So now what is the best paladin?

[Mugwabig]

Now that we can't max both combat and white magic, paladins have got some decisions to make. (Not that I really subscribe to spending all the points on str/sta or dex/agi in the first place, because you really need both str and dex to damage enemies effectively)

So is it better to sacrifice some combat to max white magic, get the aura of eternity, or the other way round?

I know you need *some* dex to hit enemies, but you want to max str (or at least have an awful lot) to increase the damage you dish out as much as possible. I think eternity adds dex or agi or maybe both. So that might be enough, so would it point to maxing white magic and the rest in heavy combat being hte best choice?

What about from the equipment point of view - any particularly level or type for any certain powerful item (presumably a weapon) to go with the fighting you intend to do with a paladin?

[mordo]

When going from base str 92 to str 96 (HC 15 to 16), you increase ~5%.
But combined with armour str it is in reality ~str 146 to str 150,
so the difference is un-noticeable ~2%,
unless a lv 16 weapon is much better then a lv 15.

Hirin staff is generally accepted as the best weapon in game, and importantly also add str/dex 15.
Any combat art 15 is elegligable to wield it, so that should be the goal.

Magic levels differ more then 2%/lv, so they scale better when a mere 4 str points differ/lv, unless a weapon can equalize, which it can't after Hirin staff.

The best armour for me is Rune of Pantheon, which has lv 48 as requirement. here's a comparison.

Pantheon lv 48: AC 451, STR 30, STA 42, AGI 27, DEX 27, INT 15, WIS 18
Worldforger CA 18: AC 333, STR 20, STA 30, AGI 26, DEX 30, INT 0, WIS 0
Demon LA 20 +Helmet: AC 397, STR 35, STA 20, AGI 42, DEX 44.
Resist FIRE +32, +ICE 32, +BLACK 21, +MIND 14.

So: I'd pick HC 15 + WM boon 19

I would definitely add WM life "Holy touch", (complete restore health) at high lv, it has a mere 30 sec cooldown,
or even less at lv 19, making the Avatar nigh impossible to kill as long as you don't get interrupted casting it.
I have a requirement of magic resist myself so i have 'ring of bards' as complement, but at lv 48 you are pretty resistant to magic.

[mordo]

On a 2nd thought, boons doesn't scale impressively either, altho still better then CA, the main reason to bring WM over 15 is 'holy touch', that compress cooldown time with increasing levels.
With Hirin staff and Pantheon armour, but without rings, i have dex. 68, there's no need for more, altho my rings bring dex. up to 76.

With base sta/str of 92, and base agi/dex of 26, (HC 15 + LC 2) this is what i got from Pantheon + Hirin (+ ring of bards for magic resist, and no AoE)
sta 142
str 147
agi 63
dex 76
Life 4236
armour 551

ring 1: Ring of the Bards - Level 45, AC 50, STR 8, DEX 8, INT 8 CHA 7 Resistances: Fire Magic +30, Black Magic +30.
ring 2: Messenger of Night - Level.45, AC 50, STR 10, AGI 10, INT 10, Resistances: Ice Magic +30, Mind Magic +30.

If i were to do it with LC, which i won't, i would go for LC 15, WM 13, and spend every last remaining point on str/sta.

I also think that in terms of damage output, AoFF is better then AoE,
but will lack in run speed.

[Mugwabig]

Well whether AoFF or AoE is better depends on your measurements, doesn't it? AoE increases a few stats, and as you know, the high your stats already are, then the smaller the improvement in terms of ratio.

Strange thing about spells is that Area Freeze for example, are available for sale like AoE for lv 18~20, but I have picked one up that is lower level. So maybe same as AoE, it is possible to access it at lower level if you get lucky and find one.

But then again, as your WA and Charisma goes up, so does the effect of your buffs. Well you got it up to 19, so I guess that is pretty close to max.

Are these Hirin Staff and Rune of Pants available in coop?

[mordo]

My brain has entered hibernation mode due to leo beer, so i can't figure out what 'WA' is,
Rune of panthi is available at least in 'der-k wintercircle' home made map.
i don't know if Hirin is somewhere.
If not, here is code:
4455 Hirinstaff [2H] - Light Combat Arts 15 or Heavy Combat Arts 15, Damage 38-51, Range 1, Speed: 95%,
Effect: Fireburst, Icestrike, Death, STR 15, DEX 15.

Rune of the Pantheon - the effects of the set-items are increased by 50%.
Conditions: Lvl.48
7335 Helmet of the Guardians - AC 51, STA 8, INT 10, WIS 8
7336 Armor of the Keepers - AC 170, STA 20, STR 20, WIS 4
7337 Greaves of the Guardians - AC 80, AGI 18, DEX 18

7291 Ring of the Bards - Level 45, AC 50, STR 8, DEX 8, INT 8 CHA 7 Resistances: Fire Magic +30, Black Magic +30.
7292 Messenger of Night - Level.45, AC 50, STR 10, AGI 10, INT 10, Resistances: Ice Magic +30, Mind Magic +30.

The rings are also supposedly in free game somewhere, but i don't know where.

Feel free to contact me if you want to try out multiplayer, -i'm in.

[Mugwabig]

I meant WM, which is of course White Magic, sorry for making you look for something that doesn't exist.

So where can I get some of these coop maps?

Thanks.

[mordo]

Here's some maps:

http://spellforce.jowood.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=31588

http://spellforce.jowood.com/forum/s...t=25696&page=2

[mordo]

I really have to say Mugwabig, that after you did Paladin,
you really ought to try out HC + MM Enchantment, -it's a complete blast !!!
I recommend HC 8 & MM 12 in TOoD/BoW, then get MM 13 Enchant Mirror ASAP at lv 31. After that, armies/heroes is simply obsolete, -you can solo the entire SotP campaign without even taking a step back or resort to "divine&conquer" (taking on a few at a time)
Then increase HC until HC 15 ->Hirinstaff at lv 47, (the uberweapon) then increase mirror to 14/15.
From TOoD import, Angthar will drop a mirror 13 in onyx bay with a few F7/F9, from BoW import, the lost souls in city of souls will drop it.
MM defensive meditation + enlightment lv 12 is highly recommended for efficiency, but no particular need for further increase.
I still build an army tho, to get a timer so i will know how long i should hold back my irresistable attack to get the relevant experience.

Btw east city of souls is an excellent place to get experience, i made more then half a level at each of the 5 hexagon spawn places, (>2.5 lv already) leaving the weakest as a spawn guard and carry on with the rest to the next spawn.

Then i top it off by making another 1.5 lv at the undead lv 35 onslaught, but it takes a powerful avatar to do that. (i.e mirror army)

It is also my experience that blade of light works better vs mummies then otherwise more powerful weapons, because the mummies has increadible armor, and the spark shave off 15 HP at up to 3 monsters at a time. Any weapon with magic effect is preferable over non-magic when dealing with mummies.

[Mugwabig]

Wow.

When I tried Mirror Image, I was using a mage, and the images do like 1 damage each. And I thought, "Yeah that's about it."
Never occured to me to try it on a buff warrior and see if the images would be more productive.

Presumably that's also what most other people experienced.

So congratulation on this great find.
So much for everyone thinking paladins and ice mages rule Spellforce and other tinkering isn't going to pay.

[mordo]

From my preliminary, but far from exhaustative test, a mirror causes ~2/3 the damage as i as a HC fighter cause myself, and takes ~3 times the damage.
This is approximate values, lesser armor on myself will reduce the difference,
and magic effect on weapons will close the difference as well.

I find it beneficial to add fast fighting lv 1, (code 224 IIRC) which requires no stats, but will pump up my fighting speed to 135+, and any nearby friendly, taking free advantage of the high charisma value.

Since i have a thing for being capable of doin it myself, i just pump it up to mirror 14, and instead add necro death grasp lv 3 to take out death towers.
But your mirrors will get another ~200 HP by going mirror lv 15. (2030 HP IIRC) for ultimate God status
(although my definition of God status is to be capable of doing everything myself, including destroying towers)
An item that i highly recommend regardless of avatar is the slingshot to equip aura healers so they don't default to hand to hand combat, -avoiding tiresome micro management, code 3254 = damage 8-15 range 2-10 SPEED 150.
But it turns out to be extra beneficial for a mirror army, especially one that has strength base, because more then ~ 7 weapons can engage the monster.
Just a pity that slingshot wasn't implemented in the game, so artmoney is required. Among other things it allows me to annihilate the gargoyles in western city of souls.

You should not bother to wield a shield when summoning, because the mirrors get's none of those stats.
For a reason that is un-known to me, mirrors get's the weapons damage stats, such as ice/death/fire/etc, but don't get the astral knife run + 10%.

[mordo]

On the Paladin/ice ruling joke, i challenge 3 of those vs mine at a time in a multiplayer game
over a free beer night at the nearest chrome pole den
or more if can be fitted in multi play mua ha ha~

[Mugwabig]

Hmm what about Bow + Mirror?
In particular I'm just wondering about the AI of the images, because if they are active like skeletons and they got bows then this is the bomb.

[mordo]

Luckily, this board has a memory, so i won't have to re-write it all, if i could even do it at this influenced stage..

http://www.spellforce2.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57739

!!! Attention !!! Make sure stats goes to: STR 47, DEX 60, INT 74, CHA 99 and nothing else. !!!

Frostthrower-skullcrossbow lv 10 is the best weapon for the job that can be had at lv 31,
and perhaps throughout the game, because of the freeze effect.

read on....

this'un requires much more summons, (and more annoyingly constant summon support) but on a extremely hard map, more specifically 'elf fortress' ? free game,
-this army prevail cause they stick together, when the HC army OTOH scatter to beat up demon slayers/nightmares all over the map, and eventually succumb.
This army also has the upper hand when the monster army is blocking a choke hole, when the HC fighters can only engage with ~3 mirrors at a time, where the bolts from crossbows will reach from 30+ crossbow shooters, -they aren't far away in terms of damage.

[mordo]

Another thing, don't waste ability points beyond what defines your basic needs,
i.e ranged 10 crossbow 10, enchantment 13 defensive 12.

Much much later on, you can add offensive if you want to make use of area hypnos, (1 min 20 sec endurance IIRC)

[Androdion]

Hey Mordo if you're going to give links, then you might as well give the original one posted by Ieldra :

http://spellforce.jowood.com/forum/s...ht=unreal+army

It's pretty cool to use MI, it has a lot of possibilities, and even I haven't tried them all, but I also stopped playing SF1 over a year ago. Nevertheless I still have a memory too , and there are some stuff you have to bear in mind. Mirrors are weaker because they lack AC, if you make a mirror of a magician you'll have a mirror of what is already a gimp on melee, plus no AC. If you do a mirror of a HCA melee avatar, then you still won't have AC, but the physical attributes make up for it, and as Mordo says, if you have a weapon with a stopping effect then they'll have a decent amount of bashing before they get killed.

The original use for mirror was used as described in Ieldra's post on the link I gave above. Although that's basically a starting point, since the amount of possible combinations is in a decent number. You should have at all time MM-D Lv.12, because using MI without Meditation is painfully slow, and kind of kills the point of being effective. You'll just spend your lifetime doing mirrors. You can use MI with melee and ranged, using ranged you can use bows or crossbows, but the fact is that there aren't as many magical ranged weapons as there are melee ones. Apart from the bows/crossbows you can make at the Bone Altar in BoW and BoW's Arin's Wrath, there isn't all that much. In fact the only ones good for using the mirror trick are those!

Using it with melee as a tactic for high-level enemies imply you must have a ubber weapon, hence Hirinstaff. But frankly you can play a magician with Lv.12 RCA too, it works, and if you don't want to be stuck on bashing everyone to death you can use that as an alternative.

BTW Mordo, when discussing general in-game stuff take note not to include Artmoney items in those discussions/recommendations. I have no problem with Artmoney, I've even used it, but when users ask for something it's a good policy to provide them with stuff that exists in the game and is accessible to everyone without outside help, now what I mean? Later you can make another paragraph and say "Hey you can always try this if you want, but it's cheating.", and go out explaining your finds and opinions. Just try and keep stuff separated, because new users might not understand howcome the stuff your talking isn't in their games.

[mordo]

Lol, I was anctious to see you show up, i happen to enjoy your posts.
About the slingshot: i really think it was a mistake not to include it,
-this is the only way i know of to avoid micro management , (keeping aura healers sane) and is the only reason i ever mention it, beside my imagination that only ole'timers bother with this 7 or so year old game.
beside that Mugwabig already discussed artmoney.
I will make the hidden spoiler thing when mention slingshot onward tho
*promise*
I'm rather curious how a
Staff of the Blood Priests [2H] - Level 42, Damage 30-39, Range 1, Speed: 85%, Effect: Lifetap, Life +120, Mana +60.
would do without strength, altho not curious enough to do any non-HC stuff myself
I also checked LC + MM, because i imagined that combo should be the most entertaining of the lot,
aura of hypnos in mind, but if my numbers are right, i can only make it to LC 15 + MM 17.

[mordo]

Btw, what's the fuss bout beating a mediocre arch fire devil with an entire army
(Ieldra)
vs beating a nightmare with half a dozen fighters ?
(erm, that would be me )

eh~ and just to flaunt there is no upper limit on summons,
darkwind ~120 Hirin wielders ready to annihilate whatever

[Androdion]

If you notice the dates, Ieldra's post is 2 and 1/2 years old, this at a time where playing MI was unaccounted for so it was and is a big deal! Don't forget they're wimps with a Lv.12 crossbow vs a Lv.50 Demon, not high-level HCA melee with the best weapons in the game.

Frankly IMO those types of weapons aren't that fun to play (SotBP) because other than being slow, their effect can work more or less. By this time I think your aware of the fact that some weapon's effects don't fire as much as others. For instance the Lv.17 magic staff with Petrify, I never hit an enemy with Petrify using that as a weapon. Plus the idea of using mirrors of magicians for melee doesn't seem very efficient, although I can see the breaking point in it, having an army with a weapon with Lifetap being the case in point. What I liked doing was using Chain Lifetap when I needed to regain some life. That was enough for me. I haven't done the math but can you be something like LCA20 + MM13/14?. That way you'd be able to do something similar, because at Lv.20 you have Shadowfang/Deathsong or whatever the name of the weapon, that I never seem to recall, with 108% speed plus Lifetap effect. Just a thought.

[mordo]

If you look at ability requirements, you will see that each lv cost 8 stats after lv 12, except LC & Ranged that require 9 stat, so while previously being cheaper then other skills, they now cost more.
That's a reason by it's own to avoid increasing those abilities.
I definitely believe in high speed, cause it tend to interupt the other guy, and LC has an advantage here, i saw a dagger with death effect with speed 120,
OTOH higher lv mirrors increase stamina, but with a base of 25, they are probably done at the first hit anyway, and MM brings other stuff to the fight,
in particular hypnos if high enough, but unfortunately it can't be brought to relevant levels towards the end except for stunning summons, like worldforger summons.
I could stun a few Hazims and mummies with my HC MM tho.

ps i can tell by the armor i was lv 47 in the arena, or i would wear Pantheon armor

[mordo]

Originally Posted by Androdion

Hey Mordo if you're going to give links, then you might as well give the original one posted by Ieldra

A good idea.
While superficially the same build, they are actually very different builds,
so there are plenty of choices.

As the germans, Ieldra, myself, and others have noted, the build is un-impressive as the monsters lv up, even if the mirror is lv 20.
Ieldra compensated by using dominate to finish the game, and i believe so did everyone else, you included.

My build OTOH focus on max damage output of the mirrors,
traditional MM is not part of the equation.
And damage output relate only to base STR + weapon stats. STR is everything in this build.