Quote:
Originally Posted by chrispedersen
Is it CBM vfb?
You can make a pretty respectable thug by vineshield, demon whip, bracer, bracer, earth armor.
All at con-2. With legions of steel, you get your 40 prot. and an aoe weapon. all at a cost of less than 10 gems + hammer.
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I have not had a single Oracle get so much as an affliction, when wielding just a Brand+Gleaming Shield. He can self-buff, or if there are two, one can bless while the other adds in Holy Avenger. They can solo medium-difficulty indies. For tougher indies I like to add a girdle. But that's 2 or 3 items versus 5.
I have 3 hammers going at the end of the first year, and forge (Frost Brand, Gleaming Shield, Girdle) or (Fire Brand, Gleaming Shield, Girdle) almost every month. I don't have the N income to make Vine Shields.
I killed off my Olm foolishly in my first game, so I ran it again and got a bit better results. This time I kitted out the Olm first with (Frost Brand, Gleaming Shield, Girdle), and sent him off to fight/search as my first thug. Even at an item forged a month with the Forge Lord, I like the Olm better because of lower cost, better research, better bless, better site searching, and dom summons. Plus it's thematic. And he can make Golems later.
LoS is fine for casting on a bunch of Seal Guards, and if I accidentally hit a thug I've got in the army I won't be sad about it. But it's too costly in terms of fatigue to self-buff with.
Demon Whips are fine until you run into higher protection indies or Aby or Cavemen or Elephants. Oracles have good strength, so it's nice to let them pound on the enemy. They can actually hit with brands too, even with zero stars and not quickened they have 13 attack with a brand.
Vine Shields are const-4, maybe you are thinking of Eye Shields? How are you going to get that much N by the time you've got const-2 though? And how many turns are you taking to forge?
I also don't like the buff fatigue expense that Earth Armor imposes. E6 plus a girdle already gets me into scary fatigue territory (~33) when I'm doing something like (D.Bless,Summ Earth,Ironskin,Quicken Self), wearing an enc-1 shield.