Spells: What is MIrror Image useful for?

[moderation]

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...=&fpart=2&vc=1

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...=&fpart=2&vc=1

After reading these two threads I am under the impression that Mirror Image and glamour have changed a bit. I still have a few questions though.

1. Are Mirror Image effect and glamour that Vans and Eriu get the same effect?

2. What exactly do the extra images do? Enemy troops seem to still surround my pretender in melee after he casts Mirror Image, and they still seem to be attacking him instead of his images. My defense hasn't gone up, and it doesn't seem to protect much from archers. What is it good for?

3. It does not seem to protect from precision 100 spells, but does it protect from spells with less than 100 precision?

4. What else could it protect you from in theory?

5. Is Mirror Image worth it as a buff compared to other spells? I usually replace it with Mistform since there's a limited number of buffs I can cast before a battle and it doesn't seem to serve much purpose.

[MaxWilson]

1. Yes, in combat. Vans and Eriu with high levels of Air magic get more images, which IMHO is indicative that it's the same mechanic as Mirror Image. Obviously they also get stealthy.

2. Melee combat. If you have 5 images, then only 1/6 hits will actually hit you, until someone does hit you, and then the images go away. I am not sure whether hitting your shield still counts as hitting you (although it is fairly common to lose mirror images without taking any damage, so it definitely counts if they hit you and Prot blocks it). I am also not sure whether mirror images protect you from losing -2 to def for each attack, like Ethereal reputedly does. Could check with -d switch.

3. Nope. Not against any spells.

4. Melee combat, that's it. It used to protect against arrows and spells, but this was removed in a previous patch because it was unthematic and made the glamour nations too good against arrows and spells.

5. I dunno. I imagine it's sort of like the Defense/Prot divide. Against giants I would probably take Mirror Image over Mistform (Mistform will dissapate after one blow and then you're dead, Mirror Image + high Defense will last for a while). Against Jaguar Warriors I'd probably avoid Mistform because they'll just nickel-and-dime you to death anyway, so I'd take Invulnerability and maybe Mirror Image. However, I haven't played much with Air mages so maybe I'm under/overestimating.

-Max

[Natpy]

This one of the best buff for SC with high def. It has realy impressive sinergy with other "shields".

[moderation]

What other "shields" does Mirror Image have synergy with?

Also, speaking of synergy, I've found that Mistform seems more effective when you have high protection and you can keep your fatigue down to 0 through reinvigoration.

[Natpy]

Body Ethereal, Luck, Awe, Twist Fate ets... "to hit" probabilities multiplied.

[moderation]

Interesting. Then it seems there are two ways you can optimize your SCs. Either by buffing protection until you can't be harmed or by buffing defense. But I guess even with defense you will need some protection.

Both Mistform and Mirror Image do seem a little dangerous to use, since they can "pop off" after you take a hit.

[Fal]

Mirror image doesn't cancel after struck by magic weapons right? whereas mistform does. It's very dangerous to send Tir na n'Og's Ri as thugs against nations with magic weapons for this reason, such as LA Atlantis. And indeed mirror image is useless against missile weapons.

[Natpy]

I think buffing def is more effective.

[thejeff]

Remember that effective defense gets lowered 2 by each attack.
So once your SC gets surrounded and attacked by 21 troops, the last will be attacking his defense-40. It's hard to buff defense enough.

[Baalz]

Well yeah, but high protection can be overridden by one lucky roll to. If you've got a 1% chance that a hit cancels your mistform or a 1% chance that a hit scores enough damage to overcome your protection and kill you it amounts to the same thing.

It all boils down to getting a build where there is an x% chance that each hit will kill/cripple you such that x is sufficiently small it's unlikely to happen in the course of a typical battle. For real SCs where you expect them to be attacked thousands of times over several battles x needs to be very small indeed.

Most people tend to look down on defense builds for SCs because they can be easily circumvented by making enough attacks. Duh, so can high protection builds, just send in a thug wielding a gate cleaver or even a sword of sharpness generally. Against non thug/SCs it's not too hard, by stacking effects to make x small enough without having much protection.

Consider a lucky, ethereal, mirror image/glamoured guy with a 25+ defense wielding a vine shield or an awe shield. Against most opponents even when partially surrounded he's only getting attacked probably 5 or 6 times and out of those hits which overcome his defense only 25% (ethereal) of 50% (lucky) of 20% (5 mirror images) = 2.5% will land. 2.5% isn't a terribly low number for x, but it is if the average guy only has a 1% chance of getting by his defense, particularly if it then also has to overcome even medium strength protection. You start getting down to a .001% chance or some such that a blow will land and pop your mirror image.

All number crunching aside, luck + ethereal + mirror image + a >25 defense + awe/vines/some way to reduce number of incoming attacks will generally get you through swarms of "regular dudes" unscratched and will stand you in good stead against most SCs not tailor made to kill you.