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| Communions; Can somebody simplify communions | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 7 2016, 09:22 AM (951 Views) | |
| GloBoy | Dec 7 2016, 09:22 AM Post #1 |
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Maenad
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I feel as though Im not reaching my full magic potential when im playing because i do not understand communions enough to utilize them. Can somebody please explain what a communion is and how to effectively use them? |
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| DeFlow | Dec 7 2016, 09:36 AM Post #2 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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I don't know if you read the wiki-page on communions? It's always good to start with some own research. The tl;dr-version of this is the following: A communion master gets a path bonus for his spell castings according to the formula path bonus = log2(# of communion slaves). This allows you to cast spells in battle that you would normally not be able to pull off. An example would be: - EA Marverni - Research at least Thau 1, Conj 4, Evo 5 - Set up a 4 stargazers to cast communion slave - Set up a stargazer to cast communion master + Light of the Northern Star - After LotNS, all your stargazers will be able to cast Stellar Cascades. Edit: Only 2 communion slaves and an extra pearl for casting over your level is also an option. Communions can thus be used to reach the paths necessary for higher level buff-spells, or just to buff the AoE / dmg on scaling spells. |
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| GloBoy | Dec 7 2016, 05:48 PM Post #3 |
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Maenad
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Okay so lets say i have a mage who's F2S1 and 2 mages who are F1S1 , if the F2 mage cast communion master and the F1 mages cast communion slave would the master then become F4S3? I know theres easier ways to reach F4 but I'm still not sure I understand how the spell levels stack up in communions Edit- After reading the formula I understand how it works a little better , communions is the only mechanic left in this game I've yet to figure out completely Edit: This video on youtube combined with the wiki article have finally helped me understand bow they work. You can find the video Here |
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| Morsigil | Dec 7 2016, 06:20 PM Post #4 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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The other other option is to recruit an elder druid. Also, 1 stargazer master and 2 communion slaves is not enough to cast light of the northern star because it requires 2 gems and 1 gem to overcast. At 3 gems, a Stargazer at S2 could not cast light of the northern star. The best thing to do is to be able to have an S3 elder druid available to cast LotNS so those 4 stargazers can cast stellar cascades. As Marverni you have the option of producing ridiculous amounts of Stargazers, which then can be used to fuel Elder Druid communions. Their real power is in having 40-60 Stargazers casting stellar cascades and completely putting to sleep an enemy army, but you also can grab a few elder druids and 32 or 64 stargazers behind them as communion slaves to cast maws of earth. Even your weakest earth magic elder druids (E2) boosted with summon earth power (E3) and 32 slaves (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, so a bonus of 5 path boosts) brings them to E8. With E8 you can cast maws of earth almost anywhere on the field. The range becomes 50 (from 25), the area of effect 12 (12 squares) and the damage is, I think, 20 armor piercing. You can boost that all a little further with earth boots, and if you take a B9 pretender (for your ridiculous boars) you can get blood stones. Meaning even your weakest earth elder druids are E10. The strongest E12. This goes for MA T'ien Ch'i, as well as Kailasa and others. Check out the mod inspector for other spells that scale with level above the casting requirement. |
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| Sarfus | Dec 7 2016, 07:22 PM Post #5 |
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Tartarian
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3 stargazers are enough to cast LotNs if you also cast Power of the Spheres.
This gets said a lot, but I don't think it's always the best option. Sometimes setting up all your mages into a communion is better, even though you lose some of the mages as slaves. This is because communions can be setup to have ridiculous sustained casting. If I'm setting up a mid game army I'd often prefer something like 14 stargazers (10 masters 4 slaves) than 1 elder druid and 12 stargazers. It's cheaper, MM2 without items, only requires conj 3 (1 master casts Power of the Spheres) to hit 1 fatigue per cast, and you get something like 17 rounds of casting before your slaves start to get burnt out. Compare that to 5 rounds of casting followed by 1 cast every 4 rounds. Ofc this kind of setup brings its own risks with possibly burning out your slaves, but it's good for when your opponent brings a fuck load of wolves up front as a decoy or something. You squeeze more value out of your mages if you can guarantee that the battle won't go on too long. Having said that the communion gets unstable if you start using more mages than this, so if you start doing that then LotNS is going to be better. |
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| Morsigil | Dec 7 2016, 07:57 PM Post #6 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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That's interesting. I have always avoided putting more masters in a communion than slaves. I should start experimenting with that. |
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| Sarfus | Dec 7 2016, 09:08 PM Post #7 |
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Tartarian
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Aye, well it just depends on what you are trying to achieve. Generally with communions I'm trying to do one of two things. 1.) Get a mage or a couple of mages up to uber levels of magic to drop some massive spells (usually buffs) - here it's normally a set up with only a few masters and 4-8 slaves. I'm not usually too worried about fatigue management, and just want to get the paths for those spells, though it can be good to set up the uber mage masters with magic bows and have them shoot after you've cast the battle winning spells you needed. This stops them going crazy and burning out all the slaves if they have paths that are different or higher than what the salves have. 2.) To get extreme value out of smaller mages with continuous casting. Here you really need to pay attention to fatigue. Typically you will have more masters than slaves, so you want that slave fatigue as low as possible (usually 1 or 2 max). Having consistent paths for your masters and slaves is very useful. You really really want to avoid having the fatigue multiplier from your masters having higher paths for the slaves. One thing that's very useful here is Power of the Spheres. One master can cast it, buffing himself and the slaves. If your masters and slaves all had the same paths to begin with then now the slaves are higher level than all but 1 of the masters, and take half fatigue. It also really helps when the spells that your mages will cast off script are highly predictable, partly because of managing fatigue, but also because the main reason to do this is to keep your mages casting long after the first 5 rounds of combat. ----- The 10 masters 4 slaves Cascades communion is perhaps the simplest example. Quick maths: Slave fatigue: Communion slave (20). Master casts Power of the Spheres ([100/3]/5 = 7). Master casts Cascades ([20/2]/5 = 2. For 9 of the 10 masters this is halved again to 1 fatigue). So it's a 27 fatigue setup for the slaves, with an extra (9x1)+(1x2)=11 fatigue per round. Your slaves are safe up to 200 fatigue, and after 100 fatigue they start to regain 5 fatigue per round as per the usual recovery from being knocked out. So after the the setup and 7 rounds of cascades we get 27 + (11x7) = 104 fatigue. Then we can simplify each round after this to 11-5 = 6 fatigue. This gives us another 16 rounds of safe casting (104 + [6 x 16] = 200), for a grand total of 23 possible rounds of stellar cascades!* *Typically the masters fall asleep way before this, unless they have some sort of reinvigoration going. In this example, assuming a spell casting encumbrance of 5, the masters get 11 rounds of cascades, and then wake up slightly faster than every 2nd turn. Compared to your typical Light of the North Star setup with no communion (5 rounds of casting + wake up every 4-5 turns), we can say that you roughly double the output of your mages. ----- Of course the cascades communion is hardly the only example. Some other great options include thunderstrike spam with the Heims' Vanjarls or Bogarus' Astrapelagists, Fireball with EA Ermor's Augurs, and infinite skeletons with Sauromatia's Enarie. Consistent paths + predictable off script casting just makes for really really efficient communions. As a side note this is why Arcosephale isn't actually that great at communions compared to some other nations. Varied paths make managing fatigue a total bitch. You pretty much have to group all your mages according to their paths if you want to get the most out of them. Good luck doing that with mystics! You can also combine the 2 types of communion of course, but best to check the maths, because throwing in those off path high level spells is what will really mess up your fatigue levels. |
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| sunbeam | Dec 7 2016, 11:35 PM Post #8 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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I noticed your example doesn't seem to include the encumbrance of the Master casting a spell? Additionally you pretty much have to burn a pearl to cast Power of the Spheres, as a Crystal Shield would autocast before the communion was made. Look I have never really used communions except for Flaming Arrows and things like that. But thinking out loud (and on topics I'm sure were covered a long, long time ago): 1) Are bless effects transmitted to the communion slaves? Fore example Marverni Stargazers are not holy. But Druids are. So if a Druid (1 astral, just like the stargazers is in the communion) blesses himself, the bless effects are copied by the communion slaves? Imagine taking a big earth bless, then the druid blesses himself. And since 1 out of 4 druids are E2, he could summon earthpower as well. That's a lot of reinvigoration. 2) Since the only Holy spell I know of that has fatigue is the H5 one that raises friendly priest levels, any priest with one astral could join the communion, then get two free holy levels (in this example) for banish spam and whatnot. And it won't add to the slave fatigue. 3) Say you have a priest like LA Man's Bishop with Holy 2. Could you give one a Crystal Matrix and have Holy boosted by 2? Or would it be like the Crystal Shield, and no boost unless you also have at least one in another path? Just thinking that might be one way to get to spells like Fanaticism that are difficult to reach for most nations. Hmmmm things to try. |
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| Sarfus | Dec 8 2016, 01:00 AM Post #9 |
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Tartarian
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Yep, encumbrance from the masters isn't transferred over to the slaves, and the slaves don't take encumbrance of their own apart from on the initial cast of Communion Slave. You do indeed have to burn a pearl to cast Power of the Spheres. One pearl is extremely cheap though. 1.) No, blesses don't transfer. 2.) Yep - that should be correct. 3.) I believe the boost only works if you have one mage path as well. |
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