Spells: What are your favorite buff combinations?

Kuritza · #1 May 15th, 2008, 03:11 PM

Soul vortex, mistform, air shield, blessing, hold, attack -> script for a hangadrott raiding enemy PD.

thejeff · #2 May 15th, 2008, 03:35 PM

Curious. Why that order?

I tend to put the more defensive and or fatigue reducing buffs first.

I'd put those as Air Shield, Mistform, bless, Soul Vortex, hold attack. (Depending on the bless, if it included Earth, it would go first.)
Soul Vortex last. It costs a lot of fatigue and won't help until you've closed with the enemy. Putting it first increases the chance of a lucky critical arrow before your defenses are up.
Is there a reason for that order? (I was also wondering why no mirror image, until I remembered...glamor)

Omnirizon · #3 May 15th, 2008, 03:42 PM

summon earthpower + strong earth bless is killer if you have it available and usable for your SC. you will basically never have to worry about fatigue.

don't overlook divine avenger if you can cast it too. it seems it will only proc once a round (and not once for each time you take damage). but it is good as both crowd control and for SC duels.

ironskin + legions of steel will add +6 protection, no matter how high it already is. (add earth bless for +10)

moderation · #4 May 15th, 2008, 03:57 PM

Hmm, by 'divine anger', do you mean Holy Avenger?

I think Stoneskin and Invulnerability also add a small amount of protection even when you've hit their protection limit. Stoneskin may add a bit less IIRC.

MaxWilson · #5 May 15th, 2008, 04:57 PM

Putting Soul Vortex first is a good idea if you have a bunch of serf warriors on Guard Commander. Batteries.

-Max

thejeff · #6 May 15th, 2008, 05:03 PM

Got to be careful killing off your bodyguard that way. 75% hp limit and all. Clever though.

I'm usually not quite that ruthless with my troops. Mostly because of the hassle of having another set ready for the next fight.

Holy Avenger:
I've certainly seen it trigger multiple times in one round. Usually when I've killed off an AI prophet...

MaxWilson · #7 May 15th, 2008, 05:22 PM

Holy Avenger:

Are you sure you didn't see it fire several times in a row at the end of a fight? After the last enemy is dead/retreated, several (5?) rounds of battle still pass in order to give poison/Decay/Holy Avenger a little bit more time to take effect. A similar mechanic results in units who retreat while suffering from Decay disappearing in little puffs of blood--they aged to death.

Soul Vortex:

Yeah, I haven't actually done this a lot. When I have there's usually a group of "real" guards (Helhirdlings) to accompany the Hangadrott, which is probably why I never ran into (or thought about) the 75% HP autoroute threshold. [IIRC, autoroute happens not when 75% of your UNITS have died or routed--it's when 75% of all HP have died/routed. Thus, monkeys matter less than Tartarians.]

-Max

thejeff · #8 May 15th, 2008, 06:20 PM

Yeah, I guess that could be it. Weird if it keeps track and only fires once per round. That would be both once per time you take damage and once per round. Which I never even considered.

moderation · #9 May 25th, 2008, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Omnirizon said:
summon earthpower + strong earth bless is killer if you have it available and usable for your SC. you will basically never have to worry about fatigue.

don't overlook divine avenger if you can cast it too. it seems it will only proc once a round (and not once for each time you take damage). but it is good as both crowd control and for SC duels.

ironskin + legions of steel will add +6 protection, no matter how high it already is. (add earth bless for +10)

Are you sure about this? In my experience, Stoneskin always gives +2 and Ironskin gives +3 after maxing out, but Legions of Steel doesn't seem to work on a E9 Cyclops (who is fully armored) with over 30 protection.

I think there is some protection point at which Legions of Steel stops working though I'm not clear on exactly what it is.

MaxWilson · #10 May 26th, 2008, 01:19 AM

Hmm. E9 Cyclops has something like 29 base protection already. Let's say his armor is 15. (For simplicity, we'll make it 15 on both head and body.) Base protection combines with armor according to the formula

total = base + armor - (armor*base/40).

Thus, before Legions of Steel he would have 29 + 15 - (29*15/40) = 33.4 protection. After Legions of Steel, he would have 29 + 18 - (29*18/40) = 33.95 protection. Depending upon how rounding is done, he's getting a +3 armor bonus without changing his total protection at all. Does that sound like what you saw? If so, it's not Legions of Steel's fault.

-Max

P.S. All you guys that talk about buffing spells for SCs, how do you deal with the fatigue? Do you just make amulets of resilience mandatory gear for your thugs/SCs? (They probably should be anyway, but it's one less slot open...)