Most Useful Items

[shovah]

What items do you use most often? on SCs, mages and commanders of any kind, just post here and include when and why ok?
some of mine are boots of quickness on a relief caster for mega reinvig and boots of flying+etheral crossbow on assasins (sometimes with eye of aiming)

[Ironhawk]

Off the top of my head:

Stand Issue SC equip
Wraith Sword
Starshine Skullcap
Jade Armor
Boots of Flying
Amulet of Luck
Amulet of Antimagic

Cheap assassin
Skull Talisman

[Vicious Love]

Offhand,
Starshine Skullcaps. The MR boost can be absolutely vital to an SC, and no other non-unique helm provides one. The astral bonus is often a plus.
Rainbow Armor. Reinvigoration, MR and low encumbrance. A must for any non-expendable melee commander. 0-encumbrance SCs will sometimes, not often, get Jade Armor, instead. On those rare occasions in which I can't afford to waste a misc slot on regeneration, I might also opt for Hydra Armor. Speaking of which...
Rings of Regeneration. Can be waived in the case of immortal or recuperating commanders, or if you've some other reliable means of healing battle afflictions. Otherwise essential to the longevity of front-rank commanders.
Blood Thorns. They drain life and leave a shield/weapon slot open. The only downside is blood micromanagement.
Boots of Quickness. Useful for pretty much anyone who isn't already a water mage.

...

It occurs to me that I'm not really saying anything particularly insightful. I mean, MR good, lifedrain and/or reinvig good, Lucky Coins good, Amulets of Resilience and Boots of the Messenger good. Way deep.

Feh. I suppose I'll just repeat what I said about Rainbow Armor and Blood Thorns. Without actually repeating it, since you can scroll.

[jeffr]

What if the conceptual balance mod is in place? Then the Wraith Sword and Blood Sword are no longer no brainers. Jade Armor and Boots of Flying are also a little more expensive.

What would you use then?

[Vicious Love]

jeffr said:
What if the conceptual balance mod is in place? Then the Wraith Sword and Blood Sword are no longer no brainers. Jade Armor and Boots of Flying are also a little more expensive.

What would you use then?

Ugh. The one thing I dislike about Zen's mod is how it handles lifedrain weapons. I agree both items could use a nerf, but removing strength from the equation is just plain conceptually dissonant.

That nonwithstanding, I imagine I'd typically use a Sword of Quickness(or even a Wave Breaker), particularly on an SC with astral magic or easy access to Weapons of Sharpness. This is much less of a no-brainer than a lifedrain weapon, though, and there are countless situations that might call for a different loadout. Herald Lances(as well as Flambeaus) obviously have their uses, as do Duskdaggers, Fire Brands(fire resistance and armor piercing, not half bad), Faithfuls(for freeing up a misc or shield slot) and Elf Banes. Not that I have any idea what changes Zen's mod makes to any of these weapons. On the bright side, if Zen's actually managed to strike a balance, this whole question of "the most useful items" is moot, innit?

Edit: Forgot to mention that I'm disinclined to use Jade Armor in the first place. When I do opt for it, it's usually on a bona fide SC, so I doubt a bit of a price hike would change much. Flight isn't all that essential to me, either; tactically, I'm often more concerned about being rushed by enemy flyers than I am about blocking off a retreat. Strategically, I prefer to bring my Scs to bear using a mix of stealth, teleportation and ordinary troop movements. Thattaway I can boost their MR/reinvigoration or grant them regeneration without wasting a miscellaneous slot.

[jeffr]

One of the things I like most about the conceptual balance mod is the handling of life draining weapons Before, they were almost always the best choice in my opinion and were used by almost everybody all of the time. Now, there is some thought involved.

Luck, magic resistance and quickness still always seem to be present, though. Luck and quickness in particular are so powerful that I think they should be much more difficult to obtain.

[Vicious Love]

jeffr said:
One of the things I like most about the conceptual balance mod is the handling of life draining weapons Before, they were almost always the best choice in my opinion and were used by almost everybody all of the time. Now, there is some thought involved.

Thought? You mean you might actually consider giving a commander a "balanced" Wraith Sword? Its only edge is armor negation. True SCs have too many HP to derive much benefit from it without heroic quickness. Weaker thugs, in contrast, have too few HP to benefit. I imagine there's a middle ground, but I don't doubt it could do more damage with a lowly Sword of Sharpness. If you really want to give your nonessential commanders lifedrain, it's easier to just use the Standard of the Damned.
And there's still the question of thematic dissonance. Magical or otherwise, a sword is a sword. A 200-ton titan should be able to inflict more damage with it than a scrawny little hoburg.

Wouldn't it have been easier to drop the Wraith Sword's damage to 0, drop its defense to a negative value, and do more of the same to the Blood Thorn? We could assume the sword exerts some sort of icky insalubrious influence upon the wielder's life/unlife. It's still potentially deadly, but it screws with the wielder as much as with the target. Mere mortals would be too weak to endure it, and SCs would approach it with at least a hint of caution. There'd still be the possibility of lifedraining uber-SCs, but they'd be much rarer, somewhat less effective, and still every bit as susceptible to the usual counters.

Meh. Still pretty inelegant a solution, but it makes for a semi-viable weapon, and it has more style than a strengthless sword. Too bad we don't have the mod commands to curse the Wraith Sword, make it decrease reinvigoration, possibly make it decrease MR, and make the Blood Thorn suffer the same, plus the "berserker(+0)" attribute and a hefty defense penalty.

Luck, magic resistance and quickness still always seem to be present, though. Luck and quickness in particular are so powerful that I think they should be much more difficult to obtain.

Beg to differ. I've seen plenty of SCs without luck; it's simply one of the most cost-effective buffs for expendable thugs. Luck is certainly useful under most circumstances, but it's not always advisable. Ditto regarding MR, albeit to lesser extent. Ever notice how the Charcoal Shield/Shield of the Accursed are so much more popular than the Lead Shield? There's also something to be said for paranoia leading players to overemphasize MR.

As for quickness, there are only two items that can grant it. Using the boots usually precludes flight(the Stymphalian Wings are a problematic item), and the armor is only viable for 0-encumbrance fighters that don't cast too many spells before engaging. Besides, there are times I would opt for Hydra Skin Armor over Jade Armor even on a 0-encumbrance chassis without Boots of Quickness.

[jeffr]

By "thought", I meant that without the life draining weapons being viable, that there is thought in what other weapons to use. I disliked the life draining aspect of the game as it was implemented in the weapons and am glad they have been rendered virtually useless as combat weapons except under special circumstances (I've still seen the Hell Sword, though).

I think I always have seen luck on SCs. It doubles your hitpoints for 5 astral. I agree that the only reason that Boots of Quickness might not be used is because the SC needs Flying Boots to fly. Flying is also very powerful. Too powerful, in my opinion, especially the ability to attack non-adjacent provinces. I think that ability should be very much curtailed. But that's a whole different game mechanic discussion

[shovah]

Vicious Love said:

Thought? You mean you might actually consider giving a commander a "balanced" Wraith Sword? Its only edge is armor negation. True SCs have too many HP to derive much benefit from it without heroic quickness. Weaker thugs, in contrast, have too few HP to benefit. I imagine there's a middle ground, but I don't doubt it could do more damage with a lowly Sword of Sharpness. If you really want to give your nonessential commanders lifedrain, it's easier to just use the Standard of the Damned.
And there's still the question of thematic dissonance. Magical or otherwise, a sword is a sword. A 200-ton titan should be able to inflict more damage with it than a scrawny little hoburg.

Wouldn't it have been easier to drop the Wraith Sword's damage to 0, drop its defense to a negative value, and do more of the same to the Blood Thorn? We could assume the sword exerts some sort of icky insalubrious influence upon the wielder's life/unlife. It's still potentially deadly, but it screws with the wielder as much as with the target. Mere mortals would be too weak to endure it, and SCs would approach it with at least a hint of caution. There'd still be the possibility of lifedraining uber-SCs, but they'd be much rarer, somewhat less effective, and still every bit as susceptible to the usual counters.

Meh. Still pretty inelegant a solution, but it makes for a semi-viable weapon, and it has more style than a strengthless sword. Too bad we don't have the mod commands to curse the Wraith Sword, make it decrease reinvigoration, possibly make it decrease MR, and make the Blood Thorn suffer the same, plus the "berserker(+0)" attribute and a hefty defense penalty.

Beg to differ. I've seen plenty of SCs without luck; it's simply one of the most cost-effective buffs for expendable thugs. Luck is certainly useful under most circumstances, but it's not always advisable. Ditto regarding MR, albeit to lesser extent. Ever notice how the Charcoal Shield/Shield of the Accursed are so much more popular than the Lead Shield? There's also something to be said for paranoia leading players to overemphasize MR.

As for quickness, there are only two items that can grant it. Using the boots usually precludes flight(the Stymphalian Wings are a problematic item), and the armor is only viable for 0-encumbrance fighters that don't cast too many spells before engaging. Besides, there are times I would opt for Hydra Skin Armor over Jade Armor even on a 0-encumbrance chassis without Boots of Quickness.

but i thought the wraith sword was meant to be a sort of etheral blade? as in no matter how hard you swing it will basically go through someone and hurt them, therefore i think zens change makes it more what i expected but thats just me

[Ironhawk]

Actually, QM was the one that made it no-strength added, not Zen. Zen just increased the cost IIRC. But regardless, I am with shovah on this one. QM's concept behind it was that the blade itself should be ethereal (as per the description, i think?). So that makes total sense to me that it should be no-str added. My only, admittedly minor, complaint is that its damage should be 1-2 points more so that it has a higher % chance of killing a regular inf unit in one hit.