What nation(s) are best for fire? (Besides Abysia)

MaxWilson · #1 April 3rd, 2007, 07:55 PM

Thanks for the observations. I wonder if this is one of those rare situations where an Air bless would be worth the points (for Flagellants). Probably not without some synergies with Air magic.

-Max

Dedas · #2 April 3rd, 2007, 08:08 PM

Just a 40% air shield (which is cheap) means roughly that at least 40% of the flagellants will join close combat. It is worth it in my eyes. An air shield of 80% too much, those points can be used on another bless instead, one that makes those 40% that survives the arrows do some damage.

BigDisAwesome · #3 April 3rd, 2007, 08:11 PM

I just can't see an air bless worth taking past 6 if at all. It'd be alright for a lot of nations, but it always seems like the points would be better spent somewhere else.

Or you could always just try to scout out enemy armies before they get to you, then decide whether or not to send the flagellants in. maybe do a little scripting magic to try and not get targeted by arrow fire immediatly.

OmikronWarrior · #4 April 3rd, 2007, 08:24 PM

Maybe an Air Bless is a better solution then Twist Fate (though that provides some protection for melee), but at the end of the day I think Flaggies need some kind of offensive Bless to really be worth it.

Another possibility that occurs to me is higher income and Dominion Scales, thus making a lot more of them combined with at least some bless. Like I said, when Blessed these guys rarely broke from the battle despite taking heavy damage and casualties from misile fire. So, I'm thinking maybe build enough of them to simply overwhelm enemy defensives. However, you should be thinking in the back of your head about Knights of the Chalice. They are Sacred and can be blessed as well, and in doing so become quite formidible. I should go look up some of the stats from that game.

DrPraetorious · #5 April 3rd, 2007, 09:50 PM

You have to balance the benefits of the bless with the benefits of the corresponding magic path.

A4 on your pretender is stone-cold awesome to have - it lets you forge air boost items - 1/4 of those mage guys have A1 - boost that to A2 with an item and they can cast Wind Guide and Arrow Fend. Schweet. The 30% air shield is sheer gravy.

A really effective bless strategy don't just take advantage of the blessing - it ALSO benefits from the magic paths themselves. This is what makes the difference between bless-rushers who merely make their immediate neighbours miserable, and bless rushers who actually win, IMO, in MP.

Tyrant · #6 April 3rd, 2007, 10:53 PM

As usual, DrP is spot on.

Managarm · #7 April 4th, 2007, 05:22 PM

I really like the Air Shield idea for Marignon, it's a great addition for the Flagellants and very handy for dodging friendly Fire Arrows too.

Unfortunately it's not easy to build an efficient Pretender supporting both F9 and A5-6 plus good order/production/dominion for recruiting a fair number of Knights Of The Chalice and Flagellants per turn.

The most optimal Pretender build I got supporting this idea, from my humble point of view, is an Imprisoned Baphomet with F9A5S2, Dominion 6, Order & Production 3, Drain 2 and neutral scales for Heat/Luck/Growth.
Death scales are not recommended since our best mages/priests are old and prone to disease.

I found Baphomet surprisingly good for any build requiring F9 and dominion!! Even better than Phoenix who already has A1F1 and no additional paths required!

MaxWilson · #8 April 4th, 2007, 06:03 PM

Any particular reason for going Order-3 Luck-0 instead of Order-3 Misfortune-3? The latter seems to be fairly popular because Order-3 cancels out most of Misfortune-3, leaving only a 39% increased probability of negative events (which is very much worth 120 points and which I haven't found to be noticeable in my limited experience). Unless you just hate random events so much that you want them all to disappear...

You could spend the extra points on Growth-3, if you like.

-Max

Managarm · #9 April 4th, 2007, 08:15 PM

Well, in fact I'm not very lucky in real life so I didn't want to spread this misfortune to my computer gaming too...

Honestly I have much less experience than thou and I haven't tried this Order/Misfortune setup yet.
Taking into account your comments, yes, the risk is quite low and there's plenty of investment opportunities with those extra 120 points (increasing A6, Dom 7 and Growth 1, for instance).

Thanks for sharing your wisdom!

DrPraetorious · #10 April 4th, 2007, 09:30 PM

Based on my studies, I strongly recommend Order-3/Misfortune-2.

Misfortune-2 does seem to be a relatively minor penalty - but Misfortune-3 does *not*, you get a lot more of the really bad events than with Misfortune-2. So (if you have order-3), misfortune-2 seems to be worth it for 80 points, but misfortune-3 for 40 on top of that is not a good buy.