Balancing suggestions for Runemage

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Nirual

to start with Demonesses, their swap ability. Wolf Howl (though at least it has a level restriction), Dryad Lullaby (same), Zombie Pass, Skeleton Sow Bones, and just about any creature buff/debuff ability such as those the Skald has.
Not all of those are as problematic and abusable as the runemages, but 3 stacks of demonesses are a nightmare for me.

And then there is the Paladin "Second Wind" and the Jarl version which have a leadership requirement... but its about 3 times the leadership of the troop using it, which makes it easy for a Phantom stack to give the turn to the Runemages that created it, even if its a full stack.

With regards to splitting stacks to take advantage of said abilities, I don't find them too imbalanced.

Infernal Exchange is cool and while annoying, I like the challenge of dealing with it on the receiving end.

As for when we are initiating it against the enemy, for no loss guys it is somewhat trickier to deal with but I think DG found a way to abuse it (Ancient Ents mwhaha).

It isn't like having multiple stacks of demonesses with infernal swap would result in a severe imbalance (on the offensive side).

Zombie pass is pretty strong but zombies are so crappy and you can't really chain pass for the same guy.

Skald is pretty junky so he needs a useful skill. Of course this is assuming you patched Avenging Angel and Pygmy. Although skald is sort of borderline out of control... ;0 I think you can buff any level on your side, but debuffs are level capped.

This could be interesting since splitting skalds would let you buff/debuff in the same turn but that's a painful loss of leadership as skalds are essentially worthless for 4 rounds.

Paladin same thing with zombie pass.

Yeah 3 stacks of demonesses are annoying for me too. That's what makes it fun though!

[Nirual]

Just seems inconsistent to me.

And fixing those would also remove a lot of the abuse potential of phantoms as skills go (ie. Skald phantom to use both abilities, no matter how weak the stack is).

[Fatt_Shade]

Couple of abilities that have no lds requirement, but are useful in game :
1) Marauder looter , 1 marauder can dig same amount of gold as 1000 of them (so leading only 1 gives you same gold bonus, but you get more rage skill exp due to better enemy/ally lds ratio). Wit only 1 marauder i got almost 2 million gold in the Legend before first trip to Freedom islands.
2) Archmages telekinesis and magic shield. Telekinesis great for trapper medal , magic shield for tank unit. Again only 1 archmage is enough for this abilities and good for rage sills exp.
3) Guard droid hook attack for trapper medal , and light beam for mass defenceless/blind on enemy depending on race.
4) Spider web, only 1 spider 1st vll can disable any size of 1-4 lvl units for 2 turns. Now that`s really sick.
5) Engineers fire bomb , mass blind for 1-3 lvl units another sick ability.
6) Snake lunge attack , 1 snake could stun any size of stack. And many others . . .

[dainbramage]

First up: Phantom has to depend on the leadership of the rune mage stack. This should be obvious. Start it at a quarter of the rune mage's leadership, and runes increase that to 45.

Secondly: No infinite phantoms. Give them a fixed number of charges based on the number of runes they enter combat with, which isn't increased with runic word. Alternatively, make it like it was in crossworlds where it phantoms a random enemy stack, or angelic guards. This way you can't infinite phantom paladins for free infinite res.