Mass-produced Reanimating Priests: Exploit?

[JimMorrison]

Ironhawk said:
Rain of Stones / Earthquake, or any other battlefield wide spell of that nature is very difficult to use because it relies on the AI choosing to spend gems. You cant ensure you will get a combat like that if you assume you are restricting yourself to nuetral province attacks to trigger the battle (horrors, GRs, etc).

Knocking mages out works, BUT as I said before, the damage pattern of poison is such that you are almost guaranteed to get multiple afflictions. The optimal way to carry out this tactic would be to kill them all in one blast, using no gems (except for items).

And btw, Soul Vortex doesnt work, either. Its slow, like poison, but beyond that, mages have good MR so they resist it a lot.

Given how often we have all had mages killed off by AI mistakes, it's really surprising how hard it is to kill them off intentionally. If anyone can find a good way to do it, let me know.

A slow death gives more chances for afflictions, but sudden traumatic death (100% hp loss) guarantees an affliction. Unless you have N4+ bless, in which case, the gradual death is preferable, as the chance per hit goes down dramatically, leaving only the huge hit a decent chance to actually afflict.

Does Fatigue damage give afflictions? You could have every mage cast Breath of Winter, or you could summon some nice undeads with Chill auras.

[MaxWilson]

Well, it's easy to kill them off intentionally. It's just hard to kill them off while leaving the second, soulless form "alive." Restricting yourself to neutral provinces is probably not the way to go here because you put them in danger and lose a lot of time travelling. It's probably better to set them on patrol outside the castle and go for Phantasmal Army or Ghost Riders.

-Max

[Ironhawk]

JimMorrison said:
A slow death gives more chances for afflictions, but sudden traumatic death (100% hp loss) guarantees an affliction.

It doesnt guarantee one, but it makes it very likely, yes. However, having only one affliction is better than having 2-3 which could possibly cripple your mage's value.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah nuetral province attack spells are the only effective way to go. At the time of the game when this tactic becomes available, there may not even be any indies alive.


You know I was thinking... what if you did something like put all your mages together in a clump up front. In addition, you bring like 30-40 archers and put them behind with orders to Fire Closest. Then had a horror marked mage summon a horror (or an ashen angel). So your mages would get all shot to hell by the arrows. Not sure if that would kill thier second form or not - just one volley, I mean.

[PvK]

Hehe, well you could save the indies in one province two away from your capital, for killing your own mages. Just time the Vortex of Returning properly...

Do survivors of this ritual keep their magic items in soulless form? If so, you might be able to figure out how to give them extra vulnerability to whatever you're deciding to kill them with. Some buff spells with vulnerabilities might give that opportunity, too.

[MaxWilson]

PvK,

Wouldn't that kind of negate the coolness of the "free reanimators" trick? I'd rather pay gold than lose gems on magic items. Nice thought but the buff spells are probably a better option.

-Max

[NTJedi]

MaxWilson said:
It's just hard to kill them off while leaving the second, soulless form "alive."

-Max

Have the priests stand next to someone/something with a chill aura or poison aura... second soulless form easily lives being cold/poison immune.

Fighting any group of weak independents will work or maybe a human ally will help

[Ironhawk]

As I've said before, poison aura works but is not always effective or preferrable due to afflictions. Can no one think of a sure fire way to instantly kill friendly mages?

[JimMorrison]

NTJedi said:

Have the priests stand next to someone/something with a chill aura or poison aura... second soulless form easily lives being cold/poison immune.

Fighting any group of weak independents will work or maybe a human ally will help

Padding your post count by making snap-quick replies without reading the thread. Tsk tsk.

[Saxon]

So, this strategy came out two months ago and we only have one person, Ironhawk, who reports using it. If it is such a great idea, why are we not seeing it more often? Further, Ironhawk reports it is a lot trickier than expected. And from what I know of Ironhawk, he is one of the top grade players, so this is no simple thing to do.

Looks like the poll is right, this strategy is not the exploit that was feared.