Seeking MP Serpent Cult Advice

Ironhawk · #1 November 14th, 2007, 06:00 PM

One thing that other players may find useful tho is actually that I've determined that Hydras do not really benefit from a strong (L9) bless. Particularly water, which you would think would be a braindead choice for them. The problem is that they have so many attacks already that water just puts them even farther over the limit of attacks since you can only hit two full squares per turn.

Sombre · #2 November 15th, 2007, 01:55 AM

Yeah it seems like none of the lvl9 blesses actually work well on big hydras. Fire, they don't really need the extra attack and they can kill just about anything strong with poison damage anyway, water, they already have so many attacks it won't help vs chaff and the def bonus is worthless on such a big unit. Death is of course next to useless. S9 they only get twist fate once, though the mr might be good against paralyze (which is far worse for them than soul slay etc). E9, useless. A9,.. eh,... well you /could/, but it's A9.

Zen · #3 November 15th, 2007, 02:48 AM

Probably the biggest reason to not use a bless with Serpent Cult is the fact that due to the way Hydra's now work, after 1 head is killed it reverts to non-sacred status.

So even if you wanted to use a bless it is only a temporary blessing. You have to build your blessing around your cataphracts and possibly Sirrush.

Sir_Dr_D · #4 November 15th, 2007, 03:10 AM

I wonder if an affliction bless affects the hyra's poison cloud. I don't know how effective it would be, but it would certainly be amusing if combatants start getting chest wounds and losing limbs from just walking close to the hydra.

Ironhawk · #5 November 15th, 2007, 04:30 AM

Whoa, Zen! Good to see you again man

The hydra sacred bug is fixed by the special hydra quickfix mod. As for the cataphracts: they just arent special enough of a unit to bless, not to mention thier excessive resource cost.

Yeah, I toyed around with an S9 or even S6 blessing but its just not worth it for the amount of points you have to put in. Hydras have good MR anyway. In the end I think I'm just going to go for a combination of low level blessings to give the hydras a little more oomph and concentrate on scales and magic instead.

Ironhawk · #6 November 15th, 2007, 04:35 AM

In other news:

I've just found in my test game that Heretic units only reduce beneficial friendly dominion!! So, for example, they will kill all your Order scale, but not your Drain. ....... There goes my Drain-3 plan

Could there be a more useless unit trait than Heretic?

Edi · #7 November 15th, 2007, 07:14 AM

Quote:

Ironhawk said:
In other news:

I've just found in my test game that Heretic units only reduce beneficial friendly dominion!! So, for example, they will kill all your Order scale, but not your Drain. ....... There goes my Drain-3 plan

Could there be a more useless unit trait than Heretic?

Umm, Plague Carrier and Reaper? Because their effect is even worse, which I suppose would be damning with faint praise...

Edratman · #8 November 15th, 2007, 08:56 AM

This thread has the best information on hydras I've ever encountered. I don't like to play any of the nations with them for my own whimsical reasons. I always thought the Hydras were great but expensive units until this thread.

thejeff · #9 November 15th, 2007, 09:22 AM

I'm not sure what you mean by "only reduce beneficial friendly dominion"?

I thought they reduced dominion: number of candles. Are you saying they reduce the effect of good scales? Or lower the good scales?

Or just that when you have no candles you get the bad scale effects, but not the good ones.

Edi · #10 November 15th, 2007, 09:36 AM

He probably means that if you haev a dominion with a mix of positive ane negative scales (e.g. order 3, misfortune 3), the heretics will lower your dominion to 0 and neutralize your order 3 scale, but they will NOT neutralize misfortune 3 to luck/misfortune 0 so you get the worst of both worlds.