What are the best SC-lite chassis?

[Catowl]

When I say SC-lite I mean something that if geared right is near immortal bar some specific counters and/or luck. I know its impossible to make a true SC, one that wont die to anything, but there are thigns that can stand up to alot of punishment and only die to stuff like soul slay spam, and similar. So what are our options? I'll start to just give an idea of what im thinking here

1) Golems - Possibly your earliest and easiest to get thug if you have the paths. It is Const 7 meaning you are getting the thug and thug gearing options all in one magic path. Plus it can teleport, isnt alive and thus has no concept of fatigue, soul slay, and disease.

2) Elemental royalty - Conj 8, and come in multiple flavours.
Out of the water ones only 1 can leave the water, but they are nearly immortal to damage under it, due to godlike regen. As a path, water is meh, but does give you quickness and liquid body so thats nice.

Out of the fire ones, the fire 5 one is probably the worst of all royalty. He cant fly, he has a bad buffing path, but hey, he's still a big sack of HP, etherial, and has a fire shield. The one with the earth crosspath is much better due to getting earth buffs like Iron skin, Iron will, and so on. Has the rest of the great stats the other royalty have as well. The fire/death one is probably the best out of the 3 due to the death spells, especially Soul Vortex.

The earth kings are more or less the same, one just having more regen. Both can buff with earth magic, and be amazing supports during large fights due to high cost earth buffs.The last one is actually in the blood path, and is E4B3. Has 15% regen which is really nice, and is probably the best of the 3 though requires a completely different path from the other royalty (then again, if you are a blood nation you will go research blood anyways so...)

Finally the air queens are all great at fighting solo due to their air buffs, ability to fly, cloud trapeze, be etherial, have bonus lighting attacks. Though they do have the worst HP out of the lot. Still, it sits at a respectable 45, which is often good enough especially if you got mistform.

3) Various devils/demons - Are basically the elemental royalty lite, the blood edition. Not as strong, but come in a variety of flavours, are easier to summon due to slaves being easier to get, and have stuff like fear which goes well with awe if you want to try that route.

4) Tartarians - Require Conj 9, and death 7. While they only cost 10 death gems each, you also need to spend gems to make them a commander, and gems to setup a nature global to heal them of their afflictions. I have never used them but many swear by them, and I do see the potential.


What else is out there?

[pkk]

How about Abominations? They seem tougher and cheaper than golems.

Philipp

[Red_Rob]

No slots, no paths, 2 research levels higher and need a GoR to become a Commander which costs another 20 Nature gems.

They also need a much tougher S5W2 to summon compared to the S3E2 of a Golem.

[Illamard]

Yeah seems like most SC are hit and a miss these days. Mage communion spams seem to be the way to go for cheap damage late game.

[Catowl]

True. But they aren't as mobile

[Twogun]

what you gotta do really, is have thugs that are just good enough to do the job at the lowest possible cost. what that does it, it makes them less painful to lose, while making the expenditure of enemy resources to kill them efficient for you.

once you reach SC status, you've invested quite a bit. now, if you have a huge gem economy and are pumping out 2/turn, maybe you can just keep on rolling through the losses(see:tart farm)-but that often begs the question, could those resources have been more effective elsewhere? personally, i hate that question though. once you start questioning a strat because it doesn't min/max properly, to me the game is a lot less fun.

[ncarr99]

If you're playing as Lanka then Mandehas or Danavas would probably suit your purpose. I haven't tried them in Dom 5 but in Dom 4 they were pretty fantastic. Mandehas are especially nice since they fly, are sacred, have decent magic paths, and instantly cast darkness, which as demons does not affect them and because of dark power actually strengthens them. Danavas are good in that besides just generally good stats they are also sacred, have 4 arms, and you get three of them, though you do have to cast gift of reason on them.

I've found from a few games as Tir nan n'Og that Ivy Kings can be pretty good at this job as well, they can self buff with personal regen, and properly kitted they can be fairly tough. I kit mine with flying shoes, vine shield, frost brand, chainmail of displacement, and then some misc items depending on what gems I had lying around. They were fairly expensive to create, but they were able to routinely take on small armies of 50-70 alone and win. And unlike my Lanka suggestions, anyone with a decent amount of nature strength could summon them, though I feel like it'd be best to also have air in order to give them flying shoes

[ncarr99]

Originally posted by Twogun:

what you gotta do really, is have thugs that are just good enough to do the job at the lowest possible cost. what that does it, it makes them less painful to lose, while making the expenditure of enemy resources to kill them efficient for you.

Ulm's Vampire counts can do this, a couple of unkitted ones can group up and skelespam/raise dead to raid provinces. Alternatively you could try to kit them and they might be ok, though I've had mixed results with using them as kitted thugs since their hp isn't great. Either way, they're immortal so it's fairly low risk to use them as raiders.

Lanka's Dakinis are really good at this as well, with a regen/reinvig bless, the only thing you really need to give them is a vine shield and then they can take most provinces.

[Twogun]

anyone every have luck with sleepers? they r cheap, easy to research, easy to summon, fairly solid. always thought they'd make good cheap thugs, never got around to trying it.

[ncarr99]

Same, I've never tried them outside SP, I'm sure they would be good but I don't know for sure.