A few questions from a new player

[Jah]

Originally Posted by Loopy

Unfortunately, the only information on beating shamans I can find on the forums here seems to boil down to "hope you incapacitate them or kill them before their first round or you die", which isn't exactly inspiring advice. I can't imagine how overpowered they must have been BEFORE the patch that nerfed them, just how high was whoever created them?

I was under the impression that the patch affected orc shamans and maybe blood shamans (?), but the goblin shamans were NOT nerfed, which is why they remain so overpowered. I'd say it must have been an oversight.

[Loopy]

Summoner affects Phantom? Ahh, didn't think of that for some reason. Messing around with cheats I see that Intellect also improves Phantom a bit, which I definitely didn't expect considering it says it only affects damage spells. I was pretty much ignoring Intellect in my game since I was mostly buffing/debuffing the entire battle. I suppose the standard strategy is to take advantage of transmute with Phantoms by summoning duplicates of creatures that summon things themselves, then send everything into the grinder for free mana?

Yeah but Warrior can use the Pet farrr more often thanks to his Bloodlust ability and the fact that he usually has a higher base rage and a bigger army (which affects your rage generation).

I can't say I was having problems spamming his stuff, and my dragon dive cost 40 rage to use. Treasure hunter/Dragon Dive/Treasure Hunter/Dragon Dive repeat until you run out of treasure then go for mana. It probably helps a lot that I had the +5 rage from the red dragon though, as well as 2 ranks of Anger, were those not good choices? Also, I thought that the more you were outnumbered the greater your rage?

[Fatt_Shade]

Nice to read that some ppl still play this game
It seems you started game with great combo mechanic/droids, mechanics set droid modules and such, or -leadreship % items for dwarf race, which are great and fun to play with (you got them, but you were lucky for it
I dont like fact that you cant change much strategy which you decide during game, cause if you lets say want summoner supporter there arent enough runes for might skills and boost up your army, or if with warrior you decide to go full undead/archer army your stuck with it. So i think maybe 2 basic army lineups are what you can get without much traveling for troops, and losing time on it. I say this for your `holy trinity` reference, cause there are so much ideas and tactics other players found, so try some of them if you want :
1) Ancient ent, Faun, Dryad, Paladin and last of your picking some Fairy (oblivion is sick ability), or Rune mage. Strategy - great morale, control with dryad 1-3 lvl units with sleep, illusion, sleep again etc, fauns heal is imba for ents, and rune mage overall great support.
2) Full archer army with Trigger, and his almost 100% crit for archers. My lineup here was Goblins, Goblin shamans, Catapults, Orcs/Blood shamans and Paladins. Very high dmg output and initiative, 2 times second wind with paladin and orc, or blood shaman goblin rage, with some luck goblin will get some more turns from unstoppable and devastate enemy troops with ease, and get insane attack bonus from zeroing in. And all units low lvl so easy to resurrect. Problem is fear spell is useless here, and also enemy dryad`s beholders sleep, but since you`ll play before them, they wont make much troubles.
3) Shreck build as `ckdamascus` said. It fun also, but i dont like for every dead unit, you need 1 illusion cast to revive it (or more), so it could turn into illusions frenzy on arena. I`m not going for no loss, as you said before thats not your plan, but for sake of preserving troops, that are hard to come by (in my last game there was no Orc chieftans anywhere, not a single 1, i had to carry that stupid officers patent to get trophy`s for upgrading Orc veterans, to their older brothers )
4) All undead build. Strategy : Black knight. End of strategy
With undead commander, and frenzy it`s so easy (if you go warrior, there is no need for Moro dark and Splinter of darkness item, cause counter strike skill).It`s boring 1 stack army all time, but it`s also so much fun to see 80k+ critical`s flying around arena And with so small army, all exp going to your pet dragon, would be higher cause diference in leadership difference you/enemy.

There are so much more great tactics, and different army builds, just look a bit here on forum, same goes for mods. I personally liked this one http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...215#post233215

About your dragon cub, it depends for what you use him/her
Early digging chests, and mystic egg are great, later dive/fiery spirits/ball are nice to use, but not comparing to direct dmg spells from mage, so i guess you`ll use him most for support, then direct dmg. This is what bugs me : no matter what class you go pet dragon is same, i got same skills and dmg from Mage and Warrior classes, but considering spells, no class can compare to Mage, it`s not ok to have Warrior who is mostly for pure fighting and Rage, and end up with same dragon as any whimpy Mage
For medals i agree, they are mostly nice add, but Guardian angel, and class specific are pure grinding, 600 casting for fire mage, OMG and all that for just 15 mana. When you get medal on 3 lvl, 15 mana is next to nothing.

And last but not least by far, your problem with Goblin shamans, and their so nicely balanced 2 ability If you go high lvl army, fear them away, for 4 turns it`s imba spell for low lvl units. On other side, with mixed up army and some other idea, they are only 3 lvl unit blind/sheep, or go for faun/dryad sleep, or some other disable Necromancers shackles, Beholders paralyze ray cause those ability`s arent dependent to leadership, which could be problematic for your Mage hero.

Is it just me or all new units are just to overpowered ? Rune mage and his 37% revive, Faun and 52% heal plants, which is reloadable !!! only resurrect skill that have cool down ( i dont include Orc trackers healer ability here cause it`s useless with no adrenaline, and at end of battle, when you want to revive your animals, they maybe have no enough adrenaline, and s..t luck for you

And about Summoner skill, it boost all summoning ability for units : Rune mage, Royal griffin, Orc tracker, so it`s great skill to spen runes on for meat fodder. For some reason it doesnt effect Demonologist summon, no idea why (or is it just bug with mine game). If boost demon portal spell, why not summon for demonologist ?

[Loopy]

Summoner doesn't seem to be affecting the summons of any of my units. Demonologists don't get stronger demons, Engineers don't make stronger droids, and Rune Mages don't summon stronger Illusions. Demonologists have already been mentioned to be bugged, and I can understand if Engineers don't get the buff since they are building a droid, not summoning it, but are rune mages not supposed to be affected? Or does the Talent description not show the summoner bonus even though it works in battle?

I was actually considering going for a high crit build with trigger since I already had about +25% crit, but he didn't have the right item slots and I would have had to dump one of my lovely -% leadership items to take him.


EDIT: Some testing. No troops showed a higher summoning limit on the talent description with a summoning skill, but demonologists seem to get a buff (4.5k leadership demon summoned when talent card says 1.5-3k) while Engineers and Rune Mages don't. Going by the skill description this makes sense because Rune Mages and Engineers "create" units while Demonologists "Summon" units and the Summoner skill says it only improves summoned units, but now I'm confused as to why I've read so many people saying that rune mages are great with summoner while Demonologists aren't . Has the effect of summoner been constantly changing over game versions or something? Or are they just referring to phantomed rune mage + resurrecting things?

[Sir Whiskers]

Originally Posted by Loopy

Summoner doesn't seem to be affecting the summons of any of my units. Demonologists don't get stronger demons, Engineers don't make stronger droids, and Rune Mages don't summon stronger Illusions...

EDIT: Some testing. No troops showed a higher summoning limit on the talent description with a summoning skill, but demonologists seem to get a buff (4.5k leadership demon summoned when talent card says 1.5-3k)...

Yep, the description for the Summoner skill isn't quite accurate. It doesn't really make units stronger, but it does increase the leadership amount that is summoned, as well as the % that the Phantom spell creates.

[Fatt_Shade]

Hm . . . it could be bug in your game, but i`m sure Summoner skill from Magic tree boost any summoning ability from units. I know it odes for Rune mages, Royal griffins, and Orc trackers, i just finished game with some of tohse units.
If you haven`t already get 3 lvl summoner, save game and check before and after lvling it checking some unit`s ability.
For droid making with mechanic you can boost up with Neatness skill, in Mind tree, it`s nice boost for them, but only effects 1 unit in game, so think before investing runes.
As for max critical you have 2 choices, as many ppl wrote on this forum, all orc army + paladin for resurrection, or human/elf mix, with royal grifins for +morale and distracting enemy with summons. 3 lvl distortion magic, and precision is a must for both lineups. Human/elf have bonus morale, on other hand goblin lineup have some ridiculous dmg, Aoe from catapults, unstoppable for goblins and lets not forget astral attack for goblin shamans (and they give you new units after every battle-commander talent, so less need to run around islands to restock army).

[Loopy]

Without summoner:

28 Demonologists summon 26 Cerberus (Cerberi?), 26x90 = 2340 leadership, talent says 1470-2940 so its correct.
3 rune mages with maxed magic runes summon 60 Angelic Guard, 60x60 = 3600 leadership just as talent says.
16 Engineers summon 16 Guard droids, 16x120= 1920 leadership, talent says 1600-1920 so its correct.

With summoner it is all the same except demonologists summon around 4.5k of units, which is actually slightly higher than they should but I suppose the game rounds up. Yes, I made sure that I had enough mind runes after buying 3 ranks of summoner so the rune mage's power didn't go down.

Perhaps it was a patch change? Rune Mages seem overpowered as it is. If summoner were to affect them then they would be able to summon the Phantom Gyphons with about 90% physical resistance after all my + items and they would be making about 7.2k leadership worth of them even as my personal leadership is only 6k. All that would be ludacrisly overpowered, without summoner its only about 4.8k worth of summons which is at least a sane number even if it is still really strong. As the person who just started playing this week, I hate to call you guys wrong, but maybe you should re-test on your own game to see if it still works? I'm at patch level 1.3.1, tell me if you are using a different patch. As I said before, going by a strict reading of the skill it makes some sense. Rune Mages don't summon units, they create them, so it shouldn't affect them. It might have even been a bug before.