Tips on killing elementals

[ranma100]

Any good ideas on how a human can kill Greater Fire Elementals? I have found no less than 3 and they are blocking my expansion in all directions. I am not super high tech yet, so my best idea is to give a bunch of troops basic elemental resistance and swarm one. It will be a bloodbath.

[Pax Empyrean]

Three Mages can drop one. Cast your nukes from three tiles out.

[Fillmore]

I got rid of one very early in a game I just finished. Catapults + 1 other unit. If the other unit has sight range 3 then just sit at range 3 and bombard with catapults, otherwise move the non catapult unit to range 2 so you can see the target, fire your catapults, and then move the spotting unit back to range 3.

[Astasia]

Clerics also work. *grin*

You can use a few (3 or 4) level 1s and hit it with a big alpha, which will weaken it enough that it either retreats if it's off it's base or make it start trying to heal, or outright kill it with crits. Or you can wait until 2 clerics get to level 3 or 4 and give them the elemental resist auras and stand them side by side, they should easily survive a hit or two, and be pretty much impervious if you have any other elemental resist buffs on them.

[Pax Empyrean]

You can kill anything if you throw enough Clerics at it. There's usually a way to do it for cheaper.

Three Mages are required to kill a Greater Fire Elemental in a single turn. Two Mages can still kill one before it gets a shot off. When dealing with Earth Elementals, you can alternate spell use between your Mages and kite them, since their movement drops to 1 for two turns with each spell. You need two Mages to make sure the duration doesn't lapse before the cooldown is up.

[A_Cruel]

Fireball spell. Get a ranger with sight perk. Cast fireball, start casting next one, end turn, cast 2 more on the following turn. Either finish with rangers or wait one more turn.

[Grubnessul]

Fireballs works against fire elementals?

In my experience, Minotaurs are pretty efficient against greater fire elementals, but those might be hard to obtain.

[Arilou]

Oddly enough elementals have poor elemntal resistance.

[Pax Empyrean]

In my experience, Minotaurs are pretty efficient against greater fire elementals, but those might be hard to obtain.

This is like trying to beat rocks with scissors in rock-paper-scissors. Greater Fire Elementals have 90 Melee resistance, but only 25 Elemental resistance. Trying to beat them down in melee can work if you have a hugely overpowering force, but that's really not a good strategy.

Fire Elementals have poor Elemental resistance and very high Melee and Missile Resistance. Earth Elementals have very high Elemental resistance, moderate Melee resistance and pretty good Missile resistance. Because Earth Elementals are restricted to Melee attacks, you can kite them or offer up durable units for them to beat on while you grind them down. Fire Elementals, on the other hand, do Elemental damage instead of Melee damage, and they are ranged. Strategies for taking on Earth Elementals are Fire Elementals are pretty much the exact opposite.

[The Apprentice]

Oddly enough [fire] elementals have poor elemntal resistance.

Yep. If Ino-Co adds Air Elementals, I fully expect missile attacks to be the best way to take them down.

[Orosian]

Yep. If Ino-Co adds Air Elementals, I fully expect missile attacks to be the best way to take them down.

[Grubnessul]

This is like trying to beat rocks with scissors in rock-paper-scissors. Greater Fire Elementals have 90 Melee resistance, but only 25 Elemental resistance. Trying to beat them down in melee can work if you have a hugely overpowering force, but that's really not a good strategy.

Fire Elementals have poor Elemental resistance and very high Melee and Missile Resistance. Earth Elementals have very high Elemental resistance, moderate Melee resistance and pretty good Missile resistance. Because Earth Elementals are restricted to Melee attacks, you can kite them or offer up durable units for them to beat on while you grind them down. Fire Elementals, on the other hand, do Elemental damage instead of Melee damage, and they are ranged. Strategies for taking on Earth Elementals are Fire Elementals are pretty much the exact opposite.

Well, I was playing the Undead truth be told and didn't have other casters than vampires at hand. Problem with casters is that a greater fire elemental will one hit kill them. Minotaurs at least can take a punch or two from them.

[UncleJJ]

They are not that tough if they are alone. Two or three of them in a small space is another matter. They only have 40 HP and the resistances are deceptive, 90 melee and missile resistance is only -72% damage, which means 28% gets through. I took one out with 2 caravels, an air galleon, a skeleton sniper and a halbadier. The key is to hit it hard enough such that it can't kill whichever unit the damaged elemental targets. Damage reduces their danger a lot. The caravels, sniper and air galleon were all about level 4 with some reasonable early game perks and did 5 or 6 damage each and the halbadier didn't even hit in the first round. The elemental shot the air galleon for about 10 damage and the units killed it next turn. That was about turn 90 on an islands map, challenging difficulty.

[Peter Ebbesen]

For killing Greater Fire Elementals in the very early game, I haven't found anything better than the early-game spell "summon imp", which is a choosable perk and turns up often even if you don't start with it, is surprisingly effective for killing Greater Fire Elementals. 35 mana for an imp group, just summon 4 outside the sight range of your target and swarm it when they are all in position to attack at once. Their base 12 elemental attack will do the trick. If you want to kill with fewer casualties, you need to swarm it with more imps and kill the elemental in one turn.

(It must be mentioned that the Demonic Advisor preorder perk is even better, as your little advisor eats GFSs for breakfast; But that's a pretty expensive perk to take, whereas "summon imp" often crops up in research all by itself.)

[Velorien]

I've found properly buffed vampires to be effective greater fire elemental killers. Get their elemental magic resistance high enough (Fervus's Chaos Shield makes a huge difference), ideally get them to level 3 so they can have two bonus damage perks, top up with extra damage enchants, and their vampirism will take care of the rest in terms of surviving while they wear it down.

Of course, you could argue that any unit will be a good elemental killer by the time you've buffed it that much.

[xsinx]

The vampire idea is pretty bad IMHO. Vampires deal Death damage and the fire elementals are immune to it.. The only damage you'll be able to do is with upgrades (ex: there's a +20% elemental damage). Also, a hit from a fire elemental 1 shots them unless they are heavily upgraded...

I've had a lot of issues with them when I started playing but now I got the hang of it. First off I always pick "Lesser Weakness" as a starting trait and/or research it ASAP. In my opinion it is one of the most powerful early spells, weakening both the damage and resistance by 25%. The stronger "Weaken" spell lowers it to 50% which IMHO is pretty darn amazing. So you get that off as soon as you spot him and things get much much easier. The same strategy works for ogres, dragons, the godly units, etc.

After that, I use whatever nuke I have (fireball works great) and throw cheap units at it. If I happen to have any strong unit able to take a hit or two I send 'em in as well. You pretty much have to deal with these guys the same way you do a city.. Throw 5-6 units and expect casualties!

[Pax Empyrean]

Well, I was playing the Undead truth be told and didn't have other casters than vampires at hand. Problem with casters is that a greater fire elemental will one hit kill them.

Also, a hit from a fire elemental 1 shots them unless they are heavily upgraded...

This is bogus. People, do not make stuff up. Vampires have 100 Elemental Resistance, which means they take 75% reduced damage from Elemental attacks. Unless the Fire Elemental had a listed attack power of over a hundred (they have 25), they aren't going to one-shot a Vampire. Vampires can't do anything to a Greater Fire Elemental offensively without upgrades or enchantments, but they can tank the incoming damage easily.

First off I always pick "Lesser Weakness" as a starting trait and/or research it ASAP. In my opinion it is one of the most powerful early spells, weakening both the damage and resistance by 25%.

Lesser Weakness does not reduce resistances, only attack power.

You pretty much have to deal with these guys the same way you do a city.. Throw 5-6 units and expect casualties!

Also not true. Two Mages can take down a Greater Fire Elemental without taking a single hit. You can do the same with a Catapult, since Greater Fire Elementals don't respond to units that far away. Undead can scout Elementals with no risk of being attacked thanks to Bats, and their crazy mana production means you can afford to just blast them down with Fireballs or Lightning.

[xsinx]

This is bogus. People, do not make stuff up. Vampires have 100 Elemental Resistance, which means they take 75% reduced damage from Elemental attacks.

Didn't know that, I stand corrected. I thought they only had Death resistance.

Lesser Weakness does not reduce resistances, only attack power.

Alright, I messed up twice in the same post, lol. Still a very good spell for fire elementals as their damage is what makes them so strong.

[Pax Empyrean]

I'll agree that casting Lesser Weakness on Fire Elementals can be a good idea. You can follow it up with a nuke for spell combo goodness, too. I play Humans mostly lately, so I just go with a pair of Mages to take on Greater Fire Elementals, but if you're Undead then nuking them is the way to go.

[UmbralAngel]

I use mostly medium or strong melee units to kill them. Just take endurance on level up, cast an elemental resistance spell (2 if you can) and buy enchanted weapons, silver weapons, or some other perk to help kill them faster. This method requires you to cast healing or a damaging spell, but overall it is pretty simple and doesn't require to many units.