[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Blitz:
What then, is GE's focus in your opinion? Losing your best mage and gaining a great researcher?

Magical smack-down. Whether that be battle magic, summons, or forging items.

In case you haven't noticed, GA Arcoscephale has no abilities in Blood or Death. This means that unlike Mictan, they cannot hope to summon as good an army as mictan could.

First, it's Golden Era, not Golden Age. Second, no, they don't get as good summons as Mictlan can, but they do get better national troops. So I see no reason why GE Arco should get summons 'as good as' Mictlan.

Earth summons are good, but the better ones are 5 earth, and your mages rarely come with more than 2E. Statues and clockwork horrors are nice, but they aren't devils and wights. The theme of GA seems to be research and flying creatures.

They certainly research better than anyone else in the game, and get _the_ most versatile mage in the game to make use of it.

Ok let's look at how I turned the Shedu into the hands down best pretender in the game shall we?

First, I did not say he became the best pretender in the game. Simply that he doesn't need to be altered in the least.

If you believe these bonuses raise this horrible pretender chassis to the level of a Virtue, Nataraja, or Ghost King,

For early taking of Independents, I'd rather have the Shedu than ANY of these (yes, including the Nataraja).

I respectfully doubt your grasp of the game. The facts are, you can buy a Manticore and give it Earth/Astral 1 and still have a cheaper chassis with 50 point path costs than the Shedu. Let's recap.

This fact is also wrong. Ignoring the GROSS hp difference between the two, I don't think you know how buying paths work.

If all you want is level 1 Earth and Astral, sure, the Manticore is 25 points cheaper. The stat differences are rather large (you cannot ignore the 85 base hp difference). Getting back to paths, though, if you intend to increase the magic paths at all, the Shedu will gain points relative to the Manticore. Say that you want 2 Earth and 2 Astral on the Manticore and the Shedu. For the Manticore, this comes to:

50 + 50 + 16 + 16 = 132 points.

For the Shedu, this comes to:

0 + 0 + 8 + 8 = 16 points. Add in the 125 base cost, and you get 141.

The savings you made on the Manticore have basically vanished at this point, and no one is going to take a combat Pretender with only 2 Astral.

You seem to have also missed the point that the Shedu is a size-6 trampler. It can easily kill more people per turn than the Manticore, thus routing people faster, thus taking less damage (and he has more HPs to start).

1) The manticore also flies and has limited item slots.

Which is why I think it's useful at least for a comparison.

2) It costs 0 points, not 125

For no magic.

3) You can get the same Astral/Earth levels on a manticore, and save 25 points... while retaining 50 point paths in other areas.

The savings is only if you stay at 1, which is not MP-viable.

4) While having lower HP and 6 protection vs 8, the manticore has higher strength, attack, defense, precision, in addition to 100% poison resistance as well as a poisonous stinger and bite instead of a hoof.

And the Shedu is a flying trampler.

Ask yourself... how good is a manticore? Would you use a manticore with 18 defense instead of 12? That's what this "new" Shedu is. A manticore with 18 defense. God forbid this monster be unleashed on the Dom 2 community! [/QB]

With all due respect, you've missed several things in your argument. Considering what you've missed, I wonder if you've ever even used a Shedu.