Counter against Agartha's Marble Oracles?

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Psycho

Trampling is a lousy attack. I think it has only attack 10. So high defense helps a lot. Also luck and eternalness. Give your bane a good shield to boost his defense (gold shield - 9 parry, shield of the accursed - 11 parry) and couple him with an astral mage to cast luck and body ethereal on him. Also give him ring of regen to heal those 1hp damage hits he'll get from trampling.

Trampling ignores shield parry, it only works against "real" defense. So, ironically, a Main-Gauche of Parrying is better against trampling than a Shield of Gleaming Gold is. I think a Vine Shield + Elf Bane or Crusherknack is probably your best bet for a thug, though. Can MA Ermor forge Vine Shields? Trampling is a pretty poor attack against a thug anyway so you should survive long enough to get some good licks in.

Otherwise, yeah, single-target spells are a good option. Does MA Ermor still have Augur Elders? If so, they can also spam Incinerate at Alt 5. I can't remember what else is available, except obviously Disintegrate at Alt 8. With all your death mages, Disintegrate should be pretty awesome, although the range is short.

-Max

[Trumanator]

I'm assuming Drain Life doesn't work on lifeless targets?

[chrispedersen]

Banefire (53+ ap damage) is ea ermors traditional answer to SC's.

I haven't played MA ermor in awhile...

[Endoperez]

MA Ermor is Death and Astral and some randoms. No Augurs.

[Viajero]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

Trampling ignores shield parry, it only works against "real" defense. So, ironically, a Main-Gauche of Parrying is better against trampling than a Shield of Gleaming Gold is. I think a Vine Shield + Elf Bane or Crusherknack is probably your best bet for a thug, though. Can MA Ermor forge Vine Shields? Trampling is a pretty poor attack against a thug anyway so you should survive long enough to get some good licks in.
-Max

Arghh, no shield? then it is a tough one.

As far as I remember trampling works like this:

Check for Defense - (fatigue / 10) against 10
If failed then damage is 8 + 2 x trampler size

Quick calcs with a Bane Lord: HP 42, Base prot 21, Defense 13 (thanks to a Def +3 from the default 2 handed bane blade, otherwise 10) no shield. By the way would the +3 Def from the Bane Blade be used against trample, or just the base 10?

If we give him an elf bane (one handed, Def 0) then base defense goes down to 10 !!! oupss. And suddenly you have only around 46 % chances to avoid the trample. Boots of behemoth give you size 6 so dammage would be 8 + 6 x 2 = 20 - protection / 2 (piercing) = 10 or thereabouts. With 42 HP you can only withstand around 4-5 trample hits and that is assuming the /bane Lord is in immaculate condition before reaching the marble oracle. So I presume getting that Bane Lord ethereal or lucky is paramount.

The marble oracle in the other hand has around 80-90 HP... Does anyone know how's the dammage calculated for an Elf Bane?

Would A Vine Shield make any difference to Defense?

Do boots of quickness help with Defense?

[Trumanator]

FYI, Boots of the Behemoth do NOT change your size to six, they simply give the wearer the trample attack on anyone smaller. BE and Luck would definitely help, as would using any of your own size 6 units. I'm not sure how useful it would be to try and counter with one size 6 unit to occupy it and one or two smaller ones to do the damage. What would be the priority of the oracle?

[Fantomen]

Marble oracles are only size 4, so a bane lord would do just fine.

[Viajero]

Ah I think i got it from the database. Elf Bane has a "Slay Magic" effect which means that for every successfull hit the magic victim will need to have a successfull mr roll or suffer 999 damage.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

FYI, Boots of the Behemoth do NOT change your size to six, they simply give the wearer the trample attack on anyone smaller. BE and Luck would definitely help, as would using any of your own size 6 units. I'm not sure how useful it would be to try and counter with one size 6 unit to occupy it and one or two smaller ones to do the damage. What would be the priority of the oracle?

Units first attack whatever is directly in front of them, then what is above them, and then what is below them. Or at least that is what I have observed. If you paired a large flying unit with one or two thugs geared to kill the oracle, you should be able to convince the oracle not to attack your thugs unless your flying unit gets killed.

Alternatively, you could give a commander a cat charm, bracers of protection, a main gauche and elf bane/smasher/dusk dagger. If you really don't care about the expense add in chainmail of displacement and switch out the bracers for a ring of regeneration. Or go for thunder bows, eyes of aiming and boots of giant strength. One of the above should work.


Actually banelords have pretty decent base defense skill (14), it's just they're wearing pretty heavy armor. If you could get one chainmail of displacement and a 0 def hat, it would be at 20 defense. That's not too shabby.

[llamabeast]

Crusherknack works very well.

Edit: I meant Smasher, which has Crusherknack as a secondary effect IIRC.