Looking for SC pointers

[Morkilus]

Without discussing specific builds (seriously, there are hundreds of threads about this. Use your search function) I'd say you are looking for:

Hit points (at least 30)
Reinvigoration
Regeneration (not as necessary)
High defense
High protection
Damage shields or large AoE effects
Magic resistance
Strategic move (flying)

Forge a huge variety of items and play around 'til you get a good mix of these. The elemental Kings and Queens and the unique blood summons are a good place to start. Or just equip a Niefel commander.

[lch]

Morkilus forgot:

Luck
Ethereality
Mistform

Okay, the last one can only be gained through buffing with the appropiate spells, but Luck is the most useful ability to have bar none and ethereality is nice to have, too. You don't need high def / prot if the enemy cannot hit or hurt you.

For MP, you typically have to focus on MR boni very much.

[Micah]

I'd say reinvigoration (or life drain) was a lot more important than luck on anything without 0-enc actually. Especially since luck doesn't protect against mind hunting for some reason from the looks of it. It is really handy to have though, and available from a lot of different items/spells.

Basically just worry about keeping your SC alive with equipment and worry about how well it kills stuff later. Fire brands give you elemental resist as well as an AE attack, so they're good dual purpose weapons. Just watch out for skel-spam nations, against them you'll want more offensive punch to get through the chaff screens. 50 turns of killing stuff is a long time, and if your SC can stick in it for the long haul all that happens after that is running away (unless he's entangled or paralyzed, that can be a problem) so you won't lose much.

And never let your fatigue go over about 50, it will make you die.

[Zylithan]

do luck and ethereal stack?

liek, etheral means 75% of nonmagic attacks automiss, right?

and luck means 50% of attacks automiss, right?

so with both, do 87.5% (7/8) of normal hits count as misses?

or am i wrong on a hundred things already?

tx

[Jazzepi]

I believe they stack like this.

If a normal weapon hits a lucky/etheral one of the abilities checks first, and then if it passes that check, the other ability checks. If the weapon succeeds at passing both checks, it deals damage.

So the probability is (1/2)*(1/4) = 1/8. So a ethereal/lucky unit will only get hit by 1/8 of all the normal strikes.

Therefore, you're correct

Jazzepi

[duke_commando]

Luck means 50% of successful attacks are negated.
So if you have ethereal and luck, 75% of attack will automatically miss and 50% of the rest that successfully do damage will also miss.
So luck is pretty uber on high defense units since few attacks will successfully hit them anyway, and half of those that manage to do damage will be negated.
This is my understanding of it from the description anyways.

[Shovah32]

I have to agree with Micah. Survival is the first thing you should take into consideration when making a SC. Get the usual sort of stuff such as high protection/defence, luck ect and then start to think of what your SC wil have to fight. Will the enemy be casting magic of a certain element that you will need resistances for? Does the enemy focus on spells that are negated by magic resistance? Does the enemy have special national troops(eg Niefel Giants with their chill aura and very high strength) or summoned troops(abominations anyone?).
As a last note(only IMO):
It's almost always better to get a very high defence value or protection value(my usual choice)with a reasonable amount of the other rather than just quite high in both. Of course you should generally try to have a reasonable amount of each(pure protection and AN weapons will destroy you. Pure defence and AoE can do the same).

[Micah]

Yes Zyl, they should stack.

And Jazzepi is only partially right. 0-enc units still get spellcasting encumberance from their items, so you DO have to watch out what you give them if you're planning on casting any self-buffs. After they're done casting they can melee all day without getting any more, but if they're already at 60 fatigue they're in a good deal of trouble.

[Jazzepi]

Micah said:
Yes Zyl, they should stack.

And Jazzepi is only partially right. 0-enc units still get spellcasting encumberance from their items, so you DO have to watch out what you give them if you're planning on casting any self-buffs. After they're done casting they can melee all day without getting any more, but if they're already at 60 fatigue they're in a good deal of trouble.

This is very true. The flip side to having 0 encumberance is that you do not naturally regain fatigue. So if you plan on casting battlefield buffs without the aid of either soul vortex, or summon earth power, you'll need some reinvig items. Each 10 points of fatigue reduces your defense by 1, which is quite nasty.

Jazzepi

[Edratman]

My three mandatory assets are luck and etheral and 7 item slots.

I also think of my SC's having 50+ hit points. Less than that I will classify them as a thug. (An entirely subjective opinion.) My bane lords are thugs. The deva's I get from wish are SC's.

The deva is a great chassis with 4 hand slots. Not etheral, but I enjoy it anyway. I put every item of quickness on her that I can forge along with the Sickle whose crop is Death (whatever). It's like stealing death gems. Minimum of 20 death gems a battle.