Air vs Nature

[Saber Cherry]

Revised Air table:

Air......Effect

4.........20% Air Shield
5.........30% Air Shield
6.........40% Air Shield
7.........50% Air Shield
8.........60% Air Shield
9.........70% Air Shield + 75% Shock Resist
10.......80% Air Shield + 75% Shock Resist

Pretty sweet at high levels, for archer races (or against archer races). Especially nice for IF Ulm, Marginon, and all races with holy mages that don't have Air magic. 10 is too expensive, though; I'd never go above 9.

-Cherry

Not if you get Construction 4, with Air 3. Then you have a Staff of the Storms which protects all your units, not just your Sacred units.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
Not if you get Construction 4, with Air 3. Then you have a Staff of the Storms which protects all your units, not just your Sacred units.

I hadn't noticed that the dreaded Staff of Sorms is still con 4 - I guess I assumed it was going to be made con 6.

Still doesn't wipe the value of air shield though as its always been the case that archers are very counterable as the game goes on and people tend to use them, and encounter, them early. As the game goes on the lightning resistance becomes better and may make up for the declining value of the air shield. The key to the air shield is that not having to build dross archer catchers early so expansion becomes easier.

I'm going to give Air9 a go with the Van so watch out for Orb Lightning.

Many, many thanks Saber for digging all this up. You have saved us from ourselves.

cheers

Keir

[Saber Cherry]

The other advantage is that Air Shield protects your troops against friendly fire... while staff of storms renders friendly archers useless, AFAICT.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
The other advantage is that Air Shield protects your troops against friendly fire... while staff of storms renders friendly archers useless, AFAICT.

And that's how I've been using it so far mostly. Crossbows, longbows and arbalests can hurt your sacred knights while they are pursuing the routers pretty badly. Even a little bit of air shield helps with that, as they are already far away, and the missiles are not targeting them, but stray ones fall all over the place and cause damage. I might not want to go all the way with air, but 4 air is useful for your pretender as well in combat, in addition to it not really being that common on summoned mages. It's not as expensive as earth 9, yet it helps the survivability of already superior and expensive sacred troops, as well as protecting your priests/casters from stray arrows. Besides, prot 4 is not all that great against AP missiles anyway. Low % air shield might not be noticeable at close range, but in firing all the way across the field it's decent enough, as it even further reduces the chance that the odd missile that hits the square kills someone.

[ November 28, 2003, 02:24: Message edited by: HJ ]

[Keir Maxwell]

Just finished trying Van using the All Father with Air9 Death4. Can't say it worked well. I seemed to suffer from as many missile hits on the Van as previously (probably because my Axe/Jav were on "fire") and I missed the extra defense and offence of water9.

On the plus side when I went to war with Pythium all their archers were on target mounted (very sensible) and the air shield helped there. I found the poison cloud of the fleeing hydra hatcheling the worst part of facing Pythium.

I didn't keep playing long enough to make use of the shock resistance and my worry with it is the Van still get hit and lose their mirror image.

I'm still interested in trying both fire9 and blood4 with Van to see how this increases their offence. Might go test it out and see if I can get a blood4/water9 or Blood4/fire9 pretender.

cheers

Keir

[Saber Cherry]

I still want a Water-9 Fire-9. That would be insane, but only Dead Ermor can have one, since there are no water/fire pretenders.