Halfer Mystic, anyone?

[Moredhel]

I made a post in my KD's forum about this, all very loose and haven't had comments yet. It's just an idea and I don't aim to be the best or state that I'll go with it, but what do you think about a halfling a/t/m?

Pros:
- You can assist in every way
+ 50% TPA
+ 10% population
- 50% Thief Cost
+ 1 offensive specialist strength
- Access to Meteor Showers spell
- All Guilds are twice as effective
+ 1 mana per tick in War
- Access to Meteor Showers, Chastity, Nightmares

Cons:
- You're not the best at anything, just spread out across the big three
- -20% birth rate
- No Assassinate Wizards (ouch)
- No Greater Arson (meh, who uses that anyway)
- No Propaganda (never really used it myself when playing halfer rogue)

Biggest pro:
- VERY versatile

Biggest con:
- either the "no AW" or "not the best at anything"

I expect posts like "total rubbish", "weak", "you're the first going down in war", etc, but I wanted to post it and here it is :P

[Bishop]

geat combo i might consider maping them for farming later

Either be constructive in here or do not post. Thanks.

[crease]

Run it and see for yourself. However i wouldnt be posting that if it was any less than ok.

[Zauper]

It's ok.

[Snp]

You will have more Cons then those,the miss of rogue ops are the least important :)

a/t/m u will have no econ,no off,and no better def left home then a heavy.In other words,it will not be effective,but u could maybe have some fun with it.

[Felixier]

Well first you have to choose what you are going to be best at. Since you are going mystic you probably want to be something like m/t/a. Run very high wpa if not the whole meteor shower thing is going to be a huge mana sink hole and you will see a lot of wizards exploding. Have secondary ability be theiving. As you know already, you won't have access to the big three, so use your stealth for stealing runes, kidnapping whatever you need. Then for attacking you might be able to squeeze like 20 opa to help finish chains and bottom feed. It will work you just have to understand you won't be the best but you can make it work as a good support role for sure.

[noobium]

It's horrid. Mystic is not an immunity to MS and you will have little space for defense after gaining the requisite TPA and WPA to be effective.
My Elf Mystics usually have enough tpa to be effective against attacker tpa, with a better army for attacking due to the turtle strength of 5/3 elites and +1defspec. Against another attacker, you really don't need the TPA bonus in most cases.
Halfer Mystic (or any Halfer) without a substantial TPA advantage is going to have problems opping pure t/ms. The only ways around that are to gradually weaken thief defenses while boosting your halfers, or to suck up a high fail rate by running a lot of Halflings.

[skoyl12]

It's not horrible but still not ideal.
Biggest negative is that you defend with 4 while both faeries and elves have 5. On the other hand you have a 10% pop bonus that it could bring you in par with faeries but since i haven't run any numbers its a quess. Also you miss mages fury so you are also penalised 10% more wpa offensively.
The only way it could work as i see it is if you could maximize your thievery use and rune starve your enemies. It's very specialized play though.

[Aviaria]

I just really don't like the thought of not being really good at anything. I can see the benefit of attacking only to plunder out of war if you had a real need or maybe a learn here or there, or to keep chain targets down in war. However, that still leaves you without the benefit of being good at anything. If you were trying to be Elf/Rogue or Halfling/Mystic to make an attempt at being able to TM well from both sides, I could see that, but not adding attacker in there. You may have access to spells, but you will likely not be effective using them.

[Ethan]

If you've got MS, shouldn't you be using it? If you are using MS, shouldn't your wpa be high? Early part of mid age there is no way to fit in the needed wpa+tpa+off without having useless pes+BE or being full suiciding (and they you get chained to dust). Pick 2 (A/M) and just throw up enough thieves for defense in the first 2 or 3 wars. Or go T/M in the first war, a/t/M in the second, then try to get to A/t/M as sci comes in.

I personally recommend this combo for MS coverage for kingdoms as either a T/M or A/M. Pop mod => wpa doesn't kill DR. Having played faery attacker A/t/m concepts before though... true A/T/M isn't possible at any useful level of competition. Pick one to be your "main" (A, for me, M, for you) and adapt the other parts against your kingdom needs and expected opponents. And don't be afraid to use an "offensive" defense (like 3 rTPA instead of WT's) - and do what you can, but be aware your role if your off type is a "scavenger" working the weak opponents, and not even a hybrid level.

And for pete's sake get better science than the competition! Mods or die!

[noobium]

There is no such thing as a "hybrid" in the modern game due to how chaining mechanics work. You either have the ability to deal with a chain or you don't - running 50dpa and calling yourself a hybrid is a surefire way to die against any kingdom with a modicum of competence. Since total unbreakability is difficult this usually means having some means of handling the worst of a chain, or being lucky and not getting hit. Likewise there are a wide spectrum of viable tpa and wpa levels, and a wide enough variance in the crime/channeling science provinces can run - especially those that are actually competent attackers.

Halfer Mystic is a pure selfish pick and should be discouraged at every level, especially ghetto level where so many defensive provinces - especially Halflings - play like total donkeys.

[Cerberus_Aus]

We encountered a Halfling Mystic last age who acted as M/a, but ended up acting as bank. Pop bonus with homes, had 8 raw WPA, high thieves (enough that even our rogues had trouble getting though) and made occasional attacks. As he was acting as bank we found him really hard to control. He was already outside our NW range pre-war, couldnt FB his peasants due to his high WPA, couldnt AW very well, due to his high TPA and NW gap, and couldnt break him due to high def. Hated it. I think its a good combo, but you need to know what you are trying to achieve

[Bishop]

whats not constructive about it, when I see someone play this combo I know one day he will have lots of resources to plunder, it is good to wright down his coordinates, check him on finder is he slacking and anon plunder, sometimes saves a lot of time in search for treasure

thats all I have to say, never played nor will something like that, nor tend to gork about it, so the only con I can say has been stated

and is much more constructive than what you said about the topic

No arguing.

[StratOcastle]

I can see by the spread of personality and racial spells that any kingdom choosing to be good with ms will be giving up some overall efficiency. There are repeats for elf and faery, not so for halfling or human. Optimally my guess is you can do a veritable wpa chain so that ms can be used by these less effective, but highly efficient combinations.
In my Virtual Kingdom this would be accomplished via elf opening NM, followed by halfer AW and thus. My halfers are still rogue, but may switch humans. Faery would contribute as well.

[kazinji]

I saw a halfer mystic last age and was impressed at how she played...first world princess. I was disappointed with faery, it's a punching bag that doesn't retal. Oow hits were common, with 95 dpa and unbuilt acres to suppress nw. 1 attack can kill 1500 beastmasters...1.2 mil gold down the drain. Didn't use the bonuses for faery all that much. Most of the time I was casting MS.

I am also doing a halfer mystic this age. Kingdom runs very few mystics, so I tend to avoid doing spell on other t/m's. I will be more of a M/t/a. All elite army, to hit chained targets that release defense. Elite are cheaps, which is a ton easier to replace, no ToG or Mage's Fury though. I see the +50% tpa as a boost to what my thieves can do.