early fightin' pretender spells

[rylen]

Wrote something like this earlier, saw the preview, and let it go. Drat.

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The forums introduced me to sending out a pretender early, w/o backup to claim territory. Previously, I'd been using my pretender to buff massed units -- often with "legions of steel" and such to good effect, or as a rainbow hunter. I'll lay out my experiences w/ various paths, and I hope ya'll can tell me how to better use them.

In order of apparent effectiveness:
Air -- I used to not value this too much. Then I read the 10path thread, played around with a 10 air virtue, and was amazed. Even at lower amounts of air, mirror image and mistform allow easy protection w/ just Alt3.

Astral -- Ethrealness + Luck + Twist fate are really good. The pretender seems to get injured more often then Air, but still rarely. What else is good for single travel?

Earth -- Ironskin + Earth Might also allow quick expansion at Alt3. Con2 helps w/ fatigue. My Pretender frequently gets injured and I pull back to troop support (a different subject.)

Water -- Quickness is splendid, and low path cost folks often get a little water just for that. Breath of winter is nice. But whenever I try to do just water on a Titan style figure, he gets mobbed and killed. What else to put on him?

Fire -- All I can see is getting Fire Sheild and then sitting back w/ Evo spells.

----These are mostly speculation.
Nature -- I've mostly been practicing with Pythium and Abyssia lately, so I don't want frenzied casters. But nature seems like a weaker (in combat) earth. Protection + Regeneration. Maybe poison resistance. What else?

Death -- Provides fear. And some great life drain stuff at high levels. But aside from spamming undead, what does a low level pretender do?

Blood -- Because of the need to keep resupplying, I haven't thought much about blood buffs for combat expansion. How much am I missing out?

--
Thanks. Remember, this is any "tough" chassis in the first 20ish turns. I've been playing 9Inde, so the pretender needs a good setup to survive.

Rylen

[Truper]

Seems to me you're thinking in terms of pure paths too much. Classic combat pretenders combine Air, water, and earth, and head for Alteration 3 asap. Script quickness, mistform, mirror image, iron skin and off you go. Astral is certainly useful, but you have to be aware of the magic duel issue.

[Yossar]

Blood is more or less worthless in combat. Forget about it unless you plan on using your pretender to get some of the bigger blood summons for a nation that normally has trouble getting them.

Death is really only good for spamming and killing undead early on. But don't underestimate the ability of quickness (from boots or the spell) + raise skeletons/dead to allow a pretender to singlehandedly take moderately difficult indies. Later on you get soul vortex, which is nice.

Regeneration from nature is great for preventing your pretender from picking up afflictions. But a lot of pretenders get it naturally and you can get it easily from items, so it isn't quite a necessity.

But what I've seen pretty much agrees with your observations.

[Cainehill]

A lot of the good spells require two paths. Air and Fire gives a nice early Sulphur Haze; fire/earth gives magma bolts. High level example in evocation is Nether Darts, and frankly - artillery mages / pretenders are often underrated.

Other spells you neglect : Shadow Bolt, which can be pretty effective on a high-death pretender (because of reduced likelihood of successful MR rolls).

Mostly though, like Truper says - don't think in terms of single path pretenders. Unless what you _really_ want is a powerful bless effect, a single high level path generally isn't nearly as good as 2 or 3 medium high paths, and if you want a soloing pretender, most want more like 4 low level paths.

[Cainehill]

rylen said:
Astral -- Ethrealness + Luck + Twist fate are really good. The pretender seems to get injured more often then Air, but still rarely. What else is good for single travel?

If you're using a sturdy chassis, you might skip Twist Fate if you're doing luck - 1/2 the time luck would allow you to miss the damage Twist Fate eliminates. Other spells to consider are Astral Shield / Astral Weapon - the shield is great to paralyze those enemies which swing at you.

Earth -- Ironskin + Earth Might also allow quick expansion at Alt3. Con2 helps w/ fatigue. My Pretender frequently gets injured and I pull back to troop support (a different subject.)

If you went single path in earth, Shards is worthwhile to use against lightly armored foes like LI, barbarians, etc. Also, Earth Meld can trap a bunch of them, meaning less get to you at once. And of course, Evocation 4 gives Blade Wind.

(Side note here : You can have a melee SC pretender and _still_ use a couple of spells like Shards, Earth Meld, Sulphur Haze, etc, to slow down or eliminate some of the enemy before you pound them into Lizard Marmalade with your fists.)

Water -- Quickness is splendid, and low path cost folks often get a little water just for that. Breath of winter is nice. But whenever I try to do just water on a Titan style figure, he gets mobbed and killed. What else to put on him?

Armor and shield? Titans aren't ideal for melee, not without several paths and preferably a few items.

Beefier chassis's might do quite well with just Quickness and BoW - a Wyrm, Dagon, Ancient Kraken or Blue Dragon. Other chassis's could do it as well, but aren't going to come in pure Water flavors - the carrion dragon, Cyclops, etc.

----These are mostly speculation.
Nature -- I've mostly been practicing with Pythium and Abyssia lately, so I don't want frenzied casters. But nature seems like a weaker (in combat) earth. Protection + Regeneration. Maybe poison resistance. What else?

Sleep Cloud? Poison Cloud (later on). Swarm. Not all paths are suited to solo SCing, especially with a single path.

[Vynd]

I agree with Truper and Cainehill that trying to make a Pretender with one powerful magic path who is also capable of defeating indie provinces by itself is a difficult proposition. If early expansion is your focus, go with multiple paths.

But with that said, it is an interesting idea. And there are probably a few Pretender chasis that could make it work. Mostly the ones that are already very strong fighters. The Carrion Dragon, for instance, doesn't really need Quickness, Ironskin, Mirror Image, and Mistform. It already has 200+ HP, a massive Fear aura, recuperation, etc. So you could probably get away with giving it the one strong path that you're interested in for a Bless effect or some other purpose. But the Carrion Dragon is an extreme case, and there aren't too many other chasis that I think you could pull this off with.

[Heironeous]

Cainehill said:

A lot of the good spells require two paths. Air and Fire gives a nice early Sulphur Haze; fire/earth gives magma bolts. High level example in evocation is Nether Darts, and frankly - artillery mages / pretenders are often underrated.

Interesting. I had thought of an artillery pretender as something like a fire-9 moloch (that's pretty much the only one I've used), but a multi-path bLaster is an intriguing option. Do you have any specific examples? I've been looking at a partial rainbow for Man-Tuatha to cover some of the magic gaps, and adding in the artillery aspect fits nicely with Tuatha's power in evocation.

[Edi]

Phoenix is good for early expansion. All it needs is Evo 3 and Alteration 3 and it will mop most indie provinces quite handily on its own. Air Shield and then start raining fire darts and fireballs on the indies, they'll route in no time. Fire darts is especailly good, with Fire 6, you can just sit the Phoenix in the far back corner of the battlefield and start slamming them home, even the indie x-bows need to spend one turn running forward before they are in range (by which time Air Shield will be in place). Any infantry or cavalry that actually gets close is going to get hit with massive immolation, and even if the bird gets whacked, who cares, it's immortal and flying, so getting to the front is no problem. When you get fire shield and cloud trapeze later on, it becomes a virtual expansion engine all on its own while you can concentrate on building up troop strength, mages and research in peace.

My friend used it quite successfully in a co-op game we had on the Cradle map. He was playing Machaka and he had just one real army and the phoenix for a good long time, and easily outpaced my expansion with Abysia.

Edi

[Karacan]

I actually like an air phoenix much better. It's awe makes close combat spells actually feasible, and shock waves *is* a pretty good spell even against knights.

[Edi]

Well, an F6, A5 Phoenix is no slouch in that department either...

Edi