax is much harder, but can be done. Besides, have you seen that DF skull that boosts fire magic by one? It's awesome!

Hupsistakeikkaa, this became quite a long post...

In short: in fact it is not that hard to take EB -mage to EEEBBBB needed to summon Father Illearth, if you already have a blood mage.

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

My point is though that producing what, 5 items JUST to summon Father Illearth is more than a little extravagant because he does nothing signifigant. He's just a big guy with hard skin. If you have earth magic, you can build lots of big guys with hard skin by going up Construction.

Now, if he did something like summoned corrupted earth elementals, or had some kind of blood vengeance effect on him (hey, he IS tainted with blood magic and craves blood now...) then maybe it'd be worth all that effort. Otherwise I'd rather cast Demon Knights or Infernal Crusades.

Or maybe he could get, say, 1 blood slave/turn... after all, people sacrificed blood to him, that's how he got corrupted. It's not like that would be horribly overpowered, especially since he's unique.

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except of course you never forge these items JUST for that.

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

What else are you going to do with a BBBEEEE mage? There are only two Blood/Earth items, neither of which require the full amount, Bind Demon Knight only takes BBEE, and you need another two levels of B to cast Infernal Crusade, which essentially limits it to your pretender or FI. I guess that's a use for him, but seems kind of ... meh. Oh well.

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Err? Your concern was about the usefulness of the items required to summon the FI ("JUST for that?"), and I replied that these items have other uses. This doesn't mean they have to be used on the FI.

Quote:

There are only two Blood/Earth items, neither of which require the full amount, Bind Demon Knight only takes BBEE, and you need another two levels of B to cast Infernal Crusade, which essentially limits it to your pretender or FI. I guess that's a use for him, but seems kind of ... meh. Oh well.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviously the best use for the FI is as a fully-decked supercombattant (or as a support mage for Weapons of Sharpness or such if you can't equip him properly yet).

Re: Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

As a great blood magic enthusiast, let me point out that blood magic is the easiest magical skill to increase, both by the plentitude of magical items and the ease of gathering slaves for empowerment. And while blood and earth are not a very common combination (to my great displeasure) they are an extremely effective combo. Earth blood stones, demon knights, dwarven hammers and soul contracts, and when you finally get to cast Infernal Crusade (*swoon*) you get more knights the more powerful a mage you are. Obviously, you'd like to pump your mage up to a very high level.

Father Illearth/Lord of Banefire - why?
 

Having just completed a very long game with Caelum on the Kingdom of Karan map (very nice map by the way Targa!) in which I summoned all of the elemental royalty, I have to wonder what the point of these two is. Neither one has a special ability (other than Anthrax's slightly improved fire shield), they have decent magic but nothing exceptional, and they require paths that don't combo that well.

Is there some little facet that I'm missing here? I'm NOT saying they're useless, just that I personally can't see why you would summon either one specifically instead of expending a little more effort to get the regular Earth or Fire Kings, who can summon friends every turn.