MA Marignon Advice Needed (and newbie questions)

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Arcturas

Yeah, I'm really digging the harbingers and angels of fury. Arch angels are a little trickier, as I feel like I'm wasting them if they're just hitting things with swords, but they're solid.

Angels of fury seem really fun because they have built in fear and blood vengeance. I've been throwing on a starshine cap/horror helm, amulet of luck, amulet of MR, shield of gleaming gold/vine shield, and a hydra armor/marble armor. Plus a brand of some kind. How important is the MR on there? I was thinking of swapping on a ring of regen. Base MR is 18.

On the Harbinger or Arch Angel I was thinking of going dual shields. I've got a pair running around with vanilla equip - brand, vine shield, luck/mr, marble armor, and wanted something tricky. I was thinking about an amulet of luck, starshine cap, amulet of MR, messenger boots, rainbow armor, vine shield and shield of gleaming gold/charcoal shield. Then spam the close-range evocs. (fire or air).

I suppose a follow-up question would be how worth it increasing awe/fear is. If I stack a horror helm on the angel of fury I get fear +5. That's a 5-square radius fear check vs. 11. Clearly fear is much more effective in friendly dominion, but I'm mostly on the offense. I feel like stacking awe on top of fear +0 is more effective than going from fear +0 to +5. As far as awe goes, Arch Angels get Awe +4 base. I haven't tested to see whether it's linear, and 2 shields of gold would get me to +6. If so, it seems worthwhile to stack versus chaff, much less so versus thugs/mages/scs. (I could even go two shields of gold and an armor of faith, then spam spells...Awe +7?)

I guess this thread is rapidly turning into me asking questions about equipping SCs. Thanks for the link to Baalz's thug guide! It's very helpful, though I'm still figuring out how to translate it to SC usage.

I'll have to try the blind + 100 precision spells! I didn't realize it worked that way. It's a pretty hilarious image, though.

Two items of the same type do not stack for awe bonuses etc.
However, there are a few hidden items that will add to awe

Off the top of my head:

Sceptre of authority, crown of cmd, and vine whip. Anything that adds +100 ldership will add or improve awe.

In that same vein - crown of cmd, both the spear artifacts (together) and both the axes of rulership (I think).

Awe is relatively weak, as it can be over come by mindless or berserk, to name a few. However, awe+7 scales VERY non linearly due to the non linear distribution of morales.

Even so, a awe+fear is generally better than straight awe alone, always understanding that a whole other class: undead for example are immune to fear.

Now, if you ask me, (and you did) I'd forget about it entirely and just treat it as a nice bene. I would characterize the important things as being:

A. Area Affect weapon: Gaze of Death, Firebrand, Charcoal Shield all can qualify.
B. Good prot... Anything over.. 24-25. Alternately high hit points and good regen.
C. Magic Resistance. If you want to keep him in MP - figure you need a 28 or so.

There are lots of niche things after that: Is he a spell caster- whats his strategic / battlefield movement like. Does he autocast Darkness... is he an assassin.

[TheDemon]

Originally Posted by Arcturas

Thanks for the help, TheDemon and Scarlioni. I appreciate it.

Good news about the penetration and fire evocs; you can't stack eyes of the void and eyes of aiming on the same mage...as cool as it would be, it makes them blind.

Yup, and penetration does absolutely nothing for fire evocs, as it affects MR only. All the damage fire evocs have nothing to do with MR.

Astral spells, on the other hand...

As far as summoning summer bears goes, I can see how that would be good, it just surprises me. 40 gems for 10 lions? It feels expensive. A harbinger is only 25 astral, and with another 15 gems (frost brand/vine shield, or frost brand/enchanted shield/fire plate) I can have an at least thug-worthy, if not SC creature. I guess the harbinger has more trouble screening for mages, though, and that's what you're paying for. And I am fielding 20 knights/battle. The 9 snakes for 9 gems seems more reasonable, but they'd probably die faster...choices, choices. I'll have to play with them and see. Thanks for the recommendation! (Just got eternal pyre up, so should have plenty of fire gems to play with)

It is expensive, but you have to also take into account gemtype and purpose. 40 fire gems would turn into 20 astral. Other than alchemy, fire gems aren't too useful (fire from afar and flames from the sky come to mind, most gem requriements on fire items are very small). And then there's purpose, its hard to tank for mages when you're fielding just a handful of thugs, you'd field lions with some protection buffs when your regular infantry don't cut it.

I think other people have covered the thug/SC part decently. You've read baalz's guide, so I'll repeat that the most important thing is probably fatigue management.

Multiplayer, you'll want high MR on your endgame thugs and SCs. Midgame, you might be able to get away with base, but by the endgame, I'm giving my tartartians or rudra Lead Shields and Amulet of MR at the very least.

The AI doesn't deal with thugs and SCs well in general, so you won't need MR in single player.

[Natpy]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43005
This is the link on a good fever fetish guide.

[Humakty]

Beware when you storm a fort in SP with a thug/SC, usually AIs capitols are full of mages, sitting on their *** all day long for sure, but still able to toast a non-prepared thug/SC.