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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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...

Try dersu.

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

No map yet :(

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.

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

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.

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 :(

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.

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.

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:

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.

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. :)

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:.

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).

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

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. :(

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

farce

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+.

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. :)

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.

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:


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.

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.

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. :(

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.

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 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. :)

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

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.

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.

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.


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).

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.... :)

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! :)

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?.


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.

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?

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.

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. :(

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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:

So after finishing a couple of no loss games on impossible I decided to play on easy. Easy is pretty easy.

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

You can also only do one of :
Griida's Guile
Hunting Brontor
-
so that would be 91

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. :(

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! :)

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

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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...

:)

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).

Too bad it doesn't have original model or cooler model. I hate bone dragon model.

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. :)

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.

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.

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?

@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 :-)

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?

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.

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.

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 :-)

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

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.