Re: Undead Killing
That seems like a good equipment loadout for taking out undead SCs and thugs, but it might not be all that effective against an AE chaff horde. The Spirit Helm is expensive and only useful against high-quality units, whereas Ermor relies on the lowest quality units in the game, albeit in large amounts. Ditto regarding the F9 blessing, though it can be tremendously useful against ethereal undead. Burning Pearls are also next to meaningless against soulless and not particularly useful against longdead, as neither type of undead has particularly good defense. Also, a Charcoal Shield would be much more effective against hordes of chaff.
Also, although your anti-SC results speak for themselves, I'm not certain this would be the ideal loadout for combating mid-level undead thugs and troops(wights, ghosts, etc), because:
A) Ethereal undead, especially ones with tricksy lifedraining, paralyzing and strength-stealing attacks, are another story altogether, and often call for an entirely different sort of tactic than that used against conventional undead
B) Melee heroes carrying loads of equipment vs. anything with a bane blade = a suboptimal idea. Decay hurts, and it takes a hell of a lot of MR to be absolutely safe.
As for my contribution to the discussion, fun fact: Spell Foci only cost 5 astral pearls, and work on Banishment. On a related note, it's usually most cost effective to get large numbers of low-level priests casting Banishment, instead of a few pricey high-level ones, but a Spell Focus/Rune Smasher combo is more than enough to change this. Best supplemented with a casting of Power of the Spheres, for an even larger area of effect, even more damage, and possibly even more penetration. If communion masters benefit from spells cast by other communion masters, a Crystal Matrix might be a good way of getting this boost out of a friendly astral mage(the alternative is the Crystal Shield, which is simply too heavy).
...
Also, if you're positively desperate for The Ultimate Banishment, I suppose a little Hell Power never hurt anyone.
Update: In case anyone wasn't aware of this factoid, the Herald Lance's x3 multiplier doesn't mean that any damage inflicted is multiplied by 3, it means(or so an older thread would have me believe) that the entire roll to damage, including strength, before accounting for armor, is multiplied by 3. Plainly put, the Herald Lance is the melee weapon against powerful undead or demons. The Solar Rays are very nice against weaker stuff, but nothing takes out a higher-end thug or SC quite like the pointy end.
|