magic recipes... exploit?

[asmutny]

as you know, the magic recipes allow you to create artifacts assuming you have the necessary ingredients.
so far, I have 5 recipes: silver rapier, crystal ball, scale shield (part of Scale set), leaky cup (part of Ancient Mage set) and levitation boots.
thing is, the recipes can be reused infinitely (I have build 6245, patched to 6246 but not restarted, so maybe it was changed there). created artifacts can be sold, but it's not worth it. they can be destroyed, but it's not worth it. or is it? certainly there are more recipes in the game worth to work on a little bit, but so far I can only do it wth the Silver Rapier. it costs 4 magic crystals, 40 mana and 40k gold. when destroyed, it gives you 4 MC so you only lose gold. but... this artefact can be UPGRADED! what it means? it means fighting the keepers = gold and exp for you. and then it can be destroyed and there it gets interesting. destroyed, it gives you randomly: 6 MC or 2 mind runes or 2 might runes or 2 magic runes! basically, for a little gold you always gain at least 2 magic crystal. or 2 runes for the price of 40k, 4 MC and a fight with keepers. this way, you can probably get to max level and get a lot of runes to even maybe get all skills from all the 3 skill trees quite early in the game (for me, I'm lvl 40 and just found out that Eric joined forces with Guilford).
of course, it has its price to pay... it takes really long time to do so. lots of fights with keepers to get enough exp for leveling (still, it gives ca. 2000 exp per fight). you have to make sure you are strong enough to make it. my Soothsayer does ca. 5200-6000 dmg with lvl 3 blizzard and has 160 mana, so it helps a lot. the enemy is random, but always demon and undead: necro, black knight, vamp, demoness, demon, executioner, scoffer imp and gremlins have between 5500 and 15000 HP.
also, the scale shield has Use perk and it gives you a green dragon. so if you like this unit and want it badly, just create this artefact. btw, the Scale set is 3-part, so maybe the other parts of set give you different kinds of dragons?
this thing is for patient people, obviously, but if some are willing to go for no loss and endlessly repeat every battle to achieve it, then certainly some may be interested with this magic recipes trick.

[tiberiu]

Yes, this is known. This should be fixed in a later patch. But it probably will not because most players like these kinds of exploits.

[Bunnle]

Well from my experience, the Silver Rapier upgrade is the hardest upgrade in the game as far as I know. The Gremlin towers have 12k-13k health I believe. And there are a ton of undead units to combat. Stacks of 500 ghosts and 200 undead knights amongst others.

I was able to upgrade a level 4 artifact to level 5 a lot easier than this particular level 3 rapier, and I only managed to do so at a much higher level. So this exploit may only appeal to people who have reached late game. And by the time you reach late game the desire for runes and magic crystals isn't all that high. But your mileage may vary.

[asmutny]

well, I'm level 45 now and never been in danger of losing that fight. gremlins' HP varies from fight to fight and stacks of monsters can be randomly numerous. it really is a tough fight sometimes, but now it's always a no loss for me. It seems you need a proper kind of hero and army. Soothsayer has the biggest advantage, imo, thanks to his large mana pool, ability to replenish it during battle, offensive spells (blizzard, geyser, fireball), his soothsayer ability lets him cast six times 2 spells in a round, with artefacts adding to the spell effectivenes he can deal huge damage to the enemy. mixing combat spells with some auxiliary ones, like fear, slow, magic shackles, even sheep or pygmy, you can wipe them out quite easily. your army is also important. I have 6 black dragons and 7 ice dragons, both magic resistant, nice initiative, long distance flyers. Ice dragons have 'create minions' ability, great stuff, serves as a tank on battlefield. after killing off an enemy the ice dragon can reuse this ability to replenish the number of minions to original state or recast a new one if the previous one is dead. I wouldn't be surprised to see stronger gremlins and more numerous monsters as I'm leveling up, but the gremlins never attack my dragons, unless being attacked themselves and the damage they deal is ridiculously low. rage skills (christas gold, ice wall, lava golem) serve as a distraction to the enemy, the dragons can simply ran away from enemy to the opposite end of the battlefield, and when mana is low, even spells like flaming arrow or magic missile deal 2k damage for the price of 5 mana only.
but I agree that for other classes it may be much more difficult.
a pity that armageddon deals damage to dragons too, this spell would be a massacrating tool to quickly finish the battle.

[Fatt_Shade]

of course, it has its price to pay... it takes really long time to do so. lots of fights with keepers to get enough exp for leveling (still, it gives ca. 2000 exp per fight).
There was bug in KB-tL where if you have Tactical manual item for +10% battle exp and it lose moral and you keep it in slot not remove it in inventory, after you suppress it in battle it stay on 0 moral and you can do this infinitely. But there battle gave around 400 exp per battle. So this isn`t first time something like this happened.
But my opinion is that rage exp is more important here then hero because hero exp is certain 2000 as you said, but rage exp can be changed if you fight item with minimal army, thus making your/enemy lds ratio high = more exp for Valkyries.

[asmutny]

But my opinion is that rage exp is more important here then hero because hero exp is certain 2000 as you said, but rage exp can be changed if you fight item with minimal army, thus making your/enemy lds ratio high = more exp for Valkyries.

I agree. still, as a Soothsayer I don't really rely too much on rage skills, since my spells pretty much wipe out enemies in few rounds, even with enemy armies marked as invincible compared to my 13 dragons forces. :grin::grin: