The Vine Ogre
 

I think that there is overwhelming consensus that the Vine Ogre (VO) kicks too much butt for its cost compared to all other units/summons.

Here are some suggestions, any combination of which could be implemented in the next patch to reduce its cost effectiveness:

- VO only has 50% Pois. Res. (In fact, I think this makes sense; cannot a tree, like a well from which it drinks, be poisoned?)
- VO only have 43 HP
- VO only have 17 Strength

What do you think?

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

Well the 3N skill still limits them a bit, but they are truly a bit more useful than your average summons. More likely other summons' gem prices should be lowered, so there would be even some use of them.

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

I agree, besides the mage time issue, they have an achilles heel in the form of magic resistance. They seem like one of the better balanced summons.

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

Theres no easy way to exploit the low magic res, really. They are quite powerful for being so massively inexpensive...

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

Oh, I don't know - a Charm Squad of Druids with Thistle Maces is always fun (or an Enslave squad of Astral-3 mages or ...).

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

I don't think there's "overwhelming consensus" that the Vine Ogre is too strong.

Besides the points already mentioned,

- it has poor attack rating and can only serve as a meat(?) shield, but seldomly does any damage against 'real' troops

- it is suspectible to fire ..

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

Vine Ogres are fine as they are. Building a VO army of a decent size requires lots of mage turns. Compare that to the same number of mages casting Pale Riders. VO are fodder, albeit fodder with quite a few hit points. One SC will slice up any number of VO and give the SC a ton of life drain HP. So there goes your investment (in time as well as gems).

Nerfing the VO gives an even greater edge to death and blood nations. Of the three major summoning paths, nature is definitely not the strongest and arguably the weakest.

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

Vine ogres are pretty strong, IMO. They would be fine EXCEPT that there are various ways to summon lots more than 1 per gem, and Nature's thistle mace, the avalibility of druids, and the fact that vine beings are one of the few mindless units that don't require magical or indead leadership combine to make them far better than any other low-level summon.

Not that this solves the problem, but I don't think anyone could have a real complaint against raising their price to 2 gems. 2 gems for (generally) 2 vine ogres... still a bargain, isn't it?

As for poison immunity, vine creatures are certainly not immune to poison. They're just immune to blood poisons that affect animals and humanoids with hearts and organs, since they are plants. Nobody said they were immune to herbicides... =)

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

I thought I just read in another thread that you can't mind enslave them... but maybe you can still charm them. I dunno though, cause they are mindless.

Actually with 2 attacks with decently high strength they can do well against most national troops. Unless by 'normal' you mean other summons...

Re: The Vine Ogre
 

For reference... here are the relative simbat powers of a few meat shields.

Deathmatch Power Ratings for 100 rounds:

100*Heavy Inf Scale --------- Wins: 46.2% Power: 890 Overall: 1000
179*Light Inf --------------- Wins: 52.1% Power: 1064 Overall: 990
354*Militia ----------------- Wins: 53.8% Power: 1121 Overall: 1006
275*Vine Man ---------------- Wins: 50.5% Power: 1014 Overall: 992
81*Vine Ogre ---------------- Wins: 46.6% Power: 903 Overall: 999
345*Corpse Construct -------- Wins: 50.8% Power: 1025 Overall: 1007

Average --------------------- Wins: 50.0% Power: 1003 Overall: 998
Median ---------------------- Wins: 50.8% Power: 1025 Overall: 1000
Overall RMS: 999
Overall RMH: 999

Vinemen are big, cheap, upkeep-free, need-not-eat, poison proof, and mindless, which are huge advantages. But they are not super-powerful in combat. Far better than soulless or corpse constructs, though.

P.S. And I think all mindless are immune to mind-altering or soul-slaying spells, like charm.