Inquisitors vs. demonologists vs. archmages

[dougrob173]

I've been using Inquisitors since I started the game, but now that I'm at level 35 using a paladin hero with max resurrection skill and the resurrection spell, and Paladin units (yes I know overkill on the resurrection), I rarely need the Inquisitor's skill. So I'm thinking of switching them with demonologists or archmages. Just wanted to get other's opinions on advantages/disadvantages or each stack.

Also since the demonologists are rare, I heard that the sacrifice spell can be used to increase the unit #s. I tried the spell a couple times, but it would only let me reinforce the unit that had casualties. So is the spell limited to only increase the # of units that you started the battle with?

Thanks.

[joasoz]

I must be missing something about archmages, cause I have never seen any usefulness in them. I am always late finding trap, so I dont use them for moving units onto traps. Is there something special about them?

[rancor26]

I must be missing something about archmages, cause I have never seen any usefulness in them. I am always late finding trap, so I dont use them for moving units onto traps. Is there something special about them?

Magic shield which halve the damage and it can be used many times per battle.

[Urbz]

I also quite like the chance on shocking and ofcourse the huge hitpoints Archmages have is always nice.

[Petwin]

Back to the original topic: the use of the spell Sacrifice. You can increase the number of a stack by sacrificing part of another stack. You can use it to grow your army for free (and there was much rejoicing..)

Basic troop gaining:
1) Sacrifice a lvl5 unit
2) Gain units for a stack <lvl5
3) Resurrect or Time Back the sacrificed unit.

But be careful: you can get more units in the 2nd stack than your leadership allows and then the stack will become out of control.

Additional things to consider:
1) With the spell Peacefulness the health of the sacrificed stack will be higher. In that case 1st level Sacrifice will not kill the unit.
2) When you resurrect damaged stacks there's a chance the resurrection will not work. Heal the stack before you resurrect.

[loreangelicus]

With regards to the topic's unit comparison, I think one must use archmages mainly on the first part of the game wherein a single tank with magic shield could help you a lot. But once you get the relevant medal for resistance, you should drop them for something better.

Demonologists are better for a warrior. With the summons and the warrior's inherent greater rage generation when units hit each other, the demonologist just has better uses. For a paladin, the inquisitor is still better. The +40% damage from the level 3 medal is akin to a 40% leadership discount for inquisitors. With a level 1 cast of the Phantom spell on inquisitors, you could also generate rage from them as necessary, even when the battle goes long and units hitting each other don't generate rage anymore.

But given that you are using a paladin character, why not just drop your paladin units and use inquisitors and demonologists? Too much resurrection already, and the demonologist would be more active in battle for you, and could even provide blockers (and more rage). The paladin is too slow for tanking anyways, you would do better to use dragons, either red or green, which your inquisitors could resurrect (the resurrect spell doesn't work on level 5 units).

[TemjinGold]

Inquisitors are nice in the early game for building rage (especially in multiple stacks) but they do start to lose their effectiveness later on. The problem is that they do below average damage for their cost. Now as a paladin though, that +40% does go a long way. I've never played a paladin but I've never had a fight where I was like "Wow, I'm glad I had the firepower of those inquisitors! They really contributed to the fight!"

One of my friends used to be fond of saying, "Don't make your back door bigger than your front door." What he means is, if your goal is to maximize killing efficiency, don't hamper that too much by going too heavy on defense. If your team has lots of resurrection, you will also find the need to use more of it (since those units won't be as strong in combat.)

In terms of what to replace it with, I think that depends a lot on what you hope the replacement will do. Do you want something hardier, something that does more damage, etc? Are you replacing it because they are boring you or do you feel your team is lacking in some way?

[dougrob173]

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful info.

What I'm hoping to achieve is replace the Inquisitors with a beefier unit. The +40% dmg medal does make them worth keeping, but they are usually the first targeted and I'm taking 10 unit loses each time an enemy archer attacks them. Depending on the enemy army, some battles I get hit for 30-40 loses in the first round before I can get my tanks to the enemy archers. So I'd rather replace them with a unit that can withstand the enemy attacks better.

I'm also just looking for some variety since I've had them since I started, so it's not essential to replace them, just more of an entertainment thing. I like loreangelicus's suggestion of replacing the paladin with demonologists though, I think I'll try that and see if I like that army setup.

[TemjinGold]

Well, there's a couple of ways to go here. You could use demonologists/druids for their summoning or you could perhaps go Cyclops if you just want a beefy guy. What's the rest of your team like?

[DGDobrev]

Um, I feel obliged to enter the conversation since I'm pretty much into those types of units... My perfect army consists of both archmagi and demonologists, while leaving the inquisitors behind.

Why?

Both units have a decent amount of HP, which means you can't easily suffer a loss from those stacks. Magic shield from the Archmagi is an extremely useful ability throughout the entire game, because it allows you to play with a single tank stack, such as he paladins. Against bosses, it allows you to suffer less, because it will reduce the damage a stack takes by a half, regardless of the stack. This goes a long way towards achieving no-loss victories.

You will excuse my bias towards the Archmagi, but I do think that they are one of the best units around - Phys/Magic damage, No range penalty, Magic shield that helps any tank or unit in distress... What more can someone else want from a ranger?

[loreangelicus]

Well, there's a couple of ways to go here. You could use demonologists/druids for their summoning or you could perhaps go Cyclops if you just want a beefy guy. What's the rest of your team like?

I believe we are getting different viewpoints here, but are still getting very valid arguments with regards to the pros and cons of each of the 3 units: inquisitors, demonologists, and archmages. TemjinGold hits the mark as to why this is so; it really depends on the other units that you have, the spells and dragon abilities that you use, and the tactics that you employ. There are no outright shoo-in units that would always be good in any team (Except for maybe black knights with shard and eviln support :grin:). So try them out and see how they complement your team and playing style.

[Hento]

Not to mention that Archmagi have a very high crit chance and damage later on with the mage dress and other gear. Even their telekinesis comes in handy in many situations.

[TemjinGold]

Speaking of Eviln support, a stack of Boners is easily my favorite dragons now. Mage double phantoms turn 1 and both fly over and fart to get everyone's attention. At the end of the fight, Eviln lifts a crazy number of them. What's not to like?

[Zechnophobe]

Is... is that how we are referring to bone dragons now... as Boners? Could I make a petition we use 'Bonies' instead? I'm worried we will all tell our significant others, without thinking, about this great place to get Boners in the game we've been playing...

[loreangelicus]

And the blue pet dragon even gives "Bonies" +1 initiative (on top of what the Order of Darkness(?) skill gives). A good tag-team for the usually solo black knights.

As a percentage "resurrect" instead of fixed hit points, the Eviln spell is overpowered. The requirement of using a dead body is not even that big of a disadvantage; even when fighting an all ghost or all droid enemy (ie. enemies that don't generate corpses), you could "egg" out a suicidal ally using your pet dragon.

[lauvhk]

Fly over and fart... lol I love that. Maybe the dev should change the poison breath animation.

Oh and you can also create dead body with spells too. Pretty neat.

[TemjinGold]

Meaning to ask: Does anyone know if the ahh Bonies count as dragons for Voice of the Dragon? If so, I'm suddenly itching to play a warrior with that build...

[lauvhk]

Bone Dragon does get the morale boost from Voice of the Dragon.

[DGDobrev]

Really? Is this confirmed? I though Bone dragons get their morale boost from Undead morale-boosting items, because they are undead.

I think this way because when calculating morale, Dragons get reduced morale(-1) if there are lizards in the army, with the exception of the Bone dragon (because it is Undead), which excludes him from the dragon family.

[lauvhk]

See the attached screenshot. The Bone Dragon also receives the initiative bonus from the blue pet dragon.

[DGDobrev]

Most interesting :) Thanks for the info.

[dashcunning]

I keep thinking about using archmages but I'm always held back by the fact that they do completely terrible damage, the worst in the game in fact (in terms of damage per leadership). Even assuming 95% crit and the double attack ability, they are still only average for range units and about 10th worst overall.

Is the magic shield ability that good? It seems a waste to dedicate 1/5 of your army to a unit that's really only useful for that purpose. I haven't used them so I honesty have no idea how good they actually are, they just seem so awful.

[DGDobrev]

In my opinion, the Archmagi are well worth the price and are by all means one of my favorite units. Having incoming damage reduced by 50% is well worth it. In most cases, with stone skin/divine armor + magic shield, your tank stack will suffer minimal losses. Let's not forget that the 50% damage reduction is absolute - it works regardless of the damage incurred.

Let us not forget that the Archmagi have a decent HP value, so they will not fall like butterflies against bosses. Their damage is magic (ranged) and physical (close combat), which gives you 2 types of damage to work with.

This goes a long way towards making no-loss victories. I'd rather have 1-2 support stacks that help me minimize the casualties than 5 offensive stacks with big damage that I will have to replenish all the time. It's costly (especially on impossible where income is reduced by 50%) and it's time consuming.

[lauvhk]

If one doesn't use Fighting Trance, then one can use Archmage Magic Shield every 2 turns. That makes Archmage damage capabilities almost a non-issue.

[DGDobrev]

And people think way too much about damage :)

A good army consists of a tank, damage dealers, and support. 1 Tank unit (30% phys resistance) + 2 damage dealer units with good damage/leadership ratio + 2 Support units (like Archmage + Paladin or Archmage + Demologist or Archmage + Inquisitor).

This is why my ultimate party is:

1 Tank: Knights
2 Damage dealers: Paladins and Horsemen
2 Support units: Archmagi and Demonologists

This party guarantees no-loss victories for me all the time. Units are very high on HP, most of them have decent multi-type resistances. Good vs. Practically Everything.

If you feel bad with this party, how about this:

1 Tank: Paladins
2 Damage Dealers: Lake Fairies, Tree Fairies
2 Support units: Archmagi, Dryads

Low on HP, nothing much in terms of resistances, but the damage output is great, as long as you're not facing dragons :)

[Hento]

Let's not forget that the 50% damage reduction is absolute - it works regardless of the damage incurred.


Yes, by having Archmagi you can be on the offensive from the beginning, for example I always use knights which I teleport at the beginning to do their circle attack(they are super buffed, initiative, 3 moral and 40% increased damage). They do more damage than maxed out fire rain in terms of intellect and spell level.

So most of the times I don't even have to use target, just stone skin or phantom in the second round, and paladins resurrect them in round 3, at round 4 it is all over most of the time. To make the knights even more buffed you could use that demon companion which takes control of them and adds abilities, like always retaliating(+revenge skill).

It would be nice for knights to be faster so that I could use stoneskin in the first round, I guess adrenaline skill would be for that although it is too random, I never used adrenaline before, I suppose you can lower the odds if you have only a couple of stacks.

P.S.
It is very bad that horseman's weapon is not considered as melee, because they then don't receive the bonus to their damage. That's very stupid, if horseman's weapon is not melee I don't know what is.