Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

[Endoperez]

KissBlade said:
LoL, yeah. Congrats for spending 100 gems to be able to cast Falling Fire with ... one mage. Oh look he died to magic duel.

EA Tien Chi has 1/4 chance of getting a F2 Celestial Master, and 1/4 chance of getting F1D1 Celestial Master. Skull of Fire is a Fire booster. It wouldn't be 100 gems, and it wouldn't be just one mage. One empower and one Skull of Fire would let the lucky one forge boosters for the rest of the Celestial Masters. Of course, there's not really need for that, as 1/4 Celestial Masters have F2 and can both cast Phoenix Power without gems AND use a Skull of Fire.

EA Tien Chi also has Masters of the Five Elements, of course.

Other eras of Tien Chi don't have Fire, even as randoms.



MA Tien Chi doesn't have any Earth randoms. That's bad. It might also be a bug, because LA Tien Chi Celestial Masters DO have an Earth random, even though they don't have an Earth pick.
However, if one of the Celestial Masters is empowered to Earth 2 (30 gems), he can forge Earth Boots, and Dwarven Hammer with the boots.

LA Tien Chi has access to D2, E2 and N2, but not 3 in any one of these. They also have access to what MA Tien had: A2 and S2 via 100% randoms and W2 without random. The only thing MA Tien Chi has in addition is an E1 pick on the Celestial Masters, which is worse than being able to recruit E2D1 mages from all your castles, and access to W3 via a 100% random instead of just 10% random.

Tien Chi can't forge Air boosters. They can forge Astral boosters (Starshine Skullcap). With Skullcap, an E2 Celestial Master can forge Crystal Coins. Tien Chi can forge both Water boosters. Empowerment lets a Celestial Master forge Thistle Maces, and with N3S1 they can make a further Moonvine Bracelet.

Single empowerment can still be worth it for Tien Chi. However, it seems MA Tien Chi is very, very weak magic-wise.

[Nerfix]

MA Tien needs at least to get Earth randoms. Then we can at least open a way for them to use Gifts from Heaven.

[curtadams]

Celestial masters aren't good battlemages but they are still great units. Battlemages want high ratings in single paths rather than a wide range of paths, because of the way spells get better with higher path ratings and the limited ability to use spell diversity. However, they are excellent site-searchers, good forgers, and are good at casting the excellent Tien Chi specialist summons. You can also often boost individuals to cast hard-to-access multipath spells. Having access to them is an excellent boost to Tien Chi even if you don't want a bank of them doing artillery work.

[Kristoffer O]

Splendid initiative Zen!

With the new spell mod commands you can have a go at making spells, changing dmg, range, effects, and whatever.


Good luck!

[NTJedi]

Kristoffer O said:
Splendid initiative Zen!

With the new spell mod commands you can have a go at making spells, changing dmg, range, effects, and whatever.


Good luck!

Yes, based on the last patch progress report the 3.01 patch is almost ready.
Looks like I'll take Friday as a day off from work.

[B0rsuk]

Is no one else insane enough to think about Summon Hellpower on Celestial Masters ?

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:
Splendid initiative Zen!

With the new spell mod commands you can have a go at making spells, changing dmg, range, effects, and whatever.


Good luck!

You...can!!?? OMU, does this mean that I can make my Astral 1 Blood 1 Astral Taint that causes Horror Marks??

[DominionsFan]

Kristoffer O said:
Splendid initiative Zen!

With the new spell mod commands you can have a go at making spells, changing dmg, range, effects, and whatever.


Good luck!

Fantastic! Now we will be able to make really decent mods.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Disclaimer: I've never played Abysia.

For the record, I like old age. The only additional micromangement old age incurs seems to be that you need to send additional mages along for trips to avoid having the odd army without mage support all of a sudden. Playing Arco, yes, I loose a fair amounts of the old 'ones (crones?), but hey, gold is plentiful, so I just recruit some more. It just means that we won't have those insane stacks of researches hanging around, which I think is a good thing. Also, it makes the younger, less powerful mages more interesting than they were in dom2, where I virtually never hired anything but crones.

As the battlemages... the number of mages should increase along with the number of troops, so no change there. As the number of gems has decreased, the relative costs of battlefield (gemrequiring) spells has increased a bit, so that's alright. It is true that the troop buffs are more powerful now, but then, you can only have so many mages buffs troops.

One thing I would like nerfed a bit is independent archers. They are often better than the nationals, which I find a bit of a shame.

I also looooovvvvveee the new horror mark... makes it possible to bring down any SC if you are willing to sac the mages for it. Perfect!

Also, definitely move the summons around a bit so that the poor value summons are lowered to in path/research requirements and the good one the other way around, so that more summons are useful. I don't have much experience here, though. The only summon I have had any luck with are behemoths and skeletons.

Have fun everyone!

[Nerfix]

Abysia's problem with aging is twofold:

- Almost all mages start as old, even Anathem. Salamanders and Warlock Apperentics
- Abysians have tiny miny lifespans and are old at age of ~32. This makes them to be propotionaly more likely to rack afflictions from old age. Warlocks start with age of 38 IIRC.