To see or not to see?

[awall]

A while back Taliesin posted an open question on when to WPFD. I found that useful, so in an attempt to stir up more discussion around here I figure I'll throw out a similar question, this one about a spell I use much more frequently: Invisibility. Here are some open questions for discussion.

1) What kind of situations is it better to follow up DPP with Invis, and when is it better to follow up with DPPS? What about WPP?

2) Is it worth letting your opponent summon an Ogre in order to go Invisible?


My answers:
1) Invis used to be my default response from PP, but I quickly learned why it's a bad idea. If Invis gets countered, you're out a whole lot of initiative, and unless the off hand finished a summon with the W, you'll probably come out behind even if you dummy the invis. Furthermore, zero hour DPP absolutely wrecks non-delay invisibility, as your opponent will go invis himself two turns after you, and you can't go for a timestopped antispell to defend yourself.

I find that it really only pays to go invisible when you know on the turn of the second P that it will succeed. Generally this means that your opponent can't disrupt you on the next turn, and he doesn't have W (for counter) or D (for Amnesia), although the latter isn't a problem if you just landed DPP. I'll occasionally threaten invis with WPPW/xxWW, only because it's one of the few invis opportunities that actually dummies decently.

2) Really not sure about this one. On one hand, you're guaranteed to take two damage on the S turn, most likely an additional 2 on the W turn. In return, between wounds, charms, and antispells, the Ogre has a pretty good chance of going away, although the resulting initiative is questionable, and you're still out a bit of life. I'd say that in general it's not worth it, although invisibility works decently well as a defense if you find you couldn't have prevented the ogre anyway.

Oh, and sorry for the lame subject line. :-p

[ExDeath]

I agree with pretty much everything you said, although it's worth noting that the 50/50 of countering invis is one of the most risky psychological battles in all of Warlocks. On the one hand, nobody ever goes invis when you have a WP or WW showing, so you should never counter it, so they should always go invis, so you should always counter it, mind games etc. etc. On the other hand, the stellar tempo of PW/PW means they can't really fake to anything offensively useful either.

I can't think of a specific "situation" where I think invis is always a good idea, but most commonly I use it when I stumble into something like PSFWS/WPPWS or even WWSWS/DPPWS. It's not something you should bend over backward to set up.

[toyotami]

I don't mean to shang hai your thread, but i don't know how to start one myself...

I think i have come out on top 9 times out of 10 when my opponent makes me blind. Even with the nice DFWFD XXPSDF it is easy enough to counter the charm person and launch some kind of monster summoning attack. At the very least, the blindess holds hardly any surprises for people that can count and watch for the signs.

I used to blind an opponent only to find him go invisible, summon a monster, or ignore my weave and start up his own ParaFOD, lightning bolt/summon ogre weave. I would like to hear if anyone has ever used blindness well.

[Slartucker]

Blindness has much less offensive power and is harder to cast without hurting yourself. This was discussed more in the blindness thread...

There's a "new thread" button.

[awall]

This is also a bit off topic, but it has to do with Invis. I thought I'd share an interesting defense Asgardian used against me that I'd never seen before. Seems useful when coming off a clap:

games.ravenblack.net/warlocks?num=58118
(it's still in progress, but has progressed well beyond the point below)


awall:
xDWS
PPWS
Asgardian:
xCWWFP
xCWSSW


It worked out sorta well; I went with CDPW/CPSD, knocking out the elemental and his heat resistance and dealing him three damage in the process, but he came out with a small bit of initiative and turned my potentially game-winning Invis-Delay weave into a much more defensive Invis-Dispel weave.

[Slartucker]

The dispel/charm defense could go horribly wrong as follows:

xDWSCDPW
PPWSCPSD

xCWWFPSFW
xCWSSWxxx

Where Asgardian gets a protectable giant. But you're right, at the very least Asgardian gets some initiative, which is pretty good off of your invis.

The reason clapping elemental is not a good invis defense is not because of invis. It's because of the clap! The last two turns of gesturing invis mostly reset your spellflow. Since Asgardian clapped quite early, this gives him the ghastly FOUR TURNS free from disruptions that are required to summon an elemental. However, if you didn't go invis, you could take advantage of his clap to steal initiative with the usual DPPS or DPS chains.

Note that W/W on your part also loses if Asgardian had opted for dispel instead.

While the fact that you were paralyzed the turn of the antispell makes Asgardian's clap slightly less hideous than it would otherwise be, it still guarantees initiative loss if it's defended correctly.

[awall]

admin said:

While the fact that you were paralyzed the turn of the antispell makes Asgardian's clap slightly less hideous than it would otherwise be, it still guarantees initiative loss if it's defended correctly.

Well, I agree that clapping isn't a good idea in general. The reason he did so this time was because I was threatening FoD with my LH. I decided to switch to Fireball on turn 7 to make the decision of whether or not to mirror more difficult for him, not realizing the possibility of mirror/elemental. I was under the impression that once you go invis, nothing can stop the delay except a Dispel, and that has its own share of problems.

If I had to do it again, I'd probably have gone SDPP/PPSx or something. Pity, not nearly as much fun.

[Slartucker]

Heh. I didn't notice the FOD. Suddenly the whole situation makes a lot more sense.