Petition to Save the Moloch!

[lonewolf]

Why can't the imp thing be implemented like the Soulstone of the Wolves? i.e. have imps appear all round the battlefield and converge on your foes. I'm not exactly sure how the Soulstone works, but I've had literally dozens of Soulstone-produced wolves rout and still not have my Soulstone-carrying commander rout. I think it's because every round new wolves appear, so technically the unit hasn't routed. If the number of imps produced was even 3-4 per round, it would help without making the Moloch too powerful (except against indies and the like, which is fine) - they'd just be a nuisance to more powerful foes.

[PvK]

The stone is probably casting Howl every turn. That's a powerful effect against mortals, even when it's mere wolves. People mock imps, but they are actually pretty good units, when they don't get wiped out due to suicide flights. Infinite imp stream would I think be overpowered, unless perhaps it were only one per combat round.

PvK

[Blitz]

I see the same dorks are here nitpicking at the use of the word "useless" again. Norfleet is completely correct that save for the use for fire-9 blessing, the moloch is not a strong choice for any pretender role. Even in the fire-9 blessing role, he is arguably superceded by the phoenix, who is a stronger artillery unit and is of course... immortal.

Having to tow around an army with your SC sucks. He's clearly worse than the POD and Virtue in the flying humanoid class, simply because of the presence of the imps. Were the imps removed or repaired, his high attack rating, heat aura, fire resistance and ambidexterity would place him in the upper tier with the POD and Virtue. His combat stats are all equal or higher than the POD, and his path cost and combat abilities are superior to the virtue.

Having said that, even with imp removal... the 70 point paths make building a killing machine extremely expensive. Air and Earth magic are standard for most SC's, and selecting both bring the Moloch's pricetag up to a hefty 247 with FFF/EE/AA. While certianly feasible, I suspect players intending to use him as a SC and not a bless chassis will find other avatars to be superior in most cases.

How come nobody talks about their Shedus anymore? Wait! That pretender is perfect too.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Blitz:
I see the same dorks are here nitpicking at the use of the word "useless" again.

I see that your still demonstrating your ignorance of game mechanics and complete lack of social skills.

Norfleet is completely correct that save for the use for fire-9 blessing, the moloch is not a strong choice for any pretender role. Even in the fire-9 blessing role, he is arguably superceded by the phoenix, who is a stronger artillery unit and is of course... immortal.[/qb]

To bring a Moloch up to fire 9, dominion 6 costs you only 285 points. To do the same with the Phoenix costs 408 points. That's hardly a comparable role considering that the Moloch is a far superior fighter.

Having to tow around an army with your SC sucks. He's clearly worse than the POD and Virtue in the flying humanoid class, simply because of the presence of the imps.

You will eventually reach the point in just about any game where a single SC will be unable to deal with the armies your opponent's can put together. At that point, you will be bringing an army along with him anyways. Otherwise he'll just be taken out by a four or five castings of ghost riders.

Having said that, even with imp removal... the 70 point paths make building a killing machine extremely expensive.

Not at all, since items give him everything he needs. Blood thorn, lucky coin, starshine skullcap, copper plate/cold dragon armour, quickness boots, lightning ring/frost ring, regen ring. After all, the archdevils don't need anything other than those items.

Air and Earth magic are standard for most SC's, and selecting both bring the Moloch's pricetag up to a hefty 247 with FFF/EE/AA.

That's not a particularly effective build, since you can put only a moderate suit of armour on him to bring him up to high armour levels, and mistform breaks as soon as it is hit by a magic weapon.

How come nobody talks about their Shedus anymore? Wait! That pretender is perfect too.

This thread is not about the Shedu, which is why nobody but yourself is bringing up that off-topic irrelevancy.

[Kel]

Originally posted by Blitz:
Air and Earth magic are standard for most SC's, and selecting both bring the Moloch's pricetag up to a hefty 247 with FFF/EE/AA. While certianly feasible, I suspect players intending to use him as a SC and not a bless chassis will find other avatars to be superior in most cases.

He also starts with a high dominion, which is a point discount if you compare him to a lot of other SCs.

Starting with F3 is also going to give him a huge discount if you want to make him a fire bless *and* an SC (entirely feasible).

Lastly, when you are balancing, you can't aim for the top of the power curve or you will get balance inflation. How many of the available pretenders would be better but, also, how many would be worse ?

Air and Earth magic are standard for most SC's, and selecting both bring the Moloch's pricetag up to a hefty 247 with FFF/EE/AA.

That's not a particularly effective build, since you can put only a moderate suit of armour on him to bring him up to high armour levels, and mistform breaks as soon as it is hit by a magic weapon.

To be fair, it's not a bad base, imo (could use one less or one more earth. Technically, he can summon earth to invulnerability (or just ironskin). Whether or not it's optimal, it is quite sufficient for the sake of the argument.

- Kel

The Moloch has a base Prot of 15 (same as all Devils) so there is no need for Earth Magic outside of those who have played with too many VQ's. A suit of armor will put him in the upper 20's which is by and large close enough for protection purposes.

I like the Moloch, I don't like his imps however, but the Imps do not make the Moloch 'useless' in any role other than a Blessing Strategy. It only makes him at current inflexible in his SC role early in the game (which is where SC's are most valuable).

AFAIK it is not the intention of IW to keep the battlesummon creatures routable as they are and finding the reasons why and modifying them to the vision of IW to work how they see them is in progress. That is the only answer that I can give you with any assurity.

[Blitz]

To bring a Moloch up to fire 9, dominion 6 costs you only 285 points. To do the same with the Phoenix costs 408 points.

Thanks for demonstrating that the Moloch was the cheapest chassis for a fire-9 base. I'm sure there were a few monkeys who didn't catch it. Thanks to this observation, I believe the debate is over. The Moloch is fine.

You will eventually reach the point in just about any game where a single SC will be unable to deal with the armies your opponent's can put together. At that point, you will be bringing an army along with him anyways. Otherwise he'll just be taken out by a four or five castings of ghost riders.

Wonderful observation. I wasn't aware that a single unit wasn't the answer to all the game's problems. Since this revelation, I guess the Moloch is fine.

Not at all, since items give him everything he needs. Blood thorn, lucky coin, starshine skullcap, copper plate/cold dragon armour, quickness boots, lightning ring/frost ring, regen ring. After all, the archdevils don't need anything other than those items.

Thank you for clarifying the importance of items. I wasn't aware that flying humanoid meant a flying unit with humanoid slottage. I missed the unit that solved the routing imp problem, but you seem confident, so let's just assume the Moloch is fine.

That's not a particularly effective build, since you can put only a moderate suit of armour on him to bring him up to high armour levels, and mistform breaks as soon as it is hit by a magic weapon.

It wasn't meant to be an archtype build for the Moloch, only to remind people that his path cost was extremely high. I don't really know where the mistform comment came from. Cloud trapeeze and mirror image are the key spells. Mistform is a toy.

This thread is not about the Shedu, which is why nobody but yourself is bringing up that off-topic irrelevancy.

I don't find it irrelevant at all. The Last time there was a debate on a pretender chassis, you and a few others seemed hell-bent to disprove all arguments that he wasn't working well. You've replied to my post, which was made regarding comments that the imp bug was deliberately included to prevent the moloch from becoming an all-powerful SC. Clearly the moloch with imps removed would still be a magicly limited, yet physicaly powerful pretender... and the best chassis to use for a fire-9 blessing. Even with imps removed I doubt anyone would use him over other flying humanoids unless they wanted the bless effect. Therefore, imp removal would not suddenly catapult the Moloch to the top of the pretender tree.

You on the other hand, have made points that nobody disputes, least of all myself... making your post completely irrelevant. Obviously once again you are making an attempt to discredit your percieved foes by attacking their dominions 2 knowledge, spelling, or child care theories.

[Blitz]

He also starts with a high dominion, which is a point discount if you compare him to a lot of other SCs.

To a lot of others, yes... but not in comparison to the Virtue (4), and POD (3). It is higher than the phoenix (2), so maybe I might have mentioned it I suppose.

Starting with F3 is also going to give him a huge discount if you want to make him a fire bless *and* an SC (entirely feasible).

Yup he's the cheapest fire 9 blessing. Nobody disputes that. However, similar to the shedu (but obviously not as bad), having to tow around an army is very limiting, and often eliminates his 3-flying strategic move. My point was that making him a SC is prohibitively expensive. He will remain in the fire-9 blessing niche even without the imps. Using him as a thug is possible now, and since thugs aren't meant to solo, the imp problem is small. The option to spend outrageous points to make him a SC should probably be there, however. The imp bug shouldn't be the limiting factor here.

Lastly, when you are balancing, you can't aim for the top of the power curve or you will get balance inflation. How many of the available pretenders would be better but, also, how many would be worse ?

That's the point

I like the Moloch, I don't like his imps however, but the Imps do not make the Moloch 'useless' in any role other than a Blessing Strategy. It only makes him at current inflexible in his SC role early in the game (which is where SC's are most valuable).

AFAIK it is not the intention of IW to keep the battlesummon creatures routable as they are and finding the reasons why and modifying them to the vision of IW to work how they see them is in progress. That is the only answer that I can give you with any assurity.

I agree with all of this.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Blitz:

quote:

---

To bring a Moloch up to fire 9, dominion 6 costs you only 285 points. To do the same with the Phoenix costs 408 points.

Thanks for demonstrating that the Moloch was the cheapest chassis for a fire-9 base. I'm sure there were a few monkeys who didn't catch it. Thanks to this observation, I believe the debate is over. The Moloch is fine.

---

Where oh where is the Plonk button? Bah!

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Blitz:
[QB]Thanks for demonstrating that the Moloch was the cheapest chassis for a fire-9 base. I'm sure there were a few monkeys who didn't catch it. Thanks to this observation, I believe the debate is over. The Moloch is fine.[qb]

It's nice to see that you _completely_ missed the point. You made the argument that the Phoenix is a better chassis for a fire-9 blessing than the Moloch. Since it costs 123 extra points to get that blessing, and gives you a less useful combat unit at the same time, this is very doubtful.

Wonderful observation. I wasn't aware that a single unit wasn't the answer to all the game's problems. Since this revelation, I guess the Moloch is fine.

You made the statement that he was clearly worse than both the virtue and PoD. Since he will be running around with an army for most of the game anyways, this isn't really that important.

Thank you for clarifying the importance of items. I wasn't aware that flying humanoid meant a flying unit with humanoid slottage. I missed the unit that solved the routing imp problem, but you seem confident, so let's just assume the Moloch is fine.

It's nice to see that you've now started desperately grasping at straws by deliberately ignoring what you wrote. I'll present it for you again here:

Having said that, even with imp removal... the 70 point paths make building a killing machine extremely expensive.

You stated that it was expensive to make him a killing machine, so I simply demonstrated that he works just fine as one even with no added magic whatsoever.

It wasn't meant to be an archtype build for the Moloch, only to remind people that his path cost was extremely high. I don't really know where the mistform comment came from. Cloud trapeeze and mirror image are the key spells. Mistform is a toy.

Mistform with 2 air only gives you something like three or four images. That's nice, but not particularly useful. You'll expect to see size 6 tramplers coming after you if you rely on mirror images, and those will get rid of them very quickly. You also don't get to build the air boosting items without bumping it up to 3, which makes it not really worth the cost.

I don't find it irrelevant at all. The Last time there was a debate on a pretender chassis, you and a few others seemed hell-bent to disprove all arguments that he wasn't working well.

No, I was determined to show that you didn't understand the niche that the Shedu filled. He's the best there is for a very specific role.

Even with imps removed I doubt anyone would use him over other flying humanoids unless they wanted the bless effect. Therefore, imp removal would not suddenly catapult the Moloch to the top of the pretender tree.

This is as ridiculous a statement as I've seen. You clearly don't realize just how fragile a virtue is if you think that people wouldn't use a Moloch over one.

You on the other hand, have made points that nobody disputes, least of all myself... making your post completely irrelevant.

You might want to go back and re-read your own post, since you've ignored the problems with everything you wrote in making up your responses.

Obviously once again you are making an attempt to discredit your percieved foes by attacking their dominions 2 knowledge, spelling, or child care theories.

Obviously you don't really have much of a clue about how the game works as demonstrated by the information you've provided. I'm attacking the mistakes you made in your argument, which means it might help if you didn't pretend that you had never made those mistakes.