what I meant about stratos lvl 8 being weak is that it is hard to stop his first few onslaughts... besides everything after than is downhill anyways.

On the other hand I just got to him for my 3rd book tonight and am having trouble with lategame charnel spells....intestine is great later on for the step by step manalithe thing... but I cant seem to stop the first few onslaughts...

It is probably cause I have no locust swarm counter...

I have
lvl 1 charnel
lvl 2 james
lvl 3 pyro
lvl 4 james
lvl 5 stratos
lvl 6 james
lvl 7 james
lvl 8 charnel
lvl 9 charnel

I have boulderdashes but they suck vs locusts it seems...

the main thing I HATE about MArduk is his speed and health...

IMO if you want an easy time get james and bore... bore him and then use some chain attack spell on his locusts while over the pit...

why is somegirl telling me to use bore and BI when i said im using stratos spells? well i beat him anyway, after i collected most of his souls he stopped attacking and it was just downhill form there. teh credits were really funny.

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I beat the game with every god, using only the spells of that god, except Persephone (my Persephone game is on the mission right before the Crucible I think, I was about to finish it and the triggers screwed up, leaving me stuck at a cutscene - hmmm, maybe it was because I tracked down marduk and jadugar and slaughtered them, using my group of 12 dragons http://www.veforums.com/wink.gif)
Stratos was definitely the hardest, James the easiest (Sirocco!) Once you convert all of his initial souls though, it's not bad, since cloudkill refreshes so fast (still harder than James though, since you cant use all Bovine Intervention/Bore to stop him from EVER getting any souls back, but I digress.)
For the first rush, guardian a couple flurries and get a yeti to help out with defense. When he starts to get close, stop him with a fence - he attacks from the right hand side, so you can make the fence touch the edge of the island and force him to walk around it. Then toss in a Cloudkill to kill his units while he is walking past. Don't be shy about using Lightning/Chain Lightning/Frozen Ground while you're at it. With a little luck, his units will die and the flurries will help to keep him pinned for a bit. You should now have time to do whatever you want to - you can get your army more organized after his initial rush, or try to convert souls, or whatever else you think you might be able to do to help out with the next time he attacks. If you can kill him, great - but don't count on it. He has a ton of HP, almost always keeps his shield up (Silverbacks kinda suck in this level because of it) and is VERY quick on the heal spell.
His future attacks will be worse and worse coordinated and balanced, up to a point. Expect lots of locusts, and keep a chain lightning ready for this occurance. It works wonders.
Eventually, you should be able to convert all of the souls from his initial army, except for possibly the ones he uses for manahoars. Dont forget that he can't shield the manahoars, so freeze them when he goes to run away to try and grab some freebie souls.
With his army defeated, all you have to do is walk up to the megalith to trigger the cutscene, then walk around and systematically take out his manaliths - use cloudkill on the MANA FOUNTAIN, not the manalith itself, and you should be able to toast the creatures easilly. Be very aggressive when he attacks you while you are taking out his manaliths - dont let him get the souls from the dead guardians if you can help it.

Remember that there's no reason to be shy with Soul Wind, since he can grab the souls anyway (allthough you must try to keep it away from him anyway), and don't hesitate to "make another stand" if he gets too many souls back from his dead guardians.

Some girl isnt she said she did. I did too.
Anyway dont have the seraph so that you cannot use to entangle him but you do have soul wind and fence and freeze ground plus tornado all are good for delaying and devideing his army freeze ground will actually stop him in his tracks you also have slime that will slow him down. You should have no problems collecting his souls and keeping youre own with that spell combonation. youre biggist problem should be his death spell. and that can be manipulated. Allways meet him by yourself first then run back force his spells. Once he has only enough souls for manahoars he will stop attacking then you one by one attack hit manaliths ( the one closest to his shrine thing last ) make sure that in every manalith attack you prevent him from grabbing more souls. Its cake walk from here. ( I personally think they shouild redo this whole level as it is a real bummer and sucks even all the other levels are great this one just frustrateing thats all. )

Oh garrison a couple deadeyes ( assumeing I am correct as you got them on youre last charnel level ) at youre alter and not the manaliths. This will give you 8 souls to garrison the manaliths. ( choose wisely ) I suggest creatures with most durability ) And wait till you grab every soul he has before creating non gaurdian creatures. The deadeyes have wonderfull range and frustrates Marduk's position at youre Alter.


[This message has been edited by Incubuspawn (edited 01-23-2001).]