EA arcosephele - bless strategy?

[Zenzei]

Give me a break. Onead, good thug? With 10 hp, attack and defense, 9 str, capitol-only and 400 g. cost? Ouch.

This is what I thought too so I went and tested it a bit. My test oreaid had frostbrand, vine shield, rainbow armor and no bless of any kind. Buff sequence was summon earthpower+ironskin+mistform+personal regen+air shield+attack. I then pitted her against blocks of 40-100 troops of varying difficulty, probably around 500 units in total. The oreaid won all fights easily, in fact I think she won most fights without taking even a single point of damage. Awe +5 combined with ability to self buff into stratosphere is a massive defensive barrier, which does make oreaid a good thug.

Of course mages will kill oreaid thug easily enough but that is the fate of any thug really.

Also, I think EA Arco is good enough in astral magic without help from pretender because they can forge crystal coins. S2 mystic empowered once into S3(45 gems)+coin+skullcap->RoS->RoW is pretty much all the astral nation needs. For combat astral magic, communions are the key.

[Kuritza]

That makes her a raider. Thug (in my opinion anyway) should be able to kill things in major battles too, like a Sea troll king, for example.

But thanks for a tip, thats rather interesting.

[Baalz]

Kuritza said:
That makes her a raider. Thug (in my opinion anyway) should be able to kill things in major battles too, like a Sea troll king, for example.

But thanks for a tip, thats rather interesting.

Right....a sea troll king is better. Zenzei touched on how effective she is, but didn't get into her versatility:

resist elements, resist poison, resist lighting - with just a frost brand and fire helm (*cheap*) plus MR boosting items they can be effectively immune most mages. Swapping out your buffs/equipment to fit what you're fighting and there's not much you can't walk over.

cloud trapeze + stealth - you pick your fights. Just think about that in combination with the point above.

Holy - reinvig/regen/air shield/lighting resist/MR boost - whatever you've got. Nothing she can't self buff in other ways, but frees up a slot or two for more buffs if you've got a priest nearby.

seduction/assassination - as if everything else wasn't enough, this army killing thug can *assassinate*! If you can't beat the army, just kill all the commanders. You'll probably even seduce a couple...

Heck, 99% of the time I'd take one Onead over 10 Sea Kings.

[sector24]

Greek mythological creatures are pretty well covered in dominions. The problem is that most of the creatures not used are thematically at the pretender level rather than the summon level. Cyclopes and titans are at the pretender level, so a summon like the Hecatonchires wouldn't really make sense (unless it was banished to tartarus, in which case it is already in the game).

Not saying it couldn't happen, but it might be problematic. The only thing I can think of that isn't covered is something like stymphalian birds. In game terms they'd be flying mechanical men I guess. Also, you could further split nymphs into their classifications:

Melissae
Nephelae
Oceanids
Nereids
etc.

Hard to say exactly how they'd be different from each other though.

[MaxWilson]

The difference between pretenders and powerful summons isn't power level (some of the pretenders are pretty weak). It's naked, raw ambition and a willingness to lie about being a god.

I think Hecatonchires would make thematic summons for Arco or maybe C'tis. (A quick check to Wikipedia reveals that there were only three Hecatonchires. Hunh. They never mentioned that in my Greek Mythology books back in 1st grade and I've always assumed there were lots.)

-Max

P.S. Of course, one presumes that AFTER pretender X has conquered the world he will use the entire global gem output to empower himself up to crazy levels and Wish for power multiple times, etc. At that point there is a definite difference between him and a powerful summon.

[JimMorrison]

There's also the Faith factor. The spread of a pretender's Dominion is more a factor of the love/fear of their people, and the level of belief in that god, no? This in and of itself seperates it distinctly from other "beings of great power".

I don't see much reason we couldn't summon things like Void Lords, Gorgons, Olms, etc. I mean, we even have a Summon Kraken, it just happens to be a much younger and smaller Kraken than the pretender chassis. When you take away the ability to add custom magic paths, to add/increase Awe auras, etc, really any pretender is comparable to decent level 7-9 summons. Putting versions of them into nation specific summon spells could go VERY far towards breaking the current "you need death or blood to compete" paradigm of the game.

[MaxWilson]

Hmmm, I like that idea too. Maybe add an A9 spell to summon one of those Air/Earth Titans, an N7E5 spell to summon a Gorgon, etc. The difference between them and a pretender is charisma, i.e. a Dominion score.

-Max

[Kuritza]

Baalz said:
Heck, 99% of the time I'd take one Onead over 10 Sea Kings.

Deal. I take 10 Kings.
King can take hits. He's got regen and poison immunity, with self-buff he's immune to frost (and has chill aura), with quickness he's got two attacks and standing attack/defense scores. With fire brand (superior to frost brand anyway) and dragon helmet, he's also immune to fire.
I'm convinced that oreads are nice raiders, but somebody has to take hits when armies meet, and Arco is a loser here.