Just me or is Luckmancy the worst magic discipline?

[oslecamo2_temp]

So far we've seen mancers being the most OP units in Erfworld. They laugh at the natural laws of the world, can turn the tide of battles, shape the long-term strategy of sides and even have their private realm where they can outlive everybody else, and then can link with each other for even greater effects.

Except for Luckmancers that is. As seen in this update, a Luckmancer can't create luck out of nowhere, he can just "steal" it, and more often than not he steals from his own side. So you may win that hard battle, only to get randomly screwed later on when your luck literally runs out.

Now excuse me, but I don't see any such drawback in any of the other mancers.

-Does a healomancer randomly hurt his own units when he heal others? Nope.
-Does a blastomancer randomly heals enemy units when he blows up others? Nope.
-Does a dirtmancer randomly makes one of your cities colapse when he upgrades another? Nope.
-Does a thinkmancer risks a chance of making his units go mad just for sending a thinkgram? Nope. There's a chance for backslash if you try harder mind-control, but a trained thinkmancer can reflect that on the victim for fun and profit (obey or get your brain fried!)
-Does a hatmancer gives a random chance for the wearer's head to blow up? Nope.
-Does a turnmancer makes you lose turns after boosting your turn production? Nope. Or does it give extra turns to the enemy after something like Kingworld? Nope either.

So basically, none of the other mancers have anything close to the quite harsh drawbacks Luckmancers have to deal with. The closest is croakmancers needing fresh bodies, but as already shown time and time again fresh bodies are an abudant resource in times of war, and it's not like you would use them for anything else. Making your dead walk only has advantages (almost free troops!), while Luckmancy means you win now just to lose later, and worst, you have no idea when it'll come back to bite you.

[0beron]

Well I'm not entirely sure we have an accurate picture from Clay. He is somewhat low-level, and the member of a side which "should" have the golden combo of Luck plus Precognition. It's understandable that his perception would be skewed.
I do believe his statement that he just "steals" Luck, but I don't believe it comes from his own units as often as he suspects.

[Lamech]

First off it seems some casters are just better than others. Sizemore for example can get huge gobs of caster money.

But some things to remember:
1) Being able to switch good and bad rolls is still really useful. Suppose you change a deadly crit on your warlord to a miss. So the guy next to him gets critted. Who is more important again? Or suppose you have a bunch of high level archers and a line of newly popped ones. Give hits to the high level ones and misses to the low level ones.
2) He's a novice. He probably doesn't have access to all the possibilities of the magic. I strongly suspect a higher level caster can steal directly from the enemy.
3) He can still do the side wide buff. Obviously if everyone has better luck that must be coming from the enemy.
4) Lateral thinking. Take a wild animal. Capture it. Set it free in a pit it can't escape. Throw bricks at the creature with non-archers. With bad luck charms equipped. So they take a few hundred shots to croak the creature. All your bad luck shots go into that. And you have backlash since they were all jinxed at the time.
5) He's still low level. If it takes say... all his juice to do a side wide buff, well in a few levels that buff will be just that much stronger, and he can boost the whole side several times. That will be pretty damn cool.

[Nueamin]

I think its a passive discipline and harder to see the benefits of especially since we haven't seen a high level one in action. These could move a narrow loss to a total win simply by putting the good dice (and bad) where they matter.

Examples: More high level units by using the positive luck on the higher level units or units that are closer to hitting 2 than the other level 1s over time will give you a higher level army

Using a crack team of special forces lucked up you can take on leadership more effectively and stop the enemy bonuses quickly. (Imagine an enemy leadership bad with bad luck joo joo and your strike force throwing crits all over the place you might lose some more infantry while your strike force works its way to leadership but once that leadership is gone your regular infantry will have superior bonuses so the luck won't matter as much.

Their are so many times that high or low rolls don't matter so stealing those high rolls from a unit that is about to kill an enemy with 1hp left doesn't hurt you at all. That higher roll can go somewhere where it might croak an enemy that had 6 hp left or something.

A high level luckamancer I bet can make such a huge difference where it matters that the amount of units you lose in a battle is lowered significantly. It's jsut more passive and harder to point a number at than if say a shockamancer came by and killed 50 guys you go ooh wow. But that luckamancer could have saved 100 guys but you can't "see" it and "point" at it.

[Arky]

I suspect that once Parson gets hold of a good Luckamancer we'll get to explore some of those lateral-thinking exploitations of Luckamancy.

[Nueamin]

I suspect that once Parson gets hold of a good Luckamancer we'll get to explore some of those lateral-thinking exploitations of Luckamancy.

I sure hope we see some more luckamancer action.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Yes, luckmancers can be used to boost your top units, but the problem is that you don't know where or when the backlash will hit . Your elite force may come out victorious in the front yes, but then your rear/flank crumbles because your regular units there started tripping over their own feet. You lose border cities when weak barbarians overwhelm your suddenly unlucky garrisons. It's a gamble, that can easiy backfire.

As for unboosting your own units that aren't fighting, to me that doesn't seem like a guarantee your side gets good luck. It may actually be boosting your enemy's side indirectly. We all know how it went for Wanda after all.

The best option of luckmancy seems to be the "boost everybody on the side", but even then that sounds pretty limited to the other schools of magic.

[Lamech]

Yes, luckmancers can be used to boost your top units, but the problem is that you don't know where or when the backlash will hit . Your elite force may come out victorious in the front yes, but then your rear/flank crumbles because your regular units there started tripping over their own feet. You lose border cities when weak barbarians overwhelm your suddenly unlucky garrisons. It's a gamble, that can easiy backfire.

Sure it might end poorly. But it is less likely to end poorly then before and that's all you can do. That's all any caster can do.

As for unboosting your own units that aren't fighting, to me that doesn't seem like a guarantee your side gets good luck. It may actually be boosting your enemy's side indirectly. We all know how it went for Wanda after all.

Right, some of the good luck will spill over to enemy sides in all likelihood. But most of the "backlash" should still hit you.

The best option of luckmancy seems to be the "boost everybody on the side", but even then that sounds pretty limited to the other schools of magic.

Its just another of those all important bonuses that decide the course of battles. Not that important.

Also you are forgetting the advantage of a luckamancer. He doesn't need to leave the capital. You want a shockamancer to blow stuff up? You need him in combat. DIrtamancer needs to rebuild cities? Better hope he isn't ambushed. Foolamancer veiling your army? He's in the field. As is a healomancer. That can backfire pretty badly too: your caster dies. Or worse is captured and turned.

All in all, its a solid discipline that improves the average roll for your side by a bit, and gives you a more favorable distribution of rolls between good/bad units. Basically you get a better RNG distribution for your side. In addition it probably really shines with a bit of lateral thinking, or a higher class of luckamancer.

Also, I think date-a-mancy takes the cake for worst discipline. Normally data-a-mancers are simply released into the MK after they stick around for too long.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Yes, luckmancers can be used to boost your top units, but the problem is that you don't know where or when the backlash will hit . Your elite force may come out victorious in the front yes, but then your rear/flank crumbles because your regular units there started tripping over their own feet. You lose border cities when weak barbarians overwhelm your suddenly unlucky garrisons. It's a gamble, that can easiy backfire.

Sure it might end poorly. But it is less likely to end poorly then before and that's all you can do. That's all any caster can do.

No, other casters have been shown to pull out much more decisive stuff. Dirtmancers suddenly upgrade your cities into mighty fortresses, croakmancers turn every casuality in another troop for your side, healomancers make your units don't drop, dittomancers quadruple your damage output and duplicate your best units, foolmancers make your deadly heavies look like surrendering warlords, hatmancers laugh at natural veils, etc, etc. And whitout backlashes.

As for unboosting your own units that aren't fighting, to me that doesn't seem like a guarantee your side gets good luck. It may actually be boosting your enemy's side indirectly. We all know how it went for Wanda after all.

Right, some of the good luck will spill over to enemy sides in all likelihood. But most of the "backlash" should still hit you.

And again, the only time we saw it tried ended up with that side falling before a new round came.

The best option of luckmancy seems to be the "boost everybody on the side", but even then that sounds pretty limited to the other schools of magic.

Its just another of those all important bonuses that decide the course of battles. Not that important.

There's a big diference between just being able to tilt the odds to your favor, and being able to rewrite the rules to your advantage.

Also you are forgetting the advantage of a luckamancer. He doesn't need to leave the capital.

Only if he's pretty high level to actually do the "buff whole side" at once.

You want a shockamancer to blow stuff up? You need him in combat.

Shockmancer traps baby!

DIrtamancer needs to rebuild cities? Better hope he isn't ambushed.

Burrowing underground baby! And good luck tackling his golem retinue, that can tank volcanoes.

Foolamancer veiling your army? He's in the field.

Make sure he leaves some crolls on your capital baby! 100% of Supreme Warlords aprove of the use of foolmancy scrolls to screw up your enemy.

Which reminds me, this is another example of how luckmancy gets shafted. During the dwagon drop, Jack cleverly uses simple foolmancy tricks to make the enemy leadership run in circles while geting Wanda on her feet. A luckmancer would get ganked to death because the odds of he winning would be zero even if could make himself roll max all the time. And then the side would suffer some serious backlash.

As is a healomancer. That can backfire pretty badly too: your caster dies. Or worse is captured and turned.

Again, scrolls/traps. Ask yourself, why have we never seen anyone use a luckmancy scroll? It sounds something that would be handy for any ocasion. Yet nobody seems to buy them. Which makes sense when you realize using a luckmancy scroll here will screw you somewhere else.

All in all, its a solid discipline that improves the average roll for your side by a bit, and gives you a more favorable distribution of rolls between good/bad units. Basically you get a better RNG distribution for your side. In addition it probably really shines with a bit of lateral thinking, or a higher class of luckamancer.

Still paling. Again, you're just improving your odds at best, while the other schools of magic are bringing new rules to the game.

Really, one guy says "I can make you roll a 4 when you need it, but then you'll have a streak of ones later on", and the other says "I can turn your crap into killing machines, discounts on construction, all kind of nasty traps, burrow around and earthquakes", which one would you rather have by your side in a war?

Also, I think date-a-mancy takes the cake for worst discipline. Normally data-a-mancers are simply released into the MK after they stick around for too long.

Whot?

If anything, relationships have proved to be quite important in Erfworld, so a date-a-mancer would be quite useful for a diplomatic side.

[CordialLupine]

I'd say that, if used strategically, Luckamancers could be as good as other casters.

To me, the worst caster class is Moneymancer. What do they do? They can turn cash into gems...and that's about it. I don't think they do anything else except keep track of cash, and Rulers do that as a natural skill, so an entire unit dedicated to it is redundant.

[ftl]

Re: luckamancers - Clay Dice has been pretty underwhelming, but maybe he was just not very good at his job. We only have him as one example.

[Nnelg]

Yes, luckmancers can be used to boost your top units, but the problem is that you don't know where or when the backlash will hit .

A low-level luckamancer doesn't know where that backlash goes. But I'm willing to bet a high-level one not only knows, but can choose where the backlash ends up... including on the enemy. Does that sound powerful enough for you?

In fact, it may be a bit overpowered...

No, other casters have been shown to pull out much more decisive stuff. Dirtmancers suddenly upgrade your cities into mighty fortresses, croakmancers turn every casuality in another troop for your side, healomancers make your units don't drop, dittomancers quadruple your damage output and duplicate your best units, foolmancers make your deadly heavies look like surrendering warlords, hatmancers laugh at natural veils, etc, etc. And whitout backlashes.

Again, all those are examples of high-level casters' capabilities. Imagine if Sizemore had been a low-level dirtamancer... His abilities would probably have been limited to making a few crap golems a day. Now, if that was the only exposure you had to dirtamancy, wouldn't you think it was pretty weak, too?

Only if he's pretty high level to actually do the "buff whole side" at once.

Or he could just buff units in the city before they go off to war.

Shockmancer traps baby!

Never heard of one of those before.

Which reminds me, this is another example of how luckmancy gets shafted. During the dwagon drop, Jack cleverly uses simple foolmancy tricks to make the enemy leadership run in circles while geting Wanda on her feet. A luckmancer would get ganked to death because the odds of he winning would be zero even if could make himself roll max all the time. And then the side would suffer some serious backlash.

A luckamancer would have been able to guarantee that Wanda survives the fall with no injuries, even if a few Hobgobwins had to croak for it.


You're right that luckamancy doesn't have nearly as many obvious practical applications as most of the other disciplines. But if wielded with skill, it can be extremely useful.

To me, the worst caster class is Moneymancer. What do they do? They can turn cash into gems...and that's about it. I don't think they do anything else except keep track of cash, and Rulers do that as a natural skill, so an entire unit dedicated to it is redundant.

I highly doubt that's the only thing they can do. Even a simple juice -> $$$ conversion spell would justify the caster's existence.

Besides, there's much more to economic success than just keeping track of the numbers. A good financial adviser can lead a side to fortune even without the use of "magic".

[Lamech]

Dirtmancers suddenly upgrade your cities into mighty fortresses, croakmancers turn every casuality in another troop for your side, healomancers make your units don't drop, dittomancers quadruple your damage output and duplicate your best units, foolmancers make your deadly heavies look like surrendering warlords, hatmancers laugh at natural veils, etc, etc. And whitout backlashes.

None of those casters guarantee victory. The mightiest city in the world didn't stop the RCC. Nor did all of Wanda's uncroaked. The healomancer couldn't save the king. The dittomancer didn't save Ossomer. A croaked Ansom didn't turn the tide of battle. Laughing at natural veils didn't save the king. (Oh and sending items like the cap into the field do have a backlash of a sort. The items can be recovered and used against you.)

All those casters can do is tilt the odds in your favor. Sometimes they can do it by a little, sometimes by a lot. But when it comes to it, all they do is tilt the odds.

And again, the only time we saw it tried ended up with that side falling before a new round came.

Because the capital was attacked with overwhelming force.

There's a big diference between just being able to tilt the odds to your favor, and being able to rewrite the rules to your advantage.

Not really, at least as far as battles go. Even the most fail attack can hit. (A level two warlord sans archery trying to hit the mighty Stanley.) Even the best aimed attack can miss. (See Artemis and Sylvia.) If you can get arbitrarily lucky your foe is doomed.

Only if he's pretty high level to actually do the "buff whole side" at once.

Even Clay could do that much.

Shockmancer traps baby!

Those hit the air space. And only apply in cities. And as Parson likes to say, are additive, not multiplicative.

Burrowing underground baby! And good luck tackling his golem retinue, that can tank volcanoes.

Or he gets hit by a lucky arrow. It might be okay, but its still a risk.

Again, scrolls/traps. Ask yourself, why have we never seen anyone use a luckmancy scroll? It sounds something that would be handy for any ocasion. Yet nobody seems to buy them. Which makes sense when you realize using a luckmancy scroll here will screw you somewhere else.

We've seen a bunch in inner peace. (Clay makes them.) Outside the ones made by Clay we have not. Of course, that applies to everything except shockamancy, healomancy, dirtamancy and foolamancy.

Which reminds me, this is another example of how luckmancy gets shafted. During the dwagon drop, Jack cleverly uses simple foolmancy tricks to make the enemy leadership run in circles while geting Wanda on her feet. A luckmancer would get ganked to death because the odds of he winning would be zero even if could make himself roll max all the time. And then the side would suffer some serious backlash.

A luckamancer would have been fine on impact, negating the need to run around. And then would have sniped any leadership remaining in the garrison by giving the Jetsone archers lucky shots against them. So this is a clear example of where getting lucky takes the cake.

Still paling. Again, you're just improving your odds at best, while the other schools of magic are bringing new rules to the game.

Really, one guy says "I can make you roll a 4 when you need it, but then you'll have a streak of ones later on", and the other says "I can turn your crap into killing machines, discounts on construction, all kind of nasty traps, burrow around and earthquakes", which one would you rather have by your side in a war?

One of those guys is multiple levels higher than the other and up in their caster class. Being worse than someone who has several levels on you and is much better in their discipline doesn't mean you suck. Also of note: What if Parson had gotten lucky when the backlash snapped on Wanda? I do believe, that Jillian would have been toast. By extension Jillian's gwiffions would be gone, the dwagons would have survived, the siege would have been toast and the RCCI would have been left with no airforce of significant merit. Without air cover, they cannot stop dwagons hit and runs and the rest of the coalition is destroyed in short order. Alternatively something similar could have happened by swinging the battle over the lake in GK's favor.

So come to think of it, I would have preferred the guy who makes things go my way at a critical time.

[Nnelg]

Really, one guy says "I can make you roll a 4 when you need it, but then you'll have a streak of ones later on", and the other says "I can turn your crap into killing machines, discounts on construction, all kind of nasty traps, burrow around and earthquakes", which one would you rather have by your side in a war?

One of those guys is multiple levels higher than the other and up in their caster class. Being worse than someone who has several levels on you and is much better in their discipline doesn't mean you suck.

Right, now compare:
"I can landscape your garden, clean out your cesspit, make little potholes that trip enemy soldiers and tell rocks to move themselves around."

To...
"I can steal the enemy's best rolls and give them your worst, I can make your crits always against enemy warlords and 1's against their pikers (whom you'll kill anyways), send that arrow headed towards your eye towards the guy next to you instead, and ensure your gambles pay off when the stakes are high for the price of a card game later that evening..."


Scaling the disciplines to their opposite levels makes all the difference, now doesn't it?

[Sieggy]

Re: luckamancers - Clay Dice has been pretty underwhelming, but maybe he was just not very good at his job. We only have him as one example.

You also have to remember that the RL character upon which the Erf character was based was a total, raging asshat who had a thankfully short career.

[drachefly]

And again, the only time we saw it tried ended up with that side falling before a new round came.

Because the capital was attacked with overwhelming force.

and he did it against orders, at a time when that was exactly the wrong thing to do.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Dirtmancers suddenly upgrade your cities into mighty fortresses, croakmancers turn every casuality in another troop for your side, healomancers make your units don't drop, dittomancers quadruple your damage output and duplicate your best units, foolmancers make your deadly heavies look like surrendering warlords, hatmancers laugh at natural veils, etc, etc. And whitout backlashes.

None of those casters guarantee victory. The mightiest city in the world didn't stop the RCC. Nor did all of Wanda's uncroaked. The healomancer couldn't save the king. The dittomancer didn't save Ossomer. A croaked Ansom didn't turn the tide of battle. Laughing at natural veils didn't save the king. (Oh and sending items like the cap into the field do have a backlash of a sort. The items can be recovered and used against you.)

All those casters can do is tilt the odds in your favor. Sometimes they can do it by a little, sometimes by a lot. But when it comes to it, all they do is tilt the odds.

-The RCC only managed to penetrate GK because Ansom "gasp" used non-luckmancy spells to buff up his troops with DDR.
-Wanda uses croakmancy to get new flying mounts, whitout which Ansom would've been completely free to just fly around killing stuff. It doesn't matter how good your luck is when you can't reach the enemy at all.
-The dittomancer did save the whole of Jetstone, that's certainly better than just a single prince. It doesn't matter how badly they focus fire your king if you can pop a double to keep your side going.
-Healomancy didn't save the king because he was an idiot geting out of range. Hamster however has used it twice to get Wanda back in the fight.
-The decrypted Ansom conquered around a dozen cities before being captured with his decrypted army, not too shabby.
-Dirtmancy+Croakmancy=burning thousands of troops at once, leaving exactly zero enemy survivors. That's no simple tilting. That's battle-winning nukes.

Not really, at least as far as battles go. Even the most fail attack can hit. (A level two warlord sans archery trying to hit the mighty Stanley.) Even the best aimed attack can miss. (See Artemis and Sylvia.) If you can get arbitrarily lucky your foe is doomed.

Ahaha, funny you bring that, because the best aimed attack missing is Weirdmancy, not Luckmancy. See, luckmancy is so behind that other schools simply do its job better!

Those hit the air space. And only apply in cities. And as Parson likes to say, are additive, not multiplicative.

They still burn stuff good. Critical in GK's battle to get some aerial mounts. Crits wouldn't have helped your melee dudes killing the flying convoy overhead.

Or he gets hit by a lucky arrow. It might be okay, but its still a risk.

Pulling burrowing archers out of your ass is not a luckmancy power I'm afraid. No matter how good you roll, still can't hit someone underground.

Again, scrolls/traps. Ask yourself, why have we never seen anyone use a luckmancy scroll? It sounds something that would be handy for any ocasion. Yet nobody seems to buy them. Which makes sense when you realize using a luckmancy scroll here will screw you somewhere else.

We've seen a bunch in inner peace. (Clay makes them.) Outside the ones made by Clay we have not. Of course, that applies to everything except shockamancy, healomancy, dirtamancy and foolamancy.

Hiring dollmancers(clothes), turnmancers(speed up production) and hippiemancers(peace lessons) has shown to be pretty popular as well. Weirdmancy scrolls are around. Diviners and thinkmancers kinda too busy conspiring all the time. Where are the luckmancers again?

A luckamancer would have been fine on impact, negating the need to run around. And then would have sniped any leadership remaining in the garrison by giving the Jetsone archers lucky shots against them. So this is a clear example of where getting lucky takes the cake.

And then choke on your cake when the backslash comes back to bite you. Much safer to just bet in some safe veils and heals.

One of those guys is multiple levels higher than the other and up in their caster class. Being worse than someone who has several levels on you and is much better in their discipline doesn't mean you suck. Also of note: What if Parson had gotten lucky when the backlash snapped on Wanda?

Not a luck matter, simply skill.

So come to think of it, I would have preferred the guy who makes things go my way at a critical time.

Only for them to things turn sour when you least expect them. Well, I guess there's a reason why sides that have the unluck of getting a luckmancer are pretty uncommon so far!

Because the capital was attacked with overwhelming force.

and he did it against orders, at a time when that was exactly the wrong thing to do.

[/quote]

Point still stands, a side with a luckmancer falls so fast the king barely has a moment to send a message. Those backlashes are definetely a b**** to survive.

[Lamech]

Ahaha, funny you bring that, because the best aimed attack missing is Weirdmancy, not Luckmancy. See, luckmancy is so behind that other schools simply do its job better!

And it says that where?

They still burn stuff good. Critical in GK's battle to get some aerial mounts. Crits wouldn't have helped your melee dudes killing the flying convoy overhead.

Which is why you have archers shoot. Or any caster ever. All of them have basic shockamancy and can load a tower. And even so its one tiny situation when their useful. And of course, shockamancy traps won't help your melee dudes kill people walking on the ground.

Hiring dollmancers(clothes), turnmancers(speed up production) and hippiemancers(peace lessons) has shown to be pretty popular as well. Weirdmancy scrolls are around. Diviners and thinkmancers kinda too busy conspiring all the time. Where are the luckmancers again?

The idea of getting weirdomancy was shot down as soon as count topotato suggested it. Sizemore was learning hippiemancy out of personal interest not the desire to be effective.

And then choke on your cake when the backslash comes back to bite you. Much safer to just bet in some safe veils and heals.

All the healomancy and all the foolamancy in the MK couldn't do anything about Wanda falling to her death if that came out of the RNG.

Only for them to things turn sour when you least expect them. Well, I guess there's a reason why sides that have the unluck of getting a luckmancer are pretty uncommon so far!

More common from what we have seen than sides with: Weirdomancers, rhyme-o-mancers, and date-o-mancers. And as common as sides with everything else except, dollamancers, thinkamancers, foolamancers, healomancers and lookamancers. So, no not really.

Not a luck matter, simply skill.

The effects of backlash are fairly random. Recall that breaking a link up could do nothing, croak the casters, or leave them useless. Similarly Jillian could have been rendered unlucky when the spell breaks.

Point still stands, a side with a luckmancer falls so fast the king barely has a moment to send a message. Those backlashes are definetely a b**** to survive.

A similar thing happened to FAQ. Hit with overwhelming force and didn't get a message out. And they had 8 casters and 0 luckamancers. I mean unless your argument is that a luckamancer is worth all those casters...

Oh and a list of all things that may be attributed to luck and potentially under a luckamancers control:
Specials a warlord pops with: flight, dance fighting and the like.
If a caster pops.
Tameable units popping or not in a specific hex.
Attack and defense.
If an artifact or magic item pops in a ruin.
Where barbarians pop and what kind. Up to and including a caster.
The cost of this is that you might, get a bad role someplace on your side, where it shouldn't matter as much. Or maybe on somebody else or maybe even on your enemy...

Look, Clay is worse than pretty much every other caster we've seen, because he's been the lowest level and lowest class caster we see in the comic. A better caster may not even have the backlash issue you seem so concerned about.

[Nnelg]

Oslecamo, all you seem to be doing is pointing out specific things that luckamancy can't do, then saying that because it can't do these things it's worthless (or worth less than the disciplines which can).

You're so used to one way of approaching things, you fail to see how something that isn't useful in that method could be useful at all. It's sort of like an inverse "hammer problem": you always use a hammer, so you fail to see how screwdrivers could be useful, since they can't be used to pound in nails.

We could keep going back and forth over this, for example:

Spoiler: show

-The RCC only managed to penetrate GK because Ansom "gasp" used non-luckmancy spells to buff up his troops with DDR.

Doesn't mean those spells were better than luckamancy buffs. Just more readily available at the time.

-Wanda uses croakmancy to get new flying mounts, whitout which Ansom would've been completely free to just fly around killing stuff. It doesn't matter how good your luck is when you can't reach the enemy at all.

Luckamancy could have meant that GK's Dwagons never got lost in the first place.

-The dittomancer did save the whole of Jetstone, that's certainly better than just a single prince. It doesn't matter how badly they focus fire your king if you can pop a double to keep your side going.

But a luckamancer could have made the archons roll bad on their attempt to dismount Ossomer.

-Healomancy didn't save the king because he was an idiot geting out of range. Hamster however has used it twice to get Wanda back in the fight.

Luckamancy helps stop units getting hurt in the first place. For instance, it could have given Slately a critical success to dodge.

-The decrypted Ansom conquered around a dozen cities before being captured with his decrypted army, not too shabby.

Unrelated.

-Dirtmancy+Croakmancy=burning thousands of troops at once, leaving exactly zero enemy survivors. That's no simple tilting. That's battle-winning nukes.

Luckamancy+Mathamancy was explicitly stated to be a game-winning combo as well.

Not really, at least as far as battles go. Even the most fail attack can hit. (A level two warlord sans archery trying to hit the mighty Stanley.) Even the best aimed attack can miss. (See Artemis and Sylvia.) If you can get arbitrarily lucky your foe is doomed.

Ahaha, funny you bring that, because the best aimed attack missing is Weirdmancy, not Luckmancy. See, luckmancy is so behind that other schools simply do its job better!

Um, why do you say that? I've never seen any reference to weirdomancy being able to perform such a feat. (And even if it can, why couldn't luckamancy do so as well?)

Those hit the air space. And only apply in cities. And as Parson likes to say, are additive, not multiplicative.

They still burn stuff good. Critical in GK's battle to get some aerial mounts. Crits wouldn't have helped your melee dudes killing the flying convoy overhead.

Any caster can put a defensive spell in a tower. And Crits would certainly help your archers.

A luckamancer would have been fine on impact, negating the need to run around. And then would have sniped any leadership remaining in the garrison by giving the Jetsone archers lucky shots against them. So this is a clear example of where getting lucky takes the cake.

And then choke on your cake when the backslash comes back to bite you. Much safer to just bet in some safe veils and heals.

Again, you are assuming that the backlash will always hit your troops, and in places where it matters.

One of those guys is multiple levels higher than the other and up in their caster class. Being worse than someone who has several levels on you and is much better in their discipline doesn't mean you suck. Also of note: What if Parson had gotten lucky when the backlash snapped on Wanda?

Not a luck matter, simply skill.

Exactly, you're missing the point that you're comparing vastly different skill levels.

So come to think of it, I would have preferred the guy who makes things go my way at a critical time.

Only for them to things turn sour when you least expect them. Well, I guess there's a reason why sides that have the unluck of getting a luckmancer are pretty uncommon so far!

Once more, you assume it always hits your guys, and always hurts, and that a higher level Luckamancer can't choose or even predict where the backlash will end up.

Because the capital was attacked with overwhelming force.

and he did it against orders, at a time when that was exactly the wrong thing to do.

Point still stands, a side with a luckmancer falls so fast the king barely has a moment to send a message. Those backlashes are definetely a b**** to survive.[/quote]
In WWI the Germans had the most advanced small-unit tactics of the time. They lost, does that mean maneuvering by squad instead of by platoon or company is a bad idea? Boop no, it nearly won them WWII! This is "correlation does not imply causation" at its very worst.

But I think the point is made that this argument is getting nowhere fast...

[TokraZeno]

This seemed like the best place to put this rather than starting another thread, but I've got a theory for luckmancy that makes it a little better than other disciplines, at least for low rank casters.

It seems reasonable to assume that a Luckmancy is a conduit for their boosts, suggesting that they need pass through themselves before passing them on. Follow up thought that it's reasonably easy to transfer to and from themselves and harder when their own personal luck is unaffected.

But here's the thought that makes them better; unless Fate intervenes, it might be impossible for a luckmancer to fail a cast. Instead, they just borrow additional numbers for themselves until the cast succeeds. Naturally, this would be expected to consume more juice, reduce the effects of the boost, or both. Higher level luckmancers have higher natural chances of success and as such are more effective. A multidisciplinary caster could use this to their advantage, using luckmancy to overcome the additional stress of casting outside their disipline at the expense of extra juice.