Most Useful Items

[quantum_mechani]

Valandil said:
And it DOES give bonuses to defence and attack.
(are those really all that usefull?)
I see about the troop buffs. Fog warriors? Just wondering.

Valandil

Quickness is very useful on almost any SC. The stat boosts by themselves are marginal but noticeable, probably the biggest thing you will notice is that SCs with quickness are much better vs. other SCs.

Fog warriors is definitely one of the best troop buffs out there. Hard to come by, but well worth casting if you are able.

[Frostmourne27]

yes, quickness is worth it on any SC but ithink you can probably do just finbe without it- unless you're fighting other SC's or tooled-up dual blessed hydras or similar i.e. troops that do alot of damge- but vs. chaff or slightly bigger chaff (things like abysians or indy heavy cav.) quickness isn't so great except as thejeff pointed out-for buffing yourself. that sayed, an SC or even almost all mages that have W2 probably should cast it, it only cost one turn and 15? fatigue. One other note: it's much less useful on powerful mages i.e. your astral 8 god is going to cast master enslave. How useful is quikening him first? unless u hav like a crystal heart, amulet of resiliance, boots of callius the druid and seven couatls casting relief theres not much point.

[archaeolept]

i'm always a big fan of troop buffs - I find that they are underused, and this is one of the reasons a lot of people feel that national troops just don't cut it.

sure, they die, but w/ a few buffs they can threaten most SCs.

Fog warriors is powerful - but I find that by the time of the game when it becomes available you are likely to be facing summoned enemy troops w/ magic weapons, like devils...

[Morkilus]

I've been having a "blast" with quickness and that rod that casts Numb on indies; loaded up on a couple of Skratti means simple Jotun axemen can take down cavalry easily.

[Vicious Love]

archaeolept said:
i'm always a big fan of troop buffs - I find that they are underused, and this is one of the reasons a lot of people feel that national troops just don't cut it.

sure, they die, but w/ a few buffs they can threaten most SCs.

In my experience, very few buffs actually increase national troops' lethality; most just make them much, much more survivable. Which is tremendously useful against anything with enumbrance above zero, but mostly serves to keep one's mages and support thugs alive.
Buffed troops can be extremely effective, but they still don't justify taking an unmodded Productivity or Growth scale(or less than Sloth-3, for that matter). And I'd still rather use my gold and fire gems to summon fire snakes or recruit spam-capable mages.

[Oversway]

Really? I've found that weapons of sharpness, flaming arrows, berserking, strength of giants, etc. definitely increases troop lethality. The reason I don't use them as often is problems with the battlefield AI to target the right group (for non battlefield AoE).

[shovah]

the worst part is when your mages buff themselves....... one thing i have to ask is would flaming arrows affect all ranged attacks (such as fairy sprites) and if so then im bringing back my fairy queen with bow of war+mass sprites combo (queen i think can windguide and swarm and someone else can flaming arrows)

[Vicious Love]

Oversway said:
Really? I've found that weapons of sharpness, flaming arrows, berserking, strength of giants, etc. definitely increases troop lethality. The reason I don't use them as often is problems with the battlefield AI to target the right group (for non battlefield AoE).

Right, sorry, Flaming Arrows is the obvious exception. I suppose I've always considered it more a "crossbowman-facilitated attack spell" than a troop buff. As for the other buffs, they're decent if you can get a combo going. Individually, they're seldom enough to dent a real SC's armor. And they're not a mere-mortals-only advantage, either. They're usually more effective on summoned thugs than on national troops. Then again, I don't usually play nation/pretender setups with easy access to knights, jotuns, centaur cataphracts and so forth, so I suppose I may just have been buffing the wrong troops.

[archaeolept]

weapons of sharpness is the bee's knees. even fairly crappy troops can take down a decked SC - 15 prot against a swarm of troops just doesn't cut it. i've had hoburgs take down a massively regenerating water queen; heck, if you need to, you can always buy a disposable army of barbarians - w/ WoS and a couple defensive buffs they will mow through almost anything (though of course they are very vulnerable to elemental damage spells).

[shovah]

caelum warriors with weapons of sharpness *drool* im not suprised by that hoburg thing since alot can fit in contact, how about this though: F9 W9 blessed hydras with WoS