Endgame Diversity Mod - v1.2 released

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, air is already easy to get access: Faerie Queen or Tarts will easily get you A3 casters, if not the occasional A4.

Tarts are pretty trivial to get. You can get there off D1 on your pretender no problem. Its not even hard. Everyone who doesn't get D nationally wants a little death on their pretender anyway.

(d1 + 2 rings -> d3 -> mound king +2 rings -> D5 -> demilich + 2 rings + 1 other booster -> D7. Substitute skullface/skull staff as you get the D to make them to free your rings up for other duties).

If the idea is to provide alternatives to tarts, one of the things the mod must do is make diversification possible without relying on tarts.

And I maintain a Roc will never be worth summoning at *any* price if its only A2. It has absolutely no role to fill. A3 at least makes it a serious air caster. It will never be a good thug without full slots or insane stats. And there's basically nothing worth casting at A2.

Heck, even with A3 the faerie queen is still better because she has hands (for forging more air boosters). The Roc was pretty marginal with A3, imo, at A2 I wouldn't spend 10a on it. Maybe 5, its probably about as useful as Call of the Winds... (And much harder to summon)

But llama, you're dead wrong on diversification, because diversification is already easy. It just requires death/tarts.

[Sajuuk]

Ok, air is already easy to get access: Faerie Queen or Tarts will easily get you A3 casters, if not the occasional A4.

Faerie Queen cost 40N, 40! and N gems are very important if you want spam tarts, gift of reason and gift of health will consume tons of N gems.

Tarts are pretty trivial to get. You can get there off D1 on your pretender no problem. Its not even hard. Everyone who doesn't get D nationally wants a little death on their pretender anyway.

(d1 + 2 rings -> d3 -> mound king +2 rings -> D5 -> demilich + 2 rings + 1 other booster -> D7. Substitute skullface/skull staff as you get the D to make them to free your rings up for other duties).

Is that really "trivial"? If some one start with high bless strategy like W9F9 mictlan or such, he won't have enough point for another new path. In fact, I have rely on wolf tribe shaman to access death for many times.

And yes, with D1, it is possible to get to D7, assume you have enough gems: 30S for ring of sorcery(require const6), 7D for staff, 28D for mound fiend(NOT MOUND　KING!)(require conj7), 30D for demilich(require enchantment8!),and 48S for ring of wizardry or 18D for skullface. Without national D or S mage, how can a nation like eriu or man(or even ma
agartha with D1 but no S)search out enough gems to climb this "tart tree" easily? If you don't have enough N gems or fail to obtain grail or GoH, then D7 is only the beginning of the most annoying part.

If the idea is to provide alternatives to tarts, one of the things the mod must do is make diversification possible without relying on tarts.

I agree with this, alternative diversification method would be nice, but so long it seems llama's intention on this mod is to provide multiple SC other than tarts. Path diversifications are much harder to balance than SC, for "from which path can get which path" is quite a hard decision due to different national recruitable mage diversity.

And I maintain a Roc will never be worth summoning at *any* price if its only A2. It has absolutely no role to fill. A3 at least makes it a serious air caster. It will never be a good thug without full slots or insane stats. And there's basically nothing worth casting at A2.

Heck, even with A3 the faerie queen is still better because she has hands (for forging more air boosters). The Roc was pretty marginal with A3, imo, at A2 I wouldn't spend 10a on it. Maybe 5, its probably about as useful as Call of the Winds... (And much harder to summon)

Is that a joke? One D1 zombie stats revenant cost you 9d! In fact, if a A2 roc only cost 5a, one tenth of a air queen, then you may expect to meet a non air nation(with A4 pretender)bring 10 or more roc to spam thunder strike with pretender cast storm, at the beginning of third year, or much earlier if find plenty A site at the early game. Abysia crush their enemy with thunder strike? That can be quite a surprise since no one would expect or react on such strategy

But llama, you're dead wrong on diversification, because diversification is already easy. It just requires death/tarts.

As I said, tarts strategy require tons of death, nature and astral gems along with high path(especially astral), that is why llama made this mod, to let nation without death nolonger necessary to follow death nation painfully.

[zzcat]

IMO even with more hp and def boost, the new Rocs are still overshadowed by shishi as raiders and anti-thugs. Basically I can't find any way to use them effectively. How about give them #onebattlespell "Storm"? It's very thematic and will make them actually different from other endgame summons.

Another choose is giving them Wrathful Skies and moving the spell to conj8, I personally perfer it to previous one because it's very cool for such an splendid creature

Edit: Ninjaed by Sajuuk.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by zzcat

IMO even with more hp and def boost, the new Rocs are still overshadowed by shishi as raiders and anti-thugs. Basically I can't find any way to use them effectively. How about give them #onebattlespell "Storm"? It's very thematic and will make them actually different from other endgame summons.

Another choose is giving them Wrathful Skies and moving the spell to conj8, I personally perfer it to previous one because it's very cool for such an splendid creature

Edit: Ninjaed by Sajuuk.

I think you are confusing the Roc with the Thunderbird.

[rdonj]

Actually I liked Dimaz's suggestion.

Squirrel, the roc is easily worth more than 5A :P Even if for NO other reason, wall shakers require a3, and give 15 less siege bonus than the current roc. Sure, that's a bit less with a hammer, but it would still be over 20A for the same amount of siege bonus. And wall shakers don't have nearly the mobility or in battle utility that a roc does. I would much rather use a roc for sieging than a gate cleaver or a wall shaker, because it is less expensive for the amount of siege bonus it supplies.

We really shouldn't be comparing Rocs to Tartarians anyway... Rocs are a conj 6 summon, they clearly are not supposed to be equivalent. It's the Asynja that need to be compared to them, and personally I don't think Asynja are really tartarian level.

[Squirrelloid]

Rdonj: I'm comparing Rocs to Tarts for diversification purposes, because llamabeast brought up diversification. Even at A3, Rocs are still inferior to tarts for diversification for 2 reasons: Rocs require a powerful mage in air to cast (tarts diversify into everything for just a d caster), and they require either starting with A3-4 to cast or summoning a faerie queen to just get started summoning them (or already have tarts). Note that Air is one of the least valuable paths to put on a pretender, whereas death is one of the most commonly splashed pretender paths (and you only need *d1* for tarts, a substantial saving. So for most non-air nations, Rocs aren't even going to be an option until Conj 8 anyway.

Line by line response to Sajuuk coming.

Edit:Rdonj, just how much wall breaking does a roc provide? Because 2 gate cleavers are clearly cheaper since you'll have a hammer for them.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sajuuk

Faerie Queen cost 40N, 40! and N gems are very important if you want spam tarts, gift of reason and gift of health will consume tons of N gems.

If you don't need to spam tarts, you won't be burning all those N on them now will you? Since teh goal of the mod is to provide alternatives to tarts, we should start thinking about people actually not using tarts (I know, a strange state of affairs).

That said, Faerie Queens are well-worth the 40n even in a tart world (depending on relative n and d gem income), and have guaranteed access to A3. For all the Roc's vaunted ability to diversify into air with A3, most non-air nations are going to need tarts or faerie queens to even start summoning them. Air is a very low value path for a pretender, and A4 is a significant expense.

I should also note I think tarts are too cheap and GoR is too expensive. But i don't think that's even relevant to this discussion.

Is that really "trivial"? If some one start with high bless strategy like W9F9 mictlan or such, he won't have enough point for another new path. In fact, I have rely on wolf tribe shaman to access death for many times.

And yes, with D1, it is possible to get to D7, assume you have enough gems: 30S for ring of sorcery(require const6), 7D for staff, 28D for mound fiend(NOT MOUND　KING!)(require conj7), 30D for demilich(require enchantment8!),and 48S for ring of wizardry or 18D for skullface. Without national D or S mage, how can a nation like eriu or man(or even ma
agartha with D1 but no S)search out enough gems to climb this "tart tree" easily? If you don't have enough N gems or fail to obtain grail or GoH, then D7 is only the beginning of the most annoying part.

Sorry, mound fiend, you knew what I was talking about.

Yes, easy. Heck, you don't even need the lich (although liches are pretty nice), mound fiend + 2 rings + skull face + skullstaff = d7. Or Kokythiad + same. So you can run this off pure construction/conjuration.

You're going to make the rings anyway. You're probably going to make the death boosters anyway. So those aren't actually costs. They just end up getting used here. (this is why i recommend the lich, so you can swap out a ring).

You could also get the rod of +3D, which makes things much easier. And if you're seriously planning on tarts, you're already planning on winning the race to artifacts for the chalice.

Regardless, you have to treat tarts as if the person summoning them has either the Chalice or GoH for balance purposes, because someone will have those, and that's what the person trying to use not tarts is going to be competing against.

But it is perfectly plausible just to spam out tarts and GoR the ones who aren't feebleminded.

I agree with this, alternative diversification method would be nice, but so long it seems llama's intention on this mod is to provide multiple SC other than tarts. Path diversifications are much harder to balance than SC, for "from which path can get which path" is quite a hard decision due to different national recruitable mage diversity.

You can't provide real alternatives to tarts unless you solve for both diversification and SC capability. Its really impossible to treat tarts as just one or the other. By separating the alternative SCs from the alternative summoned mage chasses its already introduced more balanced options. It should stick with that, not backpeddle on summonable mages.

Is that a joke? One D1 zombie stats revenant cost you 9d! In fact, if a A2 roc only cost 5a, one tenth of a air queen, then you may expect to meet a non air nation(with A4 pretender)bring 10 or more roc to spam thunder strike with pretender cast storm, at the beginning of third year, or much earlier if find plenty A site at the early game. Abysia crush their enemy with thunder strike? That can be quite a surprise since no one would expect or react on such strategy

How often have you seen someone actually use revenants anyway. Spells that rarely if ever get used are not a good metric for balance. I have seen precisely 0 revenants in MP play. Clearly a powerhouse option...

A4 pretender, lol. When's the last time you saw that from a non-air nation? 10 rocs is what, 250 air gems? Non-air nation? Year 3? lol.

Not to mention Conj 6 early enough to summon 10 rocs with 1 caster is actually rather hard to do. Most nations would be struggling to have it by middle of year 2. Why don't you try actually doing these things - what you propose is clearly impossible.

Besides, any nation should see the Roc build-up through scouting and prepare against it. If they don't, they deserve to lose.

As I said, tarts strategy require tons of death, nature and astral gems along with high path(especially astral), that is why llama made this mod, to let nation without death nolonger necessary to follow death nation painfully.

S3+ on a pretender is pretty standard for nations without native astral access. Every nation absolutely needs to have a plan for getting a RoS and a RoW. Its an essential part of planning for the endgame. Pretending nations won't have rings is just self-deception.

[rdonj]

Squirrel - he meant at 5 gems a piece.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Squirrel - he meant at 5 gems a piece.

I might be prone to slight exaggeration.

I dunno, Rocs felt like they were supposed to be more than mobile wall breakers. I suppose at 15-18a I *might* summon them for that. The thing about wall shakers is they also cast panic - something that you can use to make indie commanders more useful. So I'd probably rate a Roc about the same.

For conj6 and A4 it seems pretty weak though.

[Sajuuk]

For the first part(sorry I'm too lazy to quote),I agree that faerie queens are very important, but should not compare with roc, faerie queens are aimed to help those without air to access air, roc cannot compete in this field. Gor too expensive? Yes, 20N(or 15N) seems too expensive, especially for those with grail or goh and trying to gor every possible tarts. Tarts too cheap? Yes, for those with grail or goh, almost every tart can be very very useful. So we can see, only for those nation with goh or grail(maximum 2 if not exchange grail between allies), tarts are too cheap, if you have to summon half dozen before get a usable tart, 10D(or 12D)are not very cheap. Seems reduce or remove the undead healing effect can best weaken tarts, but anyway, llama use this mod to give another answer.

For the second part, yes, their is no argument on what you said, but still this can be a great problem for those nation without high D or S, like Agartha. As for "aiming GOH or grail" part, I'm afraid there might be too many nation aiming for them, you can't expect to be the luckest one. And again, for those trying to spam out tarts and pick out who is not feebleminded, tarts are not really expensive.

For the third part, are you suggesting to give every or most path their version of tarts? Tarts are great, but they have many obstacle, if not give other summon that provide both sc
and diversity with same degree of obstacle, they will ruin the game. So I personally prefer to seperate the SC's role and diversity mage's role, and finish them in turn.

Forth part, well, I use revenant just to show the "cheapest mage" in the game. A4 pretender? Is that really so rare? They might be pretty useful for sauromatia or kailisa in early games. But I mention A4 because the "10 rocs" part. Yes, it is madness to try to get 10 rocs in current version, and I totally agree that in current version roc sucks. It is your "5A for a roc" make this strategy possible, including the A4 pretender. In my opinion, 15-18A for an A2 roc would be acceptable, or 20A for + 25%A suggested by Dimaz. A2 mage can't be "that" cheap, not to mention roc's hp, siege and patrol bonus.

The last part, I personally will never give my pretender less than S4 if have to give him S. If I cannot afford this price, then I'd try my luck on site mage, or even neighbor's luck

Anyway, for those nation can't construct RoS or RoW, I'd try to buy one, or try to rely on Djinn, and either way, it will be a great pain to have the ring(and the gems spend on them) ended up on tarts summoning. It's not "impossible", it's just not so "trivial".


Edit: Squirrelloid, seem we give the Roc exactly the same evaluation