Strategy Viablity.

[Mytical]

Ok asking those who play necro a decent ammount about an odd/unusual strategy. We all know that ghosts are a pain with physical attacks. We also know that magic is the bane of said ghosts. So would either Luck (mr) and mr gear or defense (the magic damage reduction) and MDR gear be a viable way of making the ghosts pretty much even more of a pain? Yeah I know IM would get arround this, but that is one town type. Also I realize that these skills are not the best for Necromancers. Discuss the benifits and drawbacks of this strategy please. Is it even a viable strategy at all? Just the thought of 50% magic damage reduction ghosts are a terrifying thought (not to mention when you do hit them they get normal damage reduction with defense). Note that this also helps other unit types also.

I ask because I am playing a MP map as Necropolipse and have found both MR and Magic Damage Reduction items and am only level 10. If this is a viable strategy, will go with luck (mr) probably (over damage reduction) because 50% (total) MR would mean that magic also had a 50/50 chance to fail.

[gaspi2]

well, I liked strategy with haunted mines:-/ haunt mines, then drag ghosts from it to your army and then go 4 enemy 4 mine flagging:)

[Banedon]

I can't believe in it. It could be viable if the Spectres were moderately good at dealing damage (when their superb defensive capabilities, augmented by Magic Resistance might take things overboard). But as it is, buffing them hardly seems wise.

It could be useful however to protect the Skeleton Archers, who are also very vulnerable to spells (and any kind of attacks, truth be told).

[Jolly Joker]

I'd say, if the opponents wastes magic on Spectres they already fulfill their main purpose. Apart of that all creatures profit from magic resistancies.
The strategy gets more viable when you go the Haunt Mine way and your army contains a really sizable stack of them, imo.

[DaemianLucifer]

Go for life magic and learn MI.Unless you are fighting dungeon,just watch your enemys squirm against your immune ghosts.Of course,this isnt possible without a haven or sylvan town on the map.

[aulfgar]

Defense is a viable skill for necros in my opinion. -30% physical damage base rules. The Necros alot of time benefit more from basic knacks than the faction based ones, due to lower stats than other castles in most slots.

I am all for trying new strats, though I think dark magic is a must for Necros.

[DaemianLucifer]

Defense is a viable skill for necros in my opinion. -30% physical damage base rules. The Necros alot of time benefit more from basic knacks than the faction based ones, due to lower stats than other castles in most slots.

That doesnt sound right.How can they benefit more from defense then others when they have lower base defense?

[aulfgar]

The reference is to Vitality as opposed to chilling bones per se. Defense is in my opinion a very viable skill for pretty much every race.

[Alamar]

As others have stated the more that you can do to protect your army the better off that you'll be. Plus the Luck skill has the bonus of giving you the chance to protect your army AND increase average creature damage output.

Obviously this strat tends to work much better when you're facing factions that will try to use offensive spells against you so I'm not sure if I'd totally sell out on this but its probably worth at least trying.

[Mytical]

Well going the luck route turned out to be a interesting choice. My main enemy turned out to be an Academy which was effectively barricaded from attack against the rest of the other AI's. Once it got it's mini-artifacts it pretty much rolled over the other towns (with my help hehe). I first met the academy enemy about half way through the map, and we had pretty even number of towns. (started out 6 towns, we each had 2 and a dungeon ai had 2). Since there was only 1 of each town (I had ensured this) this was the set up when I first met the Academy AI.

I had my town (necropolipse), and Sylvan.

Academy had of course Academy, but it also had Haven

Dungeon had itself and inferno.

All my non-sylvan/necro flagged dwellings were sent straight to the transformer.

Academy took the Dungeon town, so I took the inferno one to keep as balanced as I could against it. For awhile though things looked grim. It kept managing to take my Sylvan town if my main hero traveled more then 2 days away from it. It would leave and just get the cash pretty much, but you need all the money you can get. Anyhow I finally cornered it's main hero with my main hero and had a big ol fight with it. Since my troops only got hit by spells 3/4 of the time (note it was supposed to be 1/2 of the time but didn't work that way) I was able to take them down. He would cast Pheonix sometimes but my wights took care of that. I did outnumber him, but it was still a very difficult fight. I doubt if I had not went the mr route that I would have survived.

[DaemianLucifer]

(note it was supposed to be 1/2 of the time but didn't work that way)

Why half?What did you have?

[Mytical]

Well in all I had 50% Mr including the Luck Magic Resistance (15%). I had two artifacts (please don't ask which you know my memory) that added 35% magic resistance total.

[DaemianLucifer]

Are you sure those add like that?Maybe the MRs are separate,or only the highest is counted?How does MR work anyway?

[Mytical]

Good question, I don't know for a fact it stacks, anybody out there know? JJ? GoW?? Anybody?

[Jolly Joker]

Actually there is Protection (defense ability) kind of resistance which cuts off magic DAMAGE.
And there is luck-based MR that adds 15% MR to all creatures to avoid all kinds of magic.
Elemental magic immunities of creatures are applicable only for spells with an element which are exclusive damage spells.
The minor artifacts like Ice shields are giving protection like resistance against elemental (damage) spells.
The armor of the forgotten hero, a relic gives 20% MR (complete res) and is afaik the only artefact that gives magic resistance.

As far as I can tell, if a hostile spell is cast, MR is checked first (which, if triggered, would cancel the whole spell). In case of a damage spell cast, then elemental immunities (protection kind) comes into play and here the damage done is simply reduced.

So with 15% luck-based MR plus the Ring that goves 50% against Lightning there would be a 15% chance to resist the spell completely. If not resisted it would deal 50% of the damage due to the ring.