Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah... if you can get access to the higher level summons, things get fun. One of my wizards lucked out and found a raise ghost scroll (Third circle necromancy) and from then on out could kill pretty much everything it ran into. Expensive spell (30 crystal, 5 stam), but the ghost itself was basically unkillable (iirc, it had 20/40/6 defensive stats, and restored 7 hp every time it killed something. Base 18 or so HP, too, and targeted resistance instead of defense in melee) and fast (3 AP, flying). It'd solo... lots. Trolls, knights, whatever. Just murdered 'em, and then flapped on to murder everything else. Which would promptly be raised as zombies or skeletons to help join in on the fun. Sadly, going necromancer doesn't actually knock up the level of what you can subdue after battle and take with you (So with just level 3 necromancy, a necromancer can't keep ghosts), or that match would have been ridiculous. Definitely staying pure mage next time, get that necromancy level up.

I had a good run with a warrior last night, though. Crossed over with mage at 10 for the 3 hp/kill heal, packed its army with pikemen and let th'bugger go to town. Had enough defense to basically solo most provinces on its own, the other meatshields were just cake. Really, all the heroes are just... nice. They're really nice. Can't wait 'till I manage to actually get one to twenty and see what happens then

Regarding magic, I found it pretty useful to stuff a commander full of fatigue spells. Target their ranged dudes (who usually have low resistance), and you can shut one or two of them down for a few turns, long enough to get something close enough to kill 'em. Quite useful, and no crystal cost.

No ranged poke/farm, though

Or heavy AD steroid. Or lack of a mana bar. Mundo has the better CC reduction, too, really. Better sustainability in general. Probably better in the jungle, I'd guess.

Singed would still probably kick Mundo's ass, though. Singed is a bit of a monster, and honestly better for your team in general

ATHOR IS DISPLEASED AT YOUR LACK OF A LACK OF FAITH.

ATHOR CAN SALIVATE UPON AZATHOTH'S THROBBING PROTRUSIONS, COMMERCIALS WILL BE CULLED.

Yeah... I've only ran a mundo once so far, 'gainst bots so far, but between warmogs and... huh. Only thing else I got was Aegis. Anyway, between those two I was pretty casually just walking between turrets, into the enemy team, straight into dudes faces, etc., so forth, so on. I couldn't stay in those places, but I picked up an alacrity'd pair of swiftness boots and just kinda' did whatever. Did feel a bit flimsier, I guess. Just had to adjust to a more 'in and out' kind of pattern.

Had a warmogs on a bankplank in TT and th'dude was kinda' soloing the enemy team Just bots again, but... still.

Anyway... boot enchants. Are these things, like... worth it? I like slapping alacrity on stuff, 'cause speed is fun. But I'm not sure if it's really "worth" the cost, or if the other enchants might be more bang for the buck.

This is not a question of logic, but of emotion. I hate the idea that our bodies or minds would so apathetically be tossed aside.

Yeah, I can understand coming from that direction, mostly. I just... well, frankly, I'm not too fond of the flesh. It's got some things going for it, but if I could replace an eight hour sleep cycle with a twenty minute defrag or something... damn. Right here, right now. That's just an example. I hate the necessities and burdens of the human form and maybe chunking some of it out will help replace those with less onerous necessities and burdens. The positives of the human form haven't really been worth the negatives, for me, at all. Most of my positives have come from neurochemstry, not the rest of the fleshy bits, and signs point to mechanical aspects being able to massively improve those positives, in due time. But trust me, there's nothing apathetic about my anticipation for a general and effective augmentation movement. S'one of the relatively few things that actually get me jumping about and hopeful.

S'all pretty hypothetical, so far, though. Have to wait until we can actually weigh the pros and cons of biological and mechanical cognitive enhancement. Then the real hoedown can commence

Fair point. Does make a difference regarding length and whatnot. Of the stuff I've got, the latest five hundred or so OCRemix torrent eats as much space as the first thousand, and only a gig or so less than the second thousand. Still, seems... puny

This is just steroids for muscle growth. Why not try steroids for bone strength? Chemicals to make the bones harder, the marrow denser. The brain continues to develop, even as an adult. As the brain is "exercised" it develops more folds and more neurological pathways. Who's to say we can't speed up that growth as well?

In regards to this, from an optimization standpoint... there's flat limits, as I understand it, to just what bone and muscle and nerves can do and still be bone and muscle and nerves (and not steel and wiring or whatev'.), and it's entirely possible (though I'd have to defer to someone actually working in the related field(s) to know if it's plausible) that you can get entirely greater returns on your investment with replacement over improvement. If we can get 10x improvement in functioning by replacing an arm with a prosthetic for a tenth or hundredth what it'd take (in terms of resource investment) to get that level of improvement via biological improvement, well...

And, as I understand, getting notably improved bones and muscles and whatnot, beyond the current human limits is a... non-trivial project. Even in relation to the barriers related to cybernetic replacement. Denser muscles, stronger bones, etc., so forth, so on... there's costs to them (caloric in particular), and infrastructure, so to speak (want denser muscles, need stronger bones, and better circulation, and who knows what else), issues related to them. We should progress along both lines of research, of course (because there's a flat guarantee they'll be a positive feedback interaction between the fields.), but my personal guess is that cybernetics is going to be a lot more fruitful when it comes to major external stuff, as well as having certain internal stuff (re: neurology, particularly) that physiology just can't really do, or at least not nearly as well, or as cheaply, or with as few nasty side effects.

But then again, we're a long way away from biological wi-fi, insofar as I'm aware. Maybe by the time we're capable of stuff like that, current supposition will be largely out the window.

Jeb, huh... what's he got going for 'im, exactly?

I'm definitely a little biased when it comes to that guy (Floridian and a teacher parent, and insofar as I can tell pretty much every teacher in florida hates JB's guts. Only minor exaggeration, there.), so having an outside view of what he's got going for 'im would be illuminating.