Elf/heretic

[crudx4]

Greetings all, after going through all the info available, I am interested in the practicality as an elf/heretic hybrid.

to me they seem great for turtling, with a 1:1 dspa:elite ratio, with added spell and theivery. NM being a great start to chains, a few LL at the start of war to start econ growing, and a general must for any good kingdom build.

[StratOcastle]

Sounds practical. Consider part of your theft ability and durability to steal gc for military wages.

[crudx4]

even still, ive been playing mystic this age, @ 100% wages, I lose out on a smidge of ME but im tough to be broken. so even at 125% wages as elf, id generate ~10-15k gc per tick mid age wont have to worry about too many provinces in a war having to break me

[Bo To]

How strong elf/h is depends on how strong h/r is and generally the rogue personality. Unlike mystic heretic needs more rainbow build(hosp/tgs/rax/dung/stables) that changes with the progress of the war. I warred this age several kds with elf/h wasn't impressed with it. GA/AW and prop control were easy to establish. The only thing heretics could do was ns/steal but since no strong bonus of stealth or tpa(20% bonus sci is not much) their dmg wasn't significant.

[Chris121]

I agree with Bo To.

When looking for targets that won't retal the first thing I search atm is elf. As well as t/ms (some UB, some not), I found a decent amount of elf attackers that I can break with their army home and can't break me back (all within 90% my nw).

[StratOcastle]

These things are kingdom builds. Elf heretic is the A-10 Warthog aimed at core control.

If we're looking at staunch independent builds then you mix heavy attacker with what have you. I believe in retaliating for t/ms and preach a zero hostage mentality.

Every build will have detractions, but elf heretic is a high utility build. Heretics weren't meant to win the t/m battles, they're designed for core control and sustain. Elf heretic is the one you use when you're targeting the tough builds, faery heretic for high volume damage vs soft targets.

You see the t/m progressions on the race & persona page, yet few actually array them in timed objective echelons. Curious indeed.

Edit: the Dreadnaught was great until there was airpower. That is to say, homogenous groups of t/ms have the predictable impact one expects, but alternative t/m packages can strike more weaknesess.

Before current racial changes I'd run an elf cleric. At the time elf had -50% or something defensive losses and NM was a racial spell. It was designed to be a match for undead offensive durability with the passive ops defense inherent to elves. Anyways, I'm unafraid of anything in the game so retaliation is something I do off the cuff. In war I was able to cast NM, which is great, but my aim was the reduction in tpa that NM causes so I could engage heavy attackers on two fronts. The NS then made my elf cleric able to invoke full contact on all 3 fronts with conviction. We're talking about attackers larger than my build. The cleric durability and plague immunity are a must when your tangling with full blown attackers in this manner.

[HerpNDerp]

Elf heretic player for current age here. Here are my thoughts:

When warring a kingdom with 4 or more rogues, the magic number of WTs REQUIRED to not be raped out of the war immediately is 35-40% wts. REQUIRED BUILD. I hate it, but it's true. HA/RO is such a strong personality this age that max thief protect to keep your main asset (your wiz) alive as long as possible.

NM runs are still crazy effective. We open every war with a NM wave on two provs, and we are typically very successful in chaining those provs down. NM followed by NS is very effective.

Relative to rogues, heretics thievery is bad. I pretty much only steal WH, incite riots and NS during war (occasionally stealing some resources as needed).

Elf/here was garbage early age. First two wars I was AW'd so hard that it took me like 6 weeks to get to a decent mwpa. I feel like the true power of the combo would shine more later age as I squeeze more tpa/wpa onto my prov. Age ending early means I won't get to see the true fruits tho. Elf/here has a specific role as a mage/attacker/semi bank. I slowly grow over the course of war, maintain 35%+ WTs to keep inherent thief defense, and my econ slowly grows. One of the plusses I've noticed is that halfer/mystics have a lot of trouble adequately opping me, so I've been MS free for a couple wars which is real nice ;)

[StratOcastle]

We have CS now. I repeat; we have CS now. (pending a switch)

I thought the funniest thing in the world would be to give faery every spell but CS.

Yes, I get the whole rogue dealio. I thought everybody was on the same page that you dog-pile rogues(?).

For those who might not have this part figured out, you dog-pile rogues like yesterday. Because AW is the worst infliction a kingdom can withstand. It will cause you to lose subsequent wars. Therefor: job 1 is to destroy rogues.

[Bo To]

We have CS now. I repeat; we have CS now. (pending a switch)

The changes are proposed not finale :).

[crudx4]

With the new changes I could end up as faery/heretic. The full spell book with +1 mana is great. But would a 170% mod wpa be enough to have minimal fails of ms, tho running elf will keep me casting blizzard. Having a strong turtle army to be able to hit once I'm close to UB. I can 'LL few acres at start of war and have econ grow steadily to be strong enough to send out a large army to start chains or multitap halfway through chains

[Relswick8619]

With the new changes the elf heretic is better, however I think I'm going half heretic with bonus pop I can still have decent military and ample tpa and wpa... also with tpa buffs on halfer provides 2nd best rogue and possible trouble for ops on. Lastly with mage fury and rune refund I can be a nm and fb machine. Also keeping my thieves from dying much will help keep edge against half rogues after a few fails perhaps. Any thoughts? This age as in 71 half heretic would have been even better surprised more didn't play it

[Bo To]

Elf/h definitely is better than halfer. You see mages fury but that also reduces your def wpa so unless you have 6-7 raw to protect you you are going to eat some enemy's spells(and I mean ms). The 10% pop is not that great and heretic doesn't have any strong op to benefit a lot from +1 stealth and tpa. It's made more for magic. Full elite elf could work better as a/m since it has cs.

EDIT: I forgot to mention halfer's off comes from their off specs but they don't benefit their def(unlike elf which off comes from strong elite). So if you are going to play with off specs you will have less def if you are playing with full elite army you will have less off compared with elf.

[Relswick8619]

Elf/h definitely is better than halfer. You see mages fury but that also reduces your def wpa so unless you have 6-7 raw to protect you you are going to eat some enemy's spells(and I mean ms). The 10% pop is not that great and heretic doesn't have any strong op to benefit a lot from +1 stealth and tpa. It's made more for magic. Full elite elf could work better as a/m since it has cs.

EDIT: I forgot to mention halfer's off comes from their off specs but they don't benefit their def(unlike elf which off comes from strong elite). So if you are going to play with off specs you will have less def if you are playing with full elite army you will have less off compared with elf.

Yes u could go full leet and still have functional offense... but I think some o spec can be mixed in safely. Also I've never feared ms much as long as u stay on top of it which u can with gold steals to replace. Also yes it reduces it some but as heretic yes I'll have a decent wpa so only opposing mystic can get me which they could anyway cause they are mystic so it's kind of irrelevant the minus part of it, especially since u only put on during cast runs. Mid to late age plus 10 pop will be good.

[Relswick8619]

This new age I would say elf may be better, but last age I would def not.

[Bo To]

Yes u could go full leet and still have functional offense... but I think some o spec can be mixed in safely. Also I've never feared ms much as long as u stay on top of it which u can with gold steals to replace. Also yes it reduces it some but as heretic yes I'll have a decent wpa so only opposing mystic can get me which they could anyway cause they are mystic so it's kind of irrelevant the minus part of it, especially since u only put on during cast runs. Mid to late age plus 10 pop will be good.

+10% pop is good when you get sci and honor. If you don't it's not actually that big advantage. The bonus tpa won't save you from aw and the -wpa from MF will make fbs easier(fb/ms on elf/h without aw is hard).