Mid Game+ magic.

[shovah]

and if you need a pure def shield go for accursed

[spirokeat]

Well, my reasoning on the armour was that
A> You can never have enough life drain.
B> Its AE so for one man army heroics when hes surrounded and his def is quickly nullified hes still draining around him

I had him casting quickness I wasnt sure BoW would stack with his chill aura.

[sushiboat]

If you lost a SC to Ermor AE, it's because relying on life drain items is a big mistake. (I thought you said in your first post that you had handled Ermor easily and were floudering after defeating Ermor.) You can't life drain from lifeless units, such as most AE undead. Most undead are also resistant to cold, so an Ice Devil isn't the best match (though it should do fine with the right equipment). Herald Lance and Charcoal Shield are good, or you can go with the double-handed Flambeau.

You shouldn't rely on a single set of equipment for a SC. You have to know the best equipment for the situation.

[shovah]

if you want something quite cheap vrs ermor then use (as said) a charcoal shield+herald lance on something flying(winged shoes on it if it cant fly)
golems are really good for this with their self buffs and something like jade armour will help get those buffs done quick.
and of course if he summons any big nasties or if you need an sc killer a golem with a gate cleaver is pretty good.
for any golem i would suggest ring of the warrior and a defence increasing item for misc slots

[quantum_mechani]

shovah said:
for those who dont know, SC=super combatant and in an unmodded game alot of people think it neccesary to give a life draining weapon to a SC (blood thorn/hell sword) banelords are popular often just because of their cheapness but if you have what you need ice devils work really well.

one of my favourite (extremely expensive) scs is a nataraja with a bloodthorn, hellsword, shield of gleaming gold, any good armour, winged shoes, ring of the warrior and another misc item. as for the helm it depends, against basic troops try horror helm but spirit helm is good all rounder

(i usually wish for this guy with my pretender and have someone weilding dwarven hammer (ulmish smiths work good if you can cast forge of the ancients) to make his equipment. with awe (+0 but still) and 2 lifedrain weapons hes hard to kill and using that unique helm that has awe works well too but generally dont send him out until he has empowerment (preferably astral for luck+etheral+shield) to buff himself as hes too expensive to waste

I believe it was determined a while back that wielding two life drain weapons at once does not increase life drain noticeably.

[spirokeat]

No, Ermor was fine, Im aware of the lifeless lifedrain issue. For Ermor I simply set my fire mages to a lot of Holy Pyre, made a couple of Flambeau for my tribal commanders and arsed them.

I don't flounder at what to do. I just find that I probably dont spend enough time empowering my mages to cast the higher level spells and instead go for specific high level casts or summons to cast with my pretender or a special mage type.

The Ice Devil I'm guessing was more unlucky than anything. He should have bashed the army he was facing good. Instead the first spell paralysed him and it was game over. oh well.

Spiro

[shovah]

personally i try to avoid empowerment unless i really have to use it and i generally forge more boosters instead so half the time i end up making more boosters than i need and not being able to cast spells
(ever tried ulm with forge of the ancients up and a smith or 5 with dwarven hammers, blood thorn only costs about 4 slaves then and the forge makes lots of items available to them)

[quantum_mechani]

spirokeat said:

I probably dont spend enough time empowering my mages to cast the higher level spells and instead go for specific high level casts or summons to cast with my pretender or a special mage type.

If you mean literally empowering that is not a bad a thing, empowering is normally used very sparingly unless

A. You are empowering in blood to reach a specific spell/item

B. You are empowering in astral to reach wish or other high level spell and have tons of clams

C. You are empowering in nature (usually a druid to n3 or a lizard shaman to n2s1) in order to get to lamia queens to diversify your magic.

[shovah]

unless i have more than 1 or 2 levels to go up i dont empower, i mean why spend a ton of gems boosting a druid to lvl 3 when you can give him a thistle mace and why spend a ton of slaves when you can get a brazen vessel

(unless you really need to research something before construction of course)

[quantum_mechani]

shovah said:
unless i have more than 1 or 2 levels to go up i dont empower, i mean why spend a ton of gems boosting a druid to lvl 3 when you can give him a thistle mace and why spend a ton of slaves when you can get a brazen vessel

(unless you really need to research something before construction of course)

You need to get the druid to level three so that the thistle gets him to level four = lamia queens and treelord staff. Or in the case of the lizard shaman, empowered to n2 he can thistle mace, taking him too 3n1s, getting him to moonvine bracelet, which takes him to 4ns1.

With blood, using all possible boosters you can get +4 blood. So unless you have a b5 mage without empowering you cannot, for instance, get demon lords. Also, you often have only b1 mages, so taking one to b2 to start the booster path is common.