Rage box vs dragon

[Zechnophobe]

Kick, Dive, Phantom, Chest, Accelerator.

Okay, so what'd you use in the chest? Probably about 4 abilities, and only because each rage spirit had multi-turn rests.

[clinek]

neither one is truly better... they are matched to the games difficulty. Sure there are pros and cons to both. Rage box definitely had a much cooler look to it. I mean come on, the grim reaper vs a baby dragon. There were 4 different spirits in the box which allowed for a guaranteed rage (spell?) to be used each round. On the other hand, the wait time was really shitty for the box. If you wanted to use black hole, you would have to wait how many rounds before you could use the danm thing again. They are all pretty much the same though when it comes down to it. Time back was really useful but now we have a spell for it. I kinda agree with zechnophobe though, ball of lightning is much better than sould drain in every way. It hits three rounds in a row. The only problem i have with it is it doesn't allow you to pick the unit you want it to attack. Fiery phantoms is better than black hole because it does more damage. Underground blades and volcanoe are about even and most of the other skills are equally useful as thier counterparts. Box of rage is cooler, but the dragon is probably more useful altogether. Glots armor would be nice though.

[Zechnophobe]

Ok, I completely agree that the graphics for the Chest were better. Black hole had some seriously cool looking effects. Fiery Phantoms just doesn't stack up with it.

Hmm, it occurs to me that I wish the dragon also had the 'fast animation' for his abilities. Remember how the chest had two different ones for each ability, one longer than the other that showed the first time you used the ability, and like every 5th time after that, and one where the spirit basically shows up for half a sec and then does his thing?

It'd be nice to save some time on all those hunts and mana accelerators.

[MachDelta]

Yes! I wish he had fast animations too. I get so impatient waiting for him to dig up chests.

[ywhtptgt]

I prefer rage box more, since it's more suited for power gaming.

One of my favourite strategies in the original is to fight with a single stack of green dragons and then:
Invis (Level 3) -> Demon Portal -> Demon Portal -> Mana Well -> [Sleem's Rain] on Dragon -> Invis (Level 3) -> [Reaper's Rage Steal] -> REPEAT

[Razorflame]

yup

rage box is splendid

dragon is just a cheap rip off

[ShuiMienLung]

I prefer Lina's chargers to the dragon's mana orb because she put out several of them: each of several units could potentially move an extra hex, or one unit several extra. Some times, just that one extra little bit of move is what you need. (Mind you, there are times when getting that extra TWO hexes from the dragon make all the difference...

I also prefer having Time Back as a rage ability, because having to cast a spell to do it eats up the spell for that turn. What if I want to Sacrifice + Time Back in the same turn? Whoops, can't. Or Time Back and then Haste? Can't do that, either. Or...

But overall I agree: different tools with different capabilities in different games. They both work out.