Equipment: which to use and what to avoid?

[Baalz]

quantum_mechani said:
Hmm, I read it more as for building SCs, but in any case I'm not convinced on the crystal shield for any purpose. If you have the astral to forge one communions and power of the spheres can almost always fill the niche.

I've had a couple times when crystal shield was quite useful. When you're one level short of that devastating spell (army of gold, weapons of sharpness, darkness, wrathful skies, fog warriors, etc.) and your caster doesn't have astral. True, this is a niche use, but one that I find comes up a decent amount of the time. True, a communion can sometimes fill this role, but being able to air drop in a single tough guy to cast earthquake/flame storm/etc., returning the turn the enemy army moves to attack you is not really possible to duplicate with a communion.