Best - worse magic paths

[Truper]

Graeme Dice said:

[Vine ogres never made anybody automatically win. They were cost-effective meat shields and nothing else. Anybody who lost to an army of vine ogres would have lost to any competent player, using any powerful strategy. A single bane lord with a blood thorn, charcoal shield, lucky pendant and jade armour would have been enough to kill 50+ vine ogres in a single battle, and a failure to field such a unit to deal with an army of vine ogres is the fault of the losing player, not game balance. Now, thanks to a doubling of their gem cost, they are barely cost-effective. Bizarrely, lamias, which were already the best nature summon, have been made cheaper.

This "analysis" ignores the fact that vine ogres can be buffed, and do not operate in a magic-support-free vacuum. In Dom2, Vine Ogres were absurdly underpriced. Calculate the number of gems spent on that Bane Lord, and then calculate the number of hitpoints possesed by an army of Vine Ogres on which an equal number of gems was spent.