I suck with Pythium ... please help!

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
Only banefire / gifts from heaven may work but these spells are so hard to get casters for that you can't count on them.

Thunder strike, astral fires, falling frost, frozen heart, raise skeletons + drain life or drain life + raise skeletons depending on what order you want them in, bladewind etc. Those are all effective spells against Devils.

[Huzurdaddi]

Thunder strike, astral fires, falling frost, frozen heart, raise skeletons + drain life or drain life + raise skeletons depending on what order you want them in, bladewind etc. Those are all effective spells against Devils.

Thunder stike works quite well on devils. Astral fires not so well, MR negates and it's hard for pythium to get access to it, falling frost is ok but does not really kill devils all that well ( it really should don't know what goes wrong ), Blade wind works decently but against it is hard for Pythium to gain access to it, raise dead/drainlife works well against anything, but is hard for pythium to gain access to it.

Of those suggestions the best two for Pythium are Thunderstrike and falling frost. And thunderstrike has a cool sound effect.

[Huzurdaddi]

You'll probably want about 4-5 communicants per theurg when you have 4 or so theurgs

3 seems to work at 4 theurgs. They die exceedingly rarely. I have not tested for 5 theurgs.

These spells will usually be things like thunderstrike, paralyze, soul slay, and such, plus body ethereal, so they aren't that useless.

Actually I see a tremendous amount of ghost wolves. Mostly when the opposing army is retreating. I do however also see soul slay and enslave mind which is nice.

Relief gets cast when the fatigue of your entire army starts to get to be large.

Really? Are you sure about this? If so then clockwork horrors could be quite useful.

[Tuna]

A little thing I've found out about mages casting relief: If you have mass protection up, they are a LOT more likely to cast relief once the script runs out, as you dont have protection to cast.

[Thufir]

Tuna said:
A little thing I've found out about mages casting relief: If you have mass protection up, they are a LOT more likely to cast relief once the script runs out, as you dont have protection to cast.

sounds like a good tip - I'll try it!

[Thufir]

Graeme Dice said:
Thunder strike, astral fires, falling frost, frozen heart, raise skeletons + drain life or drain life + raise skeletons depending on what order you want them in, bladewind etc. Those are all effective spells against Devils.

While we're on the subject of death spells, if you're willing to spend gems how about shadow bLast and/or summon lammashtas? Do either of those work well against devils?

[Huzurdaddi]

While we're on the subject of death spells, if you're willing to spend gems how about shadow bLast and/or summon lammashtas?

I'm not a big fan of anything that needs an MR check against devils. As for Lammashtas I find that they hurt me more than they do the enemy!

So getting back to Pythium what spells do people like to use with their pumped up casters? Here are some that I have used in normal combats with success:

Soul Slay -- effective
Enslave mind -- even more effective
Thunder Strike -- shockingly effective!
Falling Frost -- not quite as excellent as thunder strike
Stellar Cascades -- effective, but I feel lame scripting a spell when my caster is S5.
Orb Lighting -- very powerful but very short ranged. Have not figured out how to use it effectivly. If anyone knows please tell me.

Are there any others that cost no gems that can be cast by a A4W4S5 or A5W5S6? Anything I am overlooking?

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
Are there any others that cost no gems that can be cast by a A4W4S5 or A5W5S6? Anything I am overlooking?

There's always false horrors.

[archaeolept]

false horrors and those who overuse them suck

someone really abusing false horrors should quickly be eliminated by any and all neighbours, irrespective of any previous diplomatic agreements, IMO.

[Graeme Dice]

archaeolept said:
false horrors and those who overuse them suck

I think that raising their required path to air 3 would help a great deal.