Newbie guide to SCs?

[Norfleet]

The most important aspect of an SC is not his raw ability to kill things necessarily, but his ability not to get killed. Because it doesn't matter how hard you hit if you don't Last long enough to do any pummelling.

Several methods exist towards the "not being killed" angle: The first is to stack on protective magics and innate defenses like ethereal, lucky, mirror image, mistform, astral shield, etc. The second is to have very high values of protection, defense, and hitpoints. The third is to recover from damage faster than you can take it: regeneration and lifesteal. By combining all 3 of these elements together, you get something that just won't die easily.

Then, you need endurance: Your prospective SC is useless if he ends up nose down in the dirt from fatigue before he can complete his killing spree and people put him down like a dog. This can be accomplished through either high levels of reinvigoration, being 0-encumberance, or lifesteal.

Lastly, you need to be able to kill stuff. This means you need preferrably a modest value of attack, and probably some damage shields, or your ability to inflict carnage will cap out and you will lose battles from expiration: For weak swarmers, Fire Shield is good. Breath of Winter excellent also, as is Soul Vortex, which also provides lifesteal at the same time it hurts things. The pain inflicted by Soul Vortex is not really that much, however, so don't count on this as a hardcore damage shield. SV is also fairly high-tech, requiring Alt-6, so won't be available to you too early. Ability to move and attack twice a round via quickness is good, too.

Therefore, the components of a good SC: Many magical defenses, high defense and protection, low or no encumberance, lifesteal, regeneration, and high MR.

Examples:
Vampire Queen: naked: Quickness, Mirror, Mistform, Ironskin, Breath of Winter, attack
Ice Devil: blood thorn, lucky coin, starshine, robe of shadows, AMA, regen ring, flying shoes: Quickness, BoW, Attack
Niefel Jarl: Hellsword, Starshine, Hydra Skin, AMA, Lucky Pendant, Flying Shoes.
Bane Lord: Wraith Sword, Jade Armor, Starshine, AMA, Pendant, Flying Shoes: Attack.

These all of varying degrees of availability and strength, but all have a good selection of the above traits.

The Shedu, in my opinion, falls short because his primary attack form is trampling, which means he will fatigue out after about 10-15 tramples under the best of conditions. While his spell buffs can be tolerable enough to keep him alive, and he has many hitpoints, this isn't enough to save him once he passes out....and he will pass out. You can alleviate this problem of a Shedu or similar chassis becoming overwhelmed by accompanying him with troops, but he's no longer able to simple go on solo rampages through the countryside, mowing down entire armies unassisted, which is what SCs do. Thus, Shedu are bad SCs.

[Blitz]

Ice Devil: blood thorn, lucky coin, starshine, robe of shadows, AMA, regen ring, flying shoes: Quickness, BoW, Attack
Niefel Jarl: Hellsword, Starshine, Hydra Skin, AMA, Lucky Pendant, Flying Shoes.
Bane Lord: Wraith Sword, Jade Armor, Starshine, AMA, Pendant, Flying Shoes: Attack.

It should be noted that all three of the above are excellent examples of SC's and available to a single race... Jotenhiem. For your first game with SC's I would suggest not using arcoscephale, as it is one of the weakest races for supporting SC's. The lack of blood/death magic restricts lifedraining weapons, and similarily many of the best SC's are from those two magic paths. For Arco, the best, but still not easily summoned SC is the Air Queen, which I believe comes with conjuration 7.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Blitz:
It should be noted that all three of the above are excellent examples of SC's and available to a single race... Jotenhiem.

I can run the Ice Devils just fine as Mictlan or Caelum, too. The Niefel Jarl is certainly Jotunheim-specific, but the rest aren't.

For your first game with SC's I would suggest not using arcoscephale, as it is one of the weakest races for supporting SC's.

Bullcrap. Arco has great access to churning out a huge variety of wonderful elemental equipments, including the Jade Armors: You'll easily have a WE mystic capable of making those, an FE mystic that can give you charcoal shields, LOTS of astral folks to make those starshines, AMAs, coins, pendants....

And Arco has healing priestesses! Afflictions are a non-issue. Arco is by far one of the BEST nations for supporting an SC! What are you smoking? You must not have seen terribly many Natarajas....

The lack of blood/death magic restricts lifedraining weapons, and similarily many of the best SC's are from those two magic paths.

Taking 2-3 Death on your pretender is all you need to jumpstart the death process: Ench-3 gets you Revenants, summonable D1 mages. Staff them, and they're D2 mages, can summon more revenants, make more staffs, or forge wraith swords. Arco can do this just fine, thanks. I'm having quite an excellent time with SCs as Arco, thank you very much.

[ June 22, 2004, 03:07: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Blitz]

I can run the Ice Devils just fine as Mictlan or Caelum, too. The Niefel Jarl is certainly Jotunheim-specific, but the rest aren't.

I'm aware that other nations can use blood and death magic... I was pointing out that jotunheim can use all three.

I'm having quite an excellent time with SCs as Arco, thank you very much.

You aren't really a newbie are you? I'm sure whatever strategy you are using isn't as simple as buying a neifel jarl and giving him a wraith sword. There are problems you have to get around in order to get death magic with arco. Most of my arcoscephale pretender chassis which include death magic are pretty expensive as well.

I would however, be interested to find out what your Nataraja looks like. AAAEEEDDD?

[ June 22, 2004, 03:19: Message edited by: Blitz ]

[Kel]

For your first game with SC's I would suggest not using arcoscephale, as it is one of the weakest races for supporting SC's.

This is true in the early game. In the mid/end game, Arco's variety of magic, ability to craft about anything, being able to site search efficiently (including death), and their astral income gives them a wider variety of SCs than most nations. So it depends on which SCs you are looking at. If you want to see the biggest variety of SCs available in the end game (and experiment with them), Arco is still a good choice, imo.

It also is not hard to get into death magic. I avoid empowering since it is so inefficient but a ring of sorcery, otoh, is always a goal for me, as Arco, in the mid game. From there, its skull staff, skull face and there you have a 4 death caster, assuming you don't find indies that are better.

Blood, otoh, is pretty unlikely, without a good indie mage. Arco's variety of gem income will often let you trade for a few blood slave items (blood thorn, for example, a better fit on Nat than a wraith sword, imo (though a higher const level)) though, honestly, it's hard to get too many since every blood user has their eyes on the ID's or contracts

- Kel

[LintMan]

Here's an alternate SC you can use for Arco:

Ghost King
Air 3
Water 2
Earth 3
Death 3

This leaves you 230 points to spend on scales, dominion (base 3), castle, and perhaps even some extra magic skills as you'd like.

Those magic paths allow you to cast:
Quickness
Ironskin (and later Invulnerability)
Breath of Winter
Mistform
Mirror Image (or perhaps Soul Vortex later)

The Ghost King has some nice built-in advantages over some other SC pretenders:
- he's undead, so he gets: 100% cold/poison res, disease immunity, and best of all: 0 encumberance, so fatigue worries.
- ethereal
- cause fear +6
- chill effect

As soon as you can research 3-4 of the above spells, he's good to go out whopping indeps, but as you are able to research and forge them. you can give him some nice booster items:
- Charcoal Shield (gives flame shield)
- Sword of Quickness (2 attacks/rd)
- Horror Helm (boost fear to insane levels)
- Jade armor (gives auto Quickness)
or
- Rime Hauberk (gives auto Breath of Winter)
- Flying Boots
- Pendant of Luck
- Anti-Magic Amulet

There's plenty of other armor choices you can pick besides those two. I mention those two because they provide effects you're casting spells for, so if you get the item, then you can script a different spell for another sort of boost, such as Air Shield if you're dealing with a lot of massed missile units.

As a side thing to mention: since you're planning to play SP for a while and said you don't want to worry about having your pretender with weak astral getting duelled, you can download the Magic Duel Mod from illwinter's site, which boosts MD's cost to 1 gem/100 fatigue, so you'll almost never see Magic Duel used after that.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Blitz:
I would however, be interested to find out what your Nataraja looks like. AAAEEEDDD?

5A, 2W, 2E, 4D, is my current build.