Question about the one invisible green dragon tactic

[jynki]

I was wondering if someone could explain this tactic? (Clinek wrote this in another post):

Round 1. Cast invisibility, then armageddon. Get close to your enemies and defend

Round 2, cast some low level spell on the enemy the wait. Once all of the enemies have used up thier turn, use time back on the dragons, the go use the mana sucking ability of the dragons to get all of your mana back. Repeat round one and 2 until enemy is dead.

Allright, round one works fine for me too. but when i use the mana drain-skill with the green dragon his inivsibility breaks and hes turn is over and hes gonna get slaughtered when all opponents get to move before you can recast invisibility again? or am I missing something?

[Razorflame]

your missing something
u need to use the dragon that boost ini

then get the skills that boost ini of your dragons

so it will got an ini of 8

then your always first

but not against archi demons

[clinek]

no no no. First off, you dont have to cast armageddon, you can cast any spell that you want as long as it will do some damage over time by burning/poisening them or any spell that takes a chunk of thier army out like firerain, geyser, death star, ect. Second, What you need to do before you even get into the fight is look to see what enemies you have to fight. If one of the enemies has a higher initiative than your green dragon, you must cast invisibility then battle command to raise your initiative above thiers. If your initiative is lower than almost any of the enemies, this strategy is useless. here is what you do round by round

round 1: cast invisibility. If your initiative is higher than all other enemies, you can cast some damageing spells. If not, cast battle command as your second spell. get close the enemy group then defend.

round 2: cast a spell that is less mana than what your higher magic skill allows for that will still allow you to cast a second spell. MAKE SURE YOU WAIT, DONT DEFEND. all the enemies will defend, then you either cast time back (thats only if you are going for no loss and have lost units) or some other damaging spell, then run over and use the mana drain ability of the dragon.

round 3: cast invisibility (obviously) and continue with steps 1 and 2. MAKE SURE YOU CAST BATTLE COMMAND WHEN YOU STILL HAVE ONE TURN LEFT ON IT OR NEXT ROUND THE ENEMIES WHO HAVE A HIGHER INITIAVE WILL STILL ATACK AFTER YOU DEFEND.

If you need info on how to get more initiative, let me know and ill give you some tips

[jynki]

Clinek, I understand this strategy a lot better now. I actually did not realize that there were a wait option.You are really helpful.
Is it possible to succesfully run the single green dragon-tactic with the proper skills but without the blue dragon? 7 initiative with the skillbonus that is+ battle command? Unfortunately I chose the red dragon in the beginning but maybe you could compensate that by using battlecommand and still being able to start before all other units except in the first round? Or maybe in late middle - late game you will meet armies full of units with 8 initiative (or 7, I dont know how they calculate which unit will go first if two or more have the same initiative?) units that will be able to reach you in their first turn?

Or do you know if there is any items giving +initiative for dragons? Think I have seen a lot of such items for griffins and pirates and such, but not dragons

Also, do you use any special tactic to get enemy units close together to get max out of the mana drain ability?

[jynki]

Well, now the single green dragon strategy works for me too, in "easy" fights. If i try to fight invincible units i run out of mana most of the time. Currently having +- 10 000k leadership which equals 5 green dragons, which equals 28 mana back every third round (most of the cases there are two enemy archers, so you can ony drain mana from 4 units at a time ). 28 mana back every third round just wont give me enough mana to take on tougher fights since concentration stops working after 10 rounds or so. 2 Invisible+ dmgspells every 3th round costs too much mana for me.

[Razorflame]

lol
don't use damage spells all the time
you need crow control
and it's quite easy to troops together


the art is to cast invsibility
and then place a demon portal with magic spring on it*(in other words the scagoat)

the first 2-3 turns can be used to use damaging spells to let your demon portal unit live longer
but keep casting magic spring on the bug and invisiblity on your egd

and without the 8 ini u have a hard time


magic spring+mana drain=unlimited mana

[jynki]

Razorflame, with +- 10 k leadership at level one the portalspell gives me like 45 imps which rarely can take more than 3 hits, so that´s pretty wasted to use portal+magic spring. And i just don´t see how higher lvls of portal can be effective, lvl 3 costs 35 mana + the mana of the spring..?

[clinek]

sorry i havn't had internet lately and i wont for a few days (im at my friends) but here is some insight on what you need to do

you dont use that strategy throughout the whole game. You only really use it towards the end when the enemies become too hard to kill any other way (well pretty much any other way). Stick with all level 5 units like dragons and archdemons until you reach a high enough amount of leadership so that your green dragons can suck A LOT of mana from the enemies. fights like the orc heroes in elon, most fights in shettera and nameless, and almost all battles in Reha work well with this strategy. Dont pelt the enemy with fire rain or geyser every turn either. Instead, cast fire arrow and poisen skull on the biggest troops and dont use any other spell for a while. The poisen and fire damage will melt the troops into oblivion each round while you allow some time for your mana drain ability to be usable again. O and sorry, but no, there are no items that im aware of that boost your initiative that much (or any that im aware of). That is where the spell "fear" comes in handy. archdemons will be your only threat in this scenario so just make sure you take them out with excorsim/geyser/amageddon/death star asap. Keep in mind that this is not the only strategy out there, its just one that works 95% of the time for really huge armies.

Yes there is a strategy to get the enemy units closer together. Use the "grab" ability to pull enemies closer together so that you can suck out from 4 units instead of 3 (or 5 units instead of 4). Most of the time the enemies dont have a chance to move so the dragons kick ability does little use.

Razorflame, that does work for smaller enemies but later on the demons get crushed in one hit by enemies. If you have a lot of intellect, you get around 40-50 executioners (if your lucky enough to get them instead of demoness's). That 35 mana spent right there, you spend 5 mana on magic spring, then the 400 brontors take them out in 2 turns. You now have 10 mana after spending 40. Even if you cast stone skin (7 more mana and another spell that turn) they will still get wiped out pretty quickly.

Unfortuneatly, you will run out of mana evetually because troops do die after beating the shit out of them so what you must do is take out the archers and fast moving units before bears, knights, spiders, hyenas, ect. If you do this, it does not matter if you have any mana or not. You can just run away from the units and wait, once they get close to you, attack with one of your abilities. Repeat that until they are all dead.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE ABILITY IN THE MIND SKILL TREE THAT GIVES 2+ SPEED AND INITIATIVE TO ONE RANDOM UNIT. Since the stack of green dragon is your only unit, he will always recieve it. also, dont be afraid to use healing every now and then if you are low on health. healing is a must when fighting against the orc heroes in Elon.

[Razorflame]

Originally Posted by jynki

Razorflame, with +- 10 k leadership at level one the portalspell gives me like 45 imps which rarely can take more than 3 hits, so that´s pretty wasted to use portal+magic spring. And i just don´t see how higher lvls of portal can be effective, lvl 3 costs 35 mana + the mana of the spring..?

mana drain is the emerald green dragon ability

furthermore the INTELLECT depends on how much units you spawn

Originally Posted by clinek

Razorflame, that does work for smaller enemies but later on the demons get crushed in one hit by enemies. If you have a lot of intellect, you get around 40-50 executioners (if your lucky enough to get them instead of demoness's). That 35 mana spent right there, you spend 5 mana on magic spring, then the 400 brontors take them out in 2 turns. You now have 10 mana after spending 40. Even if you cast stone skin (7 more mana and another spell that turn) they will still get wiped out pretty quickly.


.

i can spawn more than 40 executionars

anyways

there are abilities that can increase the spawning of the demon's portal

+ some items can do it too

but besides that a high intellect of 55+ renders your demons portal quite effective

and i'm sure the strat works on overpowered stacks also

just place a good demons portal(not in the middle of a crowd)

besides if u use the map well
u can block on path of from your units spawned from the demon portal(i do hope your egd is invisible)

in which case your spawned unit should lang enough to generate the mana

[jynki]

Clinek, You said in the impossible mage thread that its pretty easy to get 95% magic resistance, could you give an example of what combination of items/skills that gives you that?