Newbie Thought: Anointing The Rhuax

[Managarm]

After having a look to Edi's and Sunray's units dB (nice work, BTW) I realized that the Anointed Of Rhuax, an expensive Abysian battlemage, has a very good offensive melee potential: Attack value of 16, rF(100), sur(w), h(+13), FSh(10), dk(50). On top of that he's a sacred level 3 priest, so a F9 bless will be a nice addition to wreak havoc with an attack rating of 20(!!) plus Flaming Weapons

Unfortunately, this little guy has a very low protection and defense values (1 and 11 respectively), extra help is needed to make him last longer in melee.

Apart from equipping him accordingly (Fire Plate and the like) for extra protection, he's a good fire mage and he can cast Phoenix Pyre (Alt 7) to obtain limited, and fatigue-dependant, immortality. I think he'll need some reinvigoration to make this kind of immortality useful. Abysia only gets Fire gems and has very limited access to Earth/Astral at the very beginning so it'll be difficult to forge any nature and/or earth based item... Any ideas to make this strategy work? Or it won't work anyway?

I have another question regarding Abysia National spells; Inner Furnace and Summon Scorpion Man look quite good, but are they worthy?

[llamabeast]

You could give him the Robe of Shadows to make him ethereal, if you can make it, and have him cast Ironskin to give himself protection 20 in battle. If he had a pendant of luck as well, he might be reasonably survivable. Casting fire shield would probably stack with his natural fire shield as well, which would be brutal. His main problem is a lack of hit points - sooner or later a hit would get through, then it'd be no more Anointed .

Defense isn't so key really. In battle every attacker after the first gives -2 to defense, so if he ends up fighting a crowd then most of them will hit him whatever you do. The trick is to make their hits not count for anything.

Reinvigoration is a good point. An amulet of resilience and boots of the messenger would do a good job. Then so long as it took more than three or four rounds to kill him each time he'd last forever.

[SelfishGene]

Do items survive on a mage after death/ressurection from Phoenix Pyre?

If they do, try double Hearts of Life....

[Managarm]

Llamabeast and Selfishgene, thanx a lot for your comments!! Now I see that the Rhuax thing was just a foolish idea of mine...

Your words suggest me a couple of additional questions:
1) Does Phoenix Pyre respawning heal afflictions? Cumulative afflictions in each new life is not funny at all...
2) Is Defense NOT as useful (generally speaking) as Protection? At least Protection stays always in place regardless of fatigue and multiple attacks
Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to this scenario an E9 Bless is preferable before a W9 Bless, is that so?

Cheers

[MaxWilson]

Defense is great for line units, which generally won't be facing greater than 6:1 odds even if they're on the corner of a formation. Protection is generally better for SCs because of the swarm factor, although e.g. an anti-Jotun SC probably never faces more than 7 opponents at once and so a defense of 36 would still be quite nice. Note, however, that Protection drops with fatigue just like defense does, although the mechanism is different. Critical hits, page 76. At 60 fatigue, 25% of hits are critical, so it's vital for a melee SC to keep fatigue low through reinvigoration items and/or life drain.

I know that Phoenix Pyre leaves some afflictions in place. It may or may not have a chance of healing some afflictions, but you definitely do pick up afflictions. Also, the manual says it's 10 squares of 50 AP damage which sounds great; in practice I haven't found it to be anything near 50 AP. Perhaps 15-25, which is not bad but not good enough that I'd regard Phoenix Pyre + getting killed as a viable offensive technique. The damage is more a perk than the main effect.

That said, the idea of an Ironskinned, Boots-of-the-Messenger'ed, Phoenix-Pyre'd Anointed of Rhuax is kind of a fun one. I'd probably give him a Standard of the Damned instead of a melee weapon so he'll drain life instead of meleeing, to recoup his fatigue losses. [later] A quick test with Svartalfs (since that's what I have in the game I'm currently playing) shows that 1.) the afflictions you pick up from dying multiple times take a lot of the fun out of it (5+ afflictions gained just killing off a bunch of crummy militia and light cavalry, even with Invulnerability) and 2.) I don't know of any good way to force casters to use Drain Life instead of other mass-damage spells after the 5 scripted rounds are over. Their fatigue goes up and then they die.

Take that for what it's worth.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

SelfishGene said:
Do items survive on a mage after death/ressurection from Phoenix Pyre?

If they do, try double Hearts of Life....

By the way, Hearts of Life still get used up if he's using Phoenix Pyre. I don't know whether they kick in before Phoenix Pyre or simultaneous to it, but they get used up well before he runs out of fatigue, so it's probably a waste of items.

-Max

[Sandman]

Unfortunately, this little guy has a very low protection and defense values (1 and 11 respectively), extra help is needed to make him last longer in melee.

They get +6 def, strength, attack and movement in a heat-3 dominion. Which is massive, frankly.

[Managarm]

Sandman said:

They get +6 def, strength, attack and movement in a heat-3 dominion. Which is massive, frankly.

Thanks for pointing this out, I thought that heat scales in Abysia just affected the income/resources and also the magnitude of the "heat" ability.
This additional +6 bonus is truly amazing!! Defense 17, Strength 21 and Attack 22 (w/o bless)for the Anointeds it's a start at least...

Unfortunately I have seen that the heat-3 dominion bonuses don't apply to the remaining Abysian units/commanders in the same way:
- Burning Ones gain +3 bonuses instead of +6 bonuses
- Anathemant Dragons get no bonuses at all!!
- Even my Solar Disc pretender just benefit from a +1 in Strength and +6 in attack

What's going on? I can't see a clear pattern here!

[Endoperez]

Abysians only get increased Heat in warm provinces. Lava Warriors of later ages, and Burning Ones of Early age, are special and gain increased benefits from the warmth. Anointed of Rhuax are anointed of Rhuax, and get double the normal bonus.

Getting temperature bonuses is very rare. Just remember to stay away from cold provinces, and beware the Alteration spell Wolven Winter... It's a two-edged sword, a curse as well as a blessing.

[Managarm]

Max,
Many thanks also to you for the explanations on defense, the testing and for highlighting the fatigue FX on protection, I definitively missed that bit reading the manual!

Yes, I found quite funny trying to transform the Anointed from a very good battlemage with some melee capability into a high explosive meat grinder... The Kamikaze of Rhuax...

Although getting severe afflictions in the process makes this idea unfeasible