I suck with Pythium ... please help!

[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.

[archaeolept]

yeah 3 is a good choice

my suggestion was A2 and 20 fat which is pretty similar

zen's suggesion was A2 and 25 fat

I think truper wanted them to be A6 and 100 fatigue or something...



though really the worst offender by far is Caelum, so I get around that just by banning their feathery little asses

;p

[Truper]

Heh - a guy needs a chance to rave once in a while I think I may have mentioned 100 fatigue, but the A6 is an exaggeration

The problem as it stands now is that quickened Seraphs can cast 2 False Horrors per round until they pass out - and they can do it for somewhere around 12 rounds (exact calculations are hard, since I don't have a formula for the fatigue reduction of magic dominions, which are common - and also because after the scripts run out, the Seraph will mix in the occasional Phantasmal Warrior or a spell like Charge Body). Then when they *do* finally exhaust themselves, they wake after a one or two rounds, and spam another 2 horrors. It wouldn't be that great a problem, if one had any way to get things to attack mages, but in my experience, no matter what you have on attack rear, those things will prefer to attack anything *but* mages, no matter how relatively harmless the things they're attacking.

There are things which will defeat a horror-spam, but those things are much more expensive than a Seraph and his 5 archers scattered about the field, in one way or another.

Adding insult to injury is the way a Caelum Horrifying Horrors strategy hangs together. To get horrors, you need to research alteration. Alteration is the primary path requirement for the all-too-common Quickness/Mistform/Mirror-Image/Invulnerability SC pretender - which Caelum can afford better than most nations.

My considered suggestion, as opposed to my bitter, raving, pulling-my-hair-out I've-been-spammed-again sarcastic suggestion, is that the path should be left at A1, so that False Horrors would still be available to say Vanherses or mages with a random in air, but that the fatigue should be raised to 30.