Is the REAL problem with VQs...Norfleet?

[Blitz]

"Enchantress costs quite a few points, and is rubbish - she doesn't even have any magic paths, is weak small and human. A 0 point Manticore beats her every time" is a comparison of raw chassis, and is patently stupid.

This thread deals with SC's. Failing to understand that is patently stupid.

[mivayan]

A 'cheap' variant is an unequipped water2 earth2 death2 VQ. I did some test where I scripted her to quickness-resist fire-iron skin- breath of winter-earth might-attack rear. research needed: ench1, alt3

fire9 + astral9 flaggelants: they win without the resist fire but with it the vq clean house.

50 crossbows set to attack flyers with flaming arrows: instant death without fire resist. with fire resist they still hurt since the flaming arrows bypass etherealness. need to return a few times to kill all, or bring fodder.

50 crossbows withough flaming arrows: vq cleans them out

50 guardians - clean house
26 air9 blessed black templars - dead horses

air9 titan on aim-Thunderstrike-Thunderstrike-lightning bolt-lightning bolt. VQ is unconcious after the second big boom.

air9 titan on attack closest- dead titan.

So.. for 230 points (less than a fire9bless)
You can kill any conventional army in your dominion at no risk.
Later on your enemies will have counters like lots of flyers, air magic (can be countered with a resist ring) or massive xbows + flaming arrows (shortbows probably dont work), but untill then you are invulnerable.

The combination of
1) kills almost any conventional army.
2) immortal
is bad.. but path cost of 80 would probably hinder the player's scales enough to balance it.

I think an allfather, wyrm or carrion dragon would have a decent risk of getting a few afflictions or deaths during these tests.

Ermorian 1000-point Versions, or late-game wished vqs are not really relevant to the issue of balancing it with other pretenders.

[Blitz]

How about if bless had a more regular death type effect on her? Instead of returning her to her castle, it kills her to where she has to be prayed back

While immortality unto itself may be broken, an even less costly solution might just to have the VQ cost 150 points like the rest of the supposed super chassis. Combine that with a path cost adjustment to say... 50 and I'm perfectly happy with the way the VQ functions. Immortality IMHO is a seperate issue. The combination of traits she has is simply worth a lot more than 110 points.

[Tris]

This thread deals with SC's. Failing to understand that is patently stupid.

I agree. As the raw VQ chassis is not an SC my point about having to compare cooked chassis rather than raw ones is strengthened by this.

[Tris]

Mivayan - Good testing. Kudos.

For 230 points you get a fairly scary army killer after 1 + 3 levels of research. How does she perform right at the start of the game?

I suspect that better early-expansion can be bought for 230 points, and you can probably buy better late-game power for the price.

I could be wrong. But if she is only great mid-game then I don't see it as a problem.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by mivayan:
The combination of
1) kills almost any conventional army.
2) immortal
is bad.. but path cost of 80 would probably hinder the player's scales enough to balance it.

I think an allfather, wyrm or carrion dragon would have a decent risk of getting a few afflictions or deaths during these tests.

Also, add to #1 and #2 that the vampire is ridiculously easy to give invulnerability to all elements. Big bonus in the late game.

And one note: Carrion dragon doesn't get afflictions easily. More importantly, it doesn't care very much if it does - a temporary inconvenience, but even with, say, feebleminding, it can switch forms and sneak about until the hangover goes away.

Great set of tests though.

[AhhhFresh]

Originally posted by Tris:
Mivayan - Good testing. Kudos.

For 230 points you get a fairly scary army killer after 1 + 3 levels of research. How does she perform right at the start of the game?

I suspect that better early-expansion can be bought for 230 points, and you can probably buy better late-game power for the price.

I could be wrong. But if she is only great mid-game then I don't see it as a problem.

What you list there is pretty standard for any magic powered SC... ie researching Alteration 3 and Enchantment 1. And that can be achieved in 5-7 turns depending on whether your SC needs anything forged, so I wouldn't call it "mid game".

230 points is not very much to invest in an SC.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by mivayan:
fire9 + astral9 flaggelants: they win without the resist fire but with it the vq clean house.

Yes, and flagellants are cheap. Losing an army here and there isn't even a crippling loss, if you can strike him in more than one place at a time...trivial for a flagellant swarm strategy. Plus you stand a very good chance of killing your target anyway! No VQ would DARE try this outside of her dominion, so you're not at real risk here. And you really don't explain why this wouldn't be the problem when you're using crappy, disposable troops against any kind of tweaked SC.

50 crossbows set to attack flyers with flaming arrows: instant death without fire resist. with fire resist they still hurt since the flaming arrows bypass etherealness. need to return a few times to kill all, or bring fodder.

I think this sounds like fairly decisive ownage here: You have the right tool for the right job, and it shows. Having to "return a few times" is not of very much use if you're not in your dominion, and if you can't drive them off in one pass, you've just lost a castle. Returning won't help you, as you'll find the crossbowmen camping out in your castle, and dismantling your dominion.

50 crossbows withough flaming arrows: vq cleans them out

Surprise. Missile weapons are not terribly useful against normal targets. Crossbowmans are cheap anyway.

50 guardians - clean house
26 air9 blessed black templars - dead horses

Okay, you're throwing ordinary units at an SC with no attempt to negate its strengths. Big surprise. You'd lose the same army to any standard SC as well: Bane Lords, Ice Devils, all of them would hand you your *** there. An Air-9 blessing is a useful defense against an SC, it's a field-support blessing that allows you to combine sacred tankers with crossbows (such as FLAMING crossbows) with impunity.

air9 titan on aim-Thunderstrike-Thunderstrike-lightning bolt-lightning bolt. VQ is unconcious after the second big boom.

See? That's using your strengths against their weaknesses. Plus he's not even a battle chassis: He's a blesser. And he still wins! The primary function of an A9 Titan is to dole out an air bless....not to go whailing on people. Admittedly, he does this rather well as a secondary function, but this is still SECONDARY.

air9 titan on attack closest- dead titan.

Well, yeah, if the Titan fights *STUPID* and uses none of the things you paid for, what did you expect?

The combination of
1) kills almost any conventional army.
2) immortal

You yourself have demonstrated that it fails to kill many "conventional" armies. Flaming crossbows, F9/S9 blessed flagellants, all are fairly conventional armies. Fire-9 valkyries would work very well, too, but you didn't mention these. Fire-9 ANYTHINGs, really, work fairly well. How about fire-9 temple guards? Can't even freeze them out with BoW, they're cold immune. Fire-9 woodsmen? Ouchie. Hell, a VQ can't even take down Nature-9 woodsmen reliably, because she just can't kill fast enough to wipe them out by the time the battle expires.

I think an allfather, wyrm or carrion dragon would have a decent risk of getting a few afflictions or deaths during these tests.

Sure, maybe. But the ability to throw yourself at a stupid risk and merely be annoyed by getting killed is still a loss. And the Wyrm isn't even a true battle chassis. If he's a no-magic Wyrm, he loses nothing by dying. It's not really fair to compare a no-magic expendable chassis with a tweaked SC of any class.

The Allfather is not as inherently susceptible to flying dogpiles due to his instant mirror image distraction. You also won't be facing any flaming valkyries anytime soon.

Carrion Dragon? I've had to actually face this before: The Carrion Dragon ate all the flagellants for lunch without even blinking. They couldn't even touch him. He was, admittedly, finally brought down by point-blank crossbowing, but only because the crossbowmen had been clever enough to actually walk up point-blank to it....and this would have been entirely negated by a simple air shield and/or mirror images. Carrion Dragons are nasty, nasty cookies. And a tweaked CD will eat a VQ for lunch. Your arguments here have not exactly demonstrated the compelling omnipotence of a VQ against conventional armies. You haven't even really demonstrated how this is doing something other SCs can't do.

[NTJedi]

The VQ is just a tool used...
Ermor is obviously a huge reason as well being in the top_3 strongest... if not the strongest. Ermor is so strong none of the fellow gamers I play with use Ermor. The second reason being it's one of the few opponents the AI can play during a multiplayer game for providing a great challenge.

Also the other players should make better alliances during multiplayer games against Norfleet . Diplomacy is huge during multiplayer games and can easily tip the scales between even the most expert player.

In my multiplayer games if one person begins taking the lead other players join together to bring him down.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by mivayan:
A 'cheap' variant is an unequipped water2 earth2 death2 VQ. I did some test where I scripted her to quickness-resist fire-iron skin- breath of winter-earth might-attack rear. research needed: ench1, alt3

Nice testing. Thank you. Thats very much what was needed.

The combination of
1) kills almost any conventional army.
2) immortal
is bad.. but path cost of 80 would probably hinder the player's scales enough to balance it.

And a real suggestion too. Excellent. But keep in mind that as SC's go she also comes with some "balancing" flaws. Low hitpoints, attack, and defense are hefty penalties. Im not sure if a path cost would answer all of the complaints about her. Plus its effect would be felt most by the nations she should thematically be available to.

I think an allfather, wyrm or carrion dragon would have a decent risk of getting a few afflictions or deaths during these tests.

True. But they come with their own advantages which would make them prime choices for anything other than an Immortal Kombat game. Wyrm can give a water advantage, AllFather an early "checkerboard" advantage with his ocean-going army, and Carrion Dragon can give a speed boost by being able to summon Carrion Lords early in the game. Other than Wyrm I dont think Ive chosen the others for their combat abilitys.

Just being the number one if all the gods were doing an arena shouldnt be enough to earn a nerf. And nerfing to match gods who have other areas of effectivness makes a person wonder what the next target of nerfing would be.

How about if bless had a more regular death type effect on her? Instead of returning her to her castle, it kills her to where she has to be prayed back.

[ May 07, 2004, 12:46: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]