Air vs Nature

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Air Shield 45% is Air 10, unimaginably high.

Isn't it 80%?

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

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Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Air Shield 45% is Air 10, unimaginably high.

Isn't it 80%?

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Not according to DominionsX...

Just tested. Hey, what do you know! DominionsX is wrong, Air 10 gives Air Shield 80%. In that case, it is VERY valuable. Um, Nerfix?

[Nerfix]

Arg. I'll have to fix many things when i get to vacation...

Rigth now schoolwork is killing me...

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Aside that, I never actually played very far with blessing effects, too costly to my taste (320 points minimum I think).

So you think there are issues over having enough points to make bless effects work? This was the main concern I read before the demo came out and yet when I made a related point that if the luck scale returned to how it was in Dom1 this would strangle most bless effect races - some players couldn't even begin to get where I was coming from. Given your comment perhaps you agree that bless effects races are viable or non-viable dependant on points available not simply a bit different with 120-160 less points. I was suprised that experianced players disagreed - made me feel like I'm on another planet. Not an altogether bad feeling though as I have always enjoyed travel.

I'm looking forward to seeing a revised table of air bless effects which may make a big difference on wether or not I use them with races like the Van.

Cheers

Keir

[ November 28, 2003, 00:01: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[Saber Cherry]

Revised Air table:

Air......Effect

4.........20% Air Shield
5.........30% Air Shield
6.........40% Air Shield
7.........50% Air Shield
8.........60% Air Shield
9.........70% Air Shield + 75% Shock Resist
10.......80% Air Shield + 75% Shock Resist

Pretty sweet at high levels, for archer races (or against archer races). Especially nice for IF Ulm, Marginon, and all races with holy mages that don't have Air magic. 10 is too expensive, though; I'd never go above 9.

-Cherry

Not if you get Construction 4, with Air 3. Then you have a Staff of the Storms which protects all your units, not just your Sacred units.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
Not if you get Construction 4, with Air 3. Then you have a Staff of the Storms which protects all your units, not just your Sacred units.

I hadn't noticed that the dreaded Staff of Sorms is still con 4 - I guess I assumed it was going to be made con 6.

Still doesn't wipe the value of air shield though as its always been the case that archers are very counterable as the game goes on and people tend to use them, and encounter, them early. As the game goes on the lightning resistance becomes better and may make up for the declining value of the air shield. The key to the air shield is that not having to build dross archer catchers early so expansion becomes easier.

I'm going to give Air9 a go with the Van so watch out for Orb Lightning.

Many, many thanks Saber for digging all this up. You have saved us from ourselves.

cheers

Keir

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

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Originally posted by HJ:
Air shield 20% is still useful for preventing friendly fire.

I bet +4 protection from Earth 9 is about as good at increasing arrow survivability (say, for arrow-weak Flags) as 45% air shield. Plus, it's useful in many other situations as well.

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Doubtful. Protection gives increasing returns as you get higher. I don't think it would do much for practically-naked Flags. At most they might barely survive some hits that would otherwise kill them (and have a high chance of getting an affliction).

On the other hand, 45% air shield isn't very much - what level of air do you get that at?

I think Flags need to play to their strengths and get either Fire 9, or some blood, so they can do more damage in the limited time they have. Trying to improve their survivability is a lost cause.

KoC, on the other hand, will benefit a lot from Earth 9 (both the reinvig and the prot), while they don't really need air shield except against crossbows. And reinvigoration is always nice for priest-mages. Offensive blessings aren't bad, but not as good as helping them stay alive longer because they are so expensive.

[Saber Cherry]

The other advantage is that Air Shield protects your troops against friendly fire... while staff of storms renders friendly archers useless, AFAICT.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
The other advantage is that Air Shield protects your troops against friendly fire... while staff of storms renders friendly archers useless, AFAICT.

And that's how I've been using it so far mostly. Crossbows, longbows and arbalests can hurt your sacred knights while they are pursuing the routers pretty badly. Even a little bit of air shield helps with that, as they are already far away, and the missiles are not targeting them, but stray ones fall all over the place and cause damage. I might not want to go all the way with air, but 4 air is useful for your pretender as well in combat, in addition to it not really being that common on summoned mages. It's not as expensive as earth 9, yet it helps the survivability of already superior and expensive sacred troops, as well as protecting your priests/casters from stray arrows. Besides, prot 4 is not all that great against AP missiles anyway. Low % air shield might not be noticeable at close range, but in firing all the way across the field it's decent enough, as it even further reduces the chance that the odd missile that hits the square kills someone.

[ November 28, 2003, 02:24: Message edited by: HJ ]