I suck with Pythium ... please help!

[Huzurdaddi]

I need help!

As I have stated before my inital strategy with pythium is based upon Principes backed up with lots of Theurg Acolytes casting Body Etherial. Works dandy for expanding. However I have three problems:

1) I can't figure out how to summon anything worth while. It's fustrating. I commonly have a good number of gems by turn 30 ( like 600 or so of various types sitting in the bank ) but nothing at all to spend them on. Maybe that's the curse of taking a rainbow mage?

2) I can't get blood worth crap and I *really* dig blood. But with the nerf to blood hunting it seems that blood is not for pythium.

3) I can't really figure out what is decent battle magic. I know that I have access to basically any air, water or astral battle magic but I can't find anything that really, really kicks ***. I've tried mass soul slay, mass enslave mind, mass stellar cascades but none of them *really* kick ***. Orb lighting would kick ***, but it's range seems to limit me from using it a lot ( I guess I should put my army right at the front or something ). And falling frost really does not seem to get the job done that well. I was even somewhat unimpressed with thurges casting Nifel Flames ( oh how I wanted that to work out! ). Wrathful skies seems to be the only spell that *really* kicks *** but it kicks my *** too! I guess I could try Shimmering Fields. There has to be *something* that I am missing. Oh I like nether darts, but sadly you don't get many casters with the ability to cast that. How should I use communion! I know it's massivly powerful but what to use?

[Huzurdaddi]

Oh I guess the one battle magic that I do know that works with communion is banishment. Sadly I'm allied with Ermor so that's a no-no. But it would be *really* funny to watch. 6 or so level 6 preists that would be funny to watch!

[PvK]

I think you probably just need to get more play experience. The things you are describing can be very very effective, if used in the right ways and numbers, against the right foes. For example, I don't know how mass soul slay can be ineffective, unless fighting things with high MR or that don't have souls or have tons of hitpoints or something. Communion is great with Pythium because of their cheap communion slaves. Basically you want a bunch of them, and they will allow your mages to cast more powerful spells with tons of fatigue to spare.

PvK

[SelfishGene]

Its funny before on multiplayer game i strongly considered taking Pythium but decided not to because of the exact same reasoning in not having anything to summon (i wanted to make a rainbow).

You say the high level astral spells aren't any good? I was always aiming one day to try out some of the battlefield wide luck and mind control spells, but haven't ever gotten far enough yet to test them out (or/ie got bored and quit before then)...

If you took the Divine Emperor, however, you can place more Astral buffs on him than on any other Pretender chassis in the game. I beleive its Skull Cap +1, up to four of the following: Tome of High Power +1, Forbidden Light +2, Crystal Coin +1, and The Rings of Wizardry and Sorcery +1; and the Robe of the Magi +1. +7 Astral would make a pretty powerful battlefield caster, even if he only started with 4 or 5. Than how many more Astral buffs are there possible during the battle? Banner of Northern Star +1, Astral Self Buff +1, i think maybe one more... and on top of that, you get the communion bonuses, which will probably >= +3. So assuming 4 astral at the start, you get as a maximum uh, 14?. Doesn't sound too shabby for a flabby human.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
Forbidden Light +2

Doesn't sound too shabby for a flabby human.

I don't think horror-marking your flabby human is a good idea.

[HotNifeThruButr]

wait... weren't you the one who wrote the Pythium guide?

Anyways, I would convert my gems into something all my casters can work with. If you want to turn one elemental gem into another, you can convert it astral pearls first.