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[snelg]

If there's an overriding theme of Dominions, it's that the Pantokrator is always a huge dick.

If there's an overriding theme of Dominions, it's that the Everyone is always a huge dick.

[MoLAoS]

Edit: Well my seraph magically appeared again with all his shit still on him. Weird.

Created a multi wish buffed GoRed seraph with incredible kit giving H5, should be 6 as prophet is dead but can't make new prophet, awe+17 and fear+5. 132 health and 29 prot. Slaughtering enemy taking now damage because of awe. W1 mage casts frozen heart. I die and lose all that unique artifact gear. WTF. How the bloody hell does a W1 mage have an insta kill spell like that?

[Delta Foxtrot]

That's why you want cold resist if you're fighting W mages. Since I don't know the exact gear I can only guess, but here's a few low level ways to kill him:
How's his astral level and magic resistance? If they're still at base 4 and 18 (I'm assuming you're using MA Pythium/MA LA Marignon's Seraph summon), he could easily be killed by a few S2 or a ton of S1 guys instead with soul slay and magic duel.
How high is his encumbrance and reinvigoration? If enc minus reinvig is higher than 0, he can probably be tired to death by undead spam from D2 casters.
B1 mages could spam Leech for 25 dmg per casting on your Seraph (for reference, Frozen Heart is 10 dmg)

I can't think of other schools having such spells (I may very well be wrong). But F1 mages could at least blind your Seraph, making him a much worse combatant.

I'm guessing he's wearing Armor of Virtue? That would cause him to teleport back to your capital if he gets wounded. There are probably other ways but that's the one I remember for now.

The key here is that there's a counter to pretty much anything. The good/bad thing is that the AI can't utilize most of them.

[Frumple]

How the bloody hell does a W1 mage have an insta kill spell like that?

Is called alteration 6

More than one of the schools open up some fairly nasty low-path stuff as you get deeper into them. Frozen heart's not even an instakill spell, just high precision AN cold damage (which yeah, if your seraph was wearing armor of virtue, is probably what caused it to twig out). There are multiple actual instakill spells, some of them -- like the mentioned magic duel, or stuff like disintegrate -- coming in as low as one or two levels in a path.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Quite true. Vine Arrow is an ok spell, it shoots a projectile that entangles a unit for possibly several turns and does a decent number of upfront damage. But it's only a single fairly inaccurate bolt per casting, usually you can do better. Then you research evocations-7 and your N2's can spam storm of thorns for about seven of those badboys per casting.

[MoLAoS]

That's why you want cold resist if you're fighting W mages. Since I don't know the exact gear I can only guess, but here's a few low level ways to kill him:
How's his astral level and magic resistance? If they're still at base 4 and 18 (I'm assuming you're using MA Pythium/MA LA Marignon's Seraph summon), he could easily be killed by a few S2 or a ton of S1 guys instead with soul slay and magic duel.
How high is his encumbrance and reinvigoration? If enc minus reinvig is higher than 0, he can probably be tired to death by undead spam from D2 casters.
B1 mages could spam Leech for 25 dmg per casting on your Seraph (for reference, Frozen Heart is 10 dmg)

I can't think of other schools having such spells (I may very well be wrong). But F1 mages could at least blind your Seraph, making him a much worse combatant.

I'm guessing he's wearing Armor of Virtue? That would cause him to teleport back to your capital if he gets wounded. There are probably other ways but that's the one I remember for now.

The key here is that there's a counter to pretty much anything. The good/bad thing is that the AI can't utilize most of them.

I can't remember precisely what he had now. I lost by losing all my land anyways. But yeah armor of virtue. He definitely had plenty of reinvig and a decent magic resist. All slots were full, plus 1 from my bless. He was also wish boosted but don't know if that added mr. This was one of my games where I abuse Wish a huge amount. Sadly I didn't set up a lot of defense because its so boring so when I suicided my prophet the enemy took all my land super quick.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Well, I once killed an MR22 or 23 pretender with only a few casts of soul slay. Some people probably would call that decent MR. You really want to try and get MR30+ if you're fighting an S nation with somebody important. You can make do with much less if you're fielding more disposable thugs. Of course once you start gearing your guys for MR, your opponent will start fielding some other counters that don't check MR.

Oh the mindgames.

[Frumple]

Yeah, armor of virtue is... honestly kinda' terrible on an SC, due to exactly what happened to you, Mo. You take a single point of damage, even if it's not even remotely enough to kill you, and the battle is lost. And you will take that point of damage. AoV's better for particularly expensive heavy combat casters -- it lets them get their junk off and still have a pretty good chance of getting back home for round N+1, even if the subsequent battle is a rout for your side. Pretty decent attrition strategy, really.

[MoLAoS]

Before I died I had some seraphs with other gear sets that worked a bit better. Sadly, with all the artifact limitations, really good gear is only available for 2 or 3 fully equipped seraphs.

[Frumple]

... shield of gleaming gold and hat of terror is all they really need to route 90% of all non-thugs/SCs. Throw in some decent armor (maybe just ethereal) and an AoE damage sword (frost/fire brand) or something and they'll wreck pretty much everything not specifically tooled to kill SCs. Unless seraphs are flimsier than I remember (which sure, maybe. Go summon something tougher next time.), I guess.

Really, you don't need artifacts to make an unholy terror of an SC. Artifacts provide for some interesting opportunities, but there's plenty of bloody incredible stuff a lower const, and building an army (or SC) destroyer doesn't even remotely require them. Personally, I'd usually prefer an artifact's gem cost in lesser-but-functionally-as-good kit when it comes to SC or thug building. Artifacts are for fancier stuff than facerolling armies.

[Shadowlord]

Is there a military use for The Ark?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Is there a military use for The Ark?

I can see it being useful for a nation like Mictlan which has spammable sacreds, or for a thug/SC to lug around. Blinding a large chunk of the enemy army seems pretty awesome to me. But then again I haven't used it before, so take my words with a grain of salt.

[Shadowlord]

I attempted to use it in SP on Ermor, but when I was about to use it, I 'defeated' them by having a superior dominion, and their armies all vanished. In the time it took to move the priests holding the Ark across the map to the remaining factions, they too were overtaken by my dominion, and I ended up winning the game. I ended up testing it on one independent province which used to belong to Ermor (which wasn't a very interesting test since I had a ton of priests just in case the Ark wasn't the army-obliterating superweapon I thought it was going to be from reading its description).

[MoLAoS]

... shield of gleaming gold and hat of terror is all they really need to route 90% of all non-thugs/SCs. Throw in some decent armor (maybe just ethereal) and an AoE damage sword (frost/fire brand) or something and they'll wreck pretty much everything not specifically tooled to kill SCs. Unless seraphs are flimsier than I remember (which sure, maybe. Go summon something tougher next time.), I guess.

Really, you don't need artifacts to make an unholy terror of an SC. Artifacts provide for some interesting opportunities, but there's plenty of bloody incredible stuff a lower const, and building an army (or SC) destroyer doesn't even remotely require them. Personally, I'd usually prefer an artifact's gem cost in lesser-but-functionally-as-good kit when it comes to SC or thug building. Artifacts are for fancier stuff than facerolling armies.

Considering that a fame'd dual magic powered, wished/GoRed, physical powered Seraph costs 500 astral and w/e nature for GoR, the cost of equipment is not that big. Honestly the main annoying thing is getting famed and then having some shitty ability like Valor. My favorite is the fatty ability for all that extra HP and some strength.

[Frumple]

Mm... depends on the chassis, really. For most good SC ones, I'd rather have quickness or one of the MR ones. Maybe reflexes or ambidexterity for the def boost. Obesity's nice, sorta', but it boosts encumbrance -- which is like unto a kiss of death for fatigable SCs. Doubly so if they're going to be doing any casting in the process (as many of the better ones will be)...

E: Mind you, obesity still works pretty well if you have a way of offsetting that extra encumbrance. Soul vortex is excellent for that, if your critter has D3 and you've got the research.