Equiping Asphodel Carrion Seed

[Tanaka]

When would you want to use this on one of your own units as Asphodel? Or when is it better to be a manikin?

[Draken]

Turning living mages into manikins that cost no upkeep and don't die of disease.
Good when you have some site recruited mages that are already diseased and dying or cost a lot in upkeep.
Though the gem price is a bit much.

Basically a worse twiceborn as the commander needs to die from the disease.

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by Draken:

Turning living mages into manikins that cost no upkeep and don't die of disease.
Good when you have some site recruited mages that are already diseased and dying or cost a lot in upkeep.
Though the gem price is a bit much.

Basically a worse twiceborn as the commander needs to die from the disease.

Ahh no upkeep and living diseased already makes sense thanks.

[ebakshis10]

It works great on cubes. I think it works on crones as well, but haven't tested it. You just need to equip them properly and make sure they survive the battle afterwards. Putting it on hill giants is a blast as well--try it.

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by ebakshis10:

It works great on cubes. I think it works on crones as well, but haven't tested it. You just need to equip them properly and make sure they survive the battle afterwards. Putting it on hill giants is a blast as well--try it.

Ha what does a cube turn into?

[ebakshis10]

A carrion giant, which is about as good as you can get for no-upkeep carrion beings. You can get them from other things as well, but cubes are especially good.

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by ebakshis10:

A carrion giant, which is about as good as you can get for no-upkeep carrion beings. You can get them from other things as well, but cubes are especially good.

Nice. So I wonder what happens when you twiceborn and give a carrion seed? Which comes first when the unit dies?

[ebakshis10]

That's something that would require testing. I'd imagine that if they died in combat, the carrion seed would take effect first, but I'm not sure. If they die from drowning (at least in the previous updates), the carrion seed wouldn't take effect, so the twiceborn effect would be what triggers. I have no idea what would happen if they died some other way.

[Draken]

Originally posted by ebakshis10:

That's something that would require testing. I'd imagine that if they died in combat, the carrion seed would take effect first, but I'm not sure. If they die from drowning (at least in the previous updates), the carrion seed wouldn't take effect, so the twiceborn effect would be what triggers. I have no idea what would happen if they died some other way.

I did kill a mage with a carrion seed via combat and one via drowning. Neither came back from the dead as a dead.

Only the one that died through the hp loss of the diesease did.

[ebakshis10]

Originally posted by Draken:

Originally posted by ebakshis10:

That's something that would require testing. I'd imagine that if they died in combat, the carrion seed would take effect first, but I'm not sure. If they die from drowning (at least in the previous updates), the carrion seed wouldn't take effect, so the twiceborn effect would be what triggers. I have no idea what would happen if they died some other way.

I did kill a mage with a carrion seed via combat and one via drowning. Neither came back from the dead as a dead.

Only the one that died through the hp loss of the diesease did.

Carrion seeds don't resurrect mages that die from drowning. They do resurrect mages that die from combat, but there's a caveat--the undead mage needs to survive the combat. So if the mage dies and then the resulting manikin dies later in the battle, it'll stay dead. You can improve the chances of the mage converting by waiting until the mage has low (i.e. 1) hp from the disease, and then sending them them into battle with a Ring of Returning, but keep in mind that this doesn't work reliably for nature mages because they'll heal as soon as combat starts.

[Draken]

Originally posted by ebakshis10:

Originally posted by Draken:

I did kill a mage with a carrion seed via combat and one via drowning. Neither came back from the dead as a dead.

Only the one that died through the hp loss of the diesease did.

Carrion seeds don't resurrect mages that die from drowning. They do resurrect mages that die from combat, but there's a caveat--the undead mage needs to survive the combat. So if the mage dies and then the resulting manikin dies later in the battle, it'll stay dead. You can improve the chances of the mage converting by waiting until the mage has low (i.e. 1) hp from the disease, and then sending them them into battle with a Ring of Returning, but keep in mind that this doesn't work reliably for nature mages because they'll heal as soon as combat starts.

Ah interesting. I only tested it by sending them to combat alone.
But in that case it's probably still better to just wait until they die from disease normally.

Also I don't think that healing in combat is a thing anymore for diseased units, as disease now lowers the max hp. Which means they can't actually be healed up like in dom 5.

[ebakshis10]

They would certainly heal up in 6.11--I haven't tested it since then. I'd been checking out the underwater transformations/carrion seed combinations, and had a few mages die because they'd turned into sharks or sea serpents, healed themselves before engaging with the enemy, and then Returned to a land-fort.

[♔ Affable 7th Wave Teaboo ♔]

The only real use I found is to pop seed onto crones that are on the verge of dying from old age.

Originally posted by ebakshis10:

A carrion giant, which is about as good as you can get for no-upkeep carrion beings. You can get them from other things as well, but cubes are especially good.

Carrion Titan is the best manikin you can get from seeds.

[ebakshis10]

For sure, Carrion Titans are the best manikin, but there's a reason for the no-upkeep stipulation--Carrion Titans have upkeep. I'm a little confused by your first statement--I'm pretty sure you're limited to one crone per game (unless you can steal an independent one--but I'm pretty sure there aren't any independent crones). Do you mean dryad hags?

[ebakshis10]

They're also less taxing than using Transformation to remove your research mages' upkeep--more expensive, yes (5 N 5 D vs 8 N if you're not using a hammer), but because it's coming from two separate income sources, it removes a smaller portion of the total accessed income. (And, since Nature and Death are your two easiest paths to fully search, you'll likely have a high income for both of them). And they're less likely to leave your mages a useless mess, especially if you ended up with Misfortune scales.

[Draken]

The only real downside is that you end up with a mage that only has 1 misc slot available.
In that regard the other options are better.