Wow. Paralyze is the Super combatant killer!

mr.white · #1 December 22nd, 2003, 05:39 AM

RIP: Belial, killed after being paralyzed by a volva.

RIP: Belphegor(With an amulet of antimagic. 21 magic resistance total), killed after being paralyzed by a volva.

Alive and well: 2 Heliophagii and 4 Archdevils after destroying Pythium. Gotta love the AI spell selection

Anyway, paralyze has really impressed me. It didn't take many shots to get past the magic resistance in either case...and once you're down it's hopeless. You won't ever wake up in that battle. Kind of makes me wonder if getting my earth mother blinded by machaka wasn't a fluke. I won't take magic resistance for granted ever again!

apoger · #2 December 22nd, 2003, 06:44 AM

I'm glad someone else has noticed this.
Seems Paralyze has amazing penetration.

Jasper · #3 December 22nd, 2003, 07:33 AM

I haven't tried casting Paralyzation directly so much as getting from Astral Shield, but ouch. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything Paralyzed live. I wonder if MR penetration items work with Astral Shield...

The Paralyzing Poison from the Barbed Tail attacks of many demons seems fairly nasty as well. I haven't played around with it, but I'm presuming there is no MR save.

Anyone know of anything else that has Paralyzing Poison?

Saber Cherry · #4 December 22nd, 2003, 08:25 AM

Things with "poisoned claws", like ghouls and Ermor priests, have paralyzing poison... but as far as I can tell, it just does fatigue damage (50, perhaps?), not paralysis.

Also, Woodsman Blowdarts do paralyzing poison damage, and I'm not sure which kind. But with 2 AP damage, they can't hit anything armored, anyway...

#5 December 22nd, 2003, 09:51 AM

Paralyzation is just another hammer in the "Astral is great, for a select few races" coffin. Not only does it only take a few cssts to usually affect all the SC's. But it is cast on Pretenders, Devils, King (Queen) of (Element) and other nasties first (The targeting isn't stupid). It even goes to mages next. And on top of that, once something is parazyled it isn't doing anything. The duration of the spell is almost as good as it's penetration.

[ December 22, 2003, 08:01: Message edited by: Zen ]

WraithLord · #6 December 22nd, 2003, 10:26 AM

I think duration and or penetration of paralyze should tone down a bit.
It's a good SC counter, but it must require many more castings or Last less rounds.

Taqwus · #7 December 22nd, 2003, 10:45 PM

Penetration might be pretty high.

Bear in mind, 'tho, that there are assorted personal instant-death spells, such as Soul Slay, Petrify, Disintegrate, Magic Duel, Opposition; as well as delayed-death spells like Maggots and Decay; and spells that come close to instant death for many, like Incinerate. If it weren't for a penetration bonus, Paralysis would be weaker, since there's still a chance of surviving.

NTJedi · #8 December 22nd, 2003, 11:23 PM

Yes I've seen the same thing about Paralyze... even wrote a topic a few days back. What happened in my scenario:

I was attacking the AI enemy at his capital and his pretender had 6 water and 2 astral. Anyways almost instantly my pretender and earth king were PARALYZED solid then my Kharionic Lions were getting targeted. I still won the battle but the enemy pretender was only casting paralyze the entire time.

What makes this spell so powerful:
A) targets the largest monsters then the wizards.
B) anyone paralyzed is not going to wake up... thus if you start to lose you're dead.
C) the spell rarely fails

Personally I feel the spell is way too powerful.

Keir Maxwell · #9 December 23rd, 2003, 01:16 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Taqwus:
Bear in mind, 'tho, that there are assorted personal instant-death spells,
. . .
If it weren't for a penetration bonus, Paralysis would be weaker, since there's still a chance of surviving.

In practice something that takes your opponent out of the conflict and kills them if you win is close to being as good to simply killing them for most approaches based on winning the battle. Sure it means paralyse isn't so deadly as a spoiler used by a losing side but most truly powerful combo's are based around winning battles not losing them.

I have become a bit sceptical about wether SC's are very powerful in Dom2 given the range of counters. I'm back to my Dom1 postion of preferring to provide a mass of targets than a few juicy ones once the game gets developed.

Cheers

Keir

jbw · #10 December 23rd, 2003, 05:01 AM

I've found that a pretender Lich with magic resistance enhanced to 26 is easily paralyzed by a few Illithid soldiers (using their mind attack) before he can make a single move. I'm still trying to come up with an effective tactic to counter this (besides raising huge armies to fight a few soldiers).

Incidentally, I noticed that when you examine a paralyzed unit and click on the paralyzed icon, it gives you a number. Does anyone know what the number means? I thought it might mean the number of turns you were paralyzed, but when it was 3 the unit was still paralyzed 5 turns later.

In that particlar case, I attacked an army of illithids, trolls, and humans with my Lich pretender and some human commanders and soldiers. The illithids routed all my soldiers and then paralyzed my pretender, but only after he had cast Fire Shield and Breath of Winter. The entire army (60 units) surrounded and attacked my paralyzed pretender, and all of them died trying to finish him off, so I won the battle after my army had been routed.