EA arcosephele - bless strategy?

[Xanatos]

Was reading up on EA arco strategy on the strategy index - wouldn't they be better used as a bless-strategy then a cyclops or ghost king strategy? flying 17prot/17def sacreds is nothing to sneer at with a earth/water or water/fire bless

[Renojustin]

Really not too bad of an idea because they are particularly fierce sacreds, but with Arco having no Death or Blood, I think it's imperative to have very good scales for endgame, precluding a bless strategy for anything but smaller maps and rush strategies.

[Xanatos]

ahh...why do death and blood = the best for endgame?

it seems such a waste with those pretty flying sacreds

[MaxWilson]

Death because Tartarians make good SCs and let you expand into earth, astral, and air. I admit I'm partial to death's endgame spells like Stygian Paths and Utterdark as well.

I don't understand blood magic as well--I try to stay away from it.

-Max

P.S. You could certainly try an Earth bless on those sacreds, or Earth/Death if you're feeling spendy. Fliers do tend to spend a lot of fatigue on flying.

[Xanatos]

will tartarians continue to dominate end game now that they come 25% insane?

[MaxWilson]

Insanity doesn't hurt their ability to forge items and branch out into new paths, so I expect Tartarians to still remain relevant and important. Air Queens are probably better SCs, for instance, but you need Air to summon them and all they give you is more Air. Tartarians convert Death + Nature -> Earth, Air, Astral, Blood.

-Max

[Wick]

In simple melee cost effectiveness they are the worst recruitable sacreds in the game. (Of the 57 I tested anyway.) Flying makes up for a lot but still... even the independent Pegasus riders are better.

[Xanatos]

how do you come to that conclusion wick?

[Wick]

Xanatos said:
how do you come to that conclusion wick?

I've done a stupid amount of testing of "How many of a vast hoard of heavy infantry (ID 40) can 600g of <unit_type> kill before dying." In a four battle trial the Wind Riders scored a total of 19. The median for recruitable sacred troops (57 types, null blessed) is 63. The Heavy Infantry got 79 against themselves, which was a slightly better then the overall median. Basically, the implication is if you have a strong bless multiplying the Wind Riders 400% then they are as strong as independent infantry.

Certainly, the test is pretty simplistic. It's biased against archers and in favor of tramplers and poison. However, the results tend to be stable and to approximate the conventional wisdom -- which includes, Wind Riders aren't worth a bless strategy.

[MaxWilson]

They're fun, though. Actually I remember using Arco a lot when I first got the game, and I thought E9 Wind Riders were pretty cool (and very survivable) although at the time I didn't have much perspective on how expensive they are.

The indy Pegasus riders are not nearly as tough as E9 Wind Riders.

-Max