Using Adramelech, Lord of Fire

[Sabor117]

So me and my flatmate have been playing Mage Wars for about half a year now and are getting to the stage where we think we mostly know what we are doing. There are a few things that we are both a little uncertain about.

I personally enjoy playing as the Warlock, he just suits my style, but I have to say that I feel that the Adramelech, Lord of Fire spell seems ridiculously underpowered and useless. I mean, in comparison to the Beastmaster's Steelclaw Grizzly, Adramalech has:

• 1 less health
• The same amount of armour
• Uses less attack dice with both the full and quick attacks
• And the absolute clincher is that despite all that he costs a whole 7 mana more!!

So basically one has to wait a whole extra turn to get this guy, because you won't have much more than 11/12 channeling, and apparently his "sweep" attack makes him worth dealing less damage and having less health. He seems vastly underpowered and tends to just get nuked down pretty quickly in my experience. As far as I am concerned his mana cost is either way to high or his health ought to have been higher to compensate.

However, that's just in my view, and so I'm hoping that someone out there can explain to me how to properly utilise the guy, and so prove that he might actually be worth his ridiculous mana cost.

[zorro]

Adramelech has fliying, which can help you avoind hindering creatures, walls, and some spells. Fliying is a great aggresive asset.

As for the attacks, the Lord's quick gives 6 dice plus burning, more than 5 plus piercing.

A full action attack would give as most as 4 + 4 dices plus two burn roll, potentially more than 7 plus piercing (it goes over guards).

Of course Steelclaw Grizzly is also a great option... but i would not call adramelech underpowered at all. The more powerfull quick attack, the fliying and the sweeping option gives Adramelech more value for an agresive stance, which is usuall in the warlock.

I usually run first turn, then drop adramelech and put nullify on him to protect ion second turn. Usually it changes opponent's play a lot.

[Puddnhead]

I completely agree with zorro.
1) Quick attack is stronger (On par with grizzly's full attack in my opinion)
2) Burn chance (an excellent one at that) is worth more than piercing any day
3) Flying is worth at least 2 mana by itself

[sdougla2]

Lord of Fire actually does quite a bit of damage. If you treat a Burn as an expected 3 damage (only true if the game goes infinitely long, but we can use it as an approximation), then a Lord of Fire does an expected 8.75 damage on his quick attack to a target with no armor.

Now, it's hard to directly compare their attacks, as Steelclaw Grizzly has piercing, and is generally harder for a mage to defend against (Dragonscale Hauberk and Elemental Cloak do wonders to slow down the Lord of Fire), but Lord of Fire does more damage than a Steelclaw Grizzly in the absence of burnproof, flame resistance, or flame immunity. Lord of Fire has flying and does a lot more damage with his quick attack, so I wouldn't really call him underpowered, but I would say that he's a bit fragile for his cost. Losing him can be a pretty big blow.

[DaveW]

The other downsides to the Demon as compared with the Grizzly are that 1) he costs two more spellbook points for the Warlock than the Grizzly does for a Nature Mage, and 2) having a fire-based attack and burn chance means that his damage output is either reduced (Burnproof) or eliminated (Flameproof) in some situations. A Grizzly will tear through a Battle Forge, but the Addy can't touch it....

[echephron]

The correct way to use him is battlefury. before FIF, he had the single strongest quick attack, and battlefury lets you double it.
He is harder to focus down due to being flying, so he stays alive a bit better. flame+x on enemies  occasionally helps. level 6 means he's tougher to sleep and sacrificial altering him gives a bigger benefit. Flame immunity is good and lets you do zone attacks with him there.

those are his strengths which others have not listed before me.

[Wildhorn]

I completely agree with zorro.
1) Quick attack is stronger (On par with grizzly's full attack in my opinion)
2) Burn chance (an excellent one at that) is worth more than piercing any day
3) Flying is worth at least 2 mana by itself

Flying worth more than 2 mana. [mwcard=MW1E13]Eagle Wings[/mwcard]

[ACG]

The value of flying depends on the creature that has it. Eagle Wings overestimates the value of the flying trait in order to avoid creating broken combos (as does every other card that grants a trait to a creature); assuming Eagle Wings is balanced correctly, the value of flying on a non-mage creature is between 1 and 6 mana, depending on the creature.

Best example:
The value of flying on a level 1 animal with 5HP, 0 armor, and fast is about 1 mana ([mwcard=MW1C37]Thunderift Falcon[/mwcard] vs. [mwcard=MW1C04]Bitterwood Fox[/mwcard])

Unfortunately, most other flying creatures have unique abilities that make it difficult to compare them to similar non-flying creatures. Looking at another rough comparison:

[mwcard=MW1C38]Timber Wolf[/mwcard] (9 mana) vs. [mwcard=MW1C19]Gray Angel[/mwcard] (12 mana):
Both have the same attack, life, and armor, making them roughly comparable. Redeeming Sacrifice does complicate things a bit, but if we assume that it is roughly equal to the value of the animal subtype on the wolf, flying here is worth 2-3 mana.

If I had to make give a rough estimate of the value of the flying trait, based on the woefully inadequate sample above I would say that it is about equal to the level of the creature that has it (in Adramelech's case, 6). Obviously not an exact science, but a decent ballpark estimate; game conditions will affect this as well (in particular, whether the other mage came prepared to face flyers).