Father of Winters
 

I am playing EA Agartha and I am battling Caelum who has W8 Father of Winters Pretender. In the last battle I had about 15 trogs and about the same number of ancient ones (with an F8 bless) get attacked by this guy. His defense was 26. His Magic resistance is 19. My poor Ancient ones even blessed could not hit him. Obviously the trogs were helpless and were just dead meat. I am wondering how I take him down??? Oh...btw...I just found a magic site that builds Lore Masters which mathematically COULD become S3. He is as of now alone in a province....I dont have any astral but as native agartha I have plenty of earth and some decent fire mages..and death mages. So.....MR is so high I am not sure what will work on him mage wise. I thought if I could tire him out....Curse of stones then rush him with undead chaff??? Will that do it??? IF i ever get an S3 out of the Lore Masters, would Soul Slay work??? I doubt it cuz his magic resistance is so high. Is there some way I can try to cause Feeble Mind? HAHA.... I am thinking the best way is to try and exhaust him with curse of stones...maybe throw a couple combustions or maybe some damage over time death spell like decay to add to his fatigue??? Any suggestions??

Re: Father of Winters
 

Swarm him with the undead

Re: Father of Winters
 

For death magic, decay isn't what you want, it just causes aging, which doesn't really do anything against gods (long lifespans). Ghost grip might help, and exhausting him with skelly-spam is always a good trick (unless he is fatigue neutral). Water magic doesnt give you much, since he's cold immune. Fire gives you blindness and incinerate. Petrify is best with earth, but it's high in research.

If you've been doing a lot of construction research, you could also try to equip an ancient lord with anti-sc gear.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Curse of stones is not realistically going to work. Ghost grip/stellar cascades or even just being set on fire are much more likely to work. Soul slay can work, but it would take a lot of soul slays. Communions help here. Anything under 24+ mr is most definitely nothing like safe from soul slays though, especially with penetration boosters.

Re: Father of Winters
 

rdonj, just out of curiouosity why wouldnt curse of stones speed up his exhaustion along with skelly spam? Am I wrong in thinking by running his fatigue up to 250 it would reduce his defense to zero? making him a much easier target.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Curse of Stones is MR negates easily. While it's a great spell otherwise it is very unlikely to affect anyone with high MR.

Going the fatigue route stellar cascades should destroy him quickly, whenever it is feasible to use it.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Ohhh...ok thanks Red...I guess I missed the MR part of CoS. God this game gets deep. WIsh it could get a bit of a graphics overhaul. BUt after all these years this game is still so compelling because of its depth.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Is this by any chance CBM?
If so you have a far easier solution.

Recruit your best unit: your boulder throwers. Under CBM the boulders are area of effect.

By the way - as agartha you really *love* goblins, hoburgs, swarms, dispossed spirits: Anything that is size 1.

two of them, in the same square as your agarthans will bleed off attacks and boost the survivability of your agarthans.

Just make sure the agarthans are *in front* of the smaller creatures so the smaller creatures will move through.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Hmmm good thoughts Batman...as a rule I LOVE the swarm spell...one of my favorites. It is not CBM so I dont think I have AoE with my boulder throwers and havent raised any. But I DO think I can recruit Hoburgs somewhere...will have to look around...never thought of that strategy. Does Defense have an affect on missiles??? I always though it did but maybe they are only mitigated by protection??

Re: Father of Winters
 

shield have a massive impact on the effectiveness of missiles, so I wouldn't bother with that if the FoW has a decent shield.

I'm under the impression that piercer can bypass shield parry as a special ability though (test it), and the vine bow I'm unsure if it can bind if it is parried in the current incarnation (1.92?). botulfs is an option if he uses a weak shield though, if not cost effective, but getting just 1 arrow to stick will feeblemind him which opens him up to a lot of MR spells and kills his casting.

And before I do anything I'd spirit curse him, if you can get some damage in and cause some of the more deadly affliction that would seal his fate. If piercer work through shield, curse + piercers with enough meatshield (undeads) up front should do it unless he's got windshield or similar.

If you want to try boulders be sure to practice and test formation, they aren't the easiest thing to use and will easily get engaged in hth if you aren't very careful and experienced. I'm unsure on how their damage work with FoW's prot either.

As mentioned, units swarms can tie him up well but that's somewhat gear dependent. If he's not fatigue neutral you can certainly swarmed him to death.

What sort of gear does he use?

I also seem to recall that EA Agartha has water magic, if you can get a some quickness buff on your elite troops (or SC killer equipped thugs) and chaff with swarm undeads you should pop him no problem.

If his armor isn't extremely high stellar cascade is very effective, but you need it to hit him (have the mage closer to the front) and you can only try it 5 times per astral mage. Getting a few shots on target though would drop his effective armor, def and att by quite a bit and make him pass out quickly.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Well, its hard to say counters without knowing your capabilities.

Some that come to mind, depending on his build, and your capabilities.



EarthMeld
Bow of Botulf
vineshields and/or entangle.
skelly spam (which your death oracles are good at)


Look for non resistable spells, and / or spells that don't require a save.

Re: Father of Winters
 

It's also hard to name specific counters without knowing the gear of the FoW. That said I'm only going to be commenting on already discussed options anyway.

Vine Bow - Easy to test if it works regardless of shield check or not. I don't use these often because I don't generally like them very much, but vine arrows entangle regardless of whether they hit or not. Vine bows should be the same as the spell, in theory, but it is vaguely possible that they don't.

Vine Shields - IIRC these rely on an MR test to see if you get entangled. If they don't, it's a strength test (but I'm very certain it's not). Again very easy to test (just get someone with a vine shield and have an elephant attempt to attack them). In either case though, a FoW is not an ideal target.

Defense has 0 effect on missiles. Only shield parry values or air shield can block missiles, and then it's up to protection to absorb them if that fails.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Trumanator informs me that what I said about vine shields is wrong. Well, this is why we preface with IIRC :) It's been so long since I've actually used them and had to know how they work that I'm not 100% sure of the mechanics. What I am sure of is that he has a very different idea of how they work than I do, and there have been wildly different theories on the exact mechanics in the past on the forums.

Re: Father of Winters
 

There was a shield thread a long time along where extensive testing was done on vine shield, I believe the verdict was that it was definitely MR based. I'll dig it up and link if anyone is interested.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Please do.

Re: Father of Winters
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45988

Actually reading it again now refreshed a few things about shields I forgot from my dom break.

Re: Father of Winters
 

ok he has a ring of tamed lightning a talisman that allows him to raise the dead (forget the name) and a light weight scale mail. Bow of Botulf was the thing I was thinkinng of cuz that will make him feebleminded and negate his buff spells. Also what about the eye shield or whatever its called. If I blinded him in both eyes will he be able to attack? and is it MR?

Re: Father of Winters
 

his equipment sounds pretty harmless, and no shields from the sound of it, a single botulf will feeble him.

He has no AoE attack (not even magical), lowish prot, no reinvig either, skelly spam, ethereal undead spam will end him pretty quickly. Assuming you have Ench 1, 1D mage can summon 10 skelly for 2D, based on the equipment description, 50 skellies can end him (10D worth) though you'll probably want a bit more as insurance. You can spam animate dead at the same time and be sure to stick a spirit curse on him. Of course if he has good spell access, experienced player control, and changed equipment you'll have to reassess.

It sounds like the game is still pretty early and research are weak, if that is not the case be sure to hold the undead back and scattered for 5 turns before letting them charge (or just use skelly spam spell), W has some scaled AoE anti-undead spell. A 8W cleansing water (evoc 4) for example could wipe out a big clump of weak undead.

Cold fearing, big, clumsy and trampler troops are pretty much the absolute worst thing to use against him.

eye shield is MR based, so you need something that can tank him for a few rounds, based on his gear I wouldn't bother arming thugs/SCs to counter him.

Re: Father of Winters
 

well I love the swarm spell....a lot cheaper on gems than 10D. I have taken down guys like this before with swarm....haah its kinda fun to watch him swat at those little bugs to no avail.

Re: Father of Winters
 

awaken FoW or Titan is what i gonna run on my next ma cealum mp XD.

As both natural air path Pretenders, air shield just counter all your bow tricks imo. Alos, dont forget mist or storm can be easily cast by cealum mages.

Re: Father of Winters
 

Sounds like you're getting confused there or didn't read OP post.

OP stated that the FoW he faces is 8W.

Sounds like you run a mod where FoW gets native A path.

Jim: Swarm would be great, except N is not in EA Agartha's national line up, unless you happen to have plenty of N mages somehow (indie, summons).

Again, we can only help based on information you give, and can't read your mind in what capacity you have but don't tell us. Anyway I'll have to learn from rdonj, and not bother in such case.

Re: Father of Winters
 

I wouldnt say I have PLENTY N mages but I do have the ability to recruit some...hoburgs for example, that I know for sure. Possibly more.

Re: Father of Winters
 

The Father of Winters is DEAD!!! Long live the Father of Winters haha. THank all of you for all the great suggestions. I think the biggest factor in his demise was that I built a Visions Foe Bow and gave it to a lowly priest....LMAO. An Indie priest at that. Once we took out both of his eyes it was just a matter of time. Oh and I scripted lots of Swarms but the AI over ruled me and only cast one but it was enough to keep him in place and wear him down fatigue wise. But after both both eyes were taken out he was Att 0 and Def 0. Easy prey. Oh and i had cast Spirit curse as well.. This may have helped me to get a bit more damage on him and probly made him unlucky enough for the Vision Foe arrow to strike him.
HAHA geat fun eh??

Re: Father of Winters
 

Glad to help; glad it worked out for you.
Swarm is really one of my favorite spells.