Wow, just wow. NO Demonesses in my game.

[ckdamascus]

I don't usually bother to check for Demonesses since they are almost always there. Yet in this nearly perfect game I have, I just came to the horrific realization that there are NO demonesses.

Well, ok, there are 21 of them IF I can beat the wizard's tower. Tell me there is a conversion process....

That is a LOT of demonesses to sacrifice for.

I am guessing if I bring fairies and such, maybe I can convert them into demonesses? Does anyone know?

OR, this means I need to get diplomacy to steal away a lot of Demonesses. Haha!

[edit]
Conversion rate is 450 gold AND trophies for dryads to demonesses.
Lake dryads are around 484 gold and trophies to convert.

Uh, that is about 73828 trophies.

Combine that with the 22500 trophies I need for Demonologists...

That is close to 100,000 trophies.

Sacrificing is starting to look FAR less tedious. Or I am going to have to give up on using one of those units. So much for my super demonic build.

WOW, just WOW.

The EASIEST method for me is to simply get ONE point in Diplomacy. Who would have guessed that the Paladin Mind Tree would be so useful!

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

Ahem....demonesses succ....ahem. What do you need demonesses for anyway. I can't really find any use for them, if you were going for the demon build, they get a 20% damage upgrade, but I think in your 5-demon army they don't deserve the slot. If you are going for the female build then still you are wasting a slot. Forget about them (oh right the teleportation, after that?)

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by shqiponja_hayabusa

Ahem....demonesses succ....ahem. What do you need demonesses for anyway. I can't really find any use for them, if you were going for the demon build, they get a 20% damage upgrade, but I think in your 5-demon army they don't deserve the slot. If you are going for the female build then still you are wasting a slot. Forget about them (oh right the teleportation, after that?)

Admittedly, it isn't one of my most powerful projected builds, but it seems like potential fun!

I'm sure you meant to say they bare a striking resemblance to Succubi.

I sort of got bored with my Super Orc / Super Goblin build. It was surprisingly strong, but less flexible in doing no-loss since I didn't really have that many disposable tanks. It was oddly a lot like my old Pure Range Build, even if it only had one ranged unit in it.

So, I believe Mages are probably still the best choice to field a No-Loss demonic build, as per impy's old demonic run. Paladins can't revive demons. Ancient Phoenix can't revive demons. Only Rune Mages and good old fashioned Resurrection.

My projected build will be
Demon
Demoness
Executioner
Rune Mage
Demonologist

With all the items I have checked out AND a pentagram from Demon, I should achieve 100% critical. However, due to low leadership of the mage, this is nothing impressive. So I need to cast debuffs such as Pygmy, helplessness, or maybe even a mini nuke or another summon every round. Since my team has little ranged power, I need teleport.

I really want demonesses to help me save me from casting the initial teleport, or to pull in a critical enemy.

The executioner is waay too slow so demoness sets him up. With Agvares, she should do a little bit more damage.

Rune Mage for revival and summon (plus leadership bonus with Archmage ability for Mage) and Demonologist, same thing, but weaker.

Demons are pretty darn sticky since they have infinite retaliations. With the proper buffs, and enough disposable tanks, I think they can really put on some pain.

Also, I am fairly certain all my summons gain from +critical to demons and my base +criticals, so we are talking about a lot of beefed up effective damage.

The Mage has too low leadership to make a super single stack (without buffs that is), but with enough summons yielding crits, it might make up for that difference!

[DGDobrev]

As a person who used demonesses on a regular basis, I have to say that they are an extremely useful units. ckdamascus has clearly made a very offensive lineup (adding both demons and executioners in it) and the demonesses with their good initiative fit in perfectly.

Demonesses have 3 distinct qualities - first, they can teleport a stone-skinned Executioners stack directly into the enemy lines, swapping it with a low-defense enemy stack that will easily be butchered by the demons in his own lineup. Second, they can covert a weakened stack to their control for a few turns. Third, they make decent off-tanks (secondary tanks) who take less hits when attacking thanks to their special abilities.

Demonesses are very much a worthwhile addition to any army that tolerates (race relations are a very important concept in all KB games) them without a significant morale penalty. The Girl Power army comes to mind first (Lake Faerie, Tree Faerie, Dryad, Demoness + 1 stack that can resurrect) with a Rune Mage/Demonologist is very solid for the better part of the game, as almost all of them have no retaliation ability and if you add stone skin and target to that combo, you get some rather interesting and easy to win battles

SPOILER: Stone skin the rune magi, have the demonesses swap them for a low-defense stack, have the fairies and dryads quickly kill the swapped stack - can be done even in a single round - cast target on the rune magi and simply move the girls to finish off the enemy stacks while they hack at the well protected Rune Magi.

[Saiko Kila]

Stacks possessed by demonesses can be sacrificed, so it's a free Domination. Ability to swap enemy weaklings with own tanks is very funny and very useful. Also males of all races (including demons and neutrals) can have hard time hitting demonesses. I usually don't keep demonesses as base units, I prefer to summon them, but I used them a lot in KBTL and I rank them still above average.

Hm, I never had problems with availability of demonologists and demonesses (always had many times more than I needed), tough luck it seems.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Saiko Kila

Stacks possessed by demonesses can be sacrificed, so it's a free Domination. Ability to swap enemy weaklings with own tanks is very funny and very useful. Also males of all races (including demons and neutrals) can have hard time hitting demonesses. I usually don't keep demonesses as base units, I prefer to summon them, but I used them a lot in KBTL and I rank them still above average.

Hm, I never had problems with availability of demonologists and demonesses (always had many times more than I needed), tough luck it seems.

Yes, inspired by playing as other classes and reading other players combos, I realize that key units help save me mana and rounds of casting spells, even if I do have double cast.

It is rather annoying to revive using phantom or resurrection after a verry expensive Sacrifice spell.

Or, even more annoying to cast Hypnosis (40), then wait next round to Sacrifice that unit (40). I don't even know if I will even have that much mana.

Hopefully, the demonesses will help restore the ranks of demonologists.

I'm also verry shocked. First few games in AP I ever played, I had more than enough demonologists and demonesses.

Later on, demonologists were quite rare for me.

Now demonesses are a rarity in this game. Haha. Sort of sad that by the time I get my nice army, there won't be much left to fight. Unless I can find an easy way to beat the wizard's tower and verona capital.

I hope I can simply fight an enemy stack with demonologists, but now that I think about it, they seem pretty rare too. UNLESS I can use diplomacy in the battle in the Wizard's Tower. Anyone know if I can? Because I know there are boatloads of demonologists in that one fight...

[edit]
this probably won't work since the game is hardwired to restore your original troops after you leave the tower.

Sort of funny how I will now gain a big advantage because I am playing in Impossible. Using diplomacy, 8% of those oversized enemy stacks is faster than ANY other method of procuring those units.

DG, thanks for the tips. Unfortunately, while this game has very nice items such as two Dress of the Magess, I don't have any girl power items.

But, wow that's a pretty scary combo though, definitely something I want to look forward to in future matches.

My runemages will be sad (-1 morale), but eh. They aren't there as fighters, simply as 30% chance sheepers, revivers, and make more tanks.

By the way, does anyone know how the Archmage Unit's shock is calculated? If it is based on his critical hit... wow. I can hit 100% critical hits with archmages easily. Unfortunately, they are such worthless combat units (ok fine, they can cast magic shield... then what?).

[Metathron]

I was going to use an orc army in my new paladin game (playing on normal, though - want to have a relaxed game with lots of room for experimentation and making errors), but ck's demon build looked so attractive that I went with it instead. It's a strong combination of units - I just love demons/executioners - and the three summons right in round 1 help a lot in distracting the enemy.

However, I have a small dilemma regarding weapon slots (companion Agvares): Is it better to have a +20% damage axe and a +20 crit sword, or two axes? Not much of a mathematician, so not sure which is ultimately better, though I am leaning more towards having two axes because it's a concrete improvement not rooted in chance.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Metathron

I was going to use an orc army in my new paladin game (playing on normal, though - want to have a relaxed game with lots of room for experimentation and making errors), but ck's demon build looked so attractive that I went with it instead. It's a strong combination of units - I just love demons/executioners - and the three summons right in round 1 help a lot in distracting the enemy.

However, I have a small dilemma regarding weapon slots (companion Agvares): Is it better to have a +20% damage axe and a +20 crit sword, or two axes? Not much of a mathematician, so not sure which is ultimately better, though I am leaning more towards having two axes because it's a concrete improvement not rooted in chance.

I believe a critical hit adds +50% damage, so statistically a +20% critical translates to only +10% damage; so take the straight-up +20% damage axe.

[ckdamascus]

Yup, lore hit it right in the head. The only case where criticals are better is if you can guarantee a critical. I still tend to push for criticals though.

Another thing to consider is that morale (which is only really useful for the first hit, since you will most likely get hit by negative status effects), multiplies up your base critical. So it pays to get a higher base critical.

That said, ck's demon line up is not working out so well haha, at least in impossible. I did ok for a little while though.

What happens is, despite being really powerful, even with stoneskin and divine armor, the Demons have trouble resisting potentially major losses. I end up doing a lot of restoration instead.

Not to mention, that executioners have relatively damage to leadership (actually all demons do), so I can't quite blitz out the enemy even after I teleport them.

Demons and Executioners only get decent damage to leadership against level 1-3.

I end up baby sitting the executioners and demonesses a bit too much. Maybe when I get speed items, those demonesses and executioners will be more worth while.

I have now revised my build to

Archdemons
Black Dragons
Demons
Rune Mages
Demonologists

I actually end up phantoming the Demonologists instead. Now I can heal my Archdemons every round while dealing damage. Plus, the demonologists tend to draw a fair amount of aggro and now I got a lot of meatshields out there.

Mobility was an issue with my old army too. Again, things might be different once I get my speed items (belt of the victor and metamorphic axel).

You might be especially fine in normal modes though.

I might restart my mission back to level 37 though (i'm currently level 42 or so) so I can undo diplomacy. That like 24 mine runes and 8 strength runes I can't really afford. ;(

But ugh, I will then lose my ghost armor which I found as a random chest in a battle! Does anyone know if that will "always show up"?

I suppose I can live without some of the other skills. Or I can just start using that student belt non-stop now, plus start farming up gold big time.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Yup, lore hit it right in the head. The only case where criticals are better is if you can guarantee a critical. I still tend to push for criticals though.

The problems with criticals is the base +50% damage from a critical hit. An item that for example guarantees 100% critical essentially translates to +50% damage; on the other hand an item that adds +100% damage obviously does twice the bonus. This is why Crown of Blackthorne is so good for thorns, despite the faulty description (it says it doubles attack, not damage), catapulting thorn warrior as the highest possible DPS units with available items (Whip of Pain, Assassin's Dagger), with thorn-hunter coming second.

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

But ugh, I will then lose my ghost armor which I found as a random chest in a battle! Does anyone know if that will "always show up"?

The good news is it is guaranteed to show up; the bad news is that you have to do EVERYTHING EXACTLY as you had done before; doing exactly the same island-hopping sequence, eggs item usage (basically any action that could also influence what unit you get from a Call Colossus/Call of Death scroll), sequence of enemies fought, etc. up until the battle that generated chests that gave you the Ghost Armor.

Thankfully, unlike the chests your dragon digs up, if you are able to generate the same starting chests in that particular battle, then you are guaranteed to get the same item.

If you got it from a chest dug up by the dragon (is this possible? I always thought you could only dig up gold/scrolls/wanderer scrolls/runes) then the pain continues: you have to do the EXACT battle that you did before, down to the very last detail (ie. on round 8 you first cast Heal on the rune mage, then you had it move to coordinates [4,6]). Good luck with this, I had a hard time recreating a battle up to just the 3rd round (dug up an AK scroll on the 3rd round, but incurred a loss in later rounds, forcing me to replay the battle).