Orcs on the March thread

[Zhuangzi]

I know there's plenty of threads on issues relating to this campaign already, but I thought this could be specifically a gameplay thread.

So, it's like Armored Princess, but with orcs. On Debir I notice a few changes, such as the orc guy on the pier and the island with the mysterious lights. Haven't finished Debir yet but I'm very pleased with a couple of the new units.

Blood Shaman - probably prefer the old Shaman, but I haven't got my adrenaline high enough yet.
Orc Tracker - pretty nice, can spawn units
Engineer- my favourite new unit so far. Very useful. Shock Grenade can potentially blind most of the enemy, and spawning droids is fantastic. Great.

Not having a problem with no-losses so far (level 3 Paladin) but I'll need some Paladin units soon. I think I can turn Guardsmen into Paladins or something, using the new scroll thingy?

[karabaja]

i started to play it too. i'm playing impossible warrior and i've just defeated "monster from abyss" :)

i'm using engineers/droids combo (i sneaked to Bolo to steal 'em ;)) and they are really powerful together, have no losses so far. i tried rune mage too, but since i can have right now only one, it isn't very impressive, but in greater numbers and more unspent runes, they could be powerful as well.

i'm planning switch to orcs later when they become available in greater numbers. they seem very interesting with their new adrenalin related abilities.

[BluePhoenix]

Been a long time since I played Armored Princess, so I started again at Normal difficulty. No complaints though. The game never gets boring. :grin:

I'm playing as a Mage as it has been my most favorite class since KB:TL.

I like the changes in some units. Orc Trackers are nice. Specially at low levels since they have nice health and can spawn units, as Zhuangzi said. Blood Shaman would be nice in an all-orc army. Have to try it sometime at higher levels. Engineer would be very nice for anyone who likes droids. Rune Mages make up their lack of damage with summon and healing / revive.

I'll post more when I get to higher levels. :-)

[BB Shockwave]

Not having a problem with no-losses so far (level 3 Paladin) but I'll need some Paladin units soon. I think I can turn Guardsmen into Paladins or something, using the new scroll thingy?

I'm level 7 Paladin, but no-loss is getting problematic now, due to all those darn stacks with bears in them. My line-up is: Rune Mage (1), Sea Dogs (61), Guardsmen (51), Inquisitors (27), Witch Hunters (21). And yeah, you could upgrade Guardsman to Paladins, but that'd cost 2000 trophies at the training center - I only have 1200 or so, considering I used up a lot to get Guardsmen from peasants (Debir soon ran out of Swordsmen).

[Zhuangzi]

I'm level 7 Paladin, but no-loss is getting problematic now, due to all those darn stacks with bears in them. My line-up is: Rune Mage (1), Sea Dogs (61), Guardsmen (51), Inquisitors (27), Witch Hunters (21). And yeah, you could upgrade Guardsman to Paladins, but that'd cost 2000 trophies at the training center - I only have 1200 or so, considering I used up a lot to get Guardsmen from peasants (Debir soon ran out of Swordsmen).

Okay, you definitely need Paladins (the unit). There's a cool trick that you might not be aware of; you can get the first stone on Bolo without having to fight at all. You will need to get into the underground cavern with the droids, click on the head droid that you are supposed to defeat for the stone. He'll attack - you run away. Kite around him and get the item which you return to the place on Debir for the stone. It's an amulet and you can use it for +50 leadership as well. Once you've done that, you should be able to buy Paladins at the Mage tower on Debir. Normally there's only 11 or so, which should be fine for your current leadership.

With Paladins, your job of clearing Bolo without losses should be much easier. You need spawned units (I can highly recommend the Engineer for this) and maybe Slow spells on the strongest bear stack. The Engineer kicks ass in that he has a shock grenade which blinds troops too. :cool:

EDIT: just in general, you don't need to grind your way through Bolo at this stage. What you need is the map to Rusty Anchor or better yet Verona. This may involve a difficult fight but with the Paladins you should be able to manage. Once you've got the Verona map you're golden. There's a ton of loot there that you can kite and normally access to Paladins and Royal Griffins, which were my two staple units for Armored Princess campaigns. It's a bit boring and I'm sure that there are different ways to ensure no-losses, but Paladins are pretty much essential I believe, unless you're going for a single unit attempt, and you would do that as a Mage, not a Paladin.

[Zhuangzi]

I spent a couple of hours on my Paladin game this morning, and managed to get up to level 7 very easily by clearing out most of Scarlet Wind. A lot of people don't like Glory but as a Paladin you have a lot of green runes to spend, so I've maxed that out already, and with the second level of Grand Strategy, I'm up to 2700 leadership already. Consequently I'm ahead of what I think of as the 'difficulty curve' in that the enemies on this island are mainly listed as Weak or Slightly Weaker, which is not something you'd normally see on Impossible. :-P

I've had in with the Blood Shaman so I've switched them out for good old Inquisitors. The Engineer on the other hand is a very useful unit for strategic play. Coupled with Paladin's Second Wind ability, you can get two stacks of droids out on turn 1, and then Shock Grenade on turn 2. Orc Trackers are my only orc unit now due to their toughness and ability to summon. Royal Thorns are always useful and you can turn 50 of the green thorns into 1 on Debir. This is a kickass team for the early game and there's little or not chance of ending up with losses. I've discussed how to play this style before so I won't go through it all again, but suffice to say that Engineers are a very welcome addition to the mix.

Scarlet Wind has about 4-5 of the harder fights left on it, and I'm nearly at level 8. I'll mop up all but 2 of those fights easily (the map fights will be left) and then it's on to Bolo for the easier fights there. Then it will be necessary to take on the map guardians for access to Rusty Anchor/Verona.

[Zhuangzi]

A couple more things I should mention for those of you who are newer to the game.

- You should always be using the baby dragon's Treasure Searcher ability twice per turn. You'll need the gold on Impossible and you might dig up an Ancient Scroll or two. You also get the Treasure Hunter medal for this over time, which is nice.

- As soon as you get the Trap spell (not until level 6 for me) you should start trying to work toward the Trapper medal. This is harder for the Paladin than it is for a Mage, and it can be frustrating too, but it's useful once completed. Again, this is better for a Mage because of more mana and higher Intellect.

- You can manipulate rage and mana using a number of easily accessible spells and abilities. Inquisitors are great for creating rage, Mana Spring is a godsend for increasing mana, and Mana Accelerator turns rage into mana. I use all of these all of the time. In my current game I've got Distortion 2 and it could even have been Distortion 3 had I wanted (in hindsight maybe I should have gone for it - I picked up the trap spell shortly after).

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Just starting our with Paladin on hard, hope to find some lvl 5 units as soon as poss :)

[jake21]

I just finished warrior on impossible but only did 92 quests; does anyone know total number of quests ('m pretty sure I missed at least one contract by killing first and asking questions later). I did not notice so many new quests (just 4 - guy in scarlet; orc sequence (probably counts more as 4) mage tower and trainer training after first stone.
-
I never kite but I might try it in bolo with my mage on impossible. I think long ago I tried once to get the stone without a fight but couldn't get the fellow to chase without fighting.
--
With warrior I played rune mage until the end (when i get the stone in Rhea). Not so sure I like rune mages that much. They had two nice attributes I guess (lots of hp and if you have enough mage runes they can turn victims into sheep). But to be honest they did not pack much of a punch. Even with 200 unused warrior runes I found them a bit lacking.
-
Bit unhappy with how the orc campaign progressed. It was very anti-climatic and I kept looking for a diplomatic solution.
-
Major thing I noticed is that Baal was nerfed in a *big* way and Ulsua was a lot harder.
--
I did not use any of the new troupes other than run mages - just didn't find a use. Went the old route of a stack of summoners (thorns and d's) and by end game I was piling on the thorns. Hum. I guess only other disappointment was lack of being able to complete a set (sort of wish the randommizer would pick a set than guarantee that all the pieces load) and the item from the mage tower didn't do much for me.
--
Hum two things I did a bit different - never used blacknights this game and at the very end picked up the paladin for the fight against Baal.

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

I also finished the Orc campaign. It was a tough run. Used alot the new Rune mage but only when I had 16 of them they really started getting useful.

I found Baal stronger than in AP though.

I managed to have 2 sets of items for my mage. The lucky set, with 20% critical. and the 20% physical resistance.

The new shamans are freaks, 3 astral attacks in a row than a ranged one targeting my stack of archemages killing all of them.

[BB Shockwave]

Okay, you definitely need Paladins (the unit). There's a cool trick that you might not be aware of; you can get the first stone on Bolo without having to fight at all. You will need to get into the underground cavern with the droids, click on the head droid that you are supposed to defeat for the stone. He'll attack - you run away. Kite around him and get the item which you return to the place on Debir for the stone. It's an amulet and you can use it for +50 leadership as well. Once you've done that, you should be able to buy Paladins at the Mage tower on Debir. Normally there's only 11 or so, which should be fine for your current leadership.

With Paladins, your job of clearing Bolo without losses should be much easier. You need spawned units (I can highly recommend the Engineer for this) and maybe Slow spells on the strongest bear stack. The Engineer kicks ass in that he has a shock grenade which blinds troops too. :cool:

EDIT: just in general, you don't need to grind your way through Bolo at this stage. What you need is the map to Rusty Anchor or better yet Verona. This may involve a difficult fight but with the Paladins you should be able to manage. Once you've got the Verona map you're golden. There's a ton of loot there that you can kite and normally access to Paladins and Royal Griffins, which were my two staple units for Armored Princess campaigns. It's a bit boring and I'm sure that there are different ways to ensure no-losses, but Paladins are pretty much essential I believe, unless you're going for a single unit attempt, and you would do that as a Mage, not a Paladin.

Thanks, I know that trick - I always get the first stone that way (sometimes I have to reload before entering the catacombs, as the boss droid is not always kite-able.

I got the stone back, but they have only 6 paladins (and I could recruit much more). But no problems - I found 18+5 Horsemen on Rusty Anchor and Scarlet Wind, so they are standing in for the Paladins for now (I can use 12 now). Even got 7 Royal Griffins with a Wind Walker scroll.

I'm doing Bolo now, and it's much easier - my Rune Mage and Royal Griffins spawn summons, Inquisitors/Rune Mages resurrect, and Horsemen and Royal Griffins tank. I use Guardsmen too or Witch Hunters -depending on the enemy troops, sometimes that magic lock comes very handy.

I agree with you about Verona - it is like a sweets-shop for units and items. But, the troops guarding the map are still "lethal" or "very strong" so I'll clean out everyone I can before trying to attack them (and unfortunately, sometimes they are guarding a map I already have).

And yep, Paladins/Royal Griffins rock. On my first walkthrough of AP, I deliberately tried out all the new units first, then went with an all-Lizardmen army when I got to Reha. My initial army was: Trolls, Paladins, Royal Griffins, Guard Droids and Repair Droids. :) Never lost a unit with that combo.

[Zhuangzi]

Thanks, I know that trick - I always get the first stone that way (sometimes I have to reload before entering the catacombs, as the boss droid is not always kite-able.

I got the stone back, but they have only 6 paladins (and I could recruit much more). But no problems - I found 18+5 Horsemen on Rusty Anchor and Scarlet Wind, so they are standing in for the Paladins for now (I can use 12 now). Even got 7 Royal Griffins with a Wind Walker scroll.

I'm doing Bolo now, and it's much easier - my Rune Mage and Royal Griffins spawn summons, Inquisitors/Rune Mages resurrect, and Horsemen and Royal Griffins tank. I use Guardsmen too or Witch Hunters -depending on the enemy troops, sometimes that magic lock comes very handy.

I agree with you about Verona - it is like a sweets-shop for units and items. But, the troops guarding the map are still "lethal" or "very strong" so I'll clean out everyone I can before trying to attack them (and unfortunately, sometimes they are guarding a map I already have).

And yep, Paladins/Royal Griffins rock. On my first walkthrough of AP, I deliberately tried out all the new units first, then went with an all-Lizardmen army when I got to Reha. My initial army was: Trolls, Paladins, Royal Griffins, Guard Droids and Repair Droids. :) Never lost a unit with that combo.

That's kinda my problem with this game now in that some units are so strong that I just continue to use them even when I want to try something else. I started off using the Orcs a bit, but I never had my adrenaline high enough to see much of their best abilities, so I traded them out for good old Paladins, Royal Griffins and Inquisitors. These three are awesome every time. Royal Thorns are great except for the problem in resurrecting them, and so I'll probably trade them out for Knights or Horsemen at some point. The only new unit that I have actually used extensively is the Engineer, which they are some outstanding unit items for.

[Mandea]

I have the same problem with very good units, but lately, reading what DGD said, I've been using undeads. They are awesome and very fun to play with.

[BB Shockwave]

That's kinda my problem with this game now in that some units are so strong that I just continue to use them even when I want to try something else. I started off using the Orcs a bit, but I never had my adrenaline high enough to see much of their best abilities, so I traded them out for good old Paladins, Royal Griffins and Inquisitors. These three are awesome every time. Royal Thorns are great except for the problem in resurrecting them, and so I'll probably trade them out for Knights or Horsemen at some point. The only new unit that I have actually used extensively is the Engineer, which they are some outstanding unit items for.


I managed to resist the urge to use killer units. :) In the original Legend, Royal Snakes and Black dragons rocked, but I have not used a single one in my second walkthrough, going instead with an all-undead army (prior to getting undead, of course I used some other units, and I did use Emerald Green Dragons and Werewolves sometimes).

Even in the first AP walkthrough I told you about, I later dismissed all these units (Trolls, Paladins) for Lizardmen - my line-up was Gorguls, Gorguanas, Tirexes, Hayterants and Brontors. They implement each other quite well - Tirexes tank, Gorguls are the main damage dealers, Hayterants do hit-and run attacks or summon (the egg is also a great shooter-blocker), while Brontors are just very versatile, depending on the situation they can charge right into the enemy lines, or sit back and work as ranged attackers.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

I'd be interested in hearing the theory behind using only droids lads

Also the paladin Royal Griffin tactic. I mainly use warrior and paladin so i'm yet to see this startegy for myself without going 30+ rounds of combat, thisis not my idea of fun.

thanks in advance :-P

[unicornxp]

well, it's too hard for me to play the entire again and again

so i just play for fun~~

goblin shamans can make huge damage at round1 with warrior's skill
(onslaught and rage control,kill at least 15+red dragon and more in late game)

but after that, they cant do better then the little goblins who now get +1damage at LV2 Adrenaline,goblin Catapult have +2 fire damage at LV2 Adrenaline,all this making goblins the best DPS in APCW

it's still easy to beat creeps but hard to keep no loss with Low level troops~~unless i have enough resistant-items

this game i'm not lucky enough :)
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=3560&stc=1&d=1286383663

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=3561&stc=1&d=1286383663

[loreangelicus]

so i just play for fun~~


Is there any other way to play? :)

Master! You are back! :) I need your enlightenment: does your KBAP fastest route still hold in KBCW, or do the new quests entail some changes? I see a day 9 finish; new minimum days to complete all quests, or just an effect of the "play for fun"? :)

[jake21]

So I'm currently doing mage impossible around level 13 and finding the game much harder than kb-ap. Can you describe your strategy at low level (I've not yet been to verona as I can't kit that group or kill them yet in bolo). Perhaps I am using the wrong troups (I have paladin, royal snake, 5 thorns, beholder and inquist (but I suspect the inquist are a waste)). Hum. Nothing left to kill on rusty, everything but group guarding verona map on bolo and stuff on rusty anchor is still too hard so i'm feeling stuck :)


well, it's too hard for me to play the entire again and again

so i just play for fun~~

goblin shamans can make huge damage at round1 with warrior's skill
(onslaught and rage control,kill at least 15+red dragon and more in late game)

but after that, they cant do better then the little goblins who now get +1damage at LV2 Adrenaline,goblin Catapult have +2 fire damage at LV2 Adrenaline,all this making goblins the best DPS in APCW

it's still easy to beat creeps but hard to keep no loss with Low level troops~~unless i have enough resistant-items

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

So I'm currently doing mage impossible around level 13 and finding the game much harder than kb-ap. Can you describe your strategy at low level (I've not yet been to verona as I can't kit that group or kill them yet in bolo). Perhaps I am using the wrong troups (I have paladin, royal snake, 5 thorns, beholder and inquist (but I suspect the inquist are a waste)). Hum. Nothing left to kill on rusty, everything but group guarding verona map on bolo and stuff on rusty anchor is still too hard so i'm feeling stuck :)

Why don't you get the green dragon from Rusty anchor and use it as a tank, that will help.

I got access to the first 4 quite early on by kiteing and even have the map for Tekron at lvl 17. Goblin sharmans destroy my army on Verona lol how the HELL! do you deal with there astral attack!

[ckdamascus]

Why don't you get the green dragon from Rusty anchor and use it as a tank, that will help.

I got access to the first 4 quite early on by kiteing and even have the map for Tekron at lvl 17. Goblin sharmans destroy my army on Verona lol how the HELL! do you deal with there astral attack!

You need the crown of chaos and ghost armor, but even then you will probably get demolished.

A few key things you can do

- Disable them with magic shackles
- Do NOT feed any orc units with a summon/fodder/tank, since feeding ANY orc unit a kill will beef up EVERY enemy orc unit's adrenaline, which will increase their damage against you.
- If you do go with the "feed" / summon / fodder route because you have no choice, make sure you can counter attack hard, or continue to get them to keep hitting your fodder. They will target some key units, so try to use glot's armor, or phantom that unit, etc.

It's terribly risky though, so get ready for some massive resurrection.

I have put off some of those battles, even if I was +10 levels over the enemy hero, only because of their sheer firepower.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

You need the crown of chaos and ghost armor, but even then you will probably get demolished.

A few key things you can do

- Disable them with magic shackles
- Do NOT feed any orc units with a summon/fodder/tank, since feeding ANY orc unit a kill will beef up EVERY enemy orc unit's adrenaline, which will increase their damage against you.
- If you do go with the "feed" / summon / fodder route because you have no choice, make sure you can counter attack hard, or continue to get them to keep hitting your fodder. They will target some key units, so try to use glot's armor, or phantom that unit, etc.

It's terribly risky though, so get ready for some massive resurrection.

I have put off some of those battles, even if I was +10 levels over the enemy hero, only because of their sheer firepower.

Wouldn't be a problem with Black Dragons, going to need some creative thinking here :)

[jake21]

I never think about sneaking past zig zag; always think about killing him and he's too hard. Anyways I manged to get to verona but it was a total bust; nothing good loaded there - well one small stack of royal griffons but leadership is too low to do much with them. What a bummer.

[ckdamascus]

Wouldn't be a problem with Black Dragons, going to need some creative thinking here :)

Black Dragons are exceptionally vulnerable to this. They have zero resistance to astral and you have no way of buffing them or healing them easily.

Perhaps you are thinking about magical damage, in which case, a black dragon is great against that.

Not that healing would help anyway, since they usually end up killing 1-3 black dragons per astral attack.

Something is terribly wrong when a stupid goblin shaman stack destroys my entire 10 black dragon stack in a single turn.

[atlatea]

Weird things happens to me, in all my games, crown of chaos and ghost armor always spawn especially when using paladin class.

Back to topic.
I guess it's ok using Black Dragon againts blood shaman or goblin shaman, but you need warrior's caution 3 or paladin's runic armor 3 plus crown of chaos and ghost armor. Better if you have all of that. And you have rune mage to resurrect black dragons, which is available from the start.

I don't know if mass shackle works againts them, last time i check, even when they're mass shackled they can cast that 3 hit astral attack. Maybe those shamans are buggy.

From my experience, all class have their own way to go againts those shamans, either in early game or late game. Though it's better to avoid them in early game.

But if you can have several green dragons, i mean have enough of them to rechage your mana then you can defeat those shamans in early game especially as a mage or paladin, just cast invisibility on your green dragon, then you're free to do anything to those shamans, i mean thin them using any means you deems best, example are poison skull or fire bolt, you also have your pet dragon. Then when your invisibility almost over, use your green dragon to recharge your mana then cast invisibility again, repeat that process.

Anyway, to do that you need the blue dragon pet and paladin adrenaline skill or battle cry spell (i prefer adrenaline), and lots of mana (minimum is 35 or 40 mana).

[ckdamascus]

Weird things happens to me, in all my games, crown of chaos and ghost armor always spawn especially when using paladin class.

Back to topic.
I guess it's ok using Black Dragon againts blood shaman or goblin shaman, but you need warrior's caution 3 or paladin's runic armor 3 plus crown of chaos and ghost armor. Better if you have all of that. And you have rune mage to resurrect black dragons, which is available from the start.

I don't know if mass shackle works againts them, last time i check, even when they're mass shackled they can cast that 3 hit astral attack. Maybe those shamans are buggy.

From my experience, all class have their own way to go againts those shamans, either in early game or late game. Though it's better to avoid them in early game.

But if you can have several green dragons, i mean have enough of them to rechage your mana then you can defeat those shamans in early game especially as a mage or paladin, just cast invisibility on your green dragon, then you're free to do anything to those shamans, i mean thin them using any means you deems best, example are poison skull or fire bolt, you also have your pet dragon. Then when your invisibility almost over, use your green dragon to recharge your mana then cast invisibility again, repeat that process.

Anyway, to do that you need the blue dragon pet and paladin adrenaline skill or battle cry spell (i prefer adrenaline), and lots of mana (minimum is 35 or 40 mana).

Sort of sad that you need all of that with the paladin just to block such an overpowered attack. :)

As a mage, I didn't have caution and holy armor, so my entire stack still died with crown of chaos and ghost armor.

That said, magic shackles does work, but you need enough leadership. You can test it by casting magic shackles level 2 and mouse over every unit. If that fails, magic shackles level 3 won't work on it either (fairly certain magic shackles level 3 is just mass magic shackles level 2).

[atlatea]

Yeah, i think orc/goblin got the most overpowered unit now, especially the goblin, too bad i'm not a fan of orc and goblin.

It's not just paladin, all 3 classes need those i mentioned above if u want to survive astal attack using black dragon. Ok, i typed wrong, by runic armor above i mean holy armor (paladin class specific skill), and this holy armor doesn't always trigger. But caution 3 + ghost armor + crown of chaos are usually enough, and btw, my mage have caution 3.

Well, if you're lucky, i mean your holy armor also trigger, it can further mitigate their astral attack dmg to the point that it become a joke (too low dmg), last time i remember 3 astral atk from goblin shaman which almost kill 3 BDs instantly become a 200 dmg astral atk.

I need to revisit about the shackles. Well, it's great if it can work againts those overpowered unit, though i bet the leadership in impossible must be considered.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

I was wrong, I was thinking of Magic damage. There's some massive stacks of shamans and shaman goblins in Verona (all level 3 adrenalin round 1)

At the moment i'm not sure what i'm gonna do with those fights, I don't have resurrect yet.

[Zhuangzi]

I just thought I'd chime in in agreement with the overpowered nature of Goblin Shamans. That astral attack is really, really nasty and seems way overpowered for their leadership. You really have to target them straight away.

The new orc/goblin units are making the game a bit harder for me this time around. I was really grinding through Verona (Impossible Paladin no losses) having to replay several fights and choosing the easiest ones. But now that I'm in Montero (level 24) I seem to be over the hump a little.

Sigh. I'm back to the old team of Paladins, Inquisitors, Horsemen, Royal Griffins and Archmages. Tried and tested team. :cool:

[atlatea]

Yup, their damage is way too high for their leadership. If i'm not mistaken, have warrior skill onslaught 3, at lv 50 warrior or paladin can dish 25k dmg to any enemy including bosses in 2 round just by using their several astral attacks (not including those from phantom).

Another overpowered thing about that goblin is the resistance reduction at lv 3 adrenaline, this is especially againts bosses (your red or black dragon can eat baal now).

To my experience, at verona you usually won't meet threatening goblin shaman stacks. Though they become threatening at uzala and elon.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

32 Goblin Shamans just caused over 1500 dmg to my mages (5 died) :rolleyes:

[Zhuangzi]

Yup, their damage is way too high for their leadership. If i'm not mistaken, have warrior skill onslaught 3, at lv 50 warrior or paladin can dish 25k dmg to any enemy including bosses in 2 round just by using their several astral attacks (not including those from phantom).

Another overpowered thing about that goblin is the resistance reduction at lv 3 adrenaline, this is especially againts bosses (your red or black dragon can eat baal now).

To my experience, at verona you usually won't meet threatening goblin shaman stacks. Though they become threatening at uzala and elon.

So we need Magic Shackles, right? I'll try to find it in Montero before I try Uzala.

[jake21]

Another approach is to block them. One technique I use with some success is phantom royal griffons and then stick 'em in their face. The hard part is getting enough iniitia high enough to obtain the first move. Also there is no guarantee they won't still cast. Also another approach I've begun to learn is that certain critters such as arch-mages seem to be mostly resistant to their damage. While a stack of inquistor can suffer 30+ losses from their attack; a stack of arch-mages will only suffer 2 losses (which is easily recoverable by paladin or resurrection spell).
--
While I'm not playing a no loss game I've not suffer any losses in my mage impossible game since level 11 or so (level 27 now). On the other hand I've avoided Reha and Uzala so far having mostly cleared orc stacks in verona and rusty (though there were quite a few gobliln shaman stacks in those places). I'd like to find the spell shakle before I go to those areas. After all as a mage I should take advantage of it :)

I also have the armor that is 20% astral resistant (crown not found yet).

[atlatea]

You can use unicorn or horsemen, cast target on them, you can also move them as close as possible to those shamans (either way works, though if it's orc shaman, you must move as close as possible to them), 100% guaranteed they won't cast astral attack. Work with any class, as warrior and paladin, they have skills that increase defense or dmg reduction type combined with their high def, those unicorn or horsemen is still revivable for no loss game, as mage, just cast target+stoneskin/divine armor.

It's better than casting shackles, especially in impossible, because your shackle leadership cap won't reach those shamans's total leadership.

[Zhuangzi]

You can use unicorn or horsemen, cast target on them, you can also move them as close as possible to those shamans (either way works, though if it's orc shaman, you must move as close as possible to them), 100% guaranteed they won't cast astral attack. Work with any class, as warrior and paladin, they have skills that increase defense or dmg reduction type combined with their high def, those unicorn or horsemen is still revivable for no loss game, as mage, just cast target+stoneskin/divine armor.

It's better than casting shackles, especially in impossible, because your shackle leadership cap won't reach those shamans's total leadership.

Yep I will try Horsemen + Target, thanks. I can never go past the Inquisitor's Blade (-20% leadership requirement for Paladins and Inquisitors) so I am locked into a human team of those two plus Horsemen, Archmages and this time Rune Mages instead of Royal Griffins. 10,000 leadership at level 23, and most units are at High or Good morale.

[atlatea]

Well, the best thing about human team is they have the best resurector.

Imo that's the only reason why they outshine the other races team.

[ICECOOL]

Hi, my first post here.
I have ended KBCW with Rune mages, Inquisitors, Druids, Black and green Dragons. Some said that dragons are hard to play coz the are hard to revive. I Used to revive dragons by RM, Inq. and by summoning phoenix on 3rd level. Rest of team by spell. Result - no losses. That small orc units makes me furious, when they us their astral spells. My advice? Hit them hard :-P at any cost, at first place - by shots and spells. I figured that best off. spell is geyser. It does physicall damage. My mage has on the end about 5 500 damage with that spell.
Greets

[Zhuangzi]

Hi, my first post here.
I have ended KBCW with Rune mages, Inquisitors, Druids, Black and green Dragons. Some said that dragons are hard to play coz the are hard to revive. I Used to revive dragons by RM, Inq. and by summoning phoenix on 3rd level. Rest of team by spell. Result - no losses. That small orc units makes me furious, when they us their astral spells. My advice? Hit them hard :-P at any cost, at first place - by shots and spells. I figured that best off. spell is geyser. It does physicall damage. My mage has on the end about 5 500 damage with that spell.
Greets

Hello ICECOOL, and congrats on completing the game without losses. I think we can all agree that Goblin Shamans are a royal pain in the ass. Geyser is good for a mage with high Intellect, but not so good for me as a Paladin. No direct damage (i.e. mainly Chaos) spells at all, so I'll need a different strategy...

[ICECOOL]

Hello ICECOOL, and congrats on completing the game without losses. I think we can all agree that Goblin Shamans are a royal pain in the ass. Geyser is good for a mage with high Intellect, but not so good for me as a Paladin. No direct damage (i.e. mainly Chaos) spells at all, so I'll need a different strategy...

Thx.
In that case my advice to U is to use more ranged attack units (I had 3) and dragons - they have highest move pionts rate. If U put Ur dragon(s) on the center of the army U`ll be able to attack that nasty unit in first round on most battlefields - by black dragons "splash" damage and green dragons pulling. Eventually u may speed other flying units. And U must not forget about high level of initiative of Ur units so that they could move before shamans do :)

PS. U must rid off that Inquisitor's Blade. In near future U will find much more better "sword" artifacts and that pallandins become more unusefull because of their lack of move points - I switched them for green dragons

[Zhuangzi]

Thx.
In that case my advice to U is to use more ranged attack units (I had 3) and dragons - they have highest move pionts rate. If U put Ur dragon(s) on the center of the army U`ll be able to attack that nasty unit in first round on most battlefields - by black dragons "splash" damage and green dragons pulling. Eventually u may speed other flying units. And U must not forget about high level of initiative of Ur units so that they could move before shamans do :)

PS. U must rid off that Inquisitor's Blade. In near future U will find much more better "sword" artifacts and that pallandins become more unusefull because of their lack of move points - I switched them for green dragons

That's what Mass Haste on turn 1 is for. :cool:

[ICECOOL]

Yea but for mage (that I`ve played) useing that kind of spell is not best option. I used ball of fire in the beggining, instead

[ckdamascus]

Yeah, paladins end up sitting around a LOT for me. That's why they are probably truly the number one "love/hate" unit in my other thread.

Zhug, it totally depends on your army setup and damage capabilities.

IF you can clearly reach the goblin shaman in round one with a lot of units before he can act, and IF you can do SERIOUS damage to them, I highly suggest casting level 3 Pygmy as your first move.

It is probably the BEST debuff spell for warrior / paladin types in the game, and it is still pretty solid for mages too.

You will do ~66.7% more damage (better than criticals which does 50%) and if they retaliate in physical form, they take a 40% reduction in their attack rating (which doesn't really mean -40% total dmg, more like 33% but it does help a fair amount).

If you CANNOT do serious damage to them, I suggest magic shackles assuming you have enough leadership. It is also another reason why as a mage I was rolling with two marshal batons, etc. Because leadership is truly a king statistics in Impossible mode, unless you are doing something tedious and/or cheesy. :)

Another possibility is Phantom a high target unit, like Rune Mages. They LOVED aiming for my rune mages, especially the phantomed ones. The danger here is, you might end up "feeding" the orcs with an entire round of adrenaline, and trust me, that is NOT good if you can't do serious damage to them in the next round.

If you have engineers, you can disable them using the blind splash thing, but then you will find why I have them on the love/hate relationship thread too. :)

Blind works, but if you do any damage to them (including pre-burning them or poisoning them) they will awaken from it and it only affects one unit. It is a poor man's "magic shackles/fear" in a way and horribly mana inefficient, but it might save you since goblins are very fast and you might need a round to get into position.

Consider the heavy offensive route as sometimes it is the best defense. Remember, as deadly as astral attack is, if you can cut his army down in half before he gets the first move, you just "resisted" 50% extra damage right there. :)

Disabling just buys you time to setup to smash them into oblivion, or you can keep perma-casting it (eeek, shackles and the like are very expensive for that purpose, but again, it might be all the time you need). They can still attack with shackles on, but it is far far less painful than the astral.

[loreangelicus]

Wow... all this talk about goblin shamans. I'm still playing CotA and DotC, but I'll be jumping to OotM soon.

So what level are these goblin shamans that you can't just Fear or Blind them?

[ICECOOL]

Lol dunno. About level 2? That is so hilarious about that. They may have small numbers but they do tons of damage.
Blind or smthg are just half-measure. U must deal with them anyway. Besides they come in few stacks, and as U know there is no "mass blind" spell.
PS. Whats are CotA DotC & OotM ?

[ckdamascus]

<grumbles> this is why I like level 3 magic shackles. Mass Shackle! :)

But at the moments they out leadership you, you got to take desperate measures.

lore, yeah the orcs are grossly overpowered. I am now testing out my Orc Veterans to replace my Assassins, and it is not looking good for the assassins. :) (All because the game only spawned 28 Orc Veterans naturally, so I had to wear that stupid regalia to get the trophies needed to convert normal orcs into Veterans).

Goblin shaman are pretty pitiful damage to leadership, but, in Impossible Mode the computer "cheats" so it has far more leadership anyways. :)

Anyway, they are nothing compared to Blood Shaman, who are Level 4, have far more HP, can do Power of the Horde (thank god this one is magic damage), or yet another Astral Attack which will turn Black Dragons into silly putty.

Icecool, those are the names of the other campaigns

Champion of the Arena (CotA)
Defender of the Crown (DOTC)
Orcs on the March (OOTM)

[atlatea]

Because leadership is truly a king statistics in Impossible mode, unless you are doing something tedious and/or cheesy

Yeah, totally agree on that.

Back to shamans (goblin and orc), there are many ways to go againts them. But, seriously, they appear late in the game, and at that time, most of you already have many tricks againts them. Imo the hardest battle againts astral attack is in elon (againts the orc chief), the rest are easy compared to that battle.

Goblin shaman is not that overpowered if they become your enemy (in fact, they're just normal as there are many ways to handle them, well, if you look at the dragons in montero, they do way more dmg than them), but they're insanely overpowered if you use them (especially if you're warrior or paladin), reason? 25k-30k dmg in 2 turn in late game (not counting the phantomed one)

As for orc shaman, they are ok to me.

Well, here is another cheap way againts them, just have a minimum of 35 mana, several green dragons, invisibility, posion skull spell or any other spell you deem necessary, ball of lightning/dragon dive/dragon tail/mana accelerator. Cast invisible on green dragon, then you're free to do with them (shamans), before invisible disapear always remember to replenish mana with green dragon then cast invisible again, repeat that, should win easily without much thought and no losses.

[loreangelicus]

Aside from bypassing resistances, does their astral attack bypass the Defense statistic as well?

I'm thinking all these new astral-damaging units are hurting the mage and paladin class more. This is because on impossible, aside from Invisibility tactics, most tactics from these two classes rely heavily on buffing their units. The warrior does have enough of a leadership advantage to rely primarily on unit damage and "resurrecting" troops, and just minimal buffing.

See attached battle I had with Elenhel in KBAP with warrior on impossible. Droids and undead, -50% (vulnerability) and 0% base resistance to magic. And yet they wiped the floor with these magic-wielding enemies and hero in just 14 rounds at no-loss.

I'm still getting excited with all these talks about the new goblin and orc units. :) I sure hope they do put up a good fight as warrior on impossible usually just means the only serious battles that you have are the initial battles at the lower levels and the boss fights.

[atlatea]

I guess it somehow bypass defense, but not all defense (i've done the test few weeks ago), since i've got different value of astral attack dmg that attack my two stacks, and both from the same source (same number).

Paladin class is also on par with warrior in case of mass resurection, though you need to take lv 3 resurection skill (+30% if not 35% to paladin prayer skill and inquisitor resurection skill). Though imo all classes have their own way to resurrect.

All 3 classes are equally capable to deal with those shamans. I've played all those three several times on impossible no loss games.

However, if you talk about which class is the best to utilize them to their full potential, the winner goes to warrior, and paladin as a close second, and sorry for mage.

Well, by the time you meet those shamans, usually you already at lv 45 or higher, and at that lv, all 3 classes pretty much mop the floor with their own unique way.

Shamans are not overpowered as your enemy, they are overpowered as your ally (especially warrior and paladin).

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

I guess it somehow bypass defense, but not all defense (i've done the test few weeks ago), since i've got different value of astral attack dmg that attack my two stacks, and both from the same source (same number).

Paladin class is also on par with warrior in case of mass resurection, though you need to take lv 3 resurection skill (+30% if not 35% to paladin prayer skill and inquisitor resurection skill). Though imo all classes have their own way to resurrect.

All 3 classes are equally capable to deal with those shamans. I've played all those three several times on impossible no loss games.

However, if you talk about which class is the best to utilize them to their full potential, the winner goes to warrior, and paladin as a close second, and sorry for mage.

Well, by the time you meet those shamans, usually you already at lv 45 or higher, and at that lv, all 3 classes pretty much mop the floor with their own unique way.

Shamans are not overpowered as your enemy, they are overpowered as your ally (especially warrior and paladin).

Wrong

They are overpowered regardless.

Have a nice day :grin:

[ICECOOL]

I'm still getting excited with all these talks about the new goblin and orc units. :) I sure hope they do put up a good fight as warrior on impossible usually just means the only serious battles that you have are the initial battles at the lower levels and the boss fights.

Dont get excited so much :grin: There is about ONE orc battle in opposite to AP - that is orc hero in shettera. And thats it. This pisses me off. I felt cheated from producers:evil: "NEW ORC CAMPAIGN", "ORC ON THE MARCH", etc. - bullshit! There are no orcs marching in KBCW!
Besides all that talk about those goblin shamans is not that they are unbeatable or smthg. I kicked their asses :-P, but they have done so many damage that there were not enough mana to revive all my units, so I`ve got some tolls and I got pissed from that.

[atlatea]

Dont get excited so much There is about ONE orc battle in opposite to AP - that is orc hero in shettera. And thats it. This pisses me off. I felt cheated from producers "NEW ORC CAMPAIGN", "ORC ON THE MARCH", etc. - bullshit! There are no orcs marching in KBCW!
Besides all that talk about those goblin shamans is not that they are unbeatable or smthg. I kicked their asses , but they have done so many damage that there were not enough mana to revive all my units, so I`ve got some tolls and I got pissed from that.
Reply With Quote

Let me guess, you use mage class?

Because as warrior and paladin, it's no problem resurecting units againts scrounger, maybe because their leadership is very high thus it means more phantomed paladins (mass resurection), and besides they can reduce astral attack dmg easily (caution 3 and holy armor 3).

As for mage, i think mage is more inclined to use single stack of unit than the other 2 classes.

[ckdamascus]

Let me guess, you use mage class?

Because as warrior and paladin, it's no problem resurecting units againts scrounger, maybe because their leadership is very high thus it means more phantomed paladins (mass resurection), and besides they can reduce astral attack dmg easily (caution 3 and holy armor 3).

As for mage, i think mage is more inclined to use single stack of unit than the other 2 classes.

I had a tough time against them as a mage, but I beat them by using the phantom feed to buy enough cannon fodder for my army to slowly whittle them down.

Then I threw a Black Hole or two. I never used offensive magic in that game yet.

Yes, I could have definitely used Caution 3 and/or Holy Armor 3. :)

Astral attack does bypass ALL defense statistics, except Astral Resistance. Caution 3 and Holy Armor aren't the basic "defense" stat, that's why they work.

Blood shaman does astral attack too, normal orc shaman are just mere magic attack.

Right now I am rolling around with a very powerful orc team that is basically creaming everything until I run into goblin shaman.

I run into the goblin shaman team... somehow, not able to reach the 400 goblin shaman stack in time while killing the other stacks and and I lost my entire 85 Paladin stack in a SINGLE TURN, and take severe casualities across the board.

Of course, this time I didn't have the chaos crown or ghost armor yet, so I had to go on a mission to specifically look for these items. Mind you, even with them, I will still take severe losses unless I deal with that stack properly.

I don't know about you guys. I have never lost an entire stack that easily before in this game before.

My mage lost his stack of 10 black dragons IN A SINGLE TURN WITH 70% astral resistance.

That said, orcs ARE overpowered. Therefore, I shall abuse. :)

Orc Veterans are like the most ideal phantom units in the game now. Plus, with Adrenaline Level 3 and Moldok, they become some of the fastest and strongest no retaliation units in the game. I just killed Driller in 7 rounds, Impossible Mode - Warrior, No-Loss.

Paladin, Goblins, Orc Veterans. Goblins were indeed the main power house thanks to Zeroing In, but throwing in an extra 3-4K damage from teh Orc Veterans helped a ton.

The reason WHY orcs are strong is because of the way Adrenaline works. A lot of "cannon fodder" tactics end up feeding the enemy with more adrenaline, thus, they do more damage and gain far more insane abilities.

Goblin shaman do 20-25 Astral Damage per goblin, and they can attack up to 3 times if they have level 3 Adrenaline. The computer always starts with around level 2 adrenaline too. 400 Goblins * 20 = 8000 damage * 3 = 24000 damage in a single round if you have no astral resistance and that's the WORST case scenario. Afterwards they can still attack too, but that's nothing. :)

[ICECOOL]

Let me guess, you use mage class?

Yep

[atlatea]

I don't know how both of you play your mage, but from my observation mage class is inclined towards using single stack unit. Most peoples play mage like that. Armies are for warrior and paladin.

And the best dragon for mage is emerald, not black nor red, emerald dragon + invisible works best with mage (that's one of cheap tactic beside eviln+BK or BD+spells), because mage has the highest mana, can cast more than 1 spell/turn, their offensive spells are the most dmg ing (due to having highest int), also must be remembered that high lv offensive spell need very high mana (again, it's mage expertise).

I don't know why your entire stack got killed by 24k astral dmg with 70% astral resistance, that 24k astral dmg should become a joke with 70% astral resistance coupled with caution 3 (any class can take it, all my mages always have caution 3), if you have holy armor 3 triggered, just laugh at their dmg.

[ckdamascus]

I don't know how both of you play your mage, but from my observation mage class is inclined towards using single stack unit. Most peoples play mage like that. Armies are for warrior and paladin.

And the best dragon for mage is emerald, not black nor red, emerald dragon + invisible works best with mage (that's one of cheap tactic beside eviln+BK or BD+spells), because mage has the highest mana, can cast more than 1 spell/turn, their offensive spells are the most dmg ing (due to having highest int), also must be remembered that high lv offensive spell need very high mana (again, it's mage expertise).

I don't know why your entire stack got killed by 24k astral dmg with 70% astral resistance, that 24k astral dmg should become a joke with 70% astral resistance coupled with caution 3 (any class can take it, all my mages always have caution 3), if you have holy armor 3 triggered, just laugh at their dmg.

Sorry, I was talking about two different armies. None of my mages have caution, as it costs too much for me normally and usually I have phantoms and such to tank, so I don't usually need caution.

I might add it in though, since it seems like that would help against Ktahu's first attack.

All of them have frenzy now though. :)

Normally, if I were going to do a solo stack build, like solo black dragon, then I would take caution as a mage.

Well, that's just ONE goblin stack. :) They still got the Blood shaman which also do astral damage.

So, my Warrior with 0% astral resistance and no caution, lost an entire stack to 24K damage.

My mage, with 70% astral resistance, no caution, lost most of my black dragons to the goblins, then it got finished off later on in the same turn by some other imbalanced orc unit. :)

Either way, pretty crazy stuff.

Yeah, I am not too big a fan of the single stack bit since it seems to lead to tedious and long battles. Although, with the emeralds, it might not be so bad due to the mana recovery trick.

I usually just play mega support as a mage. I really hate how no-loss impossible boss battles take so long for most people because they go with "single stack".

[atlatea]

Well, for mage, single EGD is better than BD, faster battle, need no thought, just spam invisible, refill mana, and spam spell and pet dragon you deem necessary, one or two careless move(s) is ok, unlike with black dragon, not only you'll have longer battles, you must be extra careful too, lest no loss game. Though in early game, single BD is easier.

Well, i never a fan of single stack too, and i never use single stack againts bosses, not a fan of BK+eviln too (cheapest single stack tactic).

Paladin seems the best againts those shamans, not only it have caution 3, but holy armor 3 too. For me, Caution 3 is a must pick skill, even as mage.

[ckdamascus]

Well, for mage, single EGD is better than BD, faster battle, need no thought, just spam invisible, refill mana, and spam spell and pet dragon you deem necessary, one or two careless move(s) is ok, unlike with black dragon, not only you'll have longer battles, you must be extra careful too, lest no loss game. Though in early game, single BD is easier.

Well, i never a fan of single stack too, and i never use single stack againts bosses, not a fan of BK+eviln too (cheapest single stack tactic).

Paladin seems the best againts those shamans, not only it have caution 3, but holy armor 3 too. For me, Caution 3 is a must pick skill, even as mage.

Yeah, I think someone here used single Black Dragon as a challenge. Emerald is definitely a more practical single stack build for mages.

I always wanted to do a damage build mage, and now I have a way to do it. Thanks for the tip!

You mean blood shaman, right? I can take the Dancing Axe Shaman easily with the Chaos Crown and some miscelleneous magic resistance item.

I might incorporate Caution 3 in my future mage builds. Thanks for the info.


[edit]
To give you guys an idea of how insane the Orcs are in Impossible....

Just beat Rakush after procuring both the Crown of Chaos and Ghost Armor, conferring a 70% astral resistance, and I got Caution 3.

He has too many stacks of goblin shaman, and he probably out leaderships me as I am only level 37 for me to use Magic Shackles. He has about 800 Goblin Shaman total, but as 4 different stacks. I end up killing 200-300ish before they can act.

His Goblin Shaman was feeling genocidal and all aimed for my Super Goblin (tm) stack. I originally had 436.

I end up with 26 Goblins by the end of the first round. This is with nearly every possible defense known to the game. I have a leather dress, but come on, I hardly doubt 75% astral will do much vs 70%. (Plus, I like getting more trophies).

I use Turn Back Time and proceed to turn him into silly putty. Once my orcs get into range, nothing lasts for very long.

I hold back before doing the final punches, and use two more Turn Back Times with the paladins to undo all the damage.

But there was no way I could recover from a 410 goblin loss without Turn Back Time.

436 goblins... 70% astral resistance, 30% caution... 26 left. You guys be the judge.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

We still debating whether Goblins are overpowered? :-P

[atlatea]

Hmm, guess so. Though to me, they are not that overpowered as enemy, though it's different as ally.

edit: well, here's my story with rakush
My fight againts rakush was not that hard, i was paladin lv 45, and maybe because i use dryads (i don't know why, since KB TL these chicks always in my team), inquisitor, hunter, paladin, and black dragon (replacing inquisitor and hunter with faun and ancient ent also does the same results). Other things which are also a very big help are 70% astral resistance, adrenaline 3, holy armor 3, onslaught 3, caution 3, voice of dragon 3, and as for spells are sheep lv 3 and blind 3.

Well, at turn 1, no astral attack thanks to dryads (mass sleep), hunters and inquisitors (they shoot them to dead, about 350 ish goblin shamans dead, the rest 500 shamans are sleeping :)), while paladins are closing in (helping dryad got second turn so they can summon thorns), black dragon wait to get into position so that at turn 2 they can torch those shamans to oblivion, at the end of turn 1 i casted mass haste (so paladins and thorns can help the team, unfortunately they just took the leftover stacks).

At turn 2, about 200 ish shamans are sheeped, leaving the rest 300 dead due to black dragon + inquisitor + hunter, and the rest of the shamans didn't even have a chance to act in the next turn (dead in sheep form :)). The rest of the stacks are joke. The most dangerous threat of the battle was pretty much ended in turn 3 (all shamans dead), the rest just left me digging treasures and helping my pet dragon gain exp, mass resurecting was done once by paladins's prayer (no phantom, no time back).

[BB Shockwave]

I found Witch Hunters pretty usefull against all sort of shamans - one Magic Lock, and they are reduced to melee units for 3 rounds (save for the Goblins, who are still pretty strong ranged units).

If I were a Mage, with 2 casts per round, I'd start off with Magic Lock Level III. I doubt Scrounger can dispel.

[ckdamascus]

Hmm, guess so. Though to me, they are not that overpowered as enemy, though it's different as ally.

edit: well, here's my story with rakush
My fight againts rakush was not that hard, i was paladin lv 45, and maybe because i use dryads (i don't know why, since KB TL these chicks always in my team), inquisitor, hunter, paladin, and black dragon (replacing inquisitor and hunter with faun and ancient ent also does the same results). Other things which are also a very big help are 70% astral resistance, adrenaline 3, holy armor 3, onslaught 3, caution 3, voice of dragon 3, and as for spells are sheep lv 3 and blind 3.

Well, at turn 1, no astral attack thanks to dryads (mass sleep), hunters and inquisitors (they shoot them to dead, about 350 ish goblin shamans dead, the rest 500 shamans are sleeping :)), while paladins are closing in (helping dryad got second turn so they can summon thorns), black dragon wait to get into position so that at turn 2 they can torch those shamans to oblivion, at the end of turn 1 i casted mass haste (so paladins and thorns can help the team, unfortunately they just took the leftover stacks).

At turn 2, about 200 ish shamans are sheeped, leaving the rest 300 dead due to black dragon + inquisitor + hunter, and the rest of the shamans didn't even have a chance to act in the next turn (dead in sheep form :)). The rest of the stacks are joke. The most dangerous threat of the battle was pretty much ended in turn 3 (all shamans dead), the rest just left me digging treasures and helping my pet dragon gain exp, mass resurecting was done once by paladins's prayer (no phantom, no time back).

Heh. I only wanted to prove 70% astral resistance and 30% caution doesn't work nearly as well as one would think. I forgot about dryads, as I have never used them before, and the computer usually uses thorns, not lullaby.

Lullaby probably won't work on level 4 blood shaman though, which basically does the same thing as goblin shaman. :)

If I had dryads, yes, I would have swept them quite easily as well. I will keep that in mind for next time though, as rakush was always one of the more annoying heroes for me.

As for scrounger, I think he out leadershipped my magic shackles and/or the army was too strong for me not to use like pygmy, phantom, etc.

Again, Impossible Mode. In hard mode, maybe a different story.

[atlatea]

Well, i don't know about you, 70% astral resist and caution 3 (30% dmg reduction) cuts 24k astral dmg to about 5k, for me it's a very high reduction, making units that is beyond revivable for no loss game easily revivable.

Off course it's just turn 1, that's why, those reduction is not meant to make your battle easier past turn 1 till the end of the battle, it's just make the beyond revivable one become revivable (i mean it's just a precaution step if they use astral attack at turn 1, which they often do, and those reduction saves your day), then all things remains the same, i mean you must solve your problem quickly (especially after turn 2) just like any hard battle, the key remains the same, racing againts time (in this case the turn).

That's why you sheep/blind the blood shaman and mass sleep the goblin with dryads. I told you shackles are not worth it in previous page. Especialy as mage, you can disable 2 goblin/orc shamans stacks at once / turn (blind,sheep) , again 70% astral resist and caution 3 are not meant to turn your super hard battle become super easy battle, it mean to turn a loss game battle to no loss game battle.

edit:
Ah yep, i forgot about witch hunter, never tried them againts shamans though, and i guess witch hunter lock has leadership cap too (that means not all shamans stack are lockable), still, i'll try them next time, nice info btw.

[ckdamascus]

Well, i don't know about you, 70% astral resist and caution 3 (30% dmg reduction) cuts 24k astral dmg to about 5k, for me it's a very high reduction, making units that is beyond revivable for no loss game easily revivable.

Off course it's just turn 1, that's why, those reduction is not meant to make your battle easier past turn 1 till the end of the battle, it's just make the beyond revivable one become revivable (i mean it's just a precaution step if they use astral attack at turn 1, which they often do, and those reduction saves your day), then all things remains the same, i mean you must solve your problem quickly (especially after turn 2) just like any hard battle, the key remains the same, racing againts time (in this case the turn).

That's why you sheep/blind the blood shaman and mass sleep the goblin with dryads. I told you shackles are not worth it in previous page. Especialy as mage, you can disable 2 goblin/orc shamans stacks at once / turn (blind,sheep) , again 70% astral resist and caution 3 are not meant to turn your super hard battle become super easy battle, it mean to turn a loss game battle to no loss game battle.

edit:
Ah yep, i forgot about witch hunter, never tried them againts shamans though, and i guess witch hunter lock has leadership cap too (that means not all shamans stack are lockable), still, i'll try them next time, nice info btw.

I don't think anyone is debating the reduction in damage as being useful. It is just ridiculous that one has to go that far just to BARELY survive? :)

Yeah, depends on the stack make up. I think rakush's team has a > 55K leadership stack in there somewhere.

Ugh, blind and sheep are so expensive together. How much mana do you usually have? Isn't that like 60 mana? I guess that isn't too bad since it lasts for 2 rounds, but ugh.

Witch hunter has no leadership cap and would be nice here, but after a certain point you still need killer units. :)

[jake21]

Well... I'm on my second play (first was warrior impossible; current is mage impossible) and I think you are perhaps over-reacting. Yes this has beefed up orcs quite a bit and yea I've redone a few fights to adjust troops but all in all I'm not having a really hard time yet. I'm not playing no lost but since level 12 or so I've only lost 8 troops and that was because I was too lazy to redo the fight.

What I have found is that in certain fights changing troops with those in reserve is very important. Anyways it might be a bit more difficult for no loss games but it is hardly impossible.
(I might feel different between now and the end; as I know from my warrior game there are 3 or 4 really hard fights yet to be done).

I don't think anyone is debating the reduction in damage as being useful. It is just ridiculous that one has to go that far just to BARELY survive? :)

Yeah, depends on the stack make up. I think rakush's team has a > 55K leadership stack in there somewhere.

Ugh, blind and sheep are so expensive together. How much mana do you usually have? Isn't that like 60 mana? I guess that isn't too bad since it lasts for 2 rounds, but ugh.

Witch hunter has no leadership cap and would be nice here, but after a certain point you still need killer units. :)

[atlatea]

I don't think anyone is debating the reduction in damage as being useful. It is just ridiculous that one has to go that far just to BARELY survive?

Yeah, depends on the stack make up. I think rakush's team has a > 55K leadership stack in there somewhere.

Ugh, blind and sheep are so expensive together. How much mana do you usually have? Isn't that like 60 mana? I guess that isn't too bad since it lasts for 2 rounds, but ugh.

Witch hunter has no leadership cap and would be nice here, but after a certain point you still need killer units.

You forgot a spell called target, instant disable all goblin shaman and orc shaman stacks in battlefield, though againts orc shaman, you must enter orc shaman's move range.

Anyway, orc shaman astral dmg is not that high, goblin shaman does way more dmg, so just cast target then sheep/blind, or vice versa.

Choose beetwen Sheep or blind (depends on your situation).

Well, dryads, witch hunter, target, sheep/blind are good againts those shamans. You can have no loss battle againts scrounger using those things.

edit:
I'm trying witch hunter, it seems they're best for warrior and paladin, as they're still killer because of their number (idk about mage).

[ckdamascus]

You forgot a spell called target, instant disable all goblin shaman and orc shaman stacks in battlefield, though againts orc shaman, you must enter orc shaman's move range.

Anyway, orc shaman astral dmg is not that high, goblin shaman does way more dmg, so just cast target then sheep/blind, or vice versa.

Choose beetwen Sheep or blind (depends on your situation).

Well, dryads, witch hunter, target, sheep/blind are good againts those shamans. You can have no loss battle againts scrounger using those things.

edit:
I'm trying witch hunter, it seems they're best for warrior and paladin, as they're still killer because of their number (idk about mage).

Ah, everyone talks about target, but I rarely use it. So, if the enemy CAN hit the target with normal attacks, it will? That's why you pointed out the movement range for the shaman, right?

So you mean it will disable their special attacks because they will be forced to attack normally? Hmmm. yes that could be very handy.

Yeah, I already beat scrounger with no loss, but this will be much easier, thanks!

[BB Shockwave]

Yep, Target will make the enemy use a melee or ranged (whichever is their normal attack) against the Target-ed unit. Be mindful that Mind Immune units are not affected, AFAIK.

Also, Blood Shamans have the Power of the Horde, which is also a very nasty spell, though it does only attack one unit. I hope the english patch is released soon, because right now, even a few Goblin/Blood Shamans can cause much more damage then what'd be acceptable for units of their level. Regular Goblins are over-powered too, it is almost like their axes ignore physical resistance and defense, especially when they use their slam-back attack.

I still use Witch Hunters for some tough fights, but sadly, even with a Paladin, their leadership/damage ratio is not too high. They are best used to attack units who already retaliated, as their attack/defense and damage, even with their beneficial spells, is low. Their only saving grace is their low HP and magic resistance. I found them immensely usefull againts Gremlin Towers, as the Friendly and Evil Gremlins will often cast their debuff spells on them, and since it disappears immediately, the next tower will cast it again on them, and so on... :)

[atlatea]

Ah, everyone talks about target, but I rarely use it. So, if the enemy CAN hit the target with normal attacks, it will? That's why you pointed out the movement range for the shaman, right?

So you mean it will disable their special attacks because they will be forced to attack normally? Hmmm. yes that could be very handy.

Yeah, I already beat scrounger with no loss, but this will be much easier, thanks!

Yep, and goblin shaman use ranged attack, which always able to hit your targeted stack, making them 100% never use their astral attack.

As for orc shaman, its astral attack dmg seems far inferior to that of the goblin shaman, so i usually disable goblin shaman first.

Target is overpowered spell.

As for scrounger, just make her goblin shaman and orc shaman never use their astral attack (especially the goblin) and you have no loss battle, you probably also need to have very high defense (and attack too).

edit:
I hope the english patch is released soon, because right now, even a few Goblin/Blood Shamans can cause much more damage then what'd be acceptable for units of their level. Regular Goblins are over-powered too, it is almost like their axes ignore physical resistance and defense, especially when they use their slam-back attack.

So, the defense ignoring thing about goblin and orc is because of bug? I mean the dev never intended to work like that?

[ckdamascus]

So, the defense ignoring thing about goblin and orc is because of bug? I mean the dev never intended to work like that?

"""
I hope the english patch is released soon, because right now, even a few Goblin/Blood Shamans can cause much more damage then what'd be acceptable for units of their level. Regular Goblins are over-powered too, it is almost like their axes ignore physical resistance and defense, especially when they use their slam-back attack.
""

Highly doubt it. It is just they wanted to make it strong for when you use them, but they never considered the balance issues when it is used against you, especially at higher levels of play like Impossible where the enemy routinely has waay too much leadership.

I mean, not much point in calling it Orcs on the March if the orcs blatantly sucked.

I think you are probably underestimating the Goblin's TRUE power. They were always potentially strong, because they have very unique abilities.

a) Zeroing In
b) Giant Killer (not sure if this was in the original or not)

Zeroing In means that every round the goblin attacks, his attack goes up by 5. Yes, I said every round. That means as time approaches infinity, the goblin will EASILY achieve +60 attack over your defense, so he will always do 3X more damage than his base, even with a normal attack.

This is not even considering the new orc modifications. Those mods just gave him a chance to do poison damage and a +1 to damage, which is a fairly powerful buff, but nothing compared to its native skill.

Giant Killer means if you dare to use a level 5 to hit it, get ready to take an additional 30% damage from the goblins.

Again, abilities that were around before the modifications.

It is also why my Super Goblin stack is the most damaging stack I have ever created. :) Thanks to "Unstoppable" ability (again, an ability that existed before the Orcs on the March patch), I have a chance to attack multiple times in a single round. (At least twice so far, not sure if it is capped).

Once my goblins hit +60 Attack over Defense, with 100% crit, I do about 12K per hit easily. And this is not even at maximum leadership yet. Merely like level 37. I've probably already thrown up to 18K per hit too. I think I already projected dealing close to 20-30K by end game. Throw in Orc's "Second command" ability and a Paladin's Second Wind, I throw another 12K+ damage again. Each time I throw, I have a chance to throw yet again and again.

I'm glad they are buffing Goblins more in the next patch. Mwhaha. :)

[BB Shockwave]

I'm sorry, but that's not what the problem is.

I was facing about 100-120 Goblins in two stacks, and have cast Oily Cloud on them, reducing their ranged damage by 50%. Now, attacking with their ranged attack, they did about 120 damage to my Archmages (on the other half of the screen), who had a pretty high defense. Then, next round... they used these slam-attacks, which killed about 2-3 Archmages for every hit! I checked the descriptions, that attack should not do much more damage then their regular ranged attack, so my guess is, it simply ignores the Oil Cloud de-buff. Oh yeah, and this was round 2, so Zeroing In should not be brought up here. Giant Killer is new for Crossworlds, btw.

For Goblin Shamans, again, the Astral Damage is one thing - sure, no-one has resistance against it. However, it also works as a spell works, cast by your hero - meaning, there is no "attack roll" and the enemy's defense is not taken into consideration. And that is unfair, and should not work this way, because every other spell cast by your creatures so far in AP and TL took defense into consideration - I'm thinking of the Dancing Axes of the Shaman, or the Reign of Fire of the Black Dragons, or the Life Leech of the Demonologist. The Goblin Shaman's attack works like an astral-damage spell cast by your hero, which would indeed not take Defense into consideration. To add insult to injury, the Goblins can even act AFTER they have cast this horribly overpowered spell!

[ckdamascus]

I'm sorry, but that's not what the problem is.

I was facing about 100-120 Goblins in two stacks, and have cast Oily Cloud on them, reducing their ranged damage by 50%. Now, attacking with their ranged attack, they did about 120 damage to my Archmages (on the other half of the screen), who had a pretty high defense. Then, next round... they used these slam-attacks, which killed about 2-3 Archmages for every hit! I checked the descriptions, that attack should not do much more damage then their regular ranged attack, so my guess is, it simply ignores the Oil Cloud de-buff. Oh yeah, and this was round 2, so Zeroing In should not be brought up here. Giant Killer is new for Crossworlds, btw.

For Goblin Shamans, again, the Astral Damage is one thing - sure, no-one has resistance against it. However, it also works as a spell works, cast by your hero - meaning, there is no "attack roll" and the enemy's defense is not taken into consideration. And that is unfair, and should not work this way, because every other spell cast by your creatures so far in AP and TL took defense into consideration - I'm thinking of the Dancing Axes of the Shaman, or the Reign of Fire of the Black Dragons, or the Life Leech of the Demonologist. The Goblin Shaman's attack works like an astral-damage spell cast by your hero, which would indeed not take Defense into consideration. To add insult to injury, the Goblins can even act AFTER they have cast this horribly overpowered spell!

Hmm I thought Giant Killer was available for the Furious Goblins at a minimum, but it doesn't seem to be in the manual, so I guess it is new.

Ok, so it is a normal ability, not a "ranged attack", so it bypassed your oil cloud. Sounds fair, considering it drains adrenaline from the goblins. Just call it... "Magic Missile." :)

Huh? I am fairly certain Dancing Axes is NOT affected by defense (the Defense Score), neither is Reign of Fire, or Life Leech. They are only affected by the unit's resistances, no more, no less. Most higher level monsters do have native resistances, so they might seem to take less damage, but pretty sure you can have a Defense of 999, and it will not change the damage one iota.

So, there is nothing outrageous about the ability bypassing the Defense stat. It just does way too much damage.

You could argue that the computer should NOT be allowed to start with Adrenaline Level 2 with orc armies. I'm not completely sure if this is a passive ability of the Blood shaman or not. If it is, then it is merely a bad game mechanic, where they never considered how deadly this would be on the other end of the stick.

[atlatea]

Hmm I thought Giant Killer was available for the Furious Goblins at a minimum, but it doesn't seem to be in the manual, so I guess it is new.

Ok, so it is a normal ability, not a "ranged attack", so it bypassed your oil cloud. Sounds fair, considering it drains adrenaline from the goblins. Just call it... "Magic Missile."

Huh? I am fairly certain Dancing Axes is NOT affected by defense (the Defense Score), neither is Reign of Fire, or Life Leech. They are only affected by the unit's resistances, no more, no less. Most higher level monsters do have native resistances, so they might seem to take less damage, but pretty sure you can have a Defense of 999, and it will not change the damage one iota.

So, there is nothing outrageous about the ability bypassing the Defense stat. It just does way too much damage.

You could argue that the computer should NOT be allowed to start with Adrenaline Level 2 with orc armies. I'm not completely sure if this is a passive ability of the Blood shaman or not. If it is, then it is merely a bad game mechanic, where they never considered how deadly this would be on the other end of the stick.

Well ,the fact proves that you're completely wrong my friend, BB Shockwave is the one that is right. Ok, i'll do some detailed analysis.

All abilities never bypass defense, ok then, try to use your black dragon reign of fire to hit giant for example, then hit peasant with the same black dragon, do you notice the very high dmg difference, note that both have 0 fire resistance, well... how do you explain that? that's because of giant and peasant high defence difference.

Besides the astral attack and probably the other orcs abilities, there are no abilities (be it skills or talents) that bypass defence status.

Goblin axe thrower in AP doesn't have Unstopable ability, only Zeroing. Check it again for yourself (revert to your AP campaign).

Again you're wrong, dancing axe never bypass defence status, at least in AP, though it seems the same in CW, my lv 5 stacks never bothered by dancing axe, even if it's from hundreds of orc shaman, yet astral attack from goblin shamans and orc shamans (especially goblin shaman) does much more dmg than dancing axe, i have 70% astral resistance and 50% magic resistance. However that dacing axe hit very hard to my low lv stacks, which explain they don't bypass defence status like astral attack.

Note that dancing axe and astral attack of goblin shaman have same damage, yet the astral attack does way more damage than dancing axe. The only explainable reason is that astral attack bypass defence, while dancing axe are not. I know with the same leadership, you can field more goblin shaman, so even if their damage are the same, goblin hit harder, indeed, but why the diffence is so high.

Note that goblin shaman leadership is 130, orc shaman is 200. Let's say you have 4k leadership (20 orc shamans, 30 goblin shamans) and your target has 0 astral and 0 magic resistance, without considering the defence stat, at same leadership goblin shaman should hit with 50% more damage than dancing axe to target with , but the fact proves otherwise, i mean goblin hit like 250-400 % more dmg than dancing axe, reasonable explanation? Astral attack bypass defence.

Ok, i don't care if those shamans are enemies or orc are overpowered (i admitt orcs are the most overpowered race now), but the problem is player can field them. Because orcs are so overpowered, most KB players especially those that never play 2 previous installment, tend to stick with orcs. This limit the troop choice of this game which destroy one of the purpose and beauty of the game.

[BB Shockwave]

Thanks for the confirmation, Atlatea. I think it was a mishap on the developer's side - they wanted an attack that bypasses all Resistances - hence the Astral Damage - but in their error they also made the attack bypass all Defense as well.

I think, after the fix, Goblin Shamans and Blood Shamans will still be powerfull, but not ridiculously over-powerfull. I mean, their attack will still do Astral Damage, something that no enemy has resistances against, thus a Blood Shaman's Astral Strike against a Black Dragon will do more damage then a Shaman's Dancing Axes.

And yeah, the only units who can act again after killing an enemy (or taking damage) in AP were the Gorgul, Gorguana, Demon and Executioner (and the Assassin after using Murder). Goblins, I remember, even with Zeroing in, were laughably weak enemies, I never had any problems against them.

[ckdamascus]

Thanks for the confirmation, Atlatea. I think it was a mishap on the developer's side - they wanted an attack that bypasses all Resistances - hence the Astral Damage - but in their error they also made the attack bypass all Defense as well.

I think, after the fix, Goblin Shamans and Blood Shamans will still be powerfull, but not ridiculously over-powerfull. I mean, their attack will still do Astral Damage, something that no enemy has resistances against, thus a Blood Shaman's Astral Strike against a Black Dragon will do more damage then a Shaman's Dancing Axes.

And yeah, the only units who can act again after killing an enemy (or taking damage) in AP were the Gorgul, Gorguana, Demon and Executioner (and the Assassin after using Murder). Goblins, I remember, even with Zeroing in, were laughably weak enemies, I never had any problems against them.

Why guess? Let's do the math to truly confirm. If what is said is true, the door swings both ways and it means abilities can converge to 3X damage if Attack/Defense come into play. I just did a quick test, it does! My lone emerald dragon was able to do 160ish damage while sporting a ~+40 attack advantage, but the base damage is only 50-70.

40*0.033 =~ 1.2, so
1.2 + 1 = 2.2 so
(50-70)*2.2 ~ 110-154.

It also means, on the same token, the Orc attacks can never do 3X damage from the base damage, but the base damage is so high, this hardly matters. ;(

I stand corrected, I thought it didn't work that way. This makes me look at the Defense stat in a totally different way now (and the Attack Stat).

I tend to agree it was probably an oversight, or if they intend to have it be a neutral attack (unable to increase and unable to decrease), it should have a lower setting.

Sniffles, in long matches, those goblins started doing some big damage to me. I've always been intrigued by them due to the zeroing in ability. :)

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

Yeah, I already beat scrounger with no loss, but this will be much easier, thanks!
Now cmon, that's impossible. I am sorry for my disbelief :confused: but Scrounger has a lethal level of danger in my current campaign. And I am pretty sure that you can't make all of her units miss from causing you enough damage from which you can't recover completely. Even with paladins and other res units. I am trying to beat her without many casualties but it's very hard, let alone with no loss.
Care to give you strategy, or what units did you use? Thank you

[ckdamascus]

Now cmon, that's impossible. I am sorry for my disbelief :confused: but Scrounger has a lethal level of danger in my current campaign. And I am pretty sure that you can't make all of her units miss from causing you enough damage from which you can't recover completely. Even with paladins and other res units. I am trying to beat her without many casualties but it's very hard, let alone with no loss.
Care to give you strategy, or what units did you use? Thank you

Atlatea did it too and detailed his methods, which seemed to be more efficient and it sounds like you used a Paladin.

I was a Mage, Scrounger starts off as Invincible for my Level 55 Mage, so I am going to assume you are a Paladin or Warrior.

I don't think my method was particularly elegant, but this is what I did.

My army make up was
Rune Mages, Trolls, Orc Chieftain, Black Dragons, and Shaman.

Rune Mages was probably my key saving unit.

I would basically just delay/tank as much as possible. I know it would feed them into max Adrenaline (and higher), but it was the method I went with since I could not easily revive them all if I lost more than 70% of any stack in round 1.

The enemy really liked killing my rune mages, so I would Phantom them ASAP.

I would even use Mystic Egg a couple of times and released at least two Black Holes. I might have threw one Ball of Lightning, but again, my main concern was ensuring any other unit was soaking hits but my own. :)

Shaman would mass heal the level 5 units with dancing axes (thus, saving me from consuming a revive with the rune mages), OR throw a ward in front of them JUST to suck up one hit.

My units were all high level, so I would use phantom rune mages to restore everything, sometimes even double casting it to ensure I had

- a reserve revive
- ability to sheep on attack (has to be ranged)
- call up a meat shield

It was a little while ago, but I am fairly certain I started off with one phantom and one black hole. They had ogres and they would always drain me in that critical first round, and it was particularly frustrating. The blackhole starter usually ended up killing them in the beginning.

The general strategy was to form meat shields, delay as long as possible while sneaking in more attacks via Black Hole, pygmy, phantom tanks and disable as much via Runemages/Phantoms. While the rune mages was the key enabler unit, the trolls would end up being the real heroes, since they would converge on maximum 300% dmg bonus as everything started dying. I relied on the Ogre Set to give me the leadership boosts and that's why I was so dead set on using trolls and orc chieftains (since orc chieftains are basically ogres with a new skin, it seems they inherit the underlying characteristics).

I am pretty sure I was down to the last phantom/revive and such and nearly out of mana. It was very long. (~20 turns?) Very tough for me. I should have went in with more disable in mind I think.

Anyways, I think atlatea's method is much easier and cleaner. He beats it in like 5 rounds and heals it all with just one paladin prayer!

He used dryads to lullaby the goblin shaman, threw a disable at a shaman too (sheep or blind). Since he is a paladin class, it made sense he had paladins and inquistors in his army for the 40% bonus damage.

Then he would bear down on the key units. Standard divide and conquer methods.

He also had black dragons too. I think his post is detailed within this very thread and he probably can tell you more of the finer details.

[atlatea]

Actually, no ckdamascus, my method was no better than you, i guess you read it wrong, it's not scrounger (imo it's impossible to beat her in 5 rounds), but rakush.

Well, it was the same againts scrounger, delaying them, using mystic egg, need a bit of luck, probably mine is safer due to disabling all shamans at early stage, but then again, another problem also arise, orc chieftain and ogre also proves to be serious damage dealer, combined with the poison from that 1k goblin axe thrower, they can do dmg that is beyond revivable for no loss game.

But, it's possible to win againts scrounger with no loss in impossible, it's just hard and long (mine was abouth 25 turn if i remembered right). Too bad i left my screenshot at my PC at home (atm i'm using notebook and far from home).

The key is to evade astral attack from goblin shaman, in other words, disable goblin shaman asap (and orc shaman if you can), then it's a matter of troops placement. Also need very very high defence and attack (i have about 27 attack and 44 def).

Since i'm using paladin i can't disable both shamans at once. My troops are dryad, rune mage, paladin, hunter, black dragon. I use dryads (onslaught 3 and caution 3 are a must have) to disable goblin shaman and lv 1-3 stacks at turn 1, while using sheep at orc shaman. But the weird thing is, scrounger teleported her orc shaman right next in front my paladin (i'm lucky), then i move my black dragon hoping that two ogre stacks won't hit it, well, i don't know why those two ogre attacking my paladin. Then i just move rune mage, and hunter to a safe place and block them with summons (from rune mage and dryad). Turn 2, i cast target to paladin, my paladin tank both ogres and orc chieftain and the rest of the ranged stacks, while black dragon and bone dragons (got it from eggs) help thining those ogre and orc shaman, rune mage and hunter thining goblin axe thrower (i hate its poison). Turn 3, stone skin at paladin and moving my paladin so only 2 ogre and 1 orc chieftain stacks can attack it (effectively disabling other melee stacks), the rest is the same (thining dangerous threats), turn 4 phantoming dryads for more summons, fodder and diversion, then bone and black dragons goes helping dryad and rune mage to thin goblin axe thrower, goblin shaman, next turn is just the same. I use pet dragon astral dmg ability whenever i have 80 rage to thin ogre and orc chieftain and other melee stacks, ball of lightning also necessary. At later turn i just left 7 goblin axe thrower while resurecting losses (mainly paladin since he did most of the tanking). Most of the damage are done by black dragons and pet dragon. Goblin shaman and orc shaman never cast astral attack due to target and scrounger stupidity, yet i use +70% astral resistance items, what a waste.

[ckdamascus]

Actually, no ckdamascus, my method was no better than you, i guess you read it wrong, it's not scrounger (imo it's impossible to beat her in 5 rounds), but rakush.

Well, it was the same againts scrounger, delaying them, using mystic egg, need a bit of luck, probably mine is safer due to disabling all shamans at early stage, but then again, another problem also arise, orc chieftain and ogre also proves to be serious damage dealer, combined with the poison from that 1k goblin axe thrower, they can do dmg that is beyond revivable for no loss game.

But, it's possible to win againts scrounger with no loss in impossible, it's just hard and long (mine was abouth 25 turn if i remembered right). Too bad i left my screenshot at my PC at home (atm i'm using notebook and far from home).

The key is to evade astral attack from goblin shaman, in other words, disable goblin shaman asap (and orc shaman if you can), then it's a matter of troops placement. Also need very very high defence and attack (i have about 27 attack and 44 def).

Since i'm using paladin i can't disable both shamans at once. My troops are dryad, rune mage, paladin, hunter, black dragon. I use dryads (onslaught 3 and caution 3 are a must have) to disable goblin shaman and lv 1-3 stacks at turn 1, while using sheep at orc shaman. But the weird thing is, scrounger teleported her orc shaman right next in front my paladin (i'm lucky), then i move my black dragon hoping that two ogre stacks won't hit it, well, i don't know why those two ogre attacking my paladin. Then i just move rune mage, and hunter to a safe place and block them with summons (from rune mage and dryad). Turn 2, i cast target to paladin, my paladin tank both ogres and orc chieftain and the rest of the ranged stacks, while black dragon and bone dragons (got it from eggs) help thining those ogre and orc shaman, rune mage and hunter thining goblin axe thrower (i hate its poison). Turn 3, stone skin at paladin and moving my paladin so only 2 ogre and 1 orc chieftain stacks can attack it (effectively disabling other melee stacks), the rest is the same (thining dangerous threats), turn 4 phantoming dryads for more summons, fodder and diversion, then bone and black dragons goes helping dryad and rune mage to thin goblin axe thrower, goblin shaman, next turn is just the same. I use pet dragon astral dmg ability whenever i have 80 rage to thin ogre and orc chieftain and other melee stacks, ball of lightning also necessary. At later turn i just left 7 goblin axe thrower while resurecting losses (mainly paladin since he did most of the tanking). Most of the damage are done by black dragons and pet dragon. Goblin shaman and orc shaman never cast astral attack due to target and scrounger stupidity, yet i use +70% astral resistance items, what a waste.

Sorry, I've been rushing through my posts on key details. You are right, you said Rakush, not Scrounger. I have been looking foolish lately haha.

Funny thing is, in my game, I did NOT want those blood shaman right next to my rune mages haha.

Argh, now I remember the horror of when I was about to win in no-loss and the stupid orc chieftain came over and did his Spiritual BULLCRAP that wiped out my dragons and griffins (that popped out of the mystic egg). They dared to sneak past the "wall" to try to sabotage the enemy goblins/shaman.

I had to reload a few times and I think turn 25ish was probably about right for me too. :(

I do remember the glee in my face when I saw another 12 black dragons? (Mystic Egg rounds up the leadership rolls. woot), pop out of my mystic egg during that battle. Thank goodness Scrounger is not a Geyser freak.

Almost as good as when I saw Black Dragons show up in the Wizard's Tower last battle. Ugh, now that was a long one too. Rune Mages again saved me... in one hell of a fight.

[atlatea]

Yeah, orc chieftain and ogre proves to be two of scrounger's most annoying stacks (besides shamans and goblin poison axe). Luckily the battle arena is not flat normal arena, so that chieftain can be blocked (at least that happens in my case).

Scrounger indeed love to kill rune mage, whenever astral attack come, it always aimed to rune mage, what a weird and annoying orc. I guess most if not all players need to reload againts scrounger.

I got an easy no loss win yet very long battle in tower last fight. I just use black dragons and few gizmos. I'm too afraid to use full army, because i can't imagine how powerful caretaker's geyser with such a very high int and insane amount of mana.

Scrounger and caretaker are easily the hardest battles of all.

[ckdamascus]

Yeah, orc chieftain and ogre proves to be two of scrounger's most annoying stacks (besides shamans and goblin poison axe). Luckily the battle arena is not flat normal arena, so that chieftain can be blocked (at least that happens in my case).

Scrounger indeed love to kill rune mage, whenever astral attack come, it always aimed to rune mage, what a weird and annoying orc. I guess most if not all players need to reload againts scrounger.

I got an easy no loss win yet very long battle in tower last fight. I just use black dragons and few gizmos. I'm too afraid to use full army, because i can't imagine how powerful caretaker's geyser with such a very high int and insane amount of mana.

Scrounger and caretaker are easily the hardest battles of all.

Yeah, someone (maybe it was you) that taught me how to use Gizmo!

I don't remember or think Caretaker ever uses Geyser, at least he didn't use it against me.

However, I never did like the armies they gave me.

Most are waay too fragile to take care of, so a no-loss with the care taker is pretty annoying. I feel like I have no choice but to go rune mage, but after your Gizmo + Black Dragon tip, sounds like I have another way to win it.

[edit]
Ugh, now I remember why I felt so strongly about the Defense stat not affecting abilities like Dancing Axes.

17 Shaman used Dancing Axes on my Cyclops

Dancing Axes does 20-25 Magical Damage, has an Attack Rating of 23, my Cyclops has a Defense of 73.

At about 50 difference in Attack/Defense, I should have taken about 37% damage, or a 63% reduction in damage. I took 429 Damage.

17*(20-25) = 340-425 damage. Funny, since I have 3% magical resistance. So I clearly took nearly full damage (if anything, I took more).

I felt it has always been this way with Shaman in AP, because they would always hunt my beloved Trolls and kill... kill kill.

I am beginning to believe CERTAIN abilities always bypass the Defense stat, but others do not?

Or can someone explain to me why this is the case if the abilities are affected by the Defense stat?

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

I see your strategies and they are really cool.

I am also trying a no loss with the ogre set, with my army comprising:Warrior 53 lv
Trolls, Orc chieftain, Ogre, Shaman, Orc Hunter :)

(any idea why printscreen wont work on KB?It just copies my desktop)

[Metathron]

(any idea why printscreen wont work on KB?It just copies my desktop)

Same thing happens to me. No idea why? There's probably an easy solution, so hopefully someone knows.

[ckdamascus]

I see your strategies and they are really cool.

I am also trying a no loss with the ogre set, with my army comprising:Warrior 53 lv
Trolls, Orc chieftain, Ogre, Shaman, Orc Hunter :)

(any idea why printscreen wont work on KB?It just copies my desktop)

Hm. That is a bit odd. It might be OS dependent or are you somehow able to run King's Bounty Crossworlds in windowed mode?

You do have to go into the Saved Game Folder and look for a folder called Screenshots. You won't see it in the clipboard. (This makes me think KB:Crossworlds intercepts the keystroke and does its own magic; Windows by itself cannot see the screenshot).

This will vary per OS, and I omitted my username piece, but you'll get the idea.
My Documents\My Games\Kings Bounty Princess\screenshots

How the heck are you reviving units with that build? ;) Or are you just killing so fast that nothing survives to kill a unit? Hehe.

If you are going to go orc, I HIGHLY recommend you try the Orc Veteran out and get the Moldok hero. In fact, it sort of puts the Ogre/Orc Chieftain/Troll army to shame.

With Onslaught 3, Tactics 2, Moldok (+1 speed +1 init), USUALLY, your Orc Veterans will have at least enough to cast "Potion of Rage" (the speed ability).

You will almost always go first, and will be able to engage in the enemy in round 1 and deal Terrible Terrible Damage.

Have him use the Potion of Rage (if he needs it) so he can hit at least one guy from the other side of the screen, but before you hit him, cast Phantom. Now you should have one Orc Veteran ready to attack, and another Phantom adjacent to him to attack another unit. Now, tell your original Orc Veteran to attack.

Orc Veterans do sooo much damage in the initial hit, because they counter the counter attacks. Once, your Orc Veterans reach Adrenaline Level 3, they gain evasion AND they can hit with NO counterattack if their speed is higher than the enemy. (Almost definitely, since you will be sporting around speed 6 at this time).

Orc Trackers are surprisingly good tanks and their summons draw tons of aggro.

Orcs and Paladins synergize with the Goblins soooo well... ah. If only the game play wasn't so similar to my old ranged build... Or if you really want to keep pressing with the Orc Veterans, have Paladins Second Wind the Veterans, and Orcs "Goblin Commandeer" the Goblins.

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

Thank u for the screenshot folder tip. That's where all my screens were saved CDamascus :)

Not having any luck with the Orc army. I am not trying a no loss against Scoundrel. Just minimum losses, still to no avail. Sooner or later they special my level 5 units and the damage is done :mad:

I can't try the Orc veteran counter ability because I am using the ghost no retaliation set, so no counter to counter.

I tried the all goblin-2 order giving Orc units like veterans or Orcs, but the goblins couldn't deal any significant damage, compared at least to my big bangers. I prb should substitute shamans with Paladins.

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/1458/screen101019001.png (http://img34.imageshack.us/i/screen101019001.png/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[ckdamascus]

Thank u for the screenshot folder tip. That's where all my screens were saved CDamascus :)

Not having any luck with the Orc army. I am not trying a no loss against Scoundrel. Just minimum losses, still to no avail. Sooner or later they special my level 5 units and the damage is done :mad:

I can't try the Orc veteran counter ability because I am using the ghost no retaliation set, so no counter to counter.

I tried the all goblin-2 order giving Orc units like veterans or Orcs, but the goblins couldn't deal any significant damage, compared at least to my big bangers. I prb should substitute shamans with Paladins.



Glad it worked.

Eek, I wouldn't use the ghost retaliation set. You aren't worried about their retaliations... you are worried about their normal attacks!

For Goblins to work, you need to get around 88% critical hit rate BASE. You also need Tactics 2, Moldok, Onslaught, Quick Draw, and Frenzy. They need to survive a couple of rounds before they really start to shine (due to Zeroing in). Seems like you got all of that though.

Against Scrounger, probably not a great idea (sorry, I meant to use the goblins as a general army unit, not necessarily against Scrounger).

You should use Rune Mages, since they can revive your level 5s.

[atlatea]

Yeah, i'd recomend rune mage too againts scrounger, in my opinion, if you plan to bring lv 5 unit againts scrounger, rune mage is a must, you'll always lose lv 5 unit, because of those double drain from double ogres (i hate them) and probably astral attack too (if you don't disable her shamans).


As for dancing axe, yeah, seems you're right, dancing axe seems to bypass defense, probably since the legend, because i have bad moments againts orc shaman in KB TL, i forgot because of what, though i think it's because of dancing axe. But not all abilities bypass defence, seems it's only for orc.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

My army is Inq, R griffins, paladins, rune and arch mages, engineers and trolls. I have finally got lvl 3 ressurect so I no longer need Paladins, they don't fight too much tbh

Phantom and Dragon eggs are my preferred method, physical damage mostly, sometimes the ancient phoenix.

I'm struggling to think how the Paladin is better than Mage and Warrior tbh

[atlatea]

Simple, Holy armor 3 and resurrection 3 (boost inquisitor and paladin resurection capabilities), also the +40% medal of inquisitor and paladin. The fastest class to get voice of dragon 3 (if you like dragons) and adrenaline 3.

Indeed most of the time paladins don't fight much, but in hardest battles, they fight much, and also they eat demons alive (boosted with 40% dmg, add inq sword if you want). And they're the only option right now for mass resurrection.

The only thing paladin envy about warrior is the ability to start with rage. Paladin has many things that compensate for the double cast of mage.

[ckdamascus]

Yeah, i'd recomend rune mage too againts scrounger, in my opinion, if you plan to bring lv 5 unit againts scrounger, rune mage is a must, you'll always lose lv 5 unit, because of those double drain from double ogres (i hate them) and probably astral attack too (if you don't disable her shamans).


As for dancing axe, yeah, seems you're right, dancing axe seems to bypass defense, probably since the legend, because i have bad moments againts orc shaman in KB TL, i forgot because of what, though i think it's because of dancing axe. But not all abilities bypass defence, seems it's only for orc.

Right. It does seem all the other abilities are affected so far (I'll keep you guys posted on it, but it does seem that bypassing defense is an exception rather than the norm) I hope this wasn't some latent Porc, I mean Orc, advantage.

Thankfully with the Gift Bag items such as the Crown of Chaos, Shaman were no longer to be feared, even if they did bypass. It was fairly easy to stack close to85%+ magic resistance, or 95% even.

Who would have guessed they would replace the terror with two more units. Haha. :)

Regarding Paladin, yes, Paladins are EXCELLENT IF you use Paladin and Inquisitor. I do envy Holy Armor a lot too haha.

Yeah, it seems that with the right unit mixture, the Paladin can get around the double-cast issue. However, the Paladin seems forced into a set of units since it synergizes too well with paladins and inquisitors and you will require supplemental units to augment your disabling capabilities.

The Paladin Unit is one of those units I hate/love. They seem to be the only way for me to roll well with a Warrior class, since it is far more efficient to mass resurrect via Turn Back Time + Prayer than Phantom.

[jake21]

Not sure why you recommend rune mages; I left mine home for this fight. Did him with a stack of green dragons; black knight and paladin (mage impossible). Fight wasn't that hard but I did suffer the loss of green dragons (could restore the paladins/knight at end). I did not use counter attack on the knights and I suspect some other unit such as regular knights might be just as good (maybe better since I'm summing paladins at the end to restore the stack). The problem I had with rune mages is that the stack is completely wiped out on first move (strangely no matter what I chose; I could never get my initiative high enough to move before all his). I did think about trying arch mages since they tend to be astral resistant. Hum.

Right. It does seem all the other abilities are affected so far (I'll keep you guys posted on it, but it does seem that bypassing defense is an exception rather than the norm) I hope this wasn't some latent Porc, I mean Orc, advantage.

Thankfully with the Gift Bag items such as the Crown of Chaos, Shaman were no longer to be feared, even if they did bypass. It was fairly easy to stack close to85%+ magic resistance, or 95% even.

Who would have guessed they would replace the terror with two more units. Haha. :)

Regarding Paladin, yes, Paladins are EXCELLENT IF you use Paladin and Inquisitor. I do envy Holy Armor a lot too haha.

Yeah, it seems that with the right unit mixture, the Paladin can get around the double-cast issue. However, the Paladin seems forced into a set of units since it synergizes too well with paladins and inquisitors and you will require supplemental units to augment your disabling capabilities.

The Paladin Unit is one of those units I hate/love. They seem to be the only way for me to roll well with a Warrior class, since it is far more efficient to mass resurrect via Turn Back Time + Prayer than Phantom.

[ckdamascus]

Not sure why you recommend rune mages; I left mine home for this fight. Did him with a stack of green dragons; black knight and paladin (mage impossible). Fight wasn't that hard but I did suffer the loss of green dragons (could restore the paladins/knight at end). I did not use counter attack on the knights and I suspect some other unit such as regular knights might be just as good (maybe better since I'm summing paladins at the end to restore the stack). The problem I had with rune mages is that the stack is completely wiped out on first move (strangely no matter what I chose; I could never get my initiative high enough to move before all his). I did think about trying arch mages since they tend to be astral resistant. Hum.

Rune mages can revive your level 5s. I can't bear to lose a precious level 5 unit.

I probably did double phantom with the rune mages early on (and/or I experimented with phantom + black hole) for that very reason. They can blow through my phantoms and deal damage to my real rune mages.

I don't believe any unit has natural astral resistance. The Rune mage "MIGHT" but it wouldn't be anything to write home about. The translated AP manual is wrong. It calls "magic resistance" as "astral resistance".

Not to mention, orcs tend to bypass the Defense statistics with their abilities.

To win the initiative war, I use black dragons, so the double phantoms come up before the enemy can act. I might have onslaught 1 as well. But, unless you are in "control" of the battle to prevent a black dragon loss in a single volley of hits (you aren't, since the enemy clearly overpowers us), to avoid a loss with black dragons, they MUST be paired with rune mages Or shaman (rune mages are better, since they can revive black dragons, shaman can heal a black dragon via dancing axes).

High physical resistance units is definitely a good idea though.

[jake21]

Yea I definitely use blackhole for this fight; To a degree I think that spell is overpowered. Hum. I'm there now; so maybe I'll back up one save and try with rune mages/black dragons. Wonder if royal snakes have a high enough initative (probably not). Hum. Kind of hate to buy blackdragons; hate em. I have 4 fights left this game (k'tul (or whatever he is called); top floor of mage tower; this fight if i redo it and 'the end' fight). K'tul is gonna be a bear; I think they beefed him up; what troupes did you use for him? Hum. If black dragons are immune to his area attack maybe he is a good candidate... though the rune mages will die fast

Rune mages can revive your level 5s. I can't bear to lose a precious level 5 unit.

I probably did double phantom with the rune mages early on (and/or I experimented with phantom + black hole) for that very reason. They can blow through my phantoms and deal damage to my real rune mages.

I don't believe any unit has natural astral resistance. The Rune mage "MIGHT" but it wouldn't be anything to write home about. The translated AP manual is wrong. It calls "magic resistance" as "astral resistance".

Not to mention, orcs tend to bypass the Defense statistics with their abilities.

To win the initiative war, I use black dragons, so the double phantoms come up before the enemy can act. I might have onslaught 1 as well. But, unless you are in "control" of the battle to prevent a black dragon loss in a single volley of hits (you aren't, since the enemy clearly overpowers us), to avoid a loss with black dragons, they MUST be paired with rune mages Or shaman (rune mages are better, since they can revive black dragons, shaman can heal a black dragon via dancing axes).

High physical resistance units is definitely a good idea though.

[Saiko Kila]

I don't believe any unit has natural astral resistance.

I think that only Infernal dragons have declared astral resistance, but it has negative value for them. So many disabilities. Poor creatures.

[atlatea]

Infernal dragon currently is worthless, ancient phoenix is way better, like 2 times the infernal dragon with almost half mana required.

Scrounger fight is not hard to win, but it's hard to win for no loss fight.

To win initiative againts scrounger, bring black dragon (also rune mage for no loss fight, why? i guarantee you'll lose some of your black dragons) and blue dragon pet. To super win initiative, beside BD+ blue pet, you must have warrior caution 3 (+3 initiative at turn 1), enough to beat all scrounger units initiative except her ogres (only black dragon and posibly unicorn/red dragon can beat ogres initiative).

For non mage, to make your rune mage 100% survive astral attack at round 1 (even with 70% astral resistance, her goblin shamans can kill 14 rune mage with 3x astral attack), cast target to your stack. Well, you have another astral attack from orc shaman (luckily this one is much much weaker). For mage, since mage can double cast, why not target then sheep her orc shaman. You can also phantom, though it's a gamble, because it's not guaranteed that those shamans will attack the phantom.

Note that astral attack from orc shaman is much much weaker than goblin shaman, so you can ignore them, though in prolonged battle these orc shamans can make your no loss fight to become loss fight.

[jake21]

So I tried the black dragon and did indeed win the fight with no loss (mage impossible); however black dragon did not give me first move. Still it did keep me from being 'last move' which was enough to turn the tide. Oh well live and learn. The one thing that was a bit weird is that my warrior (impossible) really struggled on the mage tower; so i was expecting it to be near impossible for my mage (impossible) yet it was very easy.

Infernal dragon currently is worthless, ancient phoenix is way better, like 2 times the infernal dragon with almost half mana required.

Scrounger fight is not hard to win, but it's hard to win for no loss fight.

To win initiative againts scrounger, bring black dragon (also rune mage for no loss fight, why? i guarantee you'll lose some of your black dragons) and blue dragon pet. To super win initiative, beside BD+ blue pet, you must have warrior caution 3 (+3 initiative at turn 1), enough to beat all scrounger units initiative except her ogres (only black dragon and posibly unicorn/red dragon can beat ogres initiative).

For non mage, to make your rune mage 100% survive astral attack at round 1 (even with 70% astral resistance, her goblin shamans can kill 14 rune mage with 3x astral attack), cast target to your stack. Well, you have another astral attack from orc shaman (luckily this one is much much weaker). For mage, since mage can double cast, why not target then sheep her orc shaman. You can also phantom, though it's a gamble, because it's not guaranteed that those shamans will attack the phantom.

Note that astral attack from orc shaman is much much weaker than goblin shaman, so you can ignore them, though in prolonged battle these orc shamans can make your no loss fight to become loss fight.

[ckdamascus]

Infernal dragon currently is worthless, ancient phoenix is way better, like 2 times the infernal dragon with almost half mana required.

Scrounger fight is not hard to win, but it's hard to win for no loss fight.

To win initiative againts scrounger, bring black dragon (also rune mage for no loss fight, why? i guarantee you'll lose some of your black dragons) and blue dragon pet. To super win initiative, beside BD+ blue pet, you must have warrior caution 3 (+3 initiative at turn 1), enough to beat all scrounger units initiative except her ogres (only black dragon and posibly unicorn/red dragon can beat ogres initiative).

For non mage, to make your rune mage 100% survive astral attack at round 1 (even with 70% astral resistance, her goblin shamans can kill 14 rune mage with 3x astral attack), cast target to your stack. Well, you have another astral attack from orc shaman (luckily this one is much much weaker). For mage, since mage can double cast, why not target then sheep her orc shaman. You can also phantom, though it's a gamble, because it's not guaranteed that those shamans will attack the phantom.

Note that astral attack from orc shaman is much much weaker than goblin shaman, so you can ignore them, though in prolonged battle these orc shamans can make your no loss fight to become loss fight.

Good point on the subtle detail that to make it a no loss battle is more difficult.

I think the +3 initiative in first round ability is Onslaught, not Caution.

Yes, Phantom is indeed a bit of a gamble, but it "usually" goes for the phantom. In some attempts, they would wipe the phantom out in round 1, and proceed to chew my rune mages for Orc Breakfast (tm). :(

Yeah, Infernal is so bad. I don't know how they designed something so poorly. It is almost like they assumed all new spells would be overpowered, so they made their requirements sky high.

The crystal requirements for all new spells are ridiculously high for what SOME of them do. (10 crystals for poison spit levl 1? really? how much is plague or poison skull?)

@saiko Oh yeah, I forgot about the "astral weakness." Sheesh. They already die in one round, now let them die in one hit. Haha.

@jake21: I'm not sure how you did not get first move. You probably don't have onslaught and/or after round one, scrounger out initiative you since you might not have the blue dragon (+1 initiative for dragons).

Black dragons lower the enemy initiative IF they are level 4 or below. That's why they are usually the weapon of choice as the Interceptor/Interdictor of most armies. :)

However, that means you are still toe to toe against level 5s who have fast initiative. Your classic mortal enemy would be the Archdemon. I wouldn't be surprised if scounger gave a +1 init to the level 5s... which means Ogres and Orc Chieftains... which means Draining fun. :(

[atlatea]

Ah yeah, i mean onslaught, thx for the correction.

Regarding phantom, yep, most of the time they aim at the phantom, though sometimes they won't (it happen to me twice).

Yeah, some new spells are not worth the cost. Regarding poison spit, some peoples said that the -20% atk affect bosses, though i never test it. If it does indeed affect bossses, then i guess poison spit is not that bad.

Yeah, drain is overpowered now, back then in AP, the drained stack still have full ap, i mean they still can act.

Wizard tower as warrior is as easy as mage, just use black dragons (except the unit copy floor), pet dragon, and some spells (fire arrow/poison skull, fear and gizmo to heal your black dragon).

[BB Shockwave]

Wouldn't it be preferable to kill Scrounger very, very late in the game, IE when you have enough Intellect to simply Mass-Shackle her army? Ogres, Shamans, Goblin Shamans are all worthless without talents.

Or, bring Witch Hunters and double Phantom in the first round.

May be worth a try.

[ckdamascus]

Wouldn't it be preferable to kill Scrounger very, very late in the game, IE when you have enough Intellect to simply Mass-Shackle her army? Ogres, Shamans, Goblin Shamans are all worthless without talents.

Or, bring Witch Hunters and double Phantom in the first round.

May be worth a try.

I did it at level 55 as a Mage. Maybe I could have done it as a lower level. We will see. :)

Magic Shackles is independent of intellect. It is totally dependent on your hero's leadership (which in that game, I built up aggressively). I had about 27K leadership, Magic Shackles for MAGES allows you to do 2X your leadership, so about 54K leadership.

Unfortunately, in Impossible Games, the enemy almost always out leaderships you. e.g. you can almost never Mass Magic Shackle everything as a Mage if it is one of the premier battles. There will most likely be the most deadly stack still remaining to cast its stuff.

Not to mention, it won't work on level 5s. For such a high cost of magic shackles lvl 3, you would want to lock down everyone. That's why if you were going to bother, phantom + black hole is a better option since it not only disables the level 5 ogres.... it KILLS all of them. :)

The Witch Hunter idea is good, however, Scrounger's army is quite voracious even without abilities. The Orc Chieftain stack hits hard, and so do the Orc Veterans. Orc Veterans with Adrenaline are some of the most deadly melee fighters in the game.

I suppose if you got enough other units, it might be worth using the witch hunters. Just that, the dryads in comparison, can disable ALL of the goblin shamans, and does not require consuming a spell to do so. Albeit, they will only lock down for one round, you could phantom her to do it again next round. (although her init is slow, and goblin shaman have fast init).

[BB Shockwave]

Well, that's odd... I thought the various "leadership" spells (Nature's Call, Demon Portal) multiply leadership per Intellect, not per your Hero's leadership. It'd make more sense that way, as a Mage needs more summons then a Warrior. But you are right, the Magic Shackles works by your hero's Leadership, I checked. (Though it's more like 1.5XLeadership).

[ckdamascus]

Well, that's odd... I thought the various "leadership" spells (Nature's Call, Demon Portal) multiply leadership per Intellect, not per your Hero's leadership. It'd make more sense that way, as a Mage needs more summons then a Warrior. But you are right, the Magic Shackles works by your hero's Leadership, I checked. (Though it's more like 1.5XLeadership).

Maybe you should check with a Mage, and not a Paladin. :)

For the Mage class it is 2X.

For Paladin class it is 1.4X

For Warrior class it is 1X.

Just imagine how imbalanced it would be if they let it be 2X or 1.4X for Warriors.

You can check the KB AP translated manual for a lot of these details and game mechanics. A lot of strange subtleties in there.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=10787&page=6

Demon Portal Net Summoned Leadership IS a function of Intellect.

Call of Nature is ALSO a function of Intellect as well.

There is a base leadership statistic for each level of the spell, and then intellect is multiplied against it. (not directly, but in a very standard formula, 5% per intellect, etc).

[atlatea]

Still, i don't think you can't mass shackles scrounger's shamans with optimal leadership and int items.

[BB Shockwave]

Maybe you should check with a Mage, and not a Paladin. :)

For the Mage class it is 2X.

For Paladin class it is 1.4X

For Warrior class it is 1X.

Just imagine how imbalanced it would be if they let it be 2X or 1.4X for Warriors.

You can check the KB AP translated manual for a lot of these details and game mechanics. A lot of strange subtleties in there.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=10787&page=6

Demon Portal Net Summoned Leadership IS a function of Intellect.

Call of Nature is ALSO a function of Intellect as well.

There is a base leadership statistic for each level of the spell, and then intellect is multiplied against it. (not directly, but in a very standard formula, 5% per intellect, etc).

Well, IMHO, this is a bug. Shackle should function by Intellect, just like Hypnotize does, not Leadership. I mean, it makes no sense. No other spell is influenced by Leadership then, just this one?

I think I'll do a mod (or just edit the spell.txt) because frankly, this I feel is not right.

[atlatea]

I don't really pay attention to game mechanic (besides the basic one), but from what i heard, there are several if not lots of spells influenced by leadership.

[ckdamascus]

Well, IMHO, this is a bug. Shackle should function by Intellect, just like Hypnotize does, not Leadership. I mean, it makes no sense. No other spell is influenced by Leadership then, just this one?

I think I'll do a mod (or just edit the spell.txt) because frankly, this I feel is not right.

Actually Hypnosis is not a function of Intellect at all and works purely off of leadership. It is 80% of your leadership at level 3.

It is also probably why I never use Hypnosis since it costs so much mana and crystals, and only lasts 2 rounds. Might be ok in lower difficulty levels, but in Impossible, it becomes far less useful since you can't use it in the best time: Round 1.

There are a few spells that are affeced by raw leadership, and some are functions of Intellect.

I think it is for balance reasons though. Imagine if I could Hypnotize Scrounger's orc veterans in round 1? ;) Since mages have an implicit hard leadership cap, they could never "intellect slam" up to a point where such a scenario was possible.

[Elwin]

Took me long time to start .. hearing i have to play whole campagn again with just few sidequests didnt make me eager to play it really . Played Dotc and cota and left a game for a while.
So i have starded with hard mage, currently on verona using paladins demonologists engineers and droids no loss around 100 battles

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Scroungers army is an absolute pisstake and im a lvl 57 paladin. He must have 10 units compared to my 5 and his damn shamans and goblins reduce my guys to a pulp before i've even really had a chance. His ogres (39) make a real mess of my army and my usual phantom on the griffins wont work because they are killed in 2 turns using (target) I can shackle his units but it's doing nothing for me really as his units make mincemeat of my guys lol

Joke

[atlatea]

Ok, since you're using the same class as mine, i'd like to give some input for your reference. Most people indeed complaint about scrounger, i agree that she is one of the hardest enemy. And paladin is the least liked class of all 3.

Here some long tips.

As paladin (general tips):
1. You won't have destructive black hole or any mass destruction spell as good as a mage.
2. So the key in your playstyle is units.
3. But again, you also don't have initial rage start as a warrior.
4. So unit combination is really important too. There are more combinations than the one that i'd recomend, again this is for paladin.
5. Manipulating unit placement is a key.
6. That being said, manipulating unit placement means that summoner units are very useful. Pet dragon wall ability also very useful.
7. Paladin often rely on setup opening games in early turns (turn 1-3). Unit that helps you do this are those that can disable, preferably those that can mass disable. Like dryads, faun, wolves, witch hunter, ancient ent/ent (entangle), etc.
8. Yep, paladin opening game is the trickiest of all 3 classes.
9. Most unit that helps in setup game usually have low initiative, so for this unit to succesfully help you in setting your opening, you need Caution 3 or Adrenaline 3 (i recomend both).
10. Most of the time, you need to spread your damage if you're forced to play defensive, i mean distribute it evenly on your enemy stacks, in other words, don't focus in killing 1 stack then move to the other, instead damage all of them evenly.
11. If you aim for non no loss game, it's really no brainer, just cast target on toughest tank or sometimes fastest tank, then do anything you want.

And againts scrounger, use pet dragon egg for more unit. Must have insanely high attack if you're not using lv 5 unit (a minimum of 30), and must have very high defence (25 is minimum) for no loss game (forget defence if you do non no loss game).

Must have at least one tank, preferably paladin, at max mastery, its defense can become almost as high as black dragon, not to mention good phys resistance. You can also bring 2nd tank, in case your paladin is beyond revivable for no loss, switch the tanking role to the 2nd.

Stone skin and disabler spells (preferably target) are a must, divine armor is optional, if you have phys resistance items, you can forget divine armor. Archmage magic shield can substitute for divine armor, though magic shield + divine armor + stone skin is absolute bad ass. As for target, it instantly disable goblin shaman (most dangerous threat) and the rest of her ranged unit.

Ok, but she also has blood shaman, indeed she is. But remember that blood shaman astral attack is much weaker than goblin shaman, so you can ignore this one, or if you want to disable both shamans at once, you need a disabler unit (like i said in the general tips, opening is trickiest with this class), preferably dryads in this case, as in turn 1 you can sleep goblin shaman while sheeping or blinding blood shaman, then turn 2 cast target. Not to mention dryads summons are far stronger than royal griffins in term of damage output, and it isn't limited to 1 charge, of course the purpose of summon is more to unit placement manipulating than helping to do damage. For unit placement manipulation, consider pet dragon wall too.

You need to disable blood shaman if you have 0 astral resistance, if you have 50 or more, you can ignore this orc at early to mid turns, though remember that this orc must be killed quickly too, as it can cast astral attack more than once (goblin shaman only has 1 charge). Also, dryad has 50% chance to make enemy's talent spent, perhaps if you manage to sneak your dryads to attack goblin shaman, you can make their astal attack spent, meaning it's gone forever. She can also make ogre, orc chieftain and blood shaman talent spent, all those three talent has a minimum reload of 2 turn, meaning that you can disable one stack's talent all the time if you attack it continously, each 2 turn dryad is guaranteed to disable a unit talent if you attack it in previous turn (remember the chance is 50%).

Most dangerous threat now lies in ogres and orc chieftains and goblin thrower poison. Though unit placement can deal with that, but remember that they will focus your paladin. Watch out for goblin poison, it's the most dangerous threat, even more than ogres and orc chieftains, you'll see that it is this poison that do the most damage to your paladin. If you bring secondary tank, feel free to switch the tanking role.

Now you must kill those goblin thrower and blood shaman asap, that's why for this combination, unit that has Area attack and no retaliation is your damage dealer (like dragons, any ranged unit, any caster, etc), you can also use goblin thrower or goblin shaman as your damage dealer (they do insane damage). The rest of the step is just a rinse and repeat of all the above.

Another combination is using droids and disabler and of course damage dealer (preferably ranged unit or those that has no retaliation), probably the easiest of all, being resistant to poison and physical damage, and easily revivable. The strategy is a slight modification of the above. Some people tried heavy lv 5 units, though i never saw it myself.

Remember that this is only for your reference.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

What about T'hau's area attack atlea? he casts every 3/4 times despite my unit infront of his unprotected hand.

thanks for the response btw

??????????????? The most extraordinary thing has happened.

Hang on this deserves it's on thread.

[atlatea]

You're welcome.

Againts k'tahu,

You can lower the chance/possibility of his area attack.

You must always have a unit in front of his normal hand (his blind spot), this force him to move/switch position.

However K'tahu cannot move (switch position) 2 times in a row, so after he switch his position, be prepared for lizardmen summoning or area attack.

Assuming there are no lizardmen units in the battlefield (i mean k'tahu's lizardmen), the posibilities are 50% chance of summoning lizardmen and 50% chance of area attack.

Another possibility arise if you have your unit in front of his iron hand, it become like this: 33% chance of summoning lizardmen, 33% chance of area attack, 33% chance of punching your unit which stand in front of his iron hand.

Try to not use your real units to stand in front of his iron hand, use summoned units.

Posibilites are altered if there are k'tahu's lizardmen in the battlefield or you have more than 5 stacks.

The presence of k'tahu lizardmen lower the possibility of lizardmen summoning and increase the possibility of the other 2, in other words increasing the possibilty of area attack.

That's why clear/kill all k'tahu's lizardmen stacks as soon as possible.

More than 5 stacks in the battlefield means increasing the possibilty of area attack. So make sure you don't summon too many units.

As with all other bosses, try to kill k'tahu in 10 turns (that is my personal standard though), maximum is 15 turns, more than this usually = severe casualty on your side.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Are you lads kiting your way to Verona (if possible) before having a fight? I can get as far as Rusty Anchor but i'm really struggling here without the 1 GD as there are no pirates :(

lvl 10 mage btw using
1 rune mage
1 cyclops
8 paladins
21 inq
4 archmages

[atlatea]

You can clear most of rusty with your setup if you have target spell lv 3 and distortion 3. Though i recomend to dump paladin, inquisitor, and cyclop (optional) and switch to both droids.

Check wizard tower too, perhaps it has target, and maybe it also has phantom.

I don't do kitting. Usually my setup at your lv is rune mage, 1 archmage (can be swapped with 1 green dragon or 1 black dragon from scroll), 2 stack of repair droid, and guard droid. Heal Lv 3 and Stone skin Lv 2 (lv 3 if possible) is a must have, fear is also needed.

If i have collosus call scroll, i use it and i aim for black dragon (usually at night) if i use warrior or paladin, red dragon if i use mage.

I use this setup until i reach verona. Thas is for impossible play, i'm sure it also work for easy to hard.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

My god this is a grind, I think i've started with an unlucky setup here. lvl 11 A1 D4 Int24 and fireball and flaming arrow does about 500 damage, poison skull cant be trusted to do sufficient damage. I don't have target and trap isn't that dangerous atm.

I find myself playing for a bit then getting pissed off and turning game off.

[atlatea]

Well, if you want, you can switch to both droids (repaird droids split to 2 as always), 2 other slots is up to you, if you want easy game i recomend the last 2 slots to dragons. Always work in most situation, especially if you prefer no loss or no map kitting game or both. The most important spell is stone skin, and divine armor againts magic attacker.

The only downside is you are forced to use the boring droids untill you reach your prefered army setup.

[ckdamascus]

Well, if you want, you can switch to both droids (repaird droids split to 2 as always), 2 other slots is up to you, if you want easy game i recomend the last 2 slots to dragons. Always work in most situation, especially if you prefer no loss or no map kitting game or both. The most important spell is stone skin, and divine armor againts magic attacker.

The only downside is you are forced to use the boring droids untill you reach your prefered army setup.

I remember just how boring those Droids were. It took me 20+ turns to win in Bolo Dungeons with No-Loss. Back then I was quite a super noob, but oh wow, that was not fun.

I didn't realize there was a Physical Resistance stat back then. :)

I figured there had to be a faster/better way.

[travelingoz]

My god this is a grind, I think i've started with an unlucky setup here. lvl 11 A1 D4 Int24 and fireball and flaming arrow does about 500 damage, poison skull cant be trusted to do sufficient damage. I don't have target and trap isn't that dangerous atm.

I find myself playing for a bit then getting pissed off and turning game off.

Shoot! Your intellect is more that double your level and you're still finding the game a grind?? :rolleyes: if only i was so lucky!

PS Unless of course you're playing warrior!

[jake21]

But warrior is never a grind; I've been playing mage impossible no kill; at level 25 i'm finding it to be a bit of a grind. I've done most of montero but tekron and ulmska are still too hard (no kill). Hum. Where oh where will i find my next couple of levels...

Shoot! Your intellect is more that double your level and you're still finding the game a grind?? :rolleyes: if only i was so lucky!

PS Unless of course you're playing warrior!

[atlatea]

Try dersu.

That island is in the same level as tekron and umka.

[jake21]

No map yet :(


Try dersu.

That island is in the same level as tekron and umka.

[atlatea]

I think you can get the map in verona or montero.

If you're lucky with spell, unit and artifact setup, i think you can also get elon map from verona.

[Metathron]

Try dersu.

That island is in the same level as tekron and umka.

Wouldn't Dersu be the most difficult of the three with all those shaman?

[atlatea]

I think it's somewhat random, sometimes tekron is the hardest, especially the dragon hero.

And 2x cast is mage greatest weapon, there are several option to deal with shamans.

Without very high int, i usually get a fast and high initiative unit (like green dragon or red dragon or horsemen or unicorn or orc veteran), stone skin lv 3 and target lv 3. Archmage is also needed in some cases, you can also add divine armor, but stone skin 3 + magic shield usually suffice.

Just cast stone skin lv 3 + target lv 3 on the dragons or horsemen, then charge them off to those shamans, then archmage cast magic shield. They won't even have a chance to do their magic axe or anything that is astral attack.

[jake21]

Not sure in previous plays Dersu hasn't been quite so bad but since I just picked up the map I think I will head there soon. This is one slow game (in game days) but we shall see what happens. At level 27 my int is only 21 :(

Wouldn't Dersu be the most difficult of the three with all those shaman?

[BB Shockwave]

I think it's somewhat random, sometimes tekron is the hardest, especially the dragon hero.

And 2x cast is mage greatest weapon, there are several option to deal with shamans.

Without very high int, i usually get a fast and high initiative unit (like green dragon or red dragon or horsemen or unicorn or orc veteran), stone skin lv 3 and target lv 3. Archmage is also needed in some cases, you can also add divine armor, but stone skin 3 + magic shield usually suffice.

Just cast stone skin lv 3 + target lv 3 on the dragons or horsemen, then charge them off to those shamans, then archmage cast magic shield. They won't even have a chance to do their magic axe or anything that is astral attack.

Or, summon something near them (Call of Nature, Demonologists, etc...) and cast Target on it.

Or, use Mass Magic Shackle. (I know, this doesn't work in Impossible games).

Or just blind/Sheep them. Not sure whether you can cast two Blind spells in one round with High Magic, though.

Shaman/Blood Shaman's greatest vulnerability is that they have absolutely no resistances or immunities. Heck, Hypnotizing them would work too, after you dwindle their numbers down.

[atlatea]

Yup those also work, though it depends on the difficulty. Yes, there is something that must be considered further.

It will certainly work in normal, i don't know about hard, and to my knowledge it won't work in impossible i mean it is not 100% guaranteed to work, except the blind/sheep (this one work 100% on any difficulty).

Because all form of summons won't last more than 1 round (even ancient phoenix with 70 int, and note that you can't cast target on phoenix) forcing your mage to summon and cast target again, this means that your only option to win is 100% by your units which is not mage greatest strengh and it leave you to waste your mana and 2x cast every turn to do just summon and target.

No mage can win with that kind of situation.

Also don't forget that by using unit's summon abilities you must consider your summoner unit initiative vs shaman initiative, which usually almost the same, and this means after your summoner unit summon a unit your unit will be slaughtered by those shamans (astral attack, power of horde or dancing axe, etc).

And if you succeed casting target on that summon before those shamans act, you must remember that mage leadership is the lowest, thus this means that the unit summoned by mage's summoner unit (demonologist, druid, etc) will be the lower in number than warrior and paladin, this means that it won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault from enemy army, heck i even doubt if it can last more than 1 round without more back up like archmage magic shield, stone skin or things like that.

Because unit summoned by summoner unit usually has less than half the staying power of the summoner itself (compare the leadership and do the math), means that if the summoner won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault then the summoned unit won't last than 1 round. And some summoned unit will appear at random location (like the one summoned by demonologist).

However it can work if you have very good resistance artifacts, depends on the enemy units. So that your summoned unit can last much longer than 1 round.

It just depends on the difficulty, some method will not work on all difficulty and all kind of situation, yet some will.

[ckdamascus]

Yup those also work, though it depends on the difficulty. Yes, there is something that must be considered further.

It will certainly work in normal, i don't know about hard, and to my knowledge it won't work in impossible i mean it is not 100% guaranteed to work, except the blind/sheep (this one work 100% on any difficulty).

Because all form of summons won't last more than 1 round (even ancient phoenix with 70 int, and note that you can't cast target on phoenix) forcing your mage to summon and cast target again, this means that your only option to win is 100% by your units which is not mage greatest strengh and it leave you to waste your mana and 2x cast every turn to do just summon and target.

No mage can win with that kind of situation.

Also don't forget that by using unit's summon abilities you must consider your summoner unit initiative vs shaman initiative, which usually almost the same, and this means after your summoner unit summon a unit your unit will be slaughtered by those shamans (astral attack, power of horde or dancing axe, etc).

And if you succeed casting target on that summon before those shamans act, you must remember that mage leadership is the lowest, thus this means that the unit summoned by mage's summoner unit (demonologist, druid, etc) will be the lower in number than warrior and paladin, this means that it won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault from enemy army, heck i even doubt if it can last more than 1 round without more back up like archmage magic shield, stone skin or things like that.

Because unit summoned by summoner unit usually has less than half the staying power of the summoner itself (compare the leadership and do the math), means that if the summoner won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault then the summoned unit won't last than 1 round. And some summoned unit will appear at random location (like the one summoned by demonologist).

However it can work if you have very good resistance artifacts, depends on the enemy units. So that your summoned unit can last much longer than 1 round.

It just depends on the difficulty, some method will not work on all difficulty and all kind of situation, yet some will.

As someone who has specifically worked with leadership style mages with summons, it is sort of a mixed bag against orcs.

You are absolutely correct in that your summons will not last long, and this is usually somewhat OK for non-orc armies.

The danger with orc is due to the way adrenaline works, you end up feeding the enemy with MORE adrenaline.

I would normally move a fast moving unit nearby, then do Pygmy + Ancient Phoenix.

If your Phoenix dies in the first round, you just ended up feeding them a lot of adrenaline. After reviving, the Phoenix will probably die again fairly soon unless you do significant damage with the first hit and counter hit (if it survives).

I suppose not so bad if you got dryads or something, but then you are thrown between re-summoning, disabling deadly orc units, or de-buffing orc units to kill (Pygmy).

Call of Nature is particularly weak especially for the mana. I might have to look into it again though.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

See, this is what totally, pisses me off about Goblin Sharmans. A stack of 17 of them dished out 3 lots of 478 damage in one turn = over 1200 damage Absolute joke!

Oh and hi guys :grin:

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

lvl 18 doing a no loss run with mage. I've been playing this game for years but i'm totally stuck here. I get annoyed with myself really. The resources just AREN'T THERE

I suck at using a Mage maybe. My intellect is 32 and fire arrow does 1000 dmg and as I only have 55 mana it's all I can do early doors. Obviously enemy armies are far too vast so i'm just...

ugh i'm boring myself now.

stupid game

[ckdamascus]

lvl 18 doing a no loss run with mage. I've been playing this game for years but i'm totally stuck here. I get annoyed with myself really. The resources just AREN'T THERE

I suck at using a Mage maybe. My intellect is 32 and fire arrow does 1000 dmg and as I only have 55 mana it's all I can do early doors. Obviously enemy armies are far too vast so i'm just...

ugh i'm boring myself now.

stupid game

After the new Crossworlds 1.31 patch, I had a relatively smooth time as a Summoner mage.

I go for Ancient Phoenix LVL3 asap, get enough transmute stuffs and mana so I can also cast Dragon of Chaos LVL3. I also use rune mages and dragons.

I have been using them together to steam roll a lot. Up to around level 49 now. Mostly no-loss (lost some dryads against shenobi), and wanted to go for a faster time, so I couldn't really avoid it. (If I went solo black knights, maybe I could have done it).

I don't suggest going for damage mages unless you have a clear way in winning initiative and hiding your unit (ala invisibility) and have methods to restore the mana (that's why some go emerald green dragons).

I probably have casted flame arrow like 5 times. Haha.

[Mandea]

The new patch has a very nice feature, albeit they don't tell it officially. Now you can find complet sets of items relatively easy. I've already found 7-8 sets and I have 3-4 about to be completed. I guess they did something with the random generator tweaked it to have more chance to complet sets. wonderful :)

[ckdamascus]

The new patch has a very nice feature, albeit they don't tell it officially. Now you can find complet sets of items relatively easy. I've already found 7-8 sets and I have 3-4 about to be completed. I guess they did something with the random generator tweaked it to have more chance to complet sets. wonderful :)

Hm, I just tried it (albeit only one round) and didn't seem to find anything too out of the ordinary.

You might have just been really lucky.

As of yet, I have never been able to complete the Madman Set, Knight Set, and Scale Set.

The other sets are either really common, or too junky for me to mention. I really wanted to see if I could pull off like 2 Belts of the Victors or something. :)

I'm really interested in pulling off the Madman Set, although perhaps one could argue it is sort of junky anyway. Haha. :)

[atlatea]

I might have to try the new patch if that is true.

Because i never complete even one composite set except the dragon toy and a ring (which is also a reward from defeating scrounger) :mad:.

[Mandea]

Hm, I just tried it (albeit only one round) and didn't seem to find anything too out of the ordinary.

You might have just been really lucky.

As of yet, I have never been able to complete the Madman Set, Knight Set, and Scale Set.

The other sets are either really common, or too junky for me to mention. I really wanted to see if I could pull off like 2 Belts of the Victors or something. :)

I'm really interested in pulling off the Madman Set, although perhaps one could argue it is sort of junky anyway. Haha. :)

And how do you explain never being so lucky in my other 10 times I finished AP/CW?
Scale set is one of those I completer, however playing with orcs and having ogre set (another nice set) I'd rather keep ogre set. I really don't think it's a coincidence and it's not so hard playing with the random generator to be more flexible (for the programmers I mean).

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Still struggling. Been so long since i've used a Mage warrior and my damage spells are just not enough. No Phantom and No Resurrect. I think my army composition is wrong tbh, probably didn't dig up enough chests early on. mages,inq,druids,RD and Rune Mages/cyclops are my army. It's a shame RM are so weak, they really should cause more damage as they cost 15000 :rolleyes:

Might start again tbh as it's frustrating atm

[ckdamascus]

And how do you explain never being so lucky in my other 10 times I finished AP/CW?
Scale set is one of those I completer, however playing with orcs and having ogre set (another nice set) I'd rather keep ogre set. I really don't think it's a coincidence and it's not so hard playing with the random generator to be more flexible (for the programmers I mean).

Bad luck. Probability and statistics. Some people get really lucky, some people don't.

I vaguely recall DG stating twinkling boots has a 1/15 games spawn rate or something. It has since improved in Crossworlds though (1.3.0). So, maybe what you are seeing is the Crossworld's item generator improvement.

Your sample set is already below the probability rating for at least ONE item.

You've completed the Scale Set. I have NEVER completed it in the equivalent of 70+ saved game scans, most of them in Crossworlds. No one argued it wasn't hard to reconfigure the randomness. Just that, if the game was truly re-jiggered to do that, I should see a Scale Set in the next 20 rolls.

That said, until I roll for 20-30 games, I can't say for sure. I'm too lazy to re-roll right now though, haha. Although, just some statistical and anecdotal evidences of the power of randomness before said 1.3.1 patch.

That said, Ogre Set is MUCH MUCH easier to complete now in Crossworld's than it was in Armored Princess, but that's before the 1.3.1 patch. That said, I still only completed it twice. How is that possible? Easy, they make the probability for some of the items much better. I almost always see at least ONE of the three items now. I rarely saw the club before Crossworlds. It has taken me more than 10 games to get the complete Ogre Set the second time.

Well, if there was a change, it probably occurred in Crossworlds, 1.3.0 as noted by DG. He noticed Twinkling / Slippery Cuirass has a much higher probability of spawning now, etc. It was in one of the older posts.

Also, Crosswolrld's FORCES the inclusion of Gift Bag Items from Armored Princess. Not sure if you used that Official mod or not, not that it would help your set items, just composites.

I have also noticed it does have a much higher spawn rate now. In the past, my mages could almost NEVER get slippery cuirass. Now, I have a much better item mix-up. In my last mage game, I got 2 dress of the mages, sandals of the martyr, magician's cowl, belt of the victor, slippery cuirass, etc. Yet, this was a saved game which I was gunning for 100% critical demon, so it has most of the items for that build too. This was a Crossworld's 1.3.0 game. The future games in 1.3.0 I rolled were CRAP in comparison.

My games are mostly item driven to create strange or ridiculous combinations, as such, I've re-generated maybe 70+ games and scanned all of them for content before playing them. My feel probably isn't as good as say DG who probably have an even larger sample set and probably KNOWS the random generator mechanics itself.

It took me QUITE a few tries to get the Princess Set (Fairy Girl Power) set to spawn, maybe about 20 alone. (ah conditional probability is so evil). I nearly gave up and waited for any other interesting set/combo to show up.

That said, sometimes I just look for decent item sets, and in some games I get really good combos, then sometimes I have a dry spell of like 15 games in a row with nothing but the worst items ever. I don't play them unless I'm in the mood for the ad-hoc game style.

I've only spawned Belt of the Victor twice, so I am really sad that the one dude who got TWO of them to spawn in a single game, might not have saved his initial saved game.

All I am saying is, if your sample set is only 10, then you may or may not ever see a really really good saved game get rolled. We need a much larger sample set, or analysis of the files (we got to ask DG how or where he looked at for this). Analysis of the files is probably preferable and conclusive.

Sample set analysis is tedious. :(

[ckdamascus]

Still struggling. Been so long since i've used a Mage warrior and my damage spells are just not enough. No Phantom and No Resurrect. I think my army composition is wrong tbh, probably didn't dig up enough chests early on. mages,inq,druids,RD and Rune Mages/cyclops are my army. It's a shame RM are so weak, they really should cause more damage as they cost 15000 :rolleyes:

Might start again tbh as it's frustrating atm

The Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos summoner style only really STILL works (up to Reha so far, but they can withstand a few hits from Ktahu.), if you have Belt of the Victor. Without it, ugh, you start losing the mojo around Elon. Still doable though.

I'm telling you, direct damage spells is NOT the way to go for mages in Impossible :) Disable, debuff, distract, is key. Summon is good too if used properly. That said, a well placed Ancient Phoenix does about the equivalent of up to 18 flaming arrows for the cost of 7 flaming arrows, draws aggro, provides a tank, burns up to 3 enemies, and can RESURRECT a red dragon. Why would anyone ever cast flaming arrow again with that sort of power is beyond me. :)

All mages have HORRIBLE HORRIBLE damage per leadership. Rune Mages are not meant for damage. They are there to distract the enemy with Illusions or to Sheep the enemy.

If you don't have 17+ magic runes, and 20ish mind runes sitting around, I wouldn't bother using them at all. A shame you don't have Phantom though, but I did ok by splitting the Rune Mages into two stacks to double the odds of sheeping.

Can you find any other damage dealer unit in your mix? Druids and inquisitors are so weak. :(

You do want a high initiative unit so you can get the jump on the enemy, even if that unit doesn't attack immediately. I guess reds are somewhat fast though.

If you can find Black Dragons, use them with the reds. Rune Mages can revive Black Dragons.

You want to take advantage of shoot-through-no-retaliation that dragons can do.

You can use similar tactics with the Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos (have Ancient Phoenix hit the weak enemy next to a strong enemy to get a cheap hit).

You might also be at the stage where you need to throw up Ball of Lightning a bit more for added offensive power, I know I forgot to use this in the mid game.

You can use Pygmy, Helplessness, Oil Mist to help hurt the enemy more. You might find it does more equivalent damage per mana than Flaming Arrow.

Also, consider raising your rage to increase rage generation speed if you got so many summoners.

[atlatea]

Regarding set, i think at least 2 or 3 set always completed for most people in CW.

But even if you don't have the set, another item that compensate for it usually 90% spawn. In my case, whenever i don't have scale set, slipery cuiras and twinkling always spawn, especially slippery, and both of them often spawn together.

Though i never complete even composite set other than dragon toy (just once), and scrounger ring (twice).

Maybe it's just luck.

Regarding mage, direct damage spells is worth if you manage to at least score 50 int, best if you have 70 int, +spell dmg arties, destruction 3, just cast 2 black hole/geyser and most enemies at impossible will eat dirt. Or if you like, stack astral resistance and mana (minimum of 90 mana), have red/green dragon, then cast armageddon, then time back, most enemies should be very weakened, another armageddon will instantly wipe them and you incur loss.

There are no class that can win a fight in just 2 or 3 turn without losses except mage offensive spell caster type.

Downside is you need to scan your saves to achieve very high int and you need to rest after a battle to recover your mana. But really, winning battles in impossible in 2 or 3 turn is awesome.

[jake21]

Yea; so far no sets in my 1.3.1 game. All island but one explored. Btw I've gotten a few knight set and scale set (scale set is the most common for me) but I'm not conv. the physical reduction of the set works. (I do not include sets like victor belt since you get the entire piece. Btw there is a bug that if you disassemble some sets and have partial pieces it will not let you reassemble (this has happened once or twice but not always). The one item i've gotten a couple of play through (but not this one) is that ring that deos massively good against demons - made the final fight a walk through.

Hm, I just tried it (albeit only one round) and didn't seem to find anything too out of the ordinary.

You might have just been really lucky.

As of yet, I have never been able to complete the Madman Set, Knight Set, and Scale Set.

The other sets are either really common, or too junky for me to mention. I really wanted to see if I could pull off like 2 Belts of the Victors or something. :)

I'm really interested in pulling off the Madman Set, although perhaps one could argue it is sort of junky anyway. Haha. :)

[Mandea]

Bad luck. Probability and statistics. Some people get really lucky, some people don't.

(
No, you're absolutely wrong. It's not about which sets it's about completed sets. I'm an engineer, coincidences don't cut it for me especially when I played this game for so long. There is no statistics that confirms what you say.

And besides I dont' get it, is it so hard for you to accept that I may be right, just because you don't get a specific set? THAT is bad luck. Is it so hard to understand the programmers tweaked a little bit the random generator? Diablo 2 had the same problem, they know it and they've already said it's been taken care of (I am referring to Blizzard of course). It definitely has to to do with the patch.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

19 blood sharmans do 1450 dmg to my cyclops :grin:

Also, how can two, yes two BShamans do 883 dmg lol

farce

[ckdamascus]

Regarding set, i think at least 2 or 3 set always completed for most people in CW.

But even if you don't have the set, another item that compensate for it usually 90% spawn. In my case, whenever i don't have scale set, slipery cuiras and twinkling always spawn, especially slippery, and both of them often spawn together.

Though i never complete even composite set other than dragon toy (just once), and scrounger ring (twice).

Maybe it's just luck.

Regarding mage, direct damage spells is worth if you manage to at least score 50 int, best if you have 70 int, +spell dmg arties, destruction 3, just cast 2 black hole/geyser and most enemies at impossible will eat dirt. Or if you like, stack astral resistance and mana (minimum of 90 mana), have red/green dragon, then cast armageddon, then time back, most enemies should be very weakened, another armageddon will instantly wipe them and you incur loss.

There are no class that can win a fight in just 2 or 3 turn without losses except mage offensive spell caster type.

Downside is you need to scan your saves to achieve very high int and you need to rest after a battle to recover your mana. But really, winning battles in impossible in 2 or 3 turn is awesome.

I suppose. I guess I hate the waiting afterwards. I can try it again, as this one saved game I have has tons of intellect!

But, for the hard battles, dealing 9-10K damage to every single stack still doesn't cut it.

Actually, my Warrior can win the Impossible Battles with smoother end game play, which is what made me so sad that mages couldn't do the smooth game play with no waiting! With the warrior, I would have to intentionally delay finishing the battle just so I can pick up the treasure chests. :)

I mean, put it this way. I've tried doing the Black Hole Blitz against Scrounger. Did NOT fare so well. :) Double Pump Geyser, no go either. Pygmy Black Hole... poo. :(

But, I didn't do the invisible trick though! If I do though, then the raw offense is merely just icing on the cake.

And any battle where the 9-10K damage per stack would have won the battle could have easily been replicated with the Warrior Ranged Army, with zero mana recovery required.

@King's Bounty Hunter
Is it the Power of the Horde? I think it depends on how many remaining Porc units are on the field, and it deals magic damage. (He has another astral attack one, but I doubt he could deal that much damage with just 2). Yeah, Blood shaman are nasty guys and in some ways harder to deal with than the Goblin Shaman since I hate bringing a tank up that close to the Blood shaman with Target. I really hate how Cyclops are so hard to recover, not even Rune Mages can do it.


@Mandea
I wonder if you read my entire post. If you are really an engineer, it surprises me you don't have more test trials to prove your case. I only brought up the Scale Set case to show that things are truly random for both good cases and bad. All I said was

- "maybe it is true" and that I need to do more tests to confirm
- I can't find DG's post on it, maybe it was another member who knew the drop rates and how to find them, which would conclusively decide -- e.g. it might actually be in the crossworld's world game editor.
- If after 70 games, I wasn't able to get certain items, clearly, it is possible to find a good item in the 71st run, as others have completed it too. e.g. randomness/luck/personal experience is not really a measure of the probability distribution.
- I've had bad item distribution for 15 games in a row before.
- Crossworld 1.3.0 improved Set Completion for me, I tested quite a few games here, possibly 50+.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

I suppose. I guess I hate the waiting afterwards. I can try it again, as this one saved game I have has tons of intellect!

But, for the hard battles, dealing 9-10K damage to every single stack still doesn't cut it.

Actually, my Warrior can win the Impossible Battles with smoother end game play, which is what made me so sad that mages couldn't do the smooth game play with no waiting! With the warrior, I would have to intentionally delay finishing the battle just so I can pick up the treasure chests. :)

I mean, put it this way. I've tried doing the Black Hole Blitz against Scrounger. Did NOT fare so well. :) Double Pump Geyser, no go either. Pygmy Black Hole... poo. :(

But, I didn't do the invisible trick though! If I do though, then the raw offense is merely just icing on the cake.

And any battle where the 9-10K damage per stack would have won the battle could have easily been replicated with the Warrior Ranged Army, with zero mana recovery required.

Doesn't sound like you're having much fun lol

Same. I'm finding using the Mage a real grind as direct magic damage isn't oo good atm

Thanks for all the info guys

[ckdamascus]

Doesn't sound like you're having much fun lol

Same. I'm finding using the Mage a real grind as direct magic damage isn't oo good atm

Thanks for all the info guys

Actually it is really strange. The Mage Summoner build is surprisingly very smooth, in some ways more smooth than a Warrior.

If the enemy has any level 4s, I will almost definitely sheep most of them by the end of the battle. Dual Rune Mages blasting away, at 30% chance to sheep someone, it gets pretty bad for the enemy.

Also, this lets me
a) dig up 3 chests
b) use the 16 rage for 19 mana exchange
c) resurrect units at my leisure

If the enemy has level 5s, I have to blitz the living daylights out of them with my Summons and debuffs. Still doable. If there are dragons, I got the Shield of Reknos (AND there is an Eye of the Dragon, but alas, I can't go back to Debir, stupid quasi-speed runs).

Once the level 5s are down, or under control, I repeat the dig/mana restoration process.

Now, the Warrior builds I do, while they are DEADLY fast in raw combat, leaves far less margin for error.

The problem is, while I obliterate really fast, it leaves far less time to dig up chests and I almost always have to cast Phantom for the Royal Griffins, Turn Back Time, or some Debuff (Pygmy, Helplessness, or Plague!). If I have a breather, I can drop Dragon Dive, but I am almost always pumping the 25 for 25 mana accelerator.

Sometimes I will barely have enough mana to do the resurrection as needed. It really depends. As a mage, it is more of an inconvenience, since my Summoner Mage build almost ALWAYS has max mana after the battle.

See, the warrior can afford to start off with no mana, since Bloodthirst will give him enough rage to start the Mana Accelerator machine again. :)

That said, it is possible to do direct damage, but it usually requires a nifty trick like Invisible Emerald Green Dragon. Early on though, Black Dragons are great to run around while you do direct damage. I mutated this stategy to have a helpful friend, Ancient Phoenix and his side kick, Dragon fo Chaos though. :)

In the Wizard Tower, I did a lot of direct damage too. I'm not there with my Summon Army yet, but I don't think they will survive easily. :)

Oh, as an aside, unlike the Warrior, my particular Mage build seems verry weak against Archdemons.

I'm not looking forward to facing Samman and I ran from the Archdemon stacks in Montero's Caves.

Also, I haven't fought Scrounger in a while since I mentally hit a strange block where I immediately proceed to try to beat the game or give up on my current game due to repetition (or perceived failure in my battle plan). I don't think fighting her will be fun either. :)

[Minecontrol]

Have you considered Pain Mirror?

The percentage damage returned increases with intellect and (i think) is a low mana spell (10 points) Meaning with higher magic you could cast it twice.

Maybe try sending up a deliberately weak enemy beside the Orc Savages (Veterans) and watch them rip at them. It could be Thorn summons or something... Then painmirror the Orcs. It was a spell i found great use for in KBTL vanilla (against the undead general) i have yet to use it in this game but an ability to return in proportion to the enemy their damage is potentially very useful (especially against high attack enemies like Scrounger's veterans), it's a great equaliser.

In that battle i find if you can stop the brutal melee attackers (the two level 5 stacks and the Orc Veterans) and control the effects of the Gob Shamans, then that is what tips the tide.

[atlatea]

I guess that Scrounger is an exception to all classes, not only mage, most of the time, scrounger need unusual tactic.

Pain mirror also seems to be the bane of archdemon, sometimes pain mirror
is your best friend if you got hit by that halving attack.

Regarding mage,

Well, 8k dmg per turn to all unit is already more than sufficient.

When playing direct damage mage, the damage spells are mean to much much soften your enemies, it's a no brainer opening. Then your unit finish them off. Damage spells won't do 80%-90 % the damage, it usually do 60%-65%, sometimes 70%-75%. It never means to be the winning button, it's just there to help you win. However compared to other mage type, all you do is just blast and blast them first, then do anything you want later, unlike other type of mage, other type of mage need more thinking.

Some suggestion, try most elves unit, it works best with direct damage mage. Your elves will crowd control all your enemies, effectively delaying them while you're having fun dooming them with your mass destruction spells.

Summoner mage have more efficient control to mana, however you still need to think, while damage mage is pure no brainer once you have very high int and the right unit composition.

Main problem with pure summoner mage is they rely heavily on fire damage. Damage mage can deal with any kind of threat. With the right units, it offer more versality in exchange for mana efficiency.

In case of warrior 100% ranged crit, direct damage mage slightly wins in term of resurrecting and damage wise (unless the warrior use goblins) at early turn. However on longer turn, warrior win, because mage will surely run ouf of mana if she keeps casting mass damage spells. But versality once again favor mage.

Why don't try hybrid mage?

I've tried this, mage with very high int, 50-70 ish, minimum is 50, unit is mostly elves and humans, reason? crowd control is caster best friend whether it is mage or paladin, having both summoner and destruction at lv 3, play style is damage spell and summoner, it depends on the situation.

From my experience, it's the most versatile of all mage, and probably the most powerful one. The only downside is you need insane amount of magic crystal :mad:


Oh, as an aside, unlike the Warrior, my particular Mage build seems verry weak against Archdemons.

I'm not looking forward to facing Samman and I ran from the Archdemon stacks in Montero's Caves.

Try pain mirror, i was once losing hope againts archdemon in montero caves, then i consider pain mirror as my last resort, and it works, especially if they do halving attack.

Honestly i didn't even think that pain mirror was that useful.

[Minecontrol]

Try pain mirror, i was once losing hope againts archdemon in montero caves, then i consider pain mirror as my last resort, and it works, especially if they do halving attack.

It's especially good against Orc Veterans too because of their massive attack and also their tendency to dodge attacks themselves (but no 'dodging' the spell) normally making disposing of them awkward.

[ckdamascus]

I guess that Scrounger is an exception to all classes, not only mage, most of the time, scrounger need unusual tactic.

Pain mirror also seems to be the bane of archdemon, sometimes pain mirror
is your best friend if you got hit by that halving attack.


Indeed, pain mirror is loads of fun. With a normal army, I wouldn't mind the usual Pain Mirror, Turn Back Time combo. Just that early on, my army is not that strong. I didn't actually try, I just figured it would be too annoying.

I didn't have Turn Back Time that early on, and I really really didn't feel like casting Phantom non-stop to restore back my Rune Mages or Black Dragons.

I'm not sure if it is a bad bad bad luck roll, but facing about 12 Archdemons in my first visit to Montero is not really easy for me. How the heck did it spawn that...

I can surely wreck it now, but I can't go island hopping for time. :( I do have to go back, but not sure if it is worth the time lost to hunt for monsters in a cavern. :(


Some suggestion, try most elves unit, it works best with direct damage mage. Your elves will crowd control all your enemies, effectively delaying them while you're having fun dooming them with your mass destruction spells.


I agree with enough crowd control this can work, although even then, I would almost rather use debuff/buff. With sooo many thorns, and since thorns are sooo low attack rating, helplessness will result in a big damage boost. And ugh, the whole waiting for mana thing afterwards. I hate that.
:(

Pygmy can buff damage by 66%, etc. I can probably 2X the damage of all thorns by casting one 6 mana helplessness.



Summoner mage have more efficient control to mana, however you still need to think, while damage mage is pure no brainer once you have very high int and the right unit composition.

Main problem with pure summoner mage is they rely heavily on fire damage. Damage mage can deal with any kind of threat. With the right units, it offer more versality in exchange for mana efficiency.



Ah, there that's why this new patch changes EVERYTHING for me. Dragon of Chaos, the former, laughable junky summon, makes it verrry possible to roll around with just dragons and rune mages.

Dragon of Chaos does partial astral damage, so he can wreck shop. Oil Mist weakens anti-fire enemies. It is pretty scary. Plague, Helplessness, etc, makes enemy dragons fall easily.

Not to mention, why is it that if you go Summon, you can't go other spells too? :) I have plenty of other spells, they are just mostly useless.

I would like to think I got better since I last played, but clearly the strategy is much better than I am. :) Considering I have played the SAME saved game twice, with different agendas (one was going for Demonic 100% Crit, yum), the other going for Dragons/Runes/Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos, the run with the new Dragon of Chaos is MUCH faster and smoother.

Put it this way, I demolished the last room of the Wizard Tower. Demolished. I was totally shocked. First try, just went in and wiped it all out. I usually have to do some reloads with some funky Phantom Rune Mage action and a few prayers. :)



In case of warrior 100% ranged crit, direct damage mage slightly wins in term of resurrecting and damage wise (unless the warrior use goblins) at early turn. However on longer turn, warrior win, because mage will surely run ouf of mana if she keeps casting mass damage spells. But versality once again favor mage.

Why don't try hybrid mage?

I've tried this, mage with very high int, 50-70 ish, minimum is 50, unit is mostly elves and humans, reason? crowd control is caster best friend whether it is mage or paladin, having both summoner and destruction at lv 3, play style is damage spell and summoner, it depends on the situation.

From my experience, it's the most versatile of all mage, and probably the most powerful one. The only downside is you need insane amount of magic crystal :mad:

Try pain mirror, i was once losing hope againts archdemon in montero caves, then i consider pain mirror as my last resort, and it works, especially if they do halving attack.

Honestly i didn't even think that pain mirror was that useful.

I can do the damage style, it just isn't efficient for me. I just see it as, I can do more damage with less mana, so why would I use the most mana expensive solution?

I only see it as useful if you cannot risk engaging your units directly. ala Solo Black Dragons facing enemy heroes early on and you don't have enough mana for summons.

That's why the summon is so good for me. It engages, damages, and distracts all in one. Battles are much faster for me in real time and in "game time" than if I did my old battling.

The Mage Summoner build has become the analogy of my Warrior Ranged Build (Porc flavored). Very smooth, very powerful. I can most definitely hodge podge other armies up, but <shrugs> I've played this game too many times to do that again. :)

I suggest you consider looking into the Dragon of Chaos again. :) The changes they did to him are FANTASTIC.

I used to rely on Phantom a lot in my previous mage games, now I rarely use it. :)

@Minecontrol
Yeah, I hate fighting orc veterans. I should make an army of units I really hate fighting against, give that AI a taste of his own medicine. I sort of did that with the Porc build, which ended up being a Goblin Fest.

Anyway, that's my next game. Inspired by re-watching Shrek, I want to somehow make Ogres my main unit. :)

[jake21]

Well as I noted in my 1.3.1 game I have no complete sets just a bunch of partial sets :(

No, you're absolutely wrong. It's not about which sets it's about completed sets. I'm an engineer, coincidences don't cut it for me especially when I played this game for so long. There is no statistics that confirms what you say.

And besides I dont' get it, is it so hard for you to accept that I may be right, just because you don't get a specific set? THAT is bad luck. Is it so hard to understand the programmers tweaked a little bit the random generator? Diablo 2 had the same problem, they know it and they've already said it's been taken care of (I am referring to Blizzard of course). It definitely has to to do with the patch.

[atlatea]

Indeed, pain mirror is loads of fun. With a normal army, I wouldn't mind the usual Pain Mirror, Turn Back Time combo. Just that early on, my army is not that strong. I didn't actually try, I just figured it would be too annoying.

I didn't have Turn Back Time that early on, and I really really didn't feel like casting Phantom non-stop to restore back my Rune Mages or Black Dragons.

I'm not sure if it is a bad bad bad luck roll, but facing about 12 Archdemons in my first visit to Montero is not really easy for me. How the heck did it spawn that...

I can surely wreck it now, but I can't go island hopping for time. I do have to go back, but not sure if it is worth the time lost to hunt for monsters in a cavern.

Turn back time never really necessary for pain mirror, i never use pain mirror+turn back, though that is one of its combo.

What lv are you at montero? I usually at 30 ish in my first montero loop.

Same case here, i was lv 30 and i faced 30 ogres + 12 archdemons, 1k+ skelies, 150 ish ancient beholders, 300 ish goblin axe thrower at that time, i remember this quite well because it is such a nightmare.

My army was almost the same as you, black dragons, rune mages, paladins, inquisitors, champions.

First turn those archdemon halved my inquisitor, then pain mirror turn the tide. Ogre was kited by black dragons, i had to cast target on paladin because of those pesky hypnotize from beholders, and poison from axe thrower really hurts my pallies. Black dragons, champions, inquisitors and rune mages mop the floor.

Ice wall + dragon wall (with shovel) is my life safer, without both of them, that ogre will surely butcher all my armies.

I agree with enough crowd control this can work, although even then, I would almost rather use debuff/buff. With sooo many thorns, and since thorns are sooo low attack rating, helplessness will result in a big damage boost. And ugh, the whole waiting for mana thing afterwards. I hate that.


Pygmy can buff damage by 66%, etc. I can probably 2X the damage of all thorns by casting one 6 mana helplessness.

If using elves, by using debuff, you'll leave much less room for error, thus you need more thinking, indeed thorns are scary with helplessnes, but the fact is different.

Better criple them with mass spells or summon dragon of chaos, elves doesn't excel at damage, they excel at crowd control, they weren't designed as a good combo for debuffer/buffer mage. This one allow you more room for error, thus less thinking and faster to win (turns needed to win).

Dragon of chaos and phoenix really loves the elves, their crowd control make them live much longer. Phoenix resurection, even if it's very weak, is very useful, because they need little resurection due to crowd control.

Ah, there that's why this new patch changes EVERYTHING for me. Dragon of Chaos, the former, laughable junky summon, makes it verrry possible to roll around with just dragons and rune mages.

Dragon of Chaos does partial astral damage, so he can wreck shop. Oil Mist weakens anti-fire enemies. It is pretty scary. Plague, Helplessness, etc, makes enemy dragons fall easily.

Not to mention, why is it that if you go Summon, you can't go other spells too? I have plenty of other spells, they are just mostly useless.

I would like to think I got better since I last played, but clearly the strategy is much better than I am. Considering I have played the SAME saved game twice, with different agendas (one was going for Demonic 100% Crit, yum), the other going for Dragons/Runes/Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos, the run with the new Dragon of Chaos is MUCH faster and smoother.

Put it this way, I demolished the last room of the Wizard Tower. Demolished. I was totally shocked. First try, just went in and wiped it all out. I usually have to do some reloads with some funky Phantom Rune Mage action and a few prayers.

I don't know why, it still doesn't work as good againts demons, i'd rather use other units rather than dragon of chaos, i mean i'd rather use other type of damage than partial fire damage. Still the dragon of chaos is indeed a good boost for summoner, he is the best summon in fact.

However, i prefer blasting those demons with mass spells + very high int than summoning dragon of chaos, that mass spells criple those demons much more quickly than dragon of chaos + phoenix combined, well, this is only againts demons though. Againts non demons, it seems that depends on army composition.


I can do the damage style, it just isn't efficient for me. I just see it as, I can do more damage with less mana, so why would I use the most mana expensive solution?

I only see it as useful if you cannot risk engaging your units directly. ala Solo Black Dragons facing enemy heroes early on and you don't have enough mana for summons.

That's why the summon is so good for me. It engages, damages, and distracts all in one. Battles are much faster for me in real time and in "game time" than if I did my old battling.

The Mage Summoner build has become the analogy of my Warrior Ranged Build (Porc flavored). Very smooth, very powerful. I can most definitely hodge podge other armies up, but <shrugs> I've played this game too many times to do that again.

I suggest you consider looking into the Dragon of Chaos again. The changes they did to him are FANTASTIC.

I used to rely on Phantom a lot in my previous mage games, now I rarely use it.

Well, that depends on your army composition.

Dragon of chaos is comparable to geyser/black hole in term of mana cost, ok in fact black hole is slightly higher in term of mana cost. But geyser or black hole does 2x more dmg to all enemies.

I agree, damage mage is used when you don't want to directly engage the enemy, but once again, that depends on your army composition.

Some army composition doesn't directly engage enemies but still do full damage to them. Well, i'm talking about elves crowd control.

Yeah i did try the new dragon of chaos in my new game (using scanner this time), i often used him till i got 65 int, and right now i have 65 int, i don't know why using 1x black hole is more quicker to win the battle than summoning him, almost the same mana consumption.

Basicaly it's like this, geyser/black hole first, then unit do the rest, and they stop them with crowd control whenever necessary.

But i don't know why dragon of chaos or phoenix is a very very good companion to elves user. Elves make them live much much longer, and your mage amelie will rarely need to cast another spell other than summon one of them or both, not to mention elves are one of the best summoner (dryad and druid).

I admit, the new change to summons made mage very fun to play. I just love how those summons work with elves without amelie intervention other than summoning them, thorns, bears, dragon of chaos, phoenix, 4 summons at once, not to mention bears and thorns aren't limited with charges, i guess this is a pure summoner army. I don't use other summoners (rune mage, royal griffin, demonologist etc) because it is best to bring crowd control and tank than using them, well, their summons is also not as strong as dryad/druid with same amount of leadership.

I'm also bored of using dragons (green/red/black).

[ckdamascus]

Turn back time never really necessary for pain mirror, i never use pain mirror+turn back, though that is one of its combo.

What lv are you at montero? I usually at 30 ish in my first montero loop.



I don't remember.

True, I just beat Demenion of Verona, 26 arch demons, but it is much easier since I am much higher level now. Also, the higher leadership count for the rune mages makes the phantom resurrection much easier.

Sort of funny, but Pain Mirror didn't do that much for me this time. Mostly because my stacks are so pitifully weak, haha!

I also used the Ice Orb! I can't say it is great, but it helped me kill Driller faster so I tried it in the Demenion battle. I really did not want to do single stack troll to kill driller. It dealt about 5-6K against him, which is much higher than any other summons. I wonder how much damage it will do against Baal from all the way down the field.... :)


Same case here, i was lv 30 and i faced 30 ogres + 12 archdemons, 1k+ skelies, 150 ish ancient beholders, 300 ish goblin axe thrower at that time, i remember this quite well because it is such a nightmare.

My army was almost the same as you, black dragons, rune mages, paladins, inquisitors, champions.

Better criple them with mass spells or summon dragon of chaos, elves doesn't excel at damage, they excel at crowd control, they weren't designed as a good combo for debuffer/buffer mage. This one allow you more room for error, thus less thinking and faster to win (turns needed to win).


True. I think if I had a lot more mana, I would look at it differently. I will happilly re-summon a monster (I have Black dragon wait, so I can re-cast a dying summon, for additional damage, since they can re-act in the same turn!).

I guess because I absolutely hate getting hit, I must make sure I have enough mana to keep re-casting the summons if I need to.

In some battles where there are lots of high priority targets, Black Hole really shines. I agree that it helps a ton there.

In others where I can divide and conquer, I like having a fast way to have my magic "earn it's mana keep". e.g. the Dragon of Chaos will save me the trouble of resurrecting my units often, so it saves me mana and time, plus it can kill stacks... so +10 mana for me! :)



Dragon of chaos and phoenix really loves the elves, their crowd control make them live much longer. Phoenix resurection, even if it's very weak, is very useful, because they need little resurection due to crowd control.

I don't know why, it still doesn't work as good againts demons, i'd rather use other units rather than dragon of chaos, i mean i'd rather use other type of damage than partial fire damage. Still the dragon of chaos is indeed a good boost for summoner, he is the best summon in fact.

However, i prefer blasting those demons with mass spells + very high int than summoning dragon of chaos, that mass spells criple those demons much more quickly than dragon of chaos + phoenix combined, well, this is only againts demons though. Againts non demons, it seems that depends on army composition.


The reason why my summon build works is because I use dragons which inflict DoT and hurt the enemy morale. Alongside with rune mages which makes sheep, which lets me "shoot through no retaliation" sheep to hit stronger stacks. That's why I illustrate that Oil mist point.

They might take out my ancient phoenix in the first round, but it already did a lot of burning damage. The Dragon of Chaos will do damage while Ancient Phoenix revives.

Basically, as time goes on, the enemy gets exponentially weaker, but my summons are the same attack strength. Summons never lose fighting power as they lose HP, unlike low level stacks which lose tremendous fighting capacity if they lose their numbers. Their high damage to leadership ratio works against them here. :)

On the same token though, the summons are "strong" but not really damage power houses. My level 5 units aren't really true damage power houses either (few are in comparison). Then again, as a mage, I cannot expect this anyways. :)

Admittedly, there is a bit of fun in doing the old fashioned flaming arrow and poison skull. I had to actually raise poison skull to level 3 (well I guess I didn't have to), in the Wizard tower to take out that Ogre army on level 4?.



Well, that depends on your army composition.

Yeah i did try the new dragon of chaos in my new game (using scanner this time), i often used him till i got 65 int, and right now i have 65 int, i don't know why using 1x black hole is more quicker to win the battle than summoning him, almost the same mana consumption.

I admit, the new change to summons made mage very fun to play. I just love how those summons work with elves without amelie intervention other than summoning them, thorns, bears, dragon of chaos, phoenix, 4 summons at once, not to mention bears and thorns aren't limited with charges, i guess this is a pure summoner army. I don't use other summoners (rune mage, royal griffin, demonologist etc) because it is best to bring crowd control and tank than using them, well, their summons is also not as strong as dryad/druid with same amount of leadership.

I'm also bored of using dragons (green/red/black).

Yeah it always depends on the army composition! :)

Well, the summons aren't that super strong in damage. Dragon of Chaos is maybe 2K damage on landing, 3K or so on hit, with shoot through. This is nothing compared to my old warrior 14-19K damage ranged goblins or paladin girl power fairy. :)

The summons will always last longer if you support them well. In my case, it was dragons, and burning effect lowers numbers every turn, and reduces attack and defense rating due to morale, etc. Oil Mist lowers rating too, etc.

Also, that is why I use both Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos. Together, they synergize far better than alone. Not suggesting you do it, since you have a real army, whereas I have like 60% of an army, haha.

You have a very strong team to support.

Yeah, Dryads summon a RIDICULOUS number of thorns. Level 3 Summoner Skill and Dryads... a really impressive number indeed. My Paladin Fairy Team was cranking a LOT of thorns. It almost made me want to keep the blackthorne crown. :)

I think it is a phase. I was sick of Dragons too in the beginning. I decided to re-use them again this game. :)

I am already planning on an Ogre centric build. Amelie the ShrekMaster.... wait for it! :)

As one final note to anyone else reading on why we like the Dragon of Chaos, it can solo a lot of weak monsters, no matter what, because if his HP drops below 10%, he will heal back up to 30% when his turn arrives. This is on TOP of his one-time "invincibility". e.g. he can take 9999 damage, but he will always end up with 1 HP. This only works once per casting. If he wins initiative, he will regenerate back 30% HP. Ah so good.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Veteran orcs just ran around my trap lol jesus christ give me a break ha ha

direct line to my army and he does that as if he knew the trap was there!

Marvelous :cool:

[ckdamascus]

Veteran orcs just ran around my trap lol jesus christ give me a break ha ha

direct line to my army and he does that as if he knew the trap was there!

Marvelous :cool:

They don't call them Veterans for nothing. :)

@Atlatea, so, I spent quite a few tries trying to win against Scrounger. Phantom Rune Mage Flood, Target + Battle Cry, I even "cheated" and used Black Knights too as my Target. Nothing was working. There was too many high profile stacks. Even if I managed to sheep the Goblin Shaman, the 47 Orc Chieftains and 47 Ogres would eventually run me over, and they were eyeing my Black Dragon in a really nasty way. :)

The Mega Summon Team was very strong, but it would eventually succumb to the overwhelming force.

I was lucky, as this time, there were no Orc Veterans, but the Ogre stack was larger and she sure had a LOT of pesky Goblin Shaman.

Then I remembered the last time I beat Scrounger, I had enough mana to use Black Hole at least once, this time I got a lot of GREAT items, so, why not?

I backtracked to beat the Nameless Island mission, got Black Hole.

Went all out with mana, using Wanderer Scrolls got 186 mana, much higher than what I had last time. Didn't bother with Destruction Level 3 though. Had about base 51 intellect, so 61 with a scroll.

Target Black Knights + Black Hole, bam, those pesky Ogre and Ogre Chieftain (oops, Orc Chieftain) were weakened as if hit by a low level Ball of Lightning. I even threw in a Ball of Lightning first by drinking a Potion of Rage ahead of time.

Next Round, Awaken Dragon (sniffles, raised it to level 3 and jacked up my Black Hole to level 3, now I have 4 crystals left, :( ), Ball of Lightning, then Black Hole AGAIN.

Once I had breathing room, I summoned up the usual Dragon of Chaos and Ancient Phoenix. Threw in one more Target, one EvilN, and a couple of heals.

I don't think I even used a Phantom Rune Mage for resurrection or Turn Back Time.

Seems like in conjunction with the strategies I used to beat Scrounger, Black Hole was the catalyst for victory.

I don't want to say it was "easy", as this game has a way of karmically biting me in the butt. :)

But, let's just say, I actually dug up all three treasure chests, ended up with 41 Rage and 127 Mana (out of 186). I definitely could have extended for max mana.

Black hole only did 4600-7600 damage, but the key was hurting the high profile units all together (Goblin Shaman: once Target ran out, or... let Goblin Shaman burn it away on Phantoms, Orc Chieftain would damage Rune Mages unless I used slow, Ogre would smash up things unless I stopped him).

When I tried to divide and conquer, Scrounger would merely Phantom up the other large stacks, even the sheeped stacks ala Rune Mages!

That said, I got Elkonium (the +30 mana) staff from the battle, but immediately afterwards, I got the legendary... Gloves of the Destroyer. Why? I dont' need two fo those darn things. Bleh. Bleh!!!!

I wonder if the game biases Scrounger's composite item based on class?

[ckdamascus]

So, I forgot I left two Gloves of the Destroyer on when I fought Samman. I still had all my nifty wanderer scroll buffs. Still only level 1 destruction. :)

You weren't kidding, atlatea.

Samman down in 3 rounds. He could not even get a single Armaggedon off.

[jake21]

So how many quests have people found? I seem to get exactly 92 everytime I play (steam version).

[ckdamascus]

So how many quests have people found? I seem to get exactly 92 everytime I play (steam version).

Yeah, I got 92. Somehow, unicornxp got 93. I'm not sure where I am missing it. :(

[atlatea]

That's why i prefer destruction mage, to me it's more easier, and probably more powerful, though in term of power, i think both are very close.

But one thing i love about destruction mage is it is very no brainer, i mean you don't even need to think about tactis and strategies, the only thing you need to think is how to open your book spell and then search for your black hole and make sure your mouse is working and then click that black hole, then just enjoy your time.

Yes, 6k dmg black hole is more than enough, even in impossible difficulty.

I think that is an advantage, even if it is very hard to recognize.

You can also black hole spam caretaker last 2 floor, he will go down just as easy as scrounger.

I guess this is the way of mage (in impossible difficulty), early game you rely on buff, debuff, early to mid you add summon to them, then late game you use destruction spells then use summon to finish the leftovers.

So how many quests have people found? I seem to get exactly 92 everytime I play (steam version).

I also got 92 in all my games. I played the retail version. I don't know how to get 93 quests.

[ckdamascus]

That's why i prefer destruction mage, to me it's more easier, and probably more powerful, though in term of power, i think both are very close.

But one thing i love about destruction mage is it is very no brainer, i mean you don't even need to think about tactis and strategies, the only thing you need to think is how to open your book spell and then search for your black hole and make sure your mouse is working and then click that black hole, then just enjoy your time.

Yes, 6k dmg black hole is more than enough, even in impossible difficulty.

I think that is an advantage, even if it is very hard to recognize.

You can also black hole spam caretaker last 2 floor, he will go down just as easy as scrounger.

I guess this is the way of mage (in impossible difficulty), early game you rely on buff, debuff, early to mid you add summon to them, then late game you use destruction spells then use summon to finish the leftovers.



I also got 92 in all my games. I played the retail version. I don't know how to get 93 quests.

Actually, in hindsight, I don't think I ever doubted the power of Black Hole. It really is the spell Death Star should have been.

My issue was the mana problems for smooth game play. I hate waiting after battle to restore mana or artificially prolonging battles to regain mana. So, as long as I use the summons for the easier battles, but the harder battles, Black Hole was definitely the choice.

It sort of makes Death Star and Armageddon obsolete. :(

I wonder if unicornxp could chime in the quest number thing.

[atlatea]

Well, if you have 2 crown of chaos, armageddon is better than black hole.

And armagedon still the most damaging mass target spell without any bonus from items. With items it will do 50% more dmg than black hole, probably more, i forgot about this.

One thing strange about armagedon is it deal astral dmg, but +fire spell dmg increase its dmg. If i remembered right, it is possible to reach more than 10k dmg with your armagedon by wearing necklace of firestorm + other similar items. Very scary if you ask me :)

Another way to use armagedon is using turn back time, but it is too mana consuming. But if i remembered right, someone actually found the correct items + skills + units to efficiently do armagedon+turn back time combo, i only remember what is the unit though. Yep, as you probably already guessed, it is the green dragons.

Hmm, if you use green dragons, i think it will solve your mana restoring problems.

KB TL armagedon is better i guess, because if i remembered right, when you use armagedon, you gather so much rage, then you can turn back time your green dragon, turn back time in TL is rage spirit ability, it is not too mana consuming as in AP/CW. But then again, there is a possibility that CW can provide 2 crown of chaos.

As for the quest, i give up.

[ckdamascus]

Well, if you have 2 crown of chaos, armageddon is better than black hole.

And armagedon still the most damaging mass target spell without any bonus from items. With items it will do 50% more dmg than black hole, probably more, i forgot about this.

One thing strange about armagedon is it deal astral dmg, but +fire spell dmg increase its dmg. If i remembered right, it is possible to reach more than 10k dmg with your armagedon by wearing necklace of firestorm + other similar items. Very scary if you ask me :)

Another way to use armagedon is using turn back time, but it is too mana consuming. But if i remembered right, someone actually found the correct items + skills + units to efficiently do armagedon+turn back time combo, i only remember what is the unit though. Yep, as you probably already guessed, it is the green dragons.

Hmm, if you use green dragons, i think it will solve your mana restoring problems.

KB TL armagedon is better i guess, because if i remembered right, when you use armagedon, you gather so much rage, then you can turn back time your green dragon, turn back time in TL is rage spirit ability, it is not too mana consuming as in AP/CW. But then again, there is a possibility that CW can provide 2 crown of chaos.

As for the quest, i give up.

I can check if Armageddon does more damage or not, since I have the scroll on my mage, just never learned it.

The manual does not indicate that the base damage increases with Fiery bonus items, but you are probably increasing the post damage of Armageddon though. Not sure, but I can test this later.

All I know is, with the two Gloves of the Destroyer (+40% damage), 61 intellect via Wanderer Scroll, I dealt over 15000 damage to a stack against Samman using Black Hole. Destruction Level 1. So, I "could" probably deal 18000 damage if i went with Destruction Level 3.

If I raised my base intellect even higher (I didn't go all intellect items), I can probably do even more. Fairly certain my hero already had enough stuff to easily get 61 intellect without the scroll...

I didn't bother since, the black hole does enough damage, and I would hate the post battling and mana management.

However, there are times for absolute damage.

Although, I wonder... Calm Rage and Black Hole against the bosses? Hmmm.

[edit]
For initial damage, Armaggedon does a little more damage on the minimum, but Black Hole does more damage on the maximum.

At 51 intellect, two Gloves of the Destroyer, destruction level 3
Black Hole - 5076-8460
Armageddon - 5415-8120

I also added a Fire Bracelet to do a quick test, it did not change Armageddon's initial damage at all. Again, it will probably increase the post effect.

Armageddon's "post-status burn" will probably have it net to MORE damage over time than Black Hole. Black Hole can be used with a full army, Armageddon cannot.

I would definitely say it depends on your preferences in combat.

At about 76 intellect (I used Wanderer Scroll for this), dual Gloves of the Destroyer, Black Hole's maximum damage is 17,100.
Armageddon at 16,415

I can actually get another +4 intellect which would put me at 80 intellect, but I am too lazy to do the battle right now to upgrade to an archmage staff.. It would probably push me into the final breakpoint, giving me another 15%, and yet another 5*4=20%, so 35% more.

I hypothesize
17,100 *1.35 = 23,085 damage on the top end at 80 intellect, dual gloves of the destroyer.

All of a sudden, it might be possible to destroy Baal with Black Hole.... HMMMMM.

[atlatea]

Hmm, i guess that it is in TL then that armageddon damage is increased with +fire item, but its damage is not the 4 elements listed, TL is the same as AP, astral damage and resistance is not listed in the description though they exist.

Right, after i check again, black hole have more max dmg while armagedon have more min dmg, but yeah, the post dmg of armagedon probably able to make armagedon do more dmg in the long run since it is 100% burn, except to burn immune creatures.

My brother said that if hagrid (companion from CoTA) is available in the OotM, it is possible to kill baal with black hole using ancient ent + hagrid and couple of other items.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

I don't know what to do.

I'm lvl 28 now and have been using a full army up to now, still don't have any powerful destruction spells :rolleyes:

two choices: all dragon army or inq,mages,paladins,rune mage and RDragon....

normally cast target and stoneskin on RD
heal and ancient phoenix turn 2

then just repeat or w/e and it's getting a bit boring.

Obviously I love the game :cool:

[ckdamascus]

I don't know what to do.

I'm lvl 28 now and have been using a full army up to now, still don't have any powerful destruction spells :rolleyes:

two choices: all dragon army or inq,mages,paladins,rune mage and RDragon....

normally cast target and stoneskin on RD
heal and ancient phoenix turn 2

then just repeat or w/e and it's getting a bit boring.

Obviously I love the game :cool:

If you have Level 3 Summoning and Dragon of Chaos, this is what I normally did.

Round 1: Oil Mist + Ancient Phoenix (or Dragon of Chaos)
Round 2: Oil mist again or some other de-buff, and Ancient Phoenix (or Dragon of Chaos).

The Summons would do the initial hits, my Black Dragon would hit whoever could no longer retaliate. Red Dragons would follow up as well.

Rune Mages always had at least 17 runes (or 18?) to get Sheep. I split the Rune Mage stacks into two so I could increase the odds of inflicting sheep.

So my primary army was Black Dragons, Red Dragons, and dual stack Rune Mages. I beat the game with about 34% damage total from Ancient Phoenixes. :)

I occasionally had Shaman guest-star as my 5th slot. For the really hard battles, I slapped in the obligatory Black Knights. :)

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

If you have Level 3 Summoning and Dragon of Chaos, this is what I normally did.

Round 1: Oil Mist + Ancient Phoenix (or Dragon of Chaos)
Round 2: Oil mist again or some other de-buff, and Ancient Phoenix (or Dragon of Chaos).

The Summons would do the initial hits, my Black Dragon would hit whoever could no longer retaliate. Red Dragons would follow up as well.

Rune Mages always had at least 17 runes (or 18?) to get Sheep. I split the Rune Mage stacks into two so I could increase the odds of inflicting sheep.

So my primary army was Black Dragons, Red Dragons, and dual stack Rune Mages. I beat the game with about 34% damage total from Ancient Phoenixes. :)

I occasionally had Shaman guest-star as my 5th slot. For the really hard battles, I slapped in the obligatory Black Knights. :)

Well that would save me cadstin target and stone skin. My beloved mages and inq's would have to be fired though.

I might just finish of Montero then fly around all theisland collecting crystal as my (dragon of chaos) isonly lvl1 and summon lvl 0 atm.

ta muchly for the tip :cool:

[jake21]

So after finishing a couple of no loss games on impossible I decided to play on easy. Easy is pretty easy.

[ckdamascus]

Well that would save me cadstin target and stone skin. My beloved mages and inq's would have to be fired though.

I might just finish of Montero then fly around all theisland collecting crystal as my (dragon of chaos) isonly lvl1 and summon lvl 0 atm.

ta muchly for the tip :cool:

Well, it works a lot better if you have Belt of the Victor though.

Ideally you want to get a fair amount of defensive items too to keep the Summons alive longer. Int is good, but you probably want a mixture of defense and mana. Being able to re-summon immediately after one of the summons dies is huge since they can act in the same turn as summoned.

The Ancient Phoenix can help resurrect rune mages and red dragons, but not the black dragons.

Rune mages resurrect the black dragons if needed.

You keep re-casting either summon to keep doing damage and they tend to draw a lot of aggro.

@jake21
Haha, yeah I can't imagine playing it on easy now. I wonder if I could take out the bosses with just Black Hole. :) It might almost seem fun to try hmmm.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Because I haven't used an offensive spell in years what do you suggest? I need an area spell. I never bothered with Armageddon or Geyser in the original game and i've seen Death Star....

Is a spell that does Astral damage the best then? Soul Drain was excellent in KB:grin:

[ckdamascus]

Because I haven't used an offensive spell in years what do you suggest? I need an area spell. I never bothered with Armageddon or Geyser in the original game and i've seen Death Star....

Is a spell that does Astral damage the best then? Soul Drain was excellent in KB:grin:

For area effect,

Black Hole is the best, hands down.
Geyser is really good though.

Armageddon does a LOT of damage, and is close to Black Hole (but it does burning though), but it hurts yourself.

Well, soul drain is not area effect in crossworlds. :(

Not sure on the others. Fireball and fire rain all seemed really inefficient for damage. I'm just too used to insane damage and the fact that you have to properly target those spells, doesn't seem so great.

If you have a lot of targets, black hole clearly does the most aggregate damage.

However, one of the most mana efficient spells for the damage it does is... kamikaze! Too bad it is semi-tricky to use. Basically, use it on a disposable summon, let the summon get surrounded.. and.. bam. :)

[atlatea]

Fire rain depends on how high your int in early game.

If by any luck, you can get to 30 int at verona, it can be useful.

However i rate ice snake and lightning better than fire rain, ice snake is like mass slow (if you manage to score it), and lightning is also super mass slow for only 1 turn.

Lightning also good againts droids and dwarves.

They're indeed inferior to geyser and black hole, but believe me, most of the time i spent on mage class is with destruction mage build, trust me that those three are not that bad even in impossible difficulty (yeah, i said impossible difficulty and i'm not joking), in some cases you better cast them than black hole or geyser.

It also depends on your units though, if you use mostly crowd controler units, then those three is useful, especially ice snake and lightning.

As for fireball, this one is indeed suck.

[jake21]

ckdamascus - have you gone back and figured out where the 93'rd quest came from ?

[ckdamascus]

ckdamascus - have you gone back and figured out where the 93'rd quest came from ?

I have not, although I am best equipped to do so as I have saved games from both, and can write it all down and cross reference them. Poo. Not fun. Haha.

[bucazaurus]

Complete List of Quests:

Teana:
The Prophecy: Stones of the Gods
Journey to Teana

Debir:
Trading License
Amulet of Illumination
Snakes on the Loose!
Revenge upon Lady Magnet
Monster from the Abyss
The Hungry Beast
- Demenion's Spy
Preparing for Travel
Curvy Eyes the Robber
Training in the Warriors Guild
-Secrets of the Warriors of Light
-Secrets of the Martial Arts
-Secrets of the Magical Arts
-The Tower of Eventus
-Admission to the Military Academy
-Red Scrounger and the March of the Orcs

Scarlet Wind:
Goodman's Last Ambush.
Recruiter Hector Norbu
Richard the Cruel
The Fallen Paladin
Contraband Searcher
- The Efforts of Master Lothar

Bolo:
Run-away Erica
Destroy the Ancient Droid
Unruly Axe
Vengeance of Egerd the Toothless
Barbarian Hall of Fame
Barbarian Thrasher

Rusty Anchor:
The Grinskin Gang
Swill Antidote
Bottled Conscience
Mercenaries for Sohaty

Verona:
Demenion's Secret
Storm the Fortress of Bristol
King's Bride
Liberate the Duke of Delaware
Traveling for Beer

Tekron:
Gemstone Mines
Spirits of the Temple of Sorrow
Secret of the Superlative Soap
Submarine
Treasures of the Abyss
Dragon – Terror of the Dwarves

Dersu:
Starving Dersu-Kumatu
The Power of the Temple of Joy
Bagouri's Love
The Giant Spider
Glasses for Old Bobur

Uzala:
Rapasol's Nightmare
Defeat the Giant Frog
Traveler's Diary
Griida's Guile
Hunting Brontor

Elon:
Mirror Tower
Shenobi's Burial
Falling Star Je-Lo-Pi
Traitor Zilgadis
Storm the Elven Capital!
Master of Magic
Chief Shenobi, son of Uchkuk
Lew Klisan's Soul

Umkas:
Owl of Wisdom
Pirate Treasure
The Poacher

Nameless:
Disciple of Mistikus
Grimoire of Darkness
Message from the Dead
Treasure of Jack Albatross
Vegetarian Vampire
The Statue of the Dark Warrior

Montero:
The Devious Plan of the Hagni Family
Levers and Gears
Vengeance of the Sober Miners
Crazy Miner
Free Giraks, King of the dwarves!
Destroy the Driller
Necromancer Mesmer
The Power of the Three Kings
The Terrible Study of Necromancy

Sheterra:
Plight of the Slave
Demon in Stone
Release Hephaestus
Hunting the Vampire
Skinner, the Mad Tanner
Lord of Sheterra
- Deliver Arian's Order

Reha:
K'Sar's memory
Champion of the Arena of Death
Singing Dagger
Traitor to the Tribe
A Message from Shionis
Downfall of K'Tahu
The Red Branch
Secrets of the Temple

[ckdamascus]

Hm. I counted your list, and it shows 94, however, we must remove two of them since you cannot get all of the

-Secrets of the Warriors of Light
-Secrets of the Martial Arts
-Secrets of the Magical Arts

quests, which would lead to 92.

I'm at a loss, since it clearly says 93 on my side and I didn't use any cheats.

Maybe it is a bug.

I did get 92 with my other class.

[Zechnophobe]

Orcs on the March is a much more.. challenging thing to do no-loss. The new orc units are surprisingly good at making you lose pretty much anything. They REALLY like to do astral damage.

A lot of the same strategies ultimately work, but there are substantially more 'problem' creatures to face. Goblin Shamans and Blood Shamans, for instance. Both Ogres are noticeably more annoying.

I do like that they've added Fauns. Makes that plant army much much more viable.

We'll see how things change when we get to the end game. I am doing no loss impossible(mage) using the Dragon Army right now (I had black dragons on Rusty, and 8 red dragon's on Verona... how can you NOT do that?).

Level 24, and going strong. Had to do a few reloads when I kept doing stupid stuff against orcs though. One turn without Target-controlling bunch of shamans, and they ripped my units to pieces. So ridiculous.

[jake21]

You can also only do one of :
Griida's Guile
Hunting Brontor
-
so that would be 91

Hm. I counted your list, and it shows 94, however, we must remove two of them since you cannot get all of the

-Secrets of the Warriors of Light
-Secrets of the Martial Arts
-Secrets of the Magical Arts

quests, which would lead to 92.

I'm at a loss, since it clearly says 93 on my side and I didn't use any cheats.

Maybe it is a bug.

I did get 92 with my other class.

[ckdamascus]

Orcs on the March is a much more.. challenging thing to do no-loss. The new orc units are surprisingly good at making you lose pretty much anything. They REALLY like to do astral damage.

A lot of the same strategies ultimately work, but there are substantially more 'problem' creatures to face. Goblin Shamans and Blood Shamans, for instance. Both Ogres are noticeably more annoying.

I do like that they've added Fauns. Makes that plant army much much more viable.

We'll see how things change when we get to the end game. I am doing no loss impossible(mage) using the Dragon Army right now (I had black dragons on Rusty, and 8 red dragon's on Verona... how can you NOT do that?).

Level 24, and going strong. Had to do a few reloads when I kept doing stupid stuff against orcs though. One turn without Target-controlling bunch of shamans, and they ripped my units to pieces. So ridiculous.

Yeah, Orcs are ridiculously strong. Once you learn how to deal with them, it isn't too bad. The item distribution of Crossworld's tends to make it easier to do certain combinations, so the no-loss should be just as achievable (heck, even I can do it!) or sometimes easier. (sometimes...) :)

At least you get some better spells, like Black Hole!

Also, Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos are SIGNIFICANTLY improved.

If you think the roaming Orc stacks right now are hard, wait until you face one of the new Orc Heroines.... Scrounger.

Yeah, one time I didn't disable, or phantom, or target against the Scrounger army... my entire army was wiped out in a single turn.

@jake21, I'll do the official count from my saved game. Should be done by tonight.

VERY troubling. I manually wrote all the quests down, it adds up to 92. Yet, my high score says 93. I guess it is another bug. :(

[atlatea]

Most annoying orc unit is ogre.

Shamans can be disabled by target or other disable spell/ unit talent/skill.

But this ogre, i hate them the most of all unit, second only to black dragon in my list of most hated unit.

[ckdamascus]

Most annoying orc unit is ogre.

Shamans can be disabled by target or other disable spell/ unit talent/skill.

But this ogre, i hate them the most of all unit, second only to black dragon in my list of most hated unit.

You mean you don't like it when they do the little dance, then proceed to run across the entire map to smash your units?

Then, they go into a rage, and smash up more units? :)

I found ways to deal with them, but they are undoubtedly very annoying.

If you can't beat them, join them! I used Ogres in my last playthrough, mwhaha. Take that evil computer. Take a dose of the its own porc medicine! :)

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

ffs

bloody frog boss and his poison spit area damage :rolleyes:

[ckdamascus]

ffs

bloody frog boss and his poison spit area damage :rolleyes:

Yeah, he used to piss me off too because of the poison effect. I'm not really sure what I am doing differently now though, but lately I have had no real problems with him as he rarely uses it on me now.

I think if you do enough damage and/or leave enough "sacrificial" units to bait him into attacking instead of Area of Effect, he will not use it as much?

Also, if you do enough damage, he will change positions instead of spitting.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=10991

[Zechnophobe]

Yeah, Orcs are ridiculously strong. Once you learn how to deal with them, it isn't too bad. The item distribution of Crossworld's tends to make it easier to do certain combinations, so the no-loss should be just as achievable (heck, even I can do it!) or sometimes easier. (sometimes...) :)

At least you get some better spells, like Black Hole!

Also, Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos are SIGNIFICANTLY improved.

If you think the roaming Orc stacks right now are hard, wait until you face one of the new Orc Heroines.... Scrounger.

Yeah, one time I didn't disable, or phantom, or target against the Scrounger army... my entire army was wiped out in a single turn.

@jake21, I'll do the official count from my saved game. Should be done by tonight.

VERY troubling. I manually wrote all the quests down, it adds up to 92. Yet, my high score says 93. I guess it is another bug. :(

The number of 'danger' units really increased with orcs on the march. Y'know, the units you often need to give special attention to. Blood Shamans and Goblin Shamans are both.. ugh. Heck even normal Goblins can be incredibly annoying if they double attack... or triple attack in a single round.

[Zechnophobe]

Well, IMHO, this is a bug. Shackle should function by Intellect, just like Hypnotize does, not Leadership. I mean, it makes no sense. No other spell is influenced by Leadership then, just this one?

I think I'll do a mod (or just edit the spell.txt) because frankly, this I feel is not right.


You will find it doesn't work that well. Army size is much more mutable than intellect. You'll either always be able to shackle early game, and not at all late game, or some other extreme. Or make it unbalanced and useless if you do NOT focus on Intellect.

[ckdamascus]

The number of 'danger' units really increased with orcs on the march. Y'know, the units you often need to give special attention to. Blood Shamans and Goblin Shamans are both.. ugh. Heck even normal Goblins can be incredibly annoying if they double attack... or triple attack in a single round.

Triple? I've seen it attack FIVES times in a row. Reload time. :)

Yeah, they are annoying. In my warrior (Shrek Ogre) game, I didn't get Target until I went to fight Mistikus and dug it up. :) So... I basically didn't have Target. :)

I dealt with them by using sheer firepower and Drain or occasionally throwing in blind.

If you don't have a very powerful strategy, it is extremely tough.

I also didn't need Target much, if at all for my Mage (Summoner Build) either. A part of it is also because the buff in 1.3.1 for rune mage's summons makes my "sacrificial lambs" much stronger against the astral attacks and I can revive much more.

[Zechnophobe]

So, I just tried out the level 3 Chaos Dragon... :cool:

That thing is a *monster*. Especially with 45 intellect. I need to grab order 3 now (something I rarely do) just to see what the ancient phoenix is like. The area fire damage plus 3 tile knockback on the chaos dragon is one HECK of a thing. And it always survives the first hit... I didn't even have the summoner skill.

I can see how these new rare summons could make such an army 'work'. VERY mana intensive though :(.

[ckdamascus]

So, I just tried out the level 3 Chaos Dragon... :cool:

That thing is a *monster*. Especially with 45 intellect. I need to grab order 3 now (something I rarely do) just to see what the ancient phoenix is like. The area fire damage plus 3 tile knockback on the chaos dragon is one HECK of a thing. And it always survives the first hit... I didn't even have the summoner skill.

I can see how these new rare summons could make such an army 'work'. VERY mana intensive though :(.

Heh, try it out with 72+ intellect. :) Dragon of Chaos can withstand Ogre stacks, and this isn't even counting the Power of Chaos ability (always has one HP)! Although you probably need Belt of the Victor to withstand this.

I'm not a huge tile knockback fan. I'll use it if I know the retaliation will hurt me badly, but I hate not being able to critical. :) It is still very good to have though. Throw in oil mist though....

Actually, that was how I was able to do my speed run. I blitz for Order level 3 and get as many mana items to reach 35 mana. I also go for transmute and max summoner skill asap. I move towards level 3 distortion for... Oil Mist. I rarely cast Stone Skin at all in that entire game. :)

The Ancient Phoenix is the same as in 1.3.0, no new change in 1.3.1. Just in case you didn't know though, they can resurrect units now.

All summons since 1.3.0 benefit from intellect scaling now.

Once you get the mana though, it usually pays itself off through transmute. Sure, I can't use mana spring anymore but eh. :)

[Zechnophobe]

Oil mist is indeed one of the best spells in the game. Especially cast on Demons!

The knockback can help move units into position for other units to combo against, such as dragons. Crit is nice, but no retaliation can be nicer!

Even before the summoner upgrade, Phoenix in the early game was a pretty solid tank. It'll be cool to see how that improves with the substantial stat/health increase they have.

[ckdamascus]

Oil mist is indeed one of the best spells in the game. Especially cast on Demons!

The knockback can help move units into position for other units to combo against, such as dragons. Crit is nice, but no retaliation can be nicer!

Even before the summoner upgrade, Phoenix in the early game was a pretty solid tank. It'll be cool to see how that improves with the substantial stat/health increase they have.

Yeah, the damage boost and debuff morale effect is huge.

Regarding early tank, true! It was good for the early game, but it tapered off later on. Now with the 1.3.0 int/stat adjustment, the Phoenix can work until the end of the game. Did you see my end game stats?

Ancient Phoenix 32% Damage
Dragon of Chaos 20.5% Damage
Black Dragon 16.2% Damage...

:)

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

The chaos dragon doesn't do much damage though forme at cost 60 mana, which is ridiculous. The HP are about 2785 which can easily be killed by an enenmy unit.

'Belt of victor' hmmm I may have destroyed that earlier lol

[ckdamascus]

The chaos dragon doesn't do much damage though forme at cost 60 mana, which is ridiculous. The HP are about 2785 which can easily be killed by an enenmy unit.

'Belt of victor' hmmm I may have destroyed that earlier lol

Short answer: Play 1.3.1.

Dragon of Chaos sucks in 1.3.0, and I whine about it a lot on these forums.

Long answer: 1.3.1 - Dragon of Chaos is better than sliced bread and here i why.

The stats I list are a little unfair because it consider this
- 79 intellect (I had to equip more Gloves of the Destroyer so I could use Black Hole against Baal and Friends) (this boost the power, as demonstrated in the other screen shot)
- Fighting in Fiery terrain gives the Dragon of Chaos a big defense boost (about +30 defense?)
- Belt of the Victor gives another big boost (about +30 defense?)

45 mana. Can take INFINITE damage for the first hit, and will ALWAYS have 1 HP remaining. Afterwards, it will die.

It will ALWAYS regenerate 30% of its HP, IF it starts off with 10% HP left.

So it can solo weaker stacks, no problem.

So, Dragon of Chaos vs ... Spider Boss.

If I have 4462 HP, and I take 4300 damage. I still have my "invincibility". If I survive to the next round, since I have 162 HP left, which is LESS than the 10% max hp threshold of 446 HP, I will regenerate back to 1338 HP which is 30% of my max HP.

Next round, I take 4300 damage, this will make me use my "invincibility", and take me down to 1 HP.

Next round, I have 1 HP which is LESS than 446 HP, I will regenerate back to 1338 HP.

Bosses always do the same damage even if they are "weakened". But, normal stacks do not. So over time, the Dragon of Chaos can annihilate weaker stacks if you can re-cast it over and over since in those situations, the Dragon of Chaos will NOT be taking 4300 damage.

Not to mention, the Dragon of Chaos would never take that much damage, even with the poison weakeness. His defense stat is so high, and Spider Boss attack is so relatively low, but I only did it to illustrate a point.

As for dealing damage, I can land for 3000-6000 damage. That isn't too bad considering it is "no retaliation" and it is AoE.

When I attack, my max base damage is 1100 damage. So, that means I can hit for about 3300 damage as a dragon (which means I can shoot-through), I always do the same damage, even if I am weakened or Halved by a Archdemon. If I crit, I can do up to 4950 damage, if I use oil mist, I can go up to 25% more damage (Dragon of Chaos now does 50% Astral and 50% Fire damage).

[atlatea]

Too bad it doesn't have original model or cooler model. I hate bone dragon model.

[Zechnophobe]

One more thing I feel I should mention. I don't know at what POINT this becomes true, or if it is always true, but a level 3 Oil Mist makes skeleton archers deal 0 damage when they shoot. I thought that was pretty hilarious. Might need high INT for it though.

[ckdamascus]

One more thing I feel I should mention. I don't know at what POINT this becomes true, or if it is always true, but a level 3 Oil Mist makes skeleton archers deal 0 damage when they shoot. I thought that was pretty hilarious. Might need high INT for it though.

I've seen a few enemies do 0 damage to me upon hitting.

Seems like the damage reduction is static: independent of int!

70% damage reduction. So, perhaps a bit of luck and +60 defense (or possibly less) over their attack.

If they roll a 2 for damage hmmm that is 0.6 after the 70% reduction. It should round up, but if you got +60 defense that would be

0.6 * 1/3 or 0.2 damage? Ouch.

If we need to hit 0.4 damage, we need to do 66% damage reduction? So MAYBE +20 defense AND a lucky roll of them doing 2 damage.

Or, if they roll 3 damage

3 * 0.3 = 0.9... 1/3 of 0.9 would also achieve this hm.

Eh, so basically decently high defense over their attack rating will ensure it in most cases. :)

[torquemada]

I'm currently playing mage/impossible at level 35.
I've found that getting the free emerald dragon early makes a whole lot of difference. I am such a fan of dragons, I got lucky and found 4 black ones at rusty anchor and 3 red ones at verona. If you play carefully it's quite easy to get no loss victories. My current setup is: Black dragons, red dragons, paladins, rune mages, demonologists. I try to do as much damage with my dragons as I can while getting as little damage in return (wait command, abilities, fear/slow, damaging strong stacks by attacking the weaker adjacent one). I use lvl 3 heal alot on my reds but I need to be extra careful with the black ones though, but they can be healed and even resurrected by the rune mages, don't know if any other ability can heal black dragons (maybe shamans?).
Currently this setup is owning the battlefield.

[Fatt_Shade]

Dragons have since begining of KB been sick units, and in CW with proper items thay are even more ridiculous (ancient ring , hearth of dragon, draconix, and voice of dragon skill 3rd lvl).
But my question here is this : Why paladins ??? Rune mage i get for resurecting, demonologist for meat shields (both this units are great for mage hero with archmage skill), but paladins cant second wind dragons, or resurrect them, so i wonde how do they help in battles ? Low speed, to high lds requirement for mage to stack them up...
Better bring Emerald dragons instead if you have some of items i mentioned. They are great for building trap medal, and generating huge amounts of mana with their skill.
As for healing black dragons use gizmo spell, it owrks on them, but it`s uncontrolable :-( Best chanse to heal them, is to cast gizmo on free arena lsot next to them instead enemy unit.

[slashCo]

Hi all, I've just recently started playing the Orcs on the March campaign, which is also my first time going through KB:AP. So far it's quite a bit harder than KB:TL, though maybe I need to get used to it. A lot of enemy stacks are rated "lethal" or "invincible", and even with the weaker ones I need to be very careful to get through with minimal losses - and this is on Normal difficulty. What is it with these European development studios and making ultra-hard games?

A couple of things I've noticed - is it me or are orcs stupidly overpowered now? Every single orc unit has like 2-3 special abilities that are just devastating. Was this done on purpose?

Also, everyone seems to be raving about mages, I guess they're the most powerful class? I chose paladin and I think I ended up a weak jack-of-all-trades.

Another thing I noticed browsing these forums is that there are a few "cheap" strategies and overpowered units that will get you through the game, while playing in a "conventional" way (aka, the way a normal player would) is much harder. To me, this is a sign of poor design, but maybe I'm wrong?

[Fatt_Shade]

@slashCo
1) On normal diff enemy shouldnt be so much stronger then your army (playing paladin class you have enough runes for glory, and try to play at least enough no loss battles to get medal (+1000lds). It`s not that european studios make hard games, it`s american studios made your players soft :-)

2) Yea orcs are a bit op in OotM, and their abilities are good if you have much adrenaline. So if you want to use them warrior would be better choice, because orcs need much adrenaline to be useful. Enemy orcs stacks are problematic since they start every battle with lots adrenalin and you must build it from first round :-(

3) Mage is strong but not strongest hero. Every class have it`s perks, and for your paladin i get you dont care about losses in game, so you pick good. Try using some demon/executioner (unlimited retaliation) as meat shield/rage generator because paladin resurrection skill will get them back after battle.

4) About as you call it cheap play throughs for no loss game etc. it`s not that common as you`ll think. Yes there are quite a bit of them, but they all become boring after some time (imagine playing all game 300+ battles with same units/moves/spells/rage . . .).
I maybe speak for myself but those strategies are interesting to get to, be first to figure out new way to use some tactic in game and share with rest of forum (just check thread `droids are NOT overpowered` by impy for example) not to play all game till your eyes bleed so you can have some sick highscore. Because here multiplayer doesnt exist, so only way to compare with others is sharing your ideas, which got us to some great strategies/mods/unit builds. So i think it`s not poor design, but open options for trying out every combination you can think off in game and normal play through is enough to familiarize yourself with game mechanic unit/item/skill possibilities . . .
So try out different builds and maybe think of something new :-)

[slashCo]

Thanks for the answers. I've already cleared out the first few islands and now I'm working my way through Verona (though staying away from the level 40 heroes for now, heh heh.) Recently got Resurrection (both skill and spell) which is making things somewhat easier. Currently using paladins, royal griffins, rune mages and inquisitors - not sure what to put in 5th slot, I used to have bowmen but they die too quickly since every enemy loves to target them. Maybe Cyclops? I wanted to have veteran orcs for my main tank, but I've only found about 10 of them for hire so far.

The only thing still pissing me off are the overpowered orcs. They gave them too many powerful abilities, IMO. Is there a spell/item/creature that lowers their adrenaline or something?

[Fatt_Shade]

You can take horseman instead veterans, theyll make nice human set for high morale with royal griffins, and have great lds/dmg ratio, also great starting ressistances (cast stone skin on them, and have fun :-) Also if you find later try some mix human+elf humanoid units, they should have bonus moral from eachother.
For tanking demonologist is great (his summons), if you manage to find enough to lead.

[torquemada]

But my question here is this : Why paladins ??? Rune mage i get for resurecting, demonologist for meat shields (both this units are great for mage hero with archmage skill), but paladins cant second wind dragons, or resurrect them, so i wonde how do they help in battles ? Low speed, to high lds requirement for mage to stack them up...


I replaced my emerald dragon for paladins because I couldn't find anymore for sale but I found out that second wind works great on demonologist because it advances their summoning recharge counter by one. Also having a tank unit that can be resurrected with the resurrect spell is pretty good.

[Fatt_Shade]

You dont need to buy any units after finding sacrifice spell. I odnt reember who figured it out, so i dont take credit for myself but this is on forum somewhere :
cast sacrifice on some you your units to get other stack biger, then resurect first stack with rune mages/turn back time on them. Be carefull about your leadership , not to get to much new units in stack you want to boost. Even 1 lvl sacrifice is usefull, but you must know you need enough dmg to get at elast 1 whole unit (870 hp for EGD). Having high astral resisstance will help resurecting, in way that you make lowered dmg you your units with sacrifice (astral type dmg), but still full resurecting count as you did 100% dmg with spell. I hope you get what i`m saying. Try it out in game you`ll figrue out how it works. So drop those paladins and go dragon army :-)

[torquemada]

Why did I say I was level 35 !? When I was only like lvl 15, oh well. I found more emerald dragons, Elon <3

Ran out on demonologists so replaced them with inquisitors

[slashCo]

They should add an extra difficulty level between Easy and Normal... I found Normal too difficult so I restarted on Easy and now every enemy is a pushover and nothing is a challenge... better balancing might have helped.

[Shadowcran]

Why don't you get the green dragon from Rusty anchor and use it as a tank, that will help.

I got access to the first 4 quite early on by kiteing and even have the map for Tekron at lvl 17. Goblin sharmans destroy my army on Verona lol how the HELL! do you deal with there astral attack!
Don't know if this was answered but here goes:

Magic Shackles for one. Especially at level 2 as they effect all of a certain level or lower. Bye bye astral attacks. There are several items that have you some resistance to Astral as well...good luck getting them with random,lol.

I use the basic early creatures to a certain level. I also use the kite the stone trick on Bolo. Then I try to get(and always do)

1. Paladins. I keep them back for defense, second wind and their resurrection which is MORE POWERFUL THAN INQUISITOR, demonologist and spell.
2. Inquisitors. Same reason as I did in Legend
3. Royal Griffins. Even if I don't find any griffin buffs, they're still exploitable with Phantom and their constant counter attacks. I tend to send them close(but not too close) to enemy lines, summon phantom, make angelic guards, then use them to get chests.
4. Archmages- For some reason, I always get items that enhance them. Always doing a critical makes them more than dangerous and I always get that item. You can also use them at the academies to make:
5. Demonologists. Sometimes you only find one set or none. That's where Archmages being converted comes in.

Until you get demonologists, I tend to use the Druids.