Shield of Thorns or Flesh of Stone?

[Lampros]

If you can only have one or the other? For your information, Shield of Thorns grants 22 percent missile resistance and 25 percent melee damage; and Flesh of Stone 60 armor. Also Shield of Thorns is an AoE buff, whereas Flesh of Stone is single unit-only.

[Sevrojin]

all magics and aoes stack. however % resistences cap at 80%-90%

[Hurricane]

None they both suck ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... dont even bother with them.

[Big Moustache]

I claim walls with flesh of stone on phoenix guards. They hardly lose anyone. Cycle with regrowth. With focus on ranged, i rather buff armor of my heavy melee further than a short damage boost. I get those from dragonbreaths and other units.

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by Fragoos:

I claim walls with flesh of stone on phoenix guards. They hardly lose anyone. Cycle with regrowth. With focus on ranged, i rather buff armor of my heavy melee further than a short damage boost. I get those from dragonbreaths and other units.

Then you fail....

Regrowth costs a fk load of mana....

Also PGs to attack walls???????? Dear me good sir

[Big Moustache]

Well, swordmasters of Hoeth die out slowly. The phoenix guard lost not 10 guys. I meant the first tier healing not the one behind evasion.

[Loomi]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

Originally posted by Fragoos:

I claim walls with flesh of stone on phoenix guards. They hardly lose anyone. Cycle with regrowth. With focus on ranged, i rather buff armor of my heavy melee further than a short damage boost. I get those from dragonbreaths and other units.

Then you fail....

Regrowth costs a fk load of mana....

Also PGs to attack walls???????? Dear me good sir

Do you get invited to parties a lot?

[Iriath Zhul]

If only I could give Flesh of Stone to my Witch-Elves.

[Aenarion]

Both are pretty marginal (so is regrowth IMO). FtS is a great buff in the right circumstance but it's let down badly by its lack of radius. SoT has the radius but is a weaker buff.

On balance SoT edges it because 'melee blob looking for generic buff' is more common than 'one unit you really care about needs help against chosen/ironbreakers/etc' (insert high end non-AP as applicable).

In any case, a life mage is mostly there for earthblood and the passive, with the occasional opportunistic dwellers, so I never put any points into other spells until I've maxxed those three, and taken all the general magic buffs (especially arcane conduit).

[Wyvern]

Shield of thorns overcast is +50% normal WS(not AP iirc) so if youre operating an army without a lot of AP melee, its easily more useful than flesh to stone. Flesh to stone is only good in cavalry combat where AP doesnt tend to be a thing, and vs high end non-AP, which is pretty damn rare, given that most top tier units are monsters, halberds and greatweapons. Theoretically its good vs non-AP missiles too, but shield of thorns gives +44% missile resist overcast, which is better than what flesh to stone will give. That said, you usually want regrowth and earthblood to be the main spells youre dropping, with maybe dwellers or awakening of the wood to disrupt and kill blobs.

Originally posted by Hurricane:

None they both suck ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... dont even bother with them.

Originally posted by Hurricane:

Originally posted by Fragoos:

I claim walls with flesh of stone on phoenix guards. They hardly lose anyone. Cycle with regrowth. With focus on ranged, i rather buff armor of my heavy melee further than a short damage boost. I get those from dragonbreaths and other units.

Then you fail....

Regrowth costs a fk load of mana....

Also PGs to attack walls???????? Dear me good sir

Regrowth also gives physical resist and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of single target heals. Also, why the hell shouldnt PG attack walls, if youre doing a build that isnt super infantry centric theyre the better choice than SM's, and even if you have a balanced infantry list, what are you gonna do, send all your PG through the gate? Hell, this is ignoring the fact that scaling walls tanks your vigour, and MD holds up much better than MA when vigour is gone.

[TheSovietGator]

Shield of Thorns, definitely. The fact that its an aoe spell alone is far more impactful then any single target spell.

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by TheSovietGator:

Shield of Thorns, definitely. The fact that its an aoe spell alone is far more impactful then any single target spell.

Not really if they dont need it most of the effect will be wasted the single target will get 100% use but still its a pretty bad spell for the cost.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by TheSovietGator:

Shield of Thorns, definitely. The fact that its an aoe spell alone is far more impactful then any single target spell.

This really depends on your army comp. For example playing liie fey enchantress, you have a grail guardian in your starting army. You can have regrowth as a spell really early on killing rebel armies. I'd argue regrowthing the grail guardians is often more useful than earth blood on the peasants. You don't care if the peasants die, fey and grail guardians are like half your killing power till you start getting knights.

If all your army is composed of equally impactful units, and your army is blobbed which often happens cause blobbing and using aoe is a really easy way to beat ai, you'll almost always get more use out of aoe. But often early on at least you just need to keep key targets alive and killing things, or take out key enemies. And you save money using like 15 stacks early on.