Mod: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.05)

[kianduatha]

But...why are you trying to argue that Oracles should be costed as non-thugs when your own Agartha strategy guide is more or less centered around using Oracles as thugs? And they're way way way better thugs with 2 more free magic paths, higher attack and defense, and lower encumbrance.

And it's not like you're jonesing for thugs in the first place, anyways. The Gift of Reason change makes Umbral thugs cost what, 8 gems?

All that being said, there's a certain charm to at least giving the Ancient Ones slightly higher attack/def--there's no reason why an Ancient One is not more skilled at arms than a Cavern Guard. If Ancient Ones were 10 att 10 def, Seal Guards were 11 att 11 def, and then Ancient Lords were 12 att 12 def, it would make a lot of sense but still not take away from their flavor.

I'd also argue that if you're gonna lower the encumbrance of the big guys, that it should go down to 2 like all the other 'giant' races.

Finally, I'd like to point out that the Golem is a standard thug chassis and has even worse att/def stats.

[LDiCesare]

If I get it right, instead of 1 oracle in 2 having E4, there's less than one in 40? So bye bye Earth attack spammers.

[kianduatha]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

If I get it right, instead of 1 oracle in 2 having E4, there's less than one in 40? So bye bye Earth attack spammers.

Nah, you still get your 1 in 2 E4 guys. 1 in 80 as opposed to 1 in 40 for E5, but honestly...noone was counting on that anyways.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

But...why are you trying to argue that Oracles should be costed as non-thugs when your own Agartha strategy guide is more or less centered around using Oracles as thugs? And they're way way way better thugs with 2 more free magic paths, higher attack and defense, and lower encumbrance.

And it's not like you're jonesing for thugs in the first place, anyways. The Gift of Reason change makes Umbral thugs cost what, 8 gems?

All that being said, there's a certain charm to at least giving the Ancient Ones slightly higher attack/def--there's no reason why an Ancient One is not more skilled at arms than a Cavern Guard. If Ancient Ones were 10 att 10 def, Seal Guards were 11 att 11 def, and then Ancient Lords were 12 att 12 def, it would make a lot of sense but still not take away from their flavor.

I'd also argue that if you're gonna lower the encumbrance of the big guys, that it should go down to 2 like all the other 'giant' races.

Finally, I'd like to point out that the Golem is a standard thug chassis and has even worse att/def stats.

Here's the thing about that guide - it worked fine against indies and against the AI. It fails horribly against players. Tried it. Tried some other things too. The other things worked marginally better. I seem to also remember having advocated Ancient Ones... yeah, that was a mistake.

Even if you want to compare to other thugs, lets compare to LA Mictlan's cap-only Atlantian thug. Same cost, vastly better stats, not too dissimilar on total paths (9.1 iirc), and of course belongs to Mictlan, so you're going to have a big bless to go with him. And have a good troop line-up, and so on.

And lets not forget Agarthan Oracles have cold-blooded. #1 reason to never use them as thugs against a player. Alt 4 and a handful of w gems => dead Oracle (once he fatigues out trivially).

Golems work because of (1) astral storm for offense, (2) Enc. 0, and (3) returning for escaping from retribution. Without them they're just poor and extremely vulnerable thugs. Astral makes everything better.

And honestly, I never found it worthwhile to GoR an umbral when GoR was 15n. Umbrals make pretty good troops, but the n was better saved for tarts (who probably weren't too many turns behind the umbrals), and 18 gems for a thug + gear... you might as well use banelords.

Is 8 gems too few? Maybe. Of course, you're still talking about using pretender time for it, since Agartha has no nature mages.