"Firestarter", or Volcano, Armageddon Bow, something.
As far as why you wouldn't buy 4 crossbowmen instead of the Auto-Crossbow : think of a high-air mage + astral : high precision plus astral weapon, 4 shots instead of one. Or, putting it on your 0-upkeep summoned commanders like black servants.
Hrm. Y'know : unique items that _aren't_ level 8 construction might be kinda nice. After all - a lot of the artifact / uniques relatively suck. But if they were moved downwards in the research tree, still unique? Some artifacts that no one currently bothers with (for instance, because there are non-unique items almost as good, or better, for fewer gems) : the unique staff that gives death plus 1 : if that were construction 2, people would have more choices. Now, it's either research alt-3 for SCs, _or_ construction 7, enchantment 7, or construction 8, to try to get the uniques before someone else does.
But : if there was unique items at const-3? A minor unique summons at conj-4 (a named lamia queen, or an F3 Prine of Fire elemental)? Maybe the new mod commands will let us do things like that - imagine, 2 unique uber black servants at conj-3, etc.
