Moro Dark or Undead set?

[Metathron]

Planning to have some fun with black knights on impossible.

Moro gives +3 Attack and +1 morale to the undead
The undead set gives +1 speed and initiative to the undead.

The thing is, there are two artifacts in the set and Moro has no such slots wheras Paladin Amelie only has one.

So which would you choose - a new companion and the full set or stick with Moro?

[BB Shockwave]

That's easy. Speed and Intiative are much more important, you can increase morale in other ways (Necromancer's plague, for example) and the Might skill that boosts undead attack/defense is a better substitute. Trust me, I have just finished The Legend with an all-undead army some months ago, that +1 speed makes a lot of difference for Black Knights and Ancient Vampires (in vampire form), turning them into quite fast skirmishers instead of slow tanks.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Metathron

Planning to have some fun with black knights on impossible.

Moro gives +3 Attack and +1 morale to the undead
The undead set gives +1 speed and initiative to the undead.

The thing is, there are two artifacts in the set and Moro has no such slots wheras Paladin Amelie only has one.

So which would you choose - a new companion and the full set or stick with Moro?

A few things to consider.

You will easily get to Adrenaline Level 3, so that can compensate for the speed and initiative. Single stack will always get the +2 speed and +2 initiative.

The real key to damage is the -20% leadership requirement for Black Knights via Black Helmet of the Set of Darkness.

I would get Set of Darkness and the Staff of the Acolyte Necromancer (-15% leadership requirement).

You will get +2 morale to undead if you go with Set of Darkness and Moro.

If you throw in a Dagger of Judgment, that should give you QUITE a killer critical hit percentage thanks to the +2 morale. The higher the base critical you have, the more benefit morale gives you.

Amulet of Death doesn't seem all that great. +5 intellect... for a Paladin? Why do you need intellect for a support caster build? I suppose you might want to go for that Armageddon build?

That said, I suppose it depends on your priorities on how you plan to use these black knights.

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot you didn't say "solo black knight" build. Hmmm. That said, I still highly advise going for more leadership, since EvilN is based on your raw numbers. So the higher the number of black knights you have due to lower leadership, the easiest it is to revive them.

[BB Shockwave]

Intellect is usefull for a Paladin (I am using the ring that gives +5 an takes 20% gold after battle) - to boost spells like Armor of God, Healing, Resurrection, and most importantly, Phoenix. I found even the Adult Phoenix is incredibly usefull in tough battles.

Yeah, for single stack Adrenaline will be sufficient, but why would you do that? It's boring. If you play undead, go all the way! You'll learn to appreciate how cool some of their units are. Ancient Vampires and Bone dragons rule, Cursed Ghosts are excellent tanks... Skeleton Archers are not as powerfull as in the Legend (due to nerfed Dragon Arrows) but can still pack a punch in huge numbers. And I think Pirate Ghosts have possibilities too. But the best are the Necromancers, a truly versatile unit that raises fodder, incapacitates spellcasters, casts Plague on the whole battlefield (and yes, it works on Black Dragons too), and is very fast to boot - meaning it will most likely act before the enemy does. The only problem is that its attack hits your own troops too, but that's the undead way - you can resurrect them by life drain or Evlins.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Intellect is usefull for a Paladin (I am using the ring that gives +5 an takes 20% gold after battle) - to boost spells like Armor of God, Healing, Resurrection, and most importantly, Phoenix. I found even the Adult Phoenix is incredibly usefull in tough battles.

Yeah, for single stack Adrenaline will be sufficient, but why would you do that? It's boring. If you play undead, go all the way! You'll learn to appreciate how cool some of their units are. Ancient Vampires and Bone dragons rule, Cursed Ghosts are excellent tanks... Skeleton Archers are not as powerfull as in the Legend (due to nerfed Dragon Arrows) but can still pack a punch in huge numbers. And I think Pirate Ghosts have possibilities too. But the best are the Necromancers, a truly versatile unit that raises fodder, incapacitates spellcasters, casts Plague on the whole battlefield (and yes, it works on Black Dragons too), and is very fast to boot - meaning it will most likely act before the enemy does. The only problem is that its attack hits your own troops too, but that's the undead way - you can resurrect them by life drain or Evlins.

Ancient Phoenix is nearly worthless in Impossible UNLESS you got Level 3 Summoning and like 30+ intellect. Ideally 40+.

Even with said intellect and skills, they are not THAT awesome. Now, in the hands of a mage, they are quite decent, but again, not that awesome. They usually start to fall short around Verona or so.

Resurrection as a spell is oddly enough, not that good either. You get FAR better bang for your buck if you merely get more Paladin Units + Resurrection Skill or Rune Mages.

Phantom Paladins especially with Inquisitor blade is FAR more efficient than any level Resurrection.

Phantom Rune Mage, similar story.

Once again, leadership trumps here. Phantom with Level 3 Summoning is really key.

You are better off maxing summoning rather than getting + intellect skills.

As for healing, no need if you got paladins and rune mages. The marginal difference in +5 intellect isn't usually worth it.

I'll check the formulas and repost here.

Healing only gives you 5% more per intellect.
250 * 0.25 = 63 more HP with Healing.

Divine Armor only gives you Int/3 % more. So 5 more Intellect gives you a mere 1.67% more defense.

Resurrection is
600 * 0.25 = 150 more HP. Not even a single paladin more.

[atlatea]

Yeah, i agree phoenix is worthless. Even with 65 int mage, ancient phoenix barely survive verona fight againts lv 25 ish hero.

As for int, i agree that int is useless for paladin, yup, leadership is the best way.

Leadership + summoning 3 + phantom paladin/rune mage/inquisitor is much better alternative for resurecting than a lv 3 resurection with the maximum possible int a paladin can accumulate. Though there is a rare case in which resurection is better.

Summoning 3 basically increase 50% the number of your unit summoned by phantom, a no brainer choice if you go for phantoming.

I don't do the exact math, buf from seeing the fact itself, lv 3 phantom that has 45% effect will become 67%, 22% more, that's insanely a lot more (exactly 50% more unit, this means 50% more to the power of its resurection ).

@ck
i think he did mention only black knights, so it's solo black knight.

As for black knight, i agree that you don't really need darkness set, and as a paladin you can't wear it due to lack of artifact slot.

As for initiative and speed, many other things can help (spells and items). Same with critical. Paladin class has prayer which increase critical by 10%, indeed it's half of the +2 morale from darkness set, but still better than nothing.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by atlatea

Yeah, i agree phoenix is worthless. Even with 65 int mage, ancient phoenix barely survive verona fight againts lv 25 ish hero.

As for int, i agree that int is useless for paladin, yup, leadership is the best way.

Leadership + summoning 3 + phantom paladin/rune mage/inquisitor is much better alternative for resurecting than a lv 3 resurection with the maximum possible int a paladin can accumulate. Though there is a rare case in which resurection is better.

Summoning 3 basically increase 50% the number of your unit summoned by phantom, a no brainer choice if you go for phantoming.

I don't do the exact math, buf from seeing the fact itself, lv 3 phantom that has 45% effect will become 67%, 22% more, that's insanely a lot more (exactly 50% more unit, this means 50% more to the power of its resurection ).

@ck
i think he did mention only black knights, so it's solo black knight.

As for black knight, i agree that you don't really need darkness set, and as a paladin you can't wear it due to lack of artifact slot.

As for initiative and speed, many other things can help (spells and items). Same with critical. Paladin class has prayer which increase critical by 10%, indeed it's half of the +2 morale from darkness set, but still better than nothing.

True. For the other mage players though, I must say, Ancient Phoenix is still useful for the Mage with high int. I don't use Ancient Phoenix to survive per se... I use it to do about 2-3K dmg per hit against 3 enemies, tank, resurrect if he lives long enough, tank again, and possibly hit another 3 enemies again. I don't think many spells let me do that much damage AND tank at least one or two hits AND triple burning effect for 35 mana.

Best part is, he can be cast anytime to interrupt the sequence of turns, since it has a fairly fast initiative, it will almost always go after whichever unit you are using.

But yes, even with high int, he basically will die in 2 rounds, revive, to maybe survive, but usually die again. Just a pretty nice way to do 6K (12K if he is positioned for a good retaliation) dmg + tank for only 35 mana!

Basically, intellect is a really worthless stat UNLESS you can REALLY REALLY jack it up. Even then, it is only marginally useful. Yes, I'm dissing on the Mage class.

Compare all these goodies to the poor stepchild Dragon of Chaos.... makes you wonder what the heck those developers were thinking. They clearly don't play on Impossible mode often.

Of course, this all only applies in Impossible Mode.

Morale complements the Paladin Prayer skill (which is probably one of the only skills I will always max haha), so it is a little harder to compare directly. e.g. the Prayer skill works in conjunction with Morale.

In short, Prayer skill with Morale +2 makes Prayer skill have a +3% bonus on top of the 10% base skill. Nevermind the fact that every unit has a raw unit base critical, so that makes morale even nicer.

If you have a lot of high BASE critical, the morale bonus trumps the paladin prayer bonus, however, the prayer paladin bonus applies to the BASE critical, so that isn't a fair statement for me to say!

Critical
15% raw unit base
10% prayer
20% dagger of judgment

45% total base critical +2 morale (30% bonus to criticals) should give +30% so
45*0.3 = 13.5% bonus to critical due to morale.

The Black Knights is one of the only units (if not only) that raises his raw unit base critical as he attacks (Rising Anger skill).

So if his rising anger forces his critical to go up 3%... it is really going up 3%*1.3 = 3.9% or 4% IF he has +2 morale bonus.

In short, if you have a very high base critical with powerful items like Axe of Lightning, Dagger of Judgment, Prayer Skill, Berserker Axe (30% for those Goblins woohoo!), raising morale increases your critical rate by QUITE a bit.

Sometimes, up to +30% more, achieving 100% critical!

The only drawback is morale can be reduced by negative status effects.

As an aside, this is what makes Orc units so nifty. The unit achieves max morale after a kill. So, if your Orc unit has a fairly high base critical to begin with, it is fairly easy to achieve 100% criticals. Makes you want to love those Catapults (which gain +30% base critical when adrenaline rises).

[bucazaurus]

Originally Posted by Metathron

Planning to have some fun with black knights on impossible.

Moro gives +3 Attack and +1 morale to the undead
The undead set gives +1 speed and initiative to the undead.

The thing is, there are two artifacts in the set and Moro has no such slots wheras Paladin Amelie only has one.

So which would you choose - a new companion and the full set or stick with Moro?

If you really want some fun and you don't care for a little file modification,then simply replace Moro Dark's "regalia,belt slot" with an "artefact,regalia slot" in - companion.txt file.

[Nihilius]

Originally Posted by bucazaurus

If you really want some fun and you don't care for a little file modification,then simply replace Moro Dark's "regalia,belt slot" with an "artefact,regalia slot" in - companion.txt file.

where is the file?

[atlatea]

@atlatea
Hard to say. Horsemen seem to do more damage on the initial hit, but I don't know how counter-counter attack in fine details. I would say that orc veterans probably do more damage.

with 44,000 leadership, not counting criticals
orc veterans - 8,507 damage
horsemen - 7,692 damage

But, if the horsemen charge, they will do 50% more damage!

I think counter-counter-attack does at least 50% damage too though, possibly more.

If the orcs have enough adrenaline, they gain a +5 attack, which raises their damage up to 9,266.

Well, i mean that horsemen charge from max distance, so it's 70% damage.

Probably the orc will outdamage it in the long run. But horsemen seems fit for army that prefer lightning fast strike that can quickly criple enemy army.

It has 7 initiative, i say that 7 is no joke.