Best Sacrificial Summon unit?

[Wuorg]

Edit: Turns out infinite mindwiping is not possible. When you cast it on a unit, they get the "Mindwiped" promotion, which prevents further casts. I made a mod to get around this: https://www.nexusmods.com/spellforceconquestofeo/mods/48

With the new Dreamweaver spell to allow for infinite leveling, I've been pondering what would be the best unit to exploit with it.

There's so many good choices. But my current top picks are the Keepers, Alchemists, and Orc Shamans. Keeper for the cavalry abilities, Alchemists for obvious reasons, and the Orc Shamans for the demon summoning, which seem like they'd go great with a demon army. Runner up pick is the War Bringer for those totems.

Anyone have any other good ideas? Plan is to fully level them, Sac Summon and then fully level again, then Greater Sac Summon and fully level again. Lol, I know this is entirely unnecessary but it sounds like fun!

Edit: Oh, hm, we'd also need a good "Officer" ability...Troll, Dwarf, or Undead seem best for that in this case? Maybe Orc

Edit 2: So during the course of experimenting, I learned something interesting. It turns out that if a unit has too many abilities to use in combat, the game completely borks itself. I'm not sure exactly how many is too many, but it seems to be around 4 rows of abilities or so. It essentially bugs out the ability bar, making it appear empty, and then soft locks the game when you try to do anything with the unit. This is important because it completely rules out Orc Shamans and Alchemists for the purposes of this post (assuming you got all the active abilities possible)! If you knew precisely how many abilities is too many, you could probably plan around it, but I don't, and besides I plan on equipping them and so forth, so I don't really wanna have to worry about that.

Edit 3: In light of that, Kaysoky gave a pretty stellar idea in the form of the Dwarf Sentry! This little monster ends up with an extra weapon slot, an extra shield slot, armored, plated bolts (+10 missile damage and stacks with Elemental Prodigy's +10 Elemental damage), Missile Damage +1/2/3, and the dwarven racials. All these pass on to the Sac Summon demons! I'm sad I won't have planar anchor (+5 damage for demons across the whole stack) and all the cool summon spells from the Orc Shamans, but maybe someday if the devs fix the bug. (Edit4: Apparently, a dev has already fixed this for the next update!)

[Kaysoky]

I don't think you can use Sacrifical Summon on a demon, so you have to choose which demon you want to end up with (Aether Beast or Core Dweller).

Since you can infinitely level, the "best" way would be to fully exhaust level up options from the base unit type before sacrificial summoning. So you'd want a unit with lots of upgrade paths and upgrade paths that don't overlap too much with a demon's upgrades...

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

I don't think you can use Sacrifical Summon on a demon, so you have to choose which demon you want to end up with (Aether Beast or Core Dweller).

You actually can! As long as you aren't trying to turn it into the demon it would spawn (you can't use Greater Sacrificial Summon on an Aether Beast, but you could use it on a Core Dweller). The only other restriction is that it not be a Hero/Apprentice. Fantastic units are also allowed, but I want my unit to have Eager Vessel at the end of it, so...

Edit: You might even be able to use it on a titan, but admittedly I haven't tried that, lol...

[Kaysoky]

Well, if you are a demonologist, maybe consider using a Sentry. They get two separate upgrades that let them hold a weapon and shield (which you can infuse with a lesser demon) and you can give them the Eager Vessel via the spell before Sacrificial Summoning them. And as a Demon, you'll eventually get them the Extra Arm for another weapon slot.

That basically makes them almost as customizable as the three-slot Demon Lord unit :D

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

Well, if you are a demonologist, maybe consider using a Sentry. They get two separate upgrades that let them hold a weapon and shield (which you can infuse with a lesser demon) and you can give them the Eager Vessel via the spell before Sacrificial Summoning them. And as a Demon, you'll eventually get them the Extra Arm for another weapon slot.

That basically makes them almost as customizable as the three-slot Demon Lord unit :D

Genius! Decisions, decisions...

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

Well, if you are a demonologist, maybe consider using a Sentry. They get two separate upgrades that let them hold a weapon and shield (which you can infuse with a lesser demon) and you can give them the Eager Vessel via the spell before Sacrificial Summoning them. And as a Demon, you'll eventually get them the Extra Arm for another weapon slot.

That basically makes them almost as customizable as the three-slot Demon Lord unit :D

If I pick one up from one of the taverns, he'd also have Drunk. Demon Lord of Partying, let's go?

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

Well, if you are a demonologist, maybe consider using a Sentry. They get two separate upgrades that let them hold a weapon and shield (which you can infuse with a lesser demon) and you can give them the Eager Vessel via the spell before Sacrificial Summoning them. And as a Demon, you'll eventually get them the Extra Arm for another weapon slot.

That basically makes them almost as customizable as the three-slot Demon Lord unit :D

You might want to see my edits. Currently leaning towards your Dwarf Sentry idea!

[Orkze]

Originally posted by Wuorg:

It turns out that if a unit has too many abilities to use in combat, the game completely borks itself.

Thanks, fixed with next update.

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Orkze:

Originally posted by Wuorg:

It turns out that if a unit has too many abilities to use in combat, the game completely borks itself.

Thanks, fixed with next update.

Damn, y'all work fast! Thank you!

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

I can't mindwipe the same unit a second time. How are you infinitely leveling?

I thought this was weird, so I went and tried to do it again and I couldn't :(

I spent like half a day messing around with it when I made that Aether Beast post, but I can't seem to reproduce it now. I don't think there was an update? It looks like they get a "Mindwiped" ability that is preventing it. I'm not sure what I did differently to get around it. There shouldn't have been a mod conflict...probably.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone else was able to mindwipe the same unit repeatedly at any point in the past.

Edit: I thought it might have been preventing it this time around because it would reduce their level up options to 0, but putting the demon that gives +1 to level up options (which I was using earlier) didn't get around it either.

Edit: If no one can reproduce this, I'll make and upload a mod that allows mindwiping the same unit multiple times, because I had a lot of fun doing it.

[Kaysoky]

Do you know if performing Sacrificial Summon didn't transfer the Mindwipe?

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

Do you know if performing Sacrificial Summon didn't transfer the Mindwipe?

It does. I've already made a mod for it, but was wondering if you knew of a way to allow a promotion-granting spell to be cast on the same unit multiple times--without removing that promotion entirely. Was hoping there'd be a way to stack up the "Mindwiped" condition (-1 level up options) to retain a bit of the developer vision, dig?

[Kaysoky]

Erm... If you override a promotion, there is an option to make it non-unique (which I guess might let it be applied multiple times) and a "AdditionalLevelUpChoices" option. But I don't know if negative values work there.

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

Erm... If you override a promotion, there is an option to make it non-unique (which I guess might let it be applied multiple times) and a "AdditionalLevelUpChoices" option. But I don't know if negative values work there.

Ya, I saw that "Unique" option, but it didn't do the trick. Not sure what it does, tbh.

AdditionalLevelUpChoices is already at -1 for the Mindwiped promotion. Perhaps I could add a version with a larger penalty that replaces it on multiple uses?

[Wuorg]

I've made and uploaded the mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/spellforceconquestofeo/mods/48

It just removes the "Mindwiped" promotion from the spell. Please let me know if it works, this is my first Nexus upload!