How do I kill a water queen with a medusa shield?

[Argitoth]

http://shup.com/Shup/37017/water_queen.png

[Micah]

Just stack attacks, 2x sword of swiftness, horned helm, stone bird and quickness will drop his defense by 2 for each attack, so after the first quickened round of swings he'll have -16 defense skill from the incoming attacks. (Luck might mitigate this somewhat, not sure if a luck'd attack counts for defense penalty). Plus quickness gives you +3 attack skill to boot.

[Argitoth]

Oh shoot... well the problem is that this thing I'm trying to kill has 64 hitpoints and regenerates half of it every battle round, so one or two hits don't do a thing.

Oh oh! How about panic or terror? This water queen has 30 morale. How many panics or terrors will it take to route her?

[Micah]

Then use 2 SCs or hit her with mages....

[vfb]

Or you can forge the Harvest Blade. It is an AOE weapon, so defense is ignored. Don't give it to anything you want to cast spells with, since it auto-berserks you like a lycanthrope amulet.

If the SC is not fire or frost immune and has low HP, you can just whack it with a Fire/Frost brand.

Can you teleport or trapeze a bunch of mages and blast it? Sometimes that's easier.

Edit:

Okay, forget all that stuff. Just give an SC an Eye Shield. When the Queen goes blind, her defense will drop to zero.

[Argitoth]

Did some tests: Poison Golem with two eye shields will die attacking the water queen with medusa shield.

[Ironhawk]

Just use insti-kill. Soul Slay, Disintegrate, Moon Blade. Stuff like that

[Argitoth]

How hard is it to get through 23 magic resistance with 3, 2, or 1 penetration and 4 nature casting charm?

[Argitoth]

Another test: Purposely blinded a poison golem with two eyes of aiming. Blindess does not protect you against Medusa shield. Is this a bug? However, naturally blind units are protected.

[Sombre]

Are they? We had a thread just the other day where someone said they weren't - only beings with the hidden 'stone' tag were.

[Argitoth]

Yeah, I just did the test. Fire elementals didn't get affected by the water queen. Water queen died from fire elementals. It's stupid if a medusa shield kills constructs. Poison golem should be immune.

[Argitoth]

Another test: Sandals of the Crane + Spirit helm

Basically this combination will cause the poison golem to teleport infinitely and cast lightning bolt infinitely.

However, the golem routed, even with 50 morale. What the hell?

[Saxon]

Auto rout.

[Argitoth]

Another test: Gargoyles - get killed from the medusa shield.

[Argitoth]

Another test: lvl2 astral mage paralyzed it. Wow... how did it get past 23 resistance so easily?

[vfb]

Blindfighters get killed by the Aegis, I just tested it. That's interesting that fire elementals are immune.

There is a recent thread about petrification somewhere.

Edit: I just ran a test with Fire Elementals (unit #599). They got petrified by a 100%FR unit wielding the Aegis.

[Argitoth]

Ok, I'll let you if my water-queen killing plan will work. For now, I don't want to reveal my plan.

[Endoperez]

She's not immune to fire OR lightning. Incinerate deals 18+ points of AN damage, so three incinerates/turn should be enough as long as the mages have decent precision. Three hits from Lightning Bolt/turn or two hits from Thunderstrike/turn would also work. Thunderstrike would also deal fatigue damage, which lowers her defence (-1 defence/10 points of fatigue, more detail on pg 76).

Pg 5 of the manual gives details about chances of beating difficult rolls. Base penetration 10 (sor S2 caster casting Paralyze) against mag res 20 (no S) is -10 in the table, or 3% chance. For S4 caster (base penetration 14), the chance would be 6% already.

[Argitoth]

Endo, the problem is that the queen is running around where there are no lightning or fire mages! Plus, she has luck. It seems that luck makes anything only work half the time. So you really need a small army of fire or lightning mages to kill it. Plus, she regenerates 36 hp per turn... very hard to kill.

If you regenerate 36 hp per turn and have 64hp, i'm pretty sure you need to do 64 damage PLUS 36 to kill the queen at full HP. That's 100 damage needed to kill her at full HP.

Edit: How do you know S3 is +4 penetration?

[Argitoth]

Is two rune smashers more effective than one? Or does penetration not stack?

[Amhazair]

Penetration stacks, but two items of the same kind don't, so two rune smashers doesn't help you out. +5 penetration is quite easy to reach though, with rune smasher, eye of the void & spell focus. That would give you 14% chance of a clean kill.

In general I would be very afraid to send out the gem investment such a queen represents with only 20MR. Very afraid.

[Saxon]

Argitoth,

Have a good read of the magic resistance section of the manual. There a lot of details that are critical. I learned a lot last night doing just this. I am on the other side of the problem, as I have SC who keep getting knocked out by astral spells like paralyze and, especially enslave mind. I am trying to boost my MR, but knowing how to penetrate it is closely linked.

Rune smasher is not the only item to boost penetration and boosting the levels of the caster is also important. If you have communion capability, you should really explore that, as that can really boost your penetration.

[Argitoth]

The one I'm up against actually has 23 MR

At the top of my head to boost magic resistance:

Rainbow Armor
Amulate of Magic Resistance
Lead Shield
Starshine Skullcap
Amulate of Luck (doesn't raise MR obviously, but helps)


That's at least +17 magic resistance with all those items after you cast resist magic on the battle field. +13 if you don't cast it.

Edit: Also Astral Bless Effect helps (+1 to +4 MR)

[Agrajag]

Edit: Also Astral Bless Effect helps (+1 to +4 MR)


Don't forget that the astral bless won't raise MR above 18 (I think 18).

[DonCorazon]

Try Petrification

[Argitoth]

There's no way any of your suggestions would work for the situation I'm in.

I said at the beginning of the thread that I have access to any item and any spell. YES! I DO! However, I never said I had access to any army, any mage setup, etc. There's VERY little chance to setup the perfect army and move on the right province that the queen moves to.

That is why I have my plan and I don't want to reveal it. Don't post any more suggestions, I'll let you know if my plan works in a day or two. I can't reveal it on the forum because I don't want Wazooking to find out.

[Zeldor]

My 29MR water queen got killed by lucky Disintegrate recently. I wonder what was the chancce of striking it as it looked really buggy in the end of battle.

[Ironhawk]

There is no level of MR which makes a unit invulnerable to the single-target insti-kill/disable spells. As zeldor has found even high 20 MR is not enough to protect you. The problem is severely compounded by the fact that SCs are usually the only prime (size 6) candidate for the many enemy mages to target since those spells favor larger targets.

[Baalz]

I find really tough guys tend to go down to fatigue spamming. As far as fatigue goes Stellar cascades, heat aura, thunderstrike, pillar of fire etc. will circumvent the MR, defense, protection, and MR and regen doesn't help. Additionally fairies, manikins, etc. don't completely circumvent it, but work pretty well in numbers. She's got reinvig, but not that much, and once she's passed out most any half decent thug should be able to pound her into the ground. (just give him good MR). Presumably she's buffing herself a couple times and with that encumbrance she'll be more than halfway passed out before you do anything...

[Argitoth]

Baalz, you don't understand just how impossible this situation is. Your suggestions on spells are great! That's IF I have an army of mages that I can move to the right spot at the right time.

Like I said, I currently have access to any spell and any item, but I don't have access to any army setup. Again, the medusa shield pretty much kills everything. No amount of manikins, vampires, fairy queens, or ghosts will take the queen down, they die before they deal damage.

No more suggestions, just wait till I reveal my strategy! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[lch]

- She is already horror marked. Spam more horrors. One of the Twin Spears can cast "Lesser Horror" in battle, Oath Rod of Kurgi gives more Horrors Marks. Combine with Quickness / Boots of Quickness for two lesser horrors per turn in battle.

- Sceptre of Corruption again coupled with Quickness. She has good regen, but not that many HPs.

- Gifts from Heaven.

[Argitoth]

Some of your suggestions would simply take a lot of testing. There's too many variables, too many unknowns for your suggestions to be valid, such as:

-Horrors might get killed from medusa shield
-Gift of heavens is too inaccurate
-Gift of heavens casters are hard to get in numbers
-Gift of heavens may not be casted after script is over

The only suggestion that I think may have a decent chance is the sceptre of corruption. However, for this situation, I don't actually have access to blood magic.

BUT LIKE I SAID! I don't need anymore suggestions! I'll reveal my plan after it has been executed.

EDIT: Lol, I just did a test with the sceptre of corruption. There's no way it would work. I bet a group of mages casting banefire would work though. However, the problems are pretty much exactly like the problems of Gift of Heavens.

[sum1lost]

Cast windguide or the like before casting gifts from heaven.

[DonCorazon]

Argitoth, it is humorous to see you try to stop the inflow of good ideas.

I feel bad for your predicament so maybe people can help you throw your enemy off the trail by giving you some bad ideas...

[BigDisAwesome]

DonCorazon said:
Argitoth, it is humorous to see you try to stop the inflow of good ideas.

I feel bad for your predicament so maybe people can help you throw your enemy off the trail by giving you some bad ideas...



I got it! Hire like 300 militia to attack her! Problem solved!

[Argitoth]

sum1lost said:
Cast windguide or the like before casting gifts from heaven.



Indeed that would be good. Also, I never send a mage anywhere without gouging out their eye for eye of aiming. It's defintely a good idea if you had a mage with air, earth, and astral.

(of course for my situation, I don't have a mage like that.)


BigDisAwesome said:Hire like 300 militia to attack her!


Medusa shield will pose a problem for this idea.


DonCorazon said:
Argitoth, it is humorous to see you try to stop the inflow of good ideas.

I feel bad for your predicament so maybe people can help you throw your enemy off the trail by giving you some bad ideas...



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif Yep, I can't wait to reveal my plans after I kill the water queen. Everyone will be surprised... well not everyone. There's one suggestion in here so far that BARELY HINTS at my strategy.

[Fal]

I'm sure you can mindhunt her with your astral mages. I built some nearly unbeatable SC (king of Banfire and Air Queen + Earth King) in a previous MP game, after 20 or so mindhunts they evaporated from the face of the earth.

And, how about blood spell life for a life? never tested this on a SC with MR of 20, but it's a very potent spell.

[ologm]

Combining both Pixas and Proxas axes of rulership should allow you to disarm the waterqueen.

[Endoperez]

I don't understand this "I have access to any spells or items, but I don't have any armies", especially with the implied "she kills my armies, but my battle-mages aren't where she fights". Any items? Make twenty-something Rods of the Phoenix, Vision's Foes, Piercers, Black Bows of Botulf etc, keep an A2 mage in lab. Teleport the air mage to somewhere, and move magically armed commanders, where you think she's moving, and cast Wind Guide and let fly. If she didn't attack, instantly move the items elsewhere through your network of laboratories.

[Ironhawk]

ologm said:
Combining both Pixas and Proxas axes of rulership should allow you to disarm the waterqueen.



Dis-arm. Ha ha http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Folket]

leech, the most powerful spell in the game.

[Ironhawk]

Oh yeah, Life for a Life as well.

[VedalkenBear]

Endo: I think serious consideration was lost in this thread a page or so ago.

[Rytek]

Mind hunt it to death.

Wish it to a province with some nature mages and take it for yourself with charm spam.

Make a few thugs and give one of them that blood axe that causes a chest wound. Once it has been afflicted with a chest wound its just a matter of time until the fatigue piles up and it starts taking big hits.

Teleport a few mages on top of it and cast Paralyze/soul slay with some penetration items.

Not sure if death grip works underwater. But that is a great spell to take out lone SC's.

[Argitoth]

http://shup.com/Shup/37135/waterqueen.png

http://shup.com/Shup/37133/living-flames.png

http://shup.com/Shup/37134/high-magus.png

And that is how you kill a unsuspecting water queen with a medusa shield without fire resistance.

Ritual: Teleport
Battle Script: (Phoenix Power)(Living Flames)(Living Flames)(Earth Power)(Living Flames)Cast Spells.

[NTJedi]

There are many ways to kill that water queen... she should not have been traveling solo.

[Argitoth]

You can continue to talk about all sorts of situations, all sorts of strategy, endlessly. But my strategy was the only way to gaurantee killing the water queen in my current situation.

For example, if the queen wasn't travelling solo, there would be complications for the enemy as well as for myself. It would be a totally different situation and require different strategies.

[Jazzepi]

Argitoth said:
You can continue to talk about all sorts of situations, all sorts of strategy, endlessly. But my strategy was the only way to gaurantee killing the water queen in my current situation.

For example, if the queen wasn't travelling solo, there would be complications for the enemy as well as for myself. It would be a totally different situation and require different strategies.



Then you probably shouldn't waste everyone's time by asking for suggestions.

Jazzepi

[Argitoth]

Yes, maybe I shouldn't waste time sharing a brilliant way to take down solo supercombatants. Anyway, it was only after the first page of comments that I realized I would have to answer the question myself.

Jazzepi, this really isn't the place to be rude. I provided screenshots and explanations. That's not something people do everyday.

[Zeldor]

Argitoth:

You should have teleported second mage there with empty slots to grab some stuff she was carrying. Then resummon her, equip that and send her against previous owner.

[AdmiralZhao]

Yeah, that was a big mistake Argitoth.

[Jazzepi]

AdmiralZhao said:
Yeah, that was a big mistake Argitoth.



I don't understand. I thought Argitoth's way was the only way to defeat the queen? Clearly, all these other suggestions are wrong.

Jazzepi

[Fal]

well, it's not exactly 'a brilliant way to take down solo supercombatants', it's just one of the many ways... didn't understand the point of this post, should have explained 'your current situation' clearly then...

[Rathar]

The reason this game is fun is because there is no "only way" in this game. Resources available differ each time but even then..

[VedalkenBear]

Pot to kettle, pot to kettle, come in kettle.... HQ says you're black, kettle, over...

[Aezeal]

no offence but if she was alone why not let 10 relative cheap mages soulslay her?

[Sombre]

Because he didn't have 10 mages to go catch her with.

This kind of thread comes up a fair bit. Someone asks for suggestions/advice then violently rejects them all on the grounds that they aren't taking into account information which was never given to start with.

It's why I stick to answering direct questions rather than trying to work out what someone actually wants when it isn't clear.

[Aezeal]

he could create that high magus.. then you certainly can get 10 mages.. and he said he had access to anything we wanted http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Fal]

dont need to catch her with 10 mages, have 5 or so astral mages cast mindhunt will do, as mentioned previously.

[Zeldor]

Seraph with Aegis is a bit more scary. More creative solutions are needed for that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Argitoth]

Sombre said:This kind of thread comes up a fair bit. Someone asks for suggestions/advice then violently rejects them all on the grounds that they aren't taking into account information which was never given to start with.



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

And just for your infomation, right after I killed the waterqueen, there happened to be a lab on that province. I teleported him again and killed his earth king. THAT WAS SWEET VICTORY! However, the mage died a turn after since the enemy casted that spell which summons earth assassins. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

It's going to take at least 100 fire gems to replace him.

[Argitoth]

You know what, lemme make another post:

This was kind of like a riddle. I did infact give you enough information. Any spell and any item, but no army setup! Thus, what would come to mind is stuff like mindhunt. However, the best solution in my opinion is teleport and cast Living Flames. This strategy can also be used for Living Water, Living Clouds, and Living Earth. However, the thing about the flames it that the surrounding heat of fire elementals creates fatigue. No other elemental has a fatiguing aura... does ice elementals have cold aura?

Soo... yeah. But I actually didn't have access to everything. I didn't have blood magic, I couldn't cast ridiculous spells like wish. There's probably a few other things I couldn't have done.

[NTJedi]

Argitoth said:
But my strategy was the only way to gaurantee killing the water queen in my current situation.




Only way?? I don't know your entire list of mages, summons, items, and research levels... but your situation definitely has more than the one way which worked.

[Argitoth]

NTJedi said:

Argitoth said:
But my strategy was the only way to gaurantee killing the water queen in my current situation.




Only way?? I don't know your entire list of mages, summons, items, and research levels... but your situation definitely has more than the one way which worked.



Most of the ideas that were posted had to do with luck, such as getting past a high magic resistance and being able to hit the queen multiple times during battle with a low-precision spell like pillar of fire and gift of the heavens. Of course, gift of the heavens would only require one hit, but I couldn't catch her with a "gift of the heavens" caster. Not to say these aren't good ideas. I think in most situations, people could gather an army. I guess I should have mentioned that the queen would only go in my allie's territories. My allie had very little access to magic other than nature and earth. In my opinion though, you didn't need to know that information. All you needed to know was that I had access to any spell and any item. (except wish!)

Now, don't take this in the wrong way, I'm just discussing this stuff for fun. I don't expect to have everyone agree with everything I say.

[NTJedi]

At first it only had 20 MG resistance... not very difficult with the rune sceptre, eye void and/or spell focus items. The eye void and spell focus can be cheaply passed around to multiple mages for either soul slay, enslave mind, charm, etc., . If I see resistance of only 20 on a SC... I'm thinking Capture and Control it's mine... usually via charm.
.
Later its MG resistance was increased with the suit of armor yet this made it really slow. This armor is more ideal for mounted commanders. If I owned the Queen I would not have her traveling solo, she would be with a team of mage supporters and scout decoys.

With her being so slow on the battlefield the idea of stealing control would still be viable in my book. The fire elementals was a good way to take her out. I hope you brought some low level air mages to pickup some of those items.

[Argitoth]

You know what, the water queen was alive for so long with that medusa shield. I didn't want to take any risk of routing or other unseen misfortune so I only teleported in a single mage. Also, I was doing other things and I didn't have available another mage with teleport. However, when I teleported him in to kill the earth king with the same technique, I DID teleport in a second mage to pickup items. Guess what? He got nothing from the king. He did have a unique item on him too, and was fully equipped. That was lame. Maybe the chance of picking up an item increases if you are NEAR the enemy units.

Well, to let you know, the enemy has resummoned the queen and now has a small army with her. It doesn't matter though, my allie has the medusa shield on a unit that is more powerful than the water queen could ever be. lol I'll post a screenshot soon. Hint: It has about 80 regeneration and quickness.

[Jazzepi]

Sombre said:
Because he didn't have 10 mages to go catch her with.

This kind of thread comes up a fair bit. Someone asks for suggestions/advice then violently rejects them all on the grounds that they aren't taking into account information which was never given to start with.

It's why I stick to answering direct questions rather than trying to work out what someone actually wants when it isn't clear.



Seriously, retarded thread is retarded.

Jazzepi

[Argitoth]

Jazzepi, no one is forcing you to read or respond to retarted threads.

[Strider]

As long as forum rules are followed, all threads and comments are welcome. There's usually some type of info that comes out of them that may be of use or interest to players.

[sector24]

Personally, I had a blast.