Pretender Design for Wish?

[sushiboat]

If you want a Pretender who will be able to cast Wish when the time comes, you have to plan for it from the start. Obviously, high Astral is essential, but I am finding it hard to give up other paths I am used to having on a Pretender. If you have played a Wish-oriented strategy, please share your Pretender design.

[Vicious Love]

Re: Versatility, methinks the key is snagging a chassis with full or near-full equipment slots, buying a few synergistic paths at low levels, and letting a variable booster loadout do the rest.

Since high-level empowerment is ridiculously pricey, you'll have to get starting astral up to 6 in most cases(2 misc boosters plus a skullcap to cast Wish), 5 if you're counting on securing a Robe of the Magi. I suppose you could <i>hypothetically</i> make do with S4 and make a rush for level 8 Construction and the Forbidden Light, but that seems to be the kind of stratagem one would only adopt on a bet. Also, if Mind Duel doesn't factor in magic items, I'd be wary of taking less than 6 astral on any pretender likely to see combat.

So, lessee... quick glance at the list of affordable pretenders with low path costs(or multiple startng pargs), plenty of item slots, and a level or two of initial astral... well, the female titan, great enchantress and Son of the Sun all seem semidecent, and two of them might even make for an adequate SC chassis.

So... yeah. Equipment slots, a base astral level of at least 1, and either multiple starting paths, or low initial path costs. That's all I've got at the moment. I really should get some sleep.

[Molog]

Lich can take low astral, because of immortality.

Baphomet, glyph and lurker can all use twiceborn trick to get full equipment slots+movement. Lycanthrope amulet may also work, but is unreliable and can't cast spells in combat. Transformation is also unreliable.

[Oversway]

If you are going to clamhoard enough to chain cast lots of wishes (and if you are going for a wish strategy, you'll be doing that right?) a level or two of empowerment might not be so bad.

But really, is 6 astral really all that expensive? What pretender chassis are you using and what paths and/or scales are you having to drop?

[sushiboat]

Thanks, Vicious Love. Using your criteria, perhaps Jade Emperor (T'ien Ch'i) and Void Lord (R'lyeh) would be good. Also, the Oracle doesn't have full slots, but with starting 3 Astral, 4 Dominion, and 30 new path cost, it could afford to buy up to a higher Astral level and depend less on boosters.

Oversway, the general consensus on scales for most nations is that Order and Magic are necessary to be competitive. Those can be partially paid for by Misfortune, maybe some Sloth, and for a few nations some Heat/Cold. Dominion 6 or greater is also deemed a good idea. 6+ of any path is pretty expensive. Water 2 may be good to get an early start on clams for nations without fixed-water mages. For a SC, either Death or Blood will allow a life drain weapon.

The point about clam hoarding makes sense. If you have enough Astral income to cast Wish regularly, it wouldn't take much longer to get enough to empower the would-be caster.

Is a Wish-oriented strategy uncommon, or is it just easier than I think to cast Wish? I was under the impression that Wish is common in the late game with advanced players.

[Wish]

I run wish quite a bit actually. Its not to difficult as long as you akashic record the crap out of your provinces and empower up some.

its certainly not an early game deal though, since you have tpo really invest in research and aastral gems to get there.

a little bit of water goes a long way too as you can make a farm for astral pearls... I like to just equip one on all the sages i pull from the first library i find, and harvest the pearls occasionally.

great enchantress is pretty good to help facilitate the early akashic records.

for this reason rlyeh makes for a pretty good wish nation to play under, since that are water and astral... same with atlantis (haven't looked at oceania yet..)