Equipping a SC/Thug in the late game

[Maid Laika]

as the title says I'm looking for what gear I should think about swapping out on my SCs in the late game. Specfically ones you would send out ot snipe provinces next to your main army and occusional re-merge to act as support. I know all the basic stuff (fire/ice brand, Vine shield/charcoal shield, Fear helmet, lightweight armor with decent protection, etc).

An example I'll take from my current SP EA yomi game (learning them); I usually equip my Oni Kings with a Fire brand, vineshield/charcoal shield, Copper plate, messenger boots, Girdle of might, and interchange my 4th slot with defensive boosting items or a water breathing ring to go fight Theodoro. I'm in the late game now and I'm swapping out copper plates for Knight armor and the charcoal shields with the Gleaming shield (for awe), but for the other stuff I'm not sure. Should I make shadow brands? another type of sword? It's AI so it's mostly chopping up big waves of mooks so I'm looking for more efficent ways to do that.

tips for setting up SCs against anti-SC strats would also be welcome when I eventually have to face a human player who'll try to Soul slay me to death. I know magic resistance boosting is a most but anything else past that?

[AmanitaVerna]

If you mean Dai Oni (with their base 18 MR) or spells aren't a problem, you can use copper arms to wield two shields and a brand, or even forgo all misc items and wield three shields and a brand (I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, especially against someone prepared to fight you with deadly deadly mages).

For taking out tons of troops the most potent combination I've found is a Vine shield + eye shield and regeneration (whether from a bless or spell or a ring), on whoever you can get that has the most HP. (VS+ES+shield of gleaming gold+brand is also a possibility, but then you give up your last misc slot)

Armor of Knights is a good armor if all you want is high protection and little to no downsides. Jade armor will give you quickness (but will probably lower your protection), or you can take an armor with +15 protection against an element - there are lots of useful choices.

Flying shoes would you a lot more mobility, but you need A2 mages to make them.

There are a variety of useful helmets. Horned helmets are cheap and give you an extra strength-based attack.

[Maid Laika]

my problem is is also keep revig under control. I'm running no bless and my current spell script is Earthpower-->invurablity---->soul vortex. I lose fatigue pretty fast but anyway to lose it faster is alwys good

[Tomsdeli]

thats kinda a loaded question. how you equip is how your gem income can support and what you are facing. for just the most basic gearing what you have is fine gear wise minus the fact that you just mention defsive item as the last slot without stating what item it is as the most basic setup is a ring of regeneration.

i favor a much different build with dia oni myself with elemental armour using soul vortex to clear the fatigue and black steel helmets or horned helmets if my E income cant support the extra gem expenadature. then again i spam the piss out of corpse constructs as well so thats where most of my air income goes while i bank a few air gems for dia tengu. as i already have fear and much better uses for death gems, again with yomi i spam the piss out of reanimate archers, i still feel a head slot a must as they have no base helmet but i try and use income from E or N depending upon what i have in stock. ive used dragons helmets which dont do jack outside some head protection as i just didnt have gems of another type to spend right then. really they are not good at all since you have darkvision and some FR.

in terms of items the basics and best are fire/frost. they stand head and shoulders over anything else. dont make shadow brands. im gonna try and recall it from memory as im not exactly sure but i belive the AOE (aoe 3 or maybe 4) is big enough to hit yourself with as well on it. i favor frost but fire prot or frost prot should dictate which your using. just know which is problomatic vs spells/innate resitances your opponent may have.

you cant really explain a anti SC strat as fighting SCs means you make custom counters to take them out. so with your current gear setup yeah id proly aim for pen boosted( spell booster eye of the void for 3 pen) soul slays if i had accsess to them. if i have lots of W1 mages ill frozen heart spam you as 5 frost resist is not gonna save him vs frozen heart being spammed by a bunch of W1 mages at 10 dmg each and 100 precision. if you have knight armours instead of copper plate and i have lots of air mages ill just spam the piss out of lighting attacks backed with phantasm spam from a couple of casters. if im blood and we are really in the late game ill life for a life. basically the only counter you can get here is just staying the hell away from traps laid by the enemy.

i mean thats how anti SC strats work. you use whatever gearing hole the SC has to exploit their weakness. the same holds true for gearing them. if your fighting a heavy S nation you might want a lead sheild/mirror armor/loadstones/anti magic amulets as you can and should expect pen boosted soul slay.

the gearing you have laid out is a generalist gear setup so their are holes all over the damn place. how i counter those is whatever tools i have.

edit damn i didnt see your second post, well i saw it but skimed it. you might fit a temper flesh into script. blunt/peirce/slash resitance, -50% dmg from all the basic weapon damage types, is nothing to sneeze at.

and i thought i should mention. the best bet to stay away from SC counters is mobility. boots of flight or shademails are very good at this. one lets you fly around areas you feel might be a problem while the second hands you stealth at the cost of your chest slot. i love shademail with a passion and you have E so you can drop a earth buff as well in order to get your prot back up.

[Maid Laika]

I would like to keep the boots of messagers for that re-invog so I wouldn't mind giving up my knight armor for stealth. Temperflesh+invurnability provides great protection against standards attacks anyway. as for those counters thanks for the look out. It gives me an idea and it's nice to see an expansion past the usual "it depends".

I understand your point on Fear helmets versus normal head protection, however my Banefire archer factories started late as a result of my build. I had a SC pretender out the bat instead of a research pretender so I didn't reach enchantment 6 for a long long time so I dropped my death gems into fear helms for that extra fear. Now that the factories are going I'm relying more on my earth/fire gem income which is a huge surplus till I get some flame spirits/flame kings out. Thanks for the time. I think I"m doing okay already. As for defensive items honestly I've been using my da Oni's to stomp theodoro so Their 2nd slot has been rings of water breathing and I send em as pairs to take out the ghosties. once they get back on land I'll start giving them those rings of regen.

[Tomsdeli]

well i mean my answer was it depends only listing a handful of examples.

if im agartha ill use oracles and try to petrify you. not 1st turn as if you MR pass you live but are paralyzed. maybe 3rd turn after my troops are in melle. cutting your defense to nothing if not outright killing you, which would be pretty impossible to spam , so id rely on hard hitting troops being in melle and stoping 1 layer of protection.

if im TNN ill proly layer some frost resist to ignore the frost brands AOE and let me W9 bless and 22 defense dodge you attacks. not sure what weapon id try to use to cut your down but you get the point. id proly double or triple stack as well to make sure you went down.

if im oceana ill either staff of storms and lighting spam you or ill frozen heart spam you.

if im sauromatia ill wish i had went up tham to get soul slay and settle for cursing you and lots of charge attacks from calvery in the hopes of dealing you several critical wounds in the first few turns.

if im ryleh i will soul slay spam you with penatration boosters.

you get the point overall. as much as it depends isnt a answer that helps you it really comes down to what gems you have incoming/stockpiled as to what gear you can forge vs what your opponets will proly use vs you or might use vs you. the only real clear winner here is frost/fire brands.

as far as horror helmets. 2 things now about horror helms. a greater fear number increases the range of the fear not its strength. fear 1 has the same effect on your opponents morale as fear 10. increase the number behind fear just means you hit more units. the second thing is each person is gonna play the game slightly dfferent. when i did a LP yomi vs impossible AIs i had someone wondering why i didnt use a magic site for moonvine (forget they are 2N1S and need a thistle mace to forge moonvine braclets or they are 3N1S out the door) mages/druids in order to spam vine ogres. the answer in a nutshell was i needed my nature income to gear my dia oni. its quite obvious that given the same game that person would have labbed it and sent all their nature income into vine ogres. you getting reanimate archers late is fine and spending the death income on helms is fine. its how your build works and how you prioritze your gem useage. i mearly stated where my generalist build differed and why. i put a far greater strain on EFN as i really dont like spending the AD on things outside of summons.

then ill add one more thing. invulnrability and armour DO NOT STACK. not sure if you know this or not. but only the highest value is counted. so if your spending the gems to gear knight armors for your dia oni then having them cast invun your knights armor is a complete waste. the invun is 25 which your armor doesnt go over so it ignores your armor for combat purposes.

also i would never count any item a must in terms of boots of the messanger. they are great. knowing the time when you would need flying boots should come at some point. favoring a item for that slot is fine but id keep it in the back of my mind that they are a good option when needed.

[Maid Laika]

I most certainly DIDN'T know that invulnrability canceled out natural protection of armor. This really opens up my options in my mind now. Thank you very much again for the time spent going into detail.

[jojeck]

That's slightly wrong. We have three things to consider and you're confusing the names.

Invulnerability and the protection from armour (from items) do stack but with a special formula, it's not simple addition. That is the same sort of stacking of 2 forms of protection that occurs between natural protection and protection from armour. Spells such as Barkskin and Ironskin boost the natural protection of a unit

Invulnerability replaces the natural protection of a unit unless the enemy attacks with a magical weapon when natural protection is used again.

[Maid Laika]

but still that means I can use other armor that might not have higher value protection but great side benefits and stll come out the better for it correct? for example switched from copper plated armor to Knights armored isn't exactly a no brainer when the protection gain might be minimalv versus the immunity to Lightning with copper. Of Course I have mages (summoned the dai tengu) who can forge rainbow armor now so I was going to switch to that anyway. That way I can drop my messanger boots for flying boots.

[Traksimuss]

Also, undead and constructs don't get fatigue from normal attacks.
That's why Golem is best SC (but costly to make).

[Cerevox]

Unless your opponent has earth magic. There is a spell called "Shatter" that does massive damage to lifeless units, bypasses all armor, and doesn't give any chance to resist.

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by Traksimuss:

Also, undead and constructs don't get fatigue from normal attacks.
That's why Golem is best SC (but costly to make).

It lacks regeneration though, without Gift of Health it has quite a finite lifespan.

[Maid Laika]

I edited the title because I have a new question in somewhat same topic.

In a "just for fun" SP game playing as disciple EA ermor I've messed around with "ritual of rebirth" to resummon an old hero (the worthy mod's master of games) as a mummy. Now Mummy's are lifeless so I imagine rings of regeneration do not work on them. Barring a N9 bless (which I won't waste points on) is there a way I can spank regeneration on them that will work?

[Mormacil]

No I think that's the downside of lifeless.

[Shinuyama]

1. It depends entirely on chassis and gems/paths/research available.

2. It depends EVEN MORE on PURPOSE. What is this thing for? Taking out PD? Taking out raid squads? Taking out supported raid squads? Taking out armies? Taking out supported armies? Counterthugging? CounterSCing?

3. It depends EVEN MORE MORE on how it does it's job. Does it punch things with a brand? Does it put up Flame Storm while huddling in the rear? Does it have reinvig and a shirt, and just spams Skellingtons continuously forever? Does it go quickness, speedboost, and rocket through the enemy with 20 attacks per turn? Does it put up Soul Vortex while wielding two shields and giving no ♥♥♥♥♥?

For four gems and a 10-gem booster and a 5-gem levitate ring, I can Earthquake.

For less than that and a hat, I can cast Rain of Stones.

For some air gems, I can spawn 30 illusions. Storm costs only a gem to put up. For 40 gems, I can have turn-1 storm, saving me from Mass Flight charges, via a Storm Staff.

Boosters cost a lot but enable things like Army of Lead, Bloodletting/Blood Rain, summoning up supercaster chasses to cast the following, and various other battlewinning spells.

So any time you're 'making a thug' or 'making a SC' due to wanting a unit to punch other units in the face and not die, if you're spending 80 gems on some guy who can barely take out PD - a job that can be done by 10 national troops and an indie commander - then you've just wasted those gems.

Cost-effectiveness is the number one consideration while thugging.

And that's why the absolute best thug or SC is one that doesn't need any gear. Due to innate qualities or buff spells, it can do it's job gearless.

Note how I don't say 'bless'. Blesses are very expensive. Design points cost a lot.

[Shinuyama]

Any supercombatant dies to enough magic of the right kind directed at it. There are things that have NO save and just kill you dead, or send you to hell. Gifts of Heaven, for example. Or Claws of Cocytos. Or hell, just Incinerate.

That said, the best SCs are Tarts. Cheap, and if you can remove the afflictions, able to self buff, supercast, nice array of paths. Very disposable.

That's something that people don't like to think about when it comes to thugs and SCs. Dominions isn't about heroes. Stuff /dies/. Maybe that one Mystic just goes ♥♥♥♥ it and incinerates half the enemy army while lightning falls all around him and heroes it to the max, or your SC survives til the end of the game, but the general rule is your toys WILL get broken. Have lots of cheap toys. Let them get broken. Don't care.