[johan osterman]

Originally posted by apoger:
>I wasn't aware that it was the supercombatant slayer spell of choice.
*Low value to nation scales inspires pretenders with more magic.
*Gold economy weaker than Dom I. Harder to afford mages, and mages are one of the things that handled super combatants.
*Gold economy weaker than Dom I. Harder to afford troops. Super Combatants trump conventional armies. Less conventional force plus magical pretenders equals players using super combatants.
*Star fire no longer as potenet a defense versus super combatants.
*Many super combatants are high end blood summons. These are now 'demons' and not 'undead'. Nations with death magic can no longer use dust to dust, wither bones, control the dead, or any anti-undead magic to deal with these bad boys. This makes them dramatically more potent.
*Not sure about solar rays (and herald lance) but it may suffer from the same ineffectiveness versus 'demons'. Used to be that a few commanders with herald lances and totem shields could offer an army some defense versus the big undead.
*Elemental summons have been rendered impotent (double fatigue plus gem cost!). A basic defense versus super combatants was swarming them with elementals. Not any more.
*there are a few more reasons but I can't think of them off the top of my head. I'll make a list.


Thus defense versus super combatants is at an all time low, while game mechanics inspire players to use magically endowed pretenders.

My fear is that multiplayer is going to turn into "Super Combatant battle arena".

There is a few flip sides to some of your arguments as well as other ways in which supercombatants have been toned down. Sure supercombatants might have become more powerfull, but at least the case is not as open and shut as you make it out.

1 Resistances are harder to come by. Most items no longer provide 100% resistance. Resistances are important to supercombatants
2 While mages where a good counter against supercombatants, their site searching and forging of magical items where also a vital part in decking out supercombatants. So if mages are harder to come by this will also affect the effectiveness of the supercombtants, not only the effectiveness of counters against them.
3 The high end bloodsummons are more expensive, there are demon combating spells and items.
4 Fire shields and astral shields are slightly toned down.
5 Some units commonly used as supercombatants now has additional suspectibilities. Such as Arch Devils taking extra damage from cold etc.
6 And Lastly if the magically endowed pretender is the supercombatant that is fielded it is not so bad, first of all he is expensive to loose, secondly he is only one, thirdly it is ever so much more appropriate with a pretender supercombatant actually able to cast a few spells compared to the magically impaired pretenders often encountered in dom 1.
There might be more but these are the reasons I can think of at the top of my head.

[ October 29, 2003, 17:34: Message edited by: johan osterman ]