I am now keenly curious about the limitations of Dittomancy.
I think the Parson/Maggie/Isaac/Charlie plot is kinda hampering the momentum of the battle of Spacerock right now.
__________________ "They couldn't know that the points from the mainline to the siding were frozen, and the signal should have been set at 'DANGER', but snow had forced it down."
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Originally Posted by Hallavast
Ya know? I think I'd about kill Rowling if she wasn't holding me hostage with that last book of hers...
But we still don't know whether it actually *affects* anything--will the double pop by itself at some point? Will that only happen if the Dittomancer who cast the spell is croaked? Is the double, to all intents and purposes, identical to the original Slately and thus will stay around until croaked?
I wonder if Dittomancy is like Croakamancy: Remember that if a Croakamancer puts their all into uncroaking a single body it can last for a long time, while Mass Uncroak will only last a few turns. This is baseless speculation, but perhaps Ditto'd people work on a similar way, maybe giving them enough time to cash their Angel bounty with Charlie and get a successor properly lined up.
__________________ "They couldn't know that the points from the mainline to the siding were frozen, and the signal should have been set at 'DANGER', but snow had forced it down."
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Pixar Fanboy of the Hinjo Fanclub
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hallavast
Ya know? I think I'd about kill Rowling if she wasn't holding me hostage with that last book of hers...
I wonder if Dittomancy is like Croakamancy: Remember that if a Croakamancer puts their all into uncroaking a single body it can last for a long time, while Mass Uncroak will only last a few turns. This is baseless speculation, but perhaps Ditto'd people work on a similar way, maybe giving them enough time to cash their Angel bounty with Charlie and get a successor properly lined up.
Maybe, but that would mean that dittomancer would be doing a much better job of croakamancy than a croakamancer, since people can be presumably duplicated again, and dittomancy doesn't require the original to be croaked.
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Maybe, but that would mean that dittomancer would be doing a much better job of croakamancy than a croakamancer, since people can be presumably duplicated again, and dittomancy doesn't require the original to be croaked.
Not exactly - dittomancy could work that way paired with predictomancy (is that the right name?), but otherwise it's kinda the opposite of croakamancy. The target has to be alive, which means you can only use it before you know you need it, and the clone seems to be of the same nature as the original so it can't be used to subvert enemy forces.
We also don't have many benchmarks for the duration of duplicates - while mass uncroaked units are listed as lasting a few turns, a mass duplication apparently lasts a mere attack action; a focused uncroaked unit can last a decidedly long time (judging from the initial GK warlords), which would logically make a focused duplicate last a few turns.
Other than that, it's got a large number of applications, primarily as a force multiplier rather than merely adding another unit. Limited juice means that, under most circumstances, it isn't practical to use it this way.
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Maybe, but that would mean that dittomancer would be doing a much better job of croakamancy than a croakamancer, since people can be presumably duplicated again, and dittomancy doesn't require the original to be croaked.
Presumably dittomancy doesn't work on croaked people, or ditto'd people for that matter. There's also juice costs to consider. Furthermore, it quite possibly doesn't operate under similar rules, considering that out of the 4 known components of magic (usage of Life, Motion, and Matter, then placement on the erf/fate/numbers axis), only Matter is common between dittomancy and croakamancy.
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Parsons has been in the Magic Kingdom since Spring 2011. I'd like to see any kind of forward momentum. Part of that comes from Xin rightfully taking a period of time off, but now that the comic is back I just want to see something happen there.
I'm a tabletop wargamer, and this feels like when you've got two units locked up in combat close to one another so they can't do anything useful, and can't help each other. It's one of my least favorite feelings in the game, and now I get to put up with it in a web comic.
Well yes, but we're talking about doubling units. Doubling a corpse just gets you another corpse, which isn't very useful.
And now I wonder what a Trimancy link up between a Croakamancer and Dittomancer can do.
__________________ "They couldn't know that the points from the mainline to the siding were frozen, and the signal should have been set at 'DANGER', but snow had forced it down."
- The Flying Kipper
Pixar Fanboy of the Hinjo Fanclub
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hallavast
Ya know? I think I'd about kill Rowling if she wasn't holding me hostage with that last book of hers...
I'm personally wondering if this is going to lead to a nice little gut punch for Jetstone. (Well, beyond the fact that the real King is already croaked)
Granted, my idea doesn't really make a whole lot of sense given that Jetstone hasn't been disbanded . . . But I do think it'd be kind of funny if, after killing himself to collect the bounty on the Archons, the rules of Erfworld arbitrarily decided that Double Slately wasn't the Ruler, and thus could not designate an heir. Just to make his last glorious charge a completely futile gesture.
But, once again, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. I'm just hoping for something malicious like that.
Seems Jillian is starting to turn. Wanda sure can be inventive in makeing someones life miserable. Though see does not seem to be enjoying it yet (maybe when Jillian really starts to enjoy it?).
Why do I get the feeling that Haffaton does not really know that Wanda has a Jillian as a prisoner? Or at least not a important one? Has Wanda become scary (and unatractive) enough than not many people want anything to do with her?
Maybe, but that would mean that dittomancer would be doing a much better job of croakamancy than a croakamancer, since people can be presumably duplicated again, and dittomancy doesn't require the original to be croaked.
Dittomancy as we've seen it so far seems to have several limitations croakamancy doesn't have, and vice versa.
Dittomancy's:
1) The Dittomancer's copy is EXACTLY like the original - enough that the clone can't tell the difference and the mechanics of the side doesn't care.
2) Lloyd doesn't perform spells on corpses - he needs a living unit to duplicate (it's implied that they can also double archery attacks, but that also could've been that he doubled/quadrupled the archers themselves)
3) The conversation between the four casters and the king implies that they couldn't duplicate Ossomer for leadership, meaning Dittomancers have to work with units they already have and cannot change the side/thoughts of that unit.
4) Raising an Uncroaked means you have to kill the unit all over again. Dittomancers seem to multiply (or rather ADD to) a force's current power. Meaning that in order to get the same effect, the Dittomancer has to BE there at the fight. A croakamancer's units can be raised after the battle, last for many turns and fight in many battles.
5) In the conversation mentioned in 3, it's said that Lloyd could double the Unipegataurs IF he flew with the max stack. Implying that Lloyd would need to be in the same stack as the units he's duplicating. This would be a HUGE weakness compared to croakamancy.
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5) In the conversation mentioned in 3, it's said that Lloyd could double the Unipegataurs IF he flew with the max stack. Implying that Lloyd would need to be in the same stack as the units he's duplicating. This would be a HUGE weakness compared to croakamancy.
That's an interesting point. Does Double-Slately go pop as soon as he unstacks from the Dittomancer?
I'm still wondering why we've had multiple scenes in Translvito, but no sign of Vinny.
Where is he? What's he up to?
(Part of me wonders at the fact that we've had a huge amount of stuff hinting at the possibility of a decapitation strike aimed at Gobwin Knob -- every named character except Stanley is currently elsewhere, which feels like it's setting up for that. But nobody is within a turn's distance of him.)
I'm still wondering why we've had multiple scenes in Translvito, but no sign of Vinny.
Where is he? What's he up to?
(Part of me wonders at the fact that we've had a huge amount of stuff hinting at the possibility of a decapitation strike aimed at Gobwin Knob -- every named character except Stanley is currently elsewhere, which feels like it's setting up for that. But nobody is within a turn's distance of him.)
Except the Magic Kingdom.
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To be fair, her scheming isn't entirely self serving, and she did have a point that he is a more effective general. The issue, of course, is that his effectiveness in strategy isn't really useful in this fight.
More interesting, I feel, is this look at Jullian's and Wanda's character interactions. That's one vicious set of tortures Wanda set up, and Jullian's resistance towards them is remarkable.
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To be fair, her scheming isn't entirely self serving, and she did have a point that he is a more effective general. The issue, of course, is that his effectiveness in strategy isn't really useful in this fight.
More interesting, I feel, is this look at Jullian's and Wanda's character interactions. That's one vicious set of tortures Wanda set up, and Jullian's resistance towards them is remarkable.
Agreed, though I'm still reeling over the fact that Maggie unironically said the phrase 'save the day'.
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I wish they used the current update as the big reveal rather than that page with Transylvito. There were hints before even then, sure, but this page would have had much more impact it it was the first time it was stated in comic.
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I wish they used the current update as the big reveal rather than that page with Transylvito. There were hints before even then, sure, but this page would have had much more impact it it was the first time it was stated in comic.
Agreed. That section of dialogue could have been easily rewritten to make it very obvious, but not spelled out until this next update. In fact, all one would have to do would be to edit out Don's line spilling the beans and move Bunny's first line to the bottom of that panel. Like so:
Quote:
Panel: Don talking gravely to Bunny
Don: Closely?
Bunny: Mm-hm.
Don: So you saw.
Bunny: *sigh* Yeah. There was a lot of blasting in that fight. Panel: the capitol of Charlescomm, with several archons around
Bunny: But from where our bat was looking, anybody coulda seen it.
This way, the discerning reader gets to feel smart for figuring out 1) he was right about Slately and the double, 2) that Bunny controls the bat via Thinkamancy, and that 3) Charlie can tap non-call Thinkamancy links (see also: the eyebooks) and possibly even normal calls (see also: Maggie's insistence on hiding her call within the G-strings of a normal call rather than just calling)
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I think you folks are overlooking something. The setup was NOT for Statley being dead, but for for how Charlie found out. I there is something bigger comeing up here.
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Though see does not seem to be enjoying it yet (maybe when Jillian really starts to enjoy it?). 
means "huh?" and "Hmm..". Also, "Landis" is fine.
