Petition to Save the Moloch!

[Blitz]

He also starts with a high dominion, which is a point discount if you compare him to a lot of other SCs.

To a lot of others, yes... but not in comparison to the Virtue (4), and POD (3). It is higher than the phoenix (2), so maybe I might have mentioned it I suppose.

Starting with F3 is also going to give him a huge discount if you want to make him a fire bless *and* an SC (entirely feasible).

Yup he's the cheapest fire 9 blessing. Nobody disputes that. However, similar to the shedu (but obviously not as bad), having to tow around an army is very limiting, and often eliminates his 3-flying strategic move. My point was that making him a SC is prohibitively expensive. He will remain in the fire-9 blessing niche even without the imps. Using him as a thug is possible now, and since thugs aren't meant to solo, the imp problem is small. The option to spend outrageous points to make him a SC should probably be there, however. The imp bug shouldn't be the limiting factor here.

Lastly, when you are balancing, you can't aim for the top of the power curve or you will get balance inflation. How many of the available pretenders would be better but, also, how many would be worse ?

That's the point

I like the Moloch, I don't like his imps however, but the Imps do not make the Moloch 'useless' in any role other than a Blessing Strategy. It only makes him at current inflexible in his SC role early in the game (which is where SC's are most valuable).

AFAIK it is not the intention of IW to keep the battlesummon creatures routable as they are and finding the reasons why and modifying them to the vision of IW to work how they see them is in progress. That is the only answer that I can give you with any assurity.

I agree with all of this.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Blitz:

quote:

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To bring a Moloch up to fire 9, dominion 6 costs you only 285 points. To do the same with the Phoenix costs 408 points.

Thanks for demonstrating that the Moloch was the cheapest chassis for a fire-9 base. I'm sure there were a few monkeys who didn't catch it. Thanks to this observation, I believe the debate is over. The Moloch is fine.

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Where oh where is the Plonk button? Bah!

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Blitz:
[QB]Thanks for demonstrating that the Moloch was the cheapest chassis for a fire-9 base. I'm sure there were a few monkeys who didn't catch it. Thanks to this observation, I believe the debate is over. The Moloch is fine.[qb]

It's nice to see that you _completely_ missed the point. You made the argument that the Phoenix is a better chassis for a fire-9 blessing than the Moloch. Since it costs 123 extra points to get that blessing, and gives you a less useful combat unit at the same time, this is very doubtful.

Wonderful observation. I wasn't aware that a single unit wasn't the answer to all the game's problems. Since this revelation, I guess the Moloch is fine.

You made the statement that he was clearly worse than both the virtue and PoD. Since he will be running around with an army for most of the game anyways, this isn't really that important.

Thank you for clarifying the importance of items. I wasn't aware that flying humanoid meant a flying unit with humanoid slottage. I missed the unit that solved the routing imp problem, but you seem confident, so let's just assume the Moloch is fine.

It's nice to see that you've now started desperately grasping at straws by deliberately ignoring what you wrote. I'll present it for you again here:

Having said that, even with imp removal... the 70 point paths make building a killing machine extremely expensive.

You stated that it was expensive to make him a killing machine, so I simply demonstrated that he works just fine as one even with no added magic whatsoever.

It wasn't meant to be an archtype build for the Moloch, only to remind people that his path cost was extremely high. I don't really know where the mistform comment came from. Cloud trapeeze and mirror image are the key spells. Mistform is a toy.

Mistform with 2 air only gives you something like three or four images. That's nice, but not particularly useful. You'll expect to see size 6 tramplers coming after you if you rely on mirror images, and those will get rid of them very quickly. You also don't get to build the air boosting items without bumping it up to 3, which makes it not really worth the cost.

I don't find it irrelevant at all. The Last time there was a debate on a pretender chassis, you and a few others seemed hell-bent to disprove all arguments that he wasn't working well.

No, I was determined to show that you didn't understand the niche that the Shedu filled. He's the best there is for a very specific role.

Even with imps removed I doubt anyone would use him over other flying humanoids unless they wanted the bless effect. Therefore, imp removal would not suddenly catapult the Moloch to the top of the pretender tree.

This is as ridiculous a statement as I've seen. You clearly don't realize just how fragile a virtue is if you think that people wouldn't use a Moloch over one.

You on the other hand, have made points that nobody disputes, least of all myself... making your post completely irrelevant.

You might want to go back and re-read your own post, since you've ignored the problems with everything you wrote in making up your responses.

Obviously once again you are making an attempt to discredit your percieved foes by attacking their dominions 2 knowledge, spelling, or child care theories.

Obviously you don't really have much of a clue about how the game works as demonstrated by the information you've provided. I'm attacking the mistakes you made in your argument, which means it might help if you didn't pretend that you had never made those mistakes.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Blitz:
It is higher than the phoenix (2), so maybe I might have mentioned it I suppose.

The phoenix is not an SC, and I don't see any way that you could ever make him one.

Yup he's the cheapest fire 9 blessing. Nobody disputes that.

You disputed it.

Even in the fire-9 blessing role, he is arguably superceded by the phoenix, who is a stronger artillery unit and is of course... immortal.

My point was that making him a SC is prohibitively expensive.

Which only shows that you don't know what is necessary to make one.

[ July 07, 2004, 19:53: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]

[PrinzMegaherz]

Maybe we should simply change the moloch's description?

"The Moloch will surely shatter the world, unless his imps rout."

[Blitz]

You made the argument that the Phoenix is a better chassis for a fire-9 blessing than the Moloch.

I said the phoenix was a better fire 9 bless chassis? Why don't you quote that then? I like the phoenix. I don't think it's CHEAPER. Any idiot could tell you that the Moloch (and red dragon, etc) are cheaper chassis than the phoenix. And apparently an idiot has. Only a complete moron would try and make that argument, and despite your best attempts to paint me as one, I'm not a complete moron.

Do you really have nothing better to do than run around message Boards picking at people's Posts? On the other hand I do, and I don't really care to answer your every nitpick argument. You're basicly looking for another 120 post flamewar like the one you goaded me into earlier this month. You may enjoy such things, but I do not. I'm sure the Moloch will get fixed eventually.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Blitz:
[QB]I said the phoenix was a better fire 9 bless chassis? Why don't you quote that then?

Sure, but you should already be aware of what I was responding to in the first place, since it was your message.

Even in the fire-9 blessing role, he is arguably superceded by the phoenix, who is a stronger artillery unit and is of course... immortal.

The fire-9 blessing role is hardly filled better by a unit that is a hundred points more expensive for the same effect.

I like the phoenix. I don't think it's CHEAPER. Any idiot could tell you that the Moloch (and red dragon, etc) are cheaper chassis than the phoenix. And apparently an idiot has. Only a complete moron would try and make that argument, and despite your best attempts to paint me as one, I'm not a complete moron.

Actually, yes, I do think that you are most likely a complete moron.

Do you really have nothing better to do than run around message Boards picking at people's Posts? On the other hand I do, and I don't really care to answer your every nitpick argument.

If you can't be bothered to post information that's even relevant or correct, then don't complain when someone calls you on it.

You're basicly looking for another 120 post flamewar like the one you goaded me into earlier this month. You may enjoy such things, but I do not. I'm sure the Moloch will get fixed eventually.

Or, in other words:
"Boo hoo. I made a bunch of statements that were wrong and got called on it. Now I'm going to ignore that and try to claim that I didn't actually make them."

[ July 07, 2004, 20:20: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]