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shqiponja_hayabusa
09-21-2010, 11:30 AM
I want to go all thorn army cuz I remember with the right items they can deliver a great deal of damage. Can you enlighten me on this items. I know the botanic diploma and the thorn crown, anything else?

Zechnophobe
09-21-2010, 06:57 PM
Crown of Black thorne is really the only one you need, due to its massive damage boost. It doubles their DAMAGE not their attack, which is really really good.

I don't really recall many other items for them, but if you are going to use Thorn hunters or warriors, then the Demoness' whip, and Poison dagger will both greatly add to their damage.

BB Shockwave
09-21-2010, 07:58 PM
Go to Elona fast. There, find the elven academy and when graduating, choose gardening. After a quite tough fight (where you have to beat demons with plants), you'll get the Botany Diploma (I think that's what it's called), which increases the stats of plants (Thorns, Ents) quite a lot.

You'd also do well to employ Fauns, they boost thorns as well. Dryads too, I think. I think in Orcs on the March, you can always find Royal THorns and Fauns in the Hut on Debir - I always did.

onepiece
09-22-2010, 01:50 AM
The only problem with thorns is that they are level 1 units only (except the Royal thorn) and at the end of the game they are almost useless or simply die too much and aren't very useful.
There is a lacks of a level 2-3 thron that makes them a bit more useful (maybe someone care to do new thorn units with crazy abilities like "resist fire"?)

Zechnophobe
09-22-2010, 02:41 AM
The only problem with thorns is that they are level 1 units only (except the Royal thorn) and at the end of the game they are almost useless or simply die too much and aren't very useful.
There is a lacks of a level 2-3 thron that makes them a bit more useful (maybe someone care to do new thorn units with crazy abilities like "resist fire"?)

Fauns can resurrect the hell out of them though, which makes them a bit more viable. And low level units CAN be good, since they often have crazy high damage potential. Still, I think a fairy army is much stronger. Fast moving no retal units are just good in general.

BB Shockwave
09-22-2010, 06:50 AM
I doubt using the level1 Thorns as separate armies is a good idea. They are meant to be fodder, just like Gobots (I still chuckle when I write down the name of the Transformer-ripoffs that are now icky worms...) :)

So, use Royal Thorns or Dryads to summon them, that way you don't have to fear of losing any. Royal Thorns are available on Debir already, and you can upgrade Warriors or Hunters into them with Training.

On my next walkthrough, I plan to do a Mage with an Elven army. There are so many good elven units I never tried out yet. Even more then I can use. I wish the game allowed 7 units in your army... :)

vicheron
09-22-2010, 06:52 AM
Get the Ghost Sword, it reduces enemy physical resistance by 50%.

Also, get as many attack boosting artifacts as you can.

One of the biggest problems with thorns is that you can't cast Dragon Arrow on them. Even with the nerf, they can still significantly increase the damage of lower level creatures.

onepiece
09-23-2010, 07:26 PM
Now that's going to get interesting: hunters and royal with faun and dryads could be very powerful and with that sword, they would rip through mages and the likes, although fire damage would also rip them XD.

I suppose you should get lot of fire resistance items and an archmage to cast shield on them plus divine armor would come in handy.

Zechnophobe
09-23-2010, 08:06 PM
Now that's going to get interesting: hunters and royal with faun and dryads could be very powerful and with that sword, they would rip through mages and the likes, although fire damage would also rip them XD.

I suppose you should get lot of fire resistance items and an archmage to cast shield on them plus divine armor would come in handy.

Don't waste time on fire resist for plants, it doesn't make much of a difference. Instead focus on phantoming out more fauns to resurrect them faster.

Also, I don't think the Ghost sword actually works, at least, it didn't in KBAP: Gift Bag.

Tianx
09-23-2010, 10:18 PM
Can we confirm that about the Ghost sword because in the current game, I have the complete set and is planning to use it quite a bit. If it doesn't work, then there is no point.

Saiko Kila
09-23-2010, 10:30 PM
I don't know, but certainly the in-battle description of enemies doesn't reflect any changes in their physical defence. I was wandering about with this sword until it rebelled.

Zechnophobe
09-23-2010, 11:46 PM
It is easy to check, just have a unit that can do physical damage in your party, like Archdemon. Save before battle, start battle, see how much damage it will deal to a specific stack.

Load, equip ghost blade, check again.

I am pretty sure this is what I did the first time, and that it very clearly did no more damage.

Tianx
09-24-2010, 12:20 AM
Wow, if that's the case, then this will be the worst weapon of all, even more than the training sword lol

onepiece
09-24-2010, 02:38 AM
I don't have it but maybe what is does is reduce resistance by half of units that have it? Like paladins and the like and not of units that don't like peasants?

BB Shockwave
09-24-2010, 06:14 AM
Now that's going to get interesting: hunters and royal with faun and dryads could be very powerful and with that sword, they would rip through mages and the likes, although fire damage would also rip them XD.

I suppose you should get lot of fire resistance items and an archmage to cast shield on them plus divine armor would come in handy.

Quick question - I have not used Divine ARmor much yet (as it does not work on undead, whom I used in my last walkthrough of the Legend) - does it add to the negative resistance, thus reducing it, or does it increase it to 0 before further increasing it? (Same way Grease works).

ckdamascus
10-14-2010, 07:05 PM
I don't have it but maybe what is does is reduce resistance by half of units that have it? Like paladins and the like and not of units that don't like peasants?

That is precisely what it does.

50% of 0 = 0 reduction
50% of 30% = 15% (paladin will only have 15% now, instead of 30%)

It only lowers the existing resistance by half, not the net amount by 50%.

So, it is indirectly capped at 0% and can never give negative resists.

Sort of a shame. It really should just do a flat -50% additively, not multiplicatively.

onepiece
10-14-2010, 11:11 PM
So it will be useful against level 4-5 units (dragons(paladin/knight, etc.) but the problem for the thorns will still be their low attack (which would reduce their damage by 1/2 or 1/3 depending of the enemy defense, unless you played as a warrior )

ckdamascus
10-15-2010, 12:46 AM
So it will be useful against level 4-5 units (dragons(paladin/knight, etc.) but the problem for the thorns will still be their low attack (which would reduce their damage by 1/2 or 1/3 depending of the enemy defense, unless you played as a warrior )

Well, marginally useful. There aren't too many heavily physical resistant enemies that are worth troubling yourself over with it.

I moronically purchased the Ghost Sword, but it was a very tough fight early in the game, so every bit helps.

I'm not sure if say a 10% reduction in physical resistance (if one were to use the sword against a black dragon) truly amounts to merely a 10% bonus in damage or a 11% bonus in damage. Either way, surely you can find a weapon that will have more utility.

Most of the human team and cyclops are the only worthy "physical resistant" enemies in my opinion.

And there are just so many better options to deal with them.

Yes, thorns have a very low attack rating. It seems very hard to raise it to the minimum "60" mark to converge to your optimal damage rating.

atlatea
10-15-2010, 10:26 AM
I agree, to my experience, it's better to reduce their defense stat than to reduce their phys resistance with ghost sword as stated above.

Well, ghost sword only good againts ghost type units (ghost, ghost pirate, etc) and if you use physical dmg troops, for cyclops, knights, paladins, i'd rather decrease their defense than using ghost sword, unless you're planning to use the no retaliation set (which is very powerful if you use fast and damaging melee units, like horsemen and unicorn).

ckdamascus
10-15-2010, 11:54 AM
I agree, to my experience, it's better to reduce their defense stat than to reduce their phys resistance with ghost sword as stated above.

Well, ghost sword only good againts ghost type units (ghost, ghost pirate, etc) and if you use physical dmg troops, for cyclops, knights, paladins, i'd rather decrease their defense than using ghost sword, unless you're planning to use the no retaliation set (which is very powerful if you use fast and damaging melee units, like horsemen and unicorn).

Right, anyone with a large amount of physical resistance is potentially worth while to use the ghost sword. Just do the math and away you go

Ah yeah, I forgot about them. Ghosts and the like have a whopping 50% physical resistance. So, reducing that by 25% is essentially increasing damage by 1/(1-0.25) = 33%

33% damage boost is finally worth it.

The game is just basic "best return on investment", so do the math and the path to victory is clear. :)

My problem with no retaliation is that, later in the game, you aren't necessarily likely to kill or cripple the stack enough to handle their normal counter attack. I think my opinion might change if I beef up stats like Caution, as I only had the full ghost set with my mage.