Elemental King/Queen summoning limits?

[Yossar]

Cohen said:
Not so good amazing battle-magic.
It's good if you've massed guys and the enemy are few and lacks of MR, but otherwise it's better elemental magic.

Astral lacks offensive battle spells, but Antimagic, Will of the Fates, Doom, and Astral Healing are all great support spells. And relatively cheap, especially if you can bring in some communion slaves.

[Cainehill]

Cohen said:
Otherwise this could be scrap the Research Priorities / Rush for uniques and this could cost much more to the victim than the 2nd summoner.

If your plan is going to use your X Elemental Ruler, with full equipment, and it disappears (even if there're little chances, but it's usually 1/4) you're losing a powerful unit, a lot of gems for equipment and probably your enemy has it.
Even this could bring to a summon-countersummon til the shortage of gems waves smiling to a player, making not so usable a unit that appears one turn, and could disappear another one.
It could be a sort of Djinn ... who usually equip the Djin if not with low cost trinkets? But Djinn is very powerful, could both trapeze and teleport iirc and has many paths in magic.

So why wouldn't you be happy, Cohen? You are the self-proclaimed enemy of the SC, are you not?

If people wouldn't put anything on the unique summonses except trinkets, then the Air Queens, Ice Devils, etc, wouldn't be such an overwhelming force.

[Huzurdaddi]

I'm not sure. Astral gives you absolutely amazing battle-magic. It doesn't need summons as well.

I've had this argument before. Astral has decent battle magic. Hardly what I would call awesome.

Astral's real bonus ( in my mind ) is that it grants mobility. The combat spells are nice but not better than many other schools.

[Chazar]

Cohen said:
Well personally I'd like to see the unique number incresead a lot.

If there would be hordes of unique creatures then they would not be as unique as before, wouldnt they? (Oh, yes please: refrain from commenting on this weird logic if you understand my intentions nevertheless - especially Cainehill ) I mean: Every creature is unique and every Militia man may have his own affliction, but please refrain from giving each one his own name...

---

I would not like if summoned creatures could be simply summonned again. Their are already bound!
I still feel that summoning is much to much failsafe in Dom2. Mortal mages bind and bend powerful creatures like nothing! So I proposed a fail-chance (i.e. something that noticably differs from 100% or 0%) for each summon. E.g. as a first guess , kake it 20% plus 1% per additional gem or so...

[PDF]

Huzurdaddi said:

I've had this argument before. Astral has decent battle magic. Hardly what I would call awesome.

Astral's real bonus ( in my mind ) is that it grants mobility. The combat spells are nice but not better than many other schools.

I concur to calling "awesome" the Astral battle magic : not even talking of Master Enslave, you get Body Ethereal, Stellar Cascade, Soul Slay, Paralyze, Antimagic ... !

[Huzurdaddi]

I concur to calling "awesome" the Astral battle magic

Hmm awesome would I guess indicate that it is one of the best schools. Let's define awesome as top two.

So let's compare to air. Air has a number of area effect high damage, Armor Negating, no MR check spells that are feared by all. It is widely considered to be the best battle field magic. Orb lighting, false horrors, thunderstike, wrathful skies, storm these are all considered to be "awesome" spells. I don't know if it really is #1 but many people consider it thus.

Now #2 is much harder. It could be earth. They have a number of very powerful battle spells. Blade wind, Petrify, magma eruption there are a few and they are hard ( or impossible ) to resist.

Perhaps #2 is death. Life drain can not be resisted and it is 100 precision. Death has fine battlefield summons. Banefire is considered one of the better direct damage dealing spells. It has a vast array of battlefield spells and many do not have an MR check.

No, IMO ( and I could be wrong here ) Astral magic is at best the #4 battle magic in the game. Exactly in the middle of the pack. If this is what goes for "awesome" then so be it.

[Cohen]

Well, the 3 Cherubyne type uber arch-angels could be really nice to see (since Seraph has been assigned to Caelum and Seraphim too).
Grabriel, Michael and Rapheal ^^
or most fantasy
Uriel, Azrael and Imrael

[Huzurdaddi]

Well, the 3 Cherubyne type uber arch-angels could be really nice to see (since Seraph has been assigned to Caelum and Seraphim too).

Or maybe harbringers that were about as combat sturdy as a bane lord ... they are the same research level you know.

That would be cool. It does not work out that way. They are more expensive and far less combat capable. They do have A2 though. Yay!

A funny story. A SoapyFrog found himself in possession of a S5 mage a lot of research and plenty of astral gems and he could not for the life of him find anything useful for the astral mage to do.

Now I do not know if I would go that far. I think that astral is decent ( note : middle of the pack ) combat magic. And I think that it gives impressive mobility if you want to spend the gems. I do think that it totally lacks summons of any worth and that is, IMO, it's real failing.

[archaeolept]

doom horrors, vampire queens aren't so bad

not to mention golems.

[Huzurdaddi]

doom horrors, vampire queens aren't so bad

Indeed wishing is the only reasonable summon. However 100 astral gems is quite expensive assuming no clams.

not to mention golems.

Golems are clods. But it is all astral has. Not even as useful as a bane, which cost far less and requires less research. Bleech.