Best - worse magic paths

[Graeme Dice]

Truper said:
This "analysis" ignores the fact that vine ogres can be buffed, and do not operate in a magic-support-free vacuum.

If the person lost a battle because of mage support, then they lost it because of mages, not because of vine ogres. It's also not like there's a useful battlefield wide buff spell other than mist warriors and arrow fend for vine ogres.

In Dom2, Vine Ogres were absurdly underpriced. Calculate the number of gems spent on that Bane Lord, and then calculate the number of hitpoints possesed by an army of Vine Ogres on which an equal number of gems was spent.

Easy. 10 death gems for the bane lord, 20 slaves for the blood thorn (The equivalent of about 5-10 normal gems), 5 pearls for the luck pendant, 5 water and 5 earth for the jade armour, 5 earth and 5 fire for the charcoal shield. That's a grand total of 40-45 gems for the bane lord, or 80-90 vine ogres and 40 mage turns to summon them.

Those vine ogres have two fist attacks and a protection of 5, so they cause themselves 11 damage each turn they attack, and the bane lord causes 34 damage per turn. Over the course of the battle, the bane lord will kill 25 vine ogres by himself. The charcoal shield takes five turns to kill one, but since up to 16 will surround the bane lord, you can expect him to kill up to a maximum of about 160 vine ogres given optimum placing.

I've seen what fireshield does to vine ogres. On a dragon that's currently at F7 the shield killed 50 vine ogres well before the 50 turn limit. I also know from first hand experience that sea trolls, which are better meat shields than vine ogres will die to a similarly equipped ice devil.

Vine ogres were one of the few early research summons that had actual use, despite their expense, throughout the game, which is hardly a bad thing.