Air Elemental

+10%
Poison Immunity
Weapon Immunity
Stoning Immunity
Non-Corporeal
Invisibility

**Air Elemental** is a rare **Sorcery** combat summon. They are often found guarding Nodes and Ruins.

## Developer's Note

Unlike Phantom Beast, the Air Elemental has very little hit points and less damage output, but has high movement and armor, weapon immunity, can fly, and is invisible, making it a much more tactical option. While it can be great for killing medium tier multifigure units which would kill the phantom beast way too quickly, the main advantage is countering ranged units even better than Guardian Wind, Magic Immunity or even Invisibility itself can, and to stall for time to cast more spells. Originally it had pretty high abuse potential as the AI didn't attempt to find it, nor did they try to enter the city to damage buildings, so summoning one was a guaranteed way of defending the city without losing anything of value in the process. However thanks to the AI updates, this is no longer the case and assuming the enemy units can enter the city, they'll cause massive damage, only prolonging the inevitable defeat next turn. Nonetheless, when you ensured they can't enter your city, and have enough casting power, an Air Elemental will buy you the time to eliminate the attackers and keep your city safe, which is something Sorcery needs to be good at even more than any other realm. Of course this applies in the reverse - when the player attempts to conquer a city from a Sorcery AI, they will need a plan to deal with any Air Elementals that might show up. Also, this creature is the reason why Non-corporeal creatures can't raise as undead other than flavor - you need a body to make it undead!-, as already explained, Invisibility in the early game is too powerful and raising neutral Air Elemenals as undead is one way to achieve that - and to make it worse the AI often did that too.

# Strategy

## How to kill

Because of their flight and invisibility they can be difficult to kill. Fortunately they have low HP and defenses.

They will run from superior enemies and hide in corners. If you intend to kill them using powerful units that can not attack flying units this will not work. Slow units that can attack air units will also face difficulties.

They do not have missile immunity, Ranged units with true sight will be able to destroy them quickly. Unfortunately Air Elementals are very fast so you get only one shot before they retaliate. True Sight is available as a Life spell. Death wizards can use their undead minions or even turn normal units into undead with Blood Lust. True sight is also available on Hero items.

Even without true sight you can target them with spells as long as they stay next to your unit. Two casts of a direct damage spell like Fire Bolt or Psionic Blast are likely to destroy the elemental. When clearing ruins hit and run tactics sacrificial units like Spearmen can be very useful.

Air Elementals will be willing to attack Phantom Warriors, inside a sorcery node such an attack will be suicidal.

## How to use

They are great if you need to prolong a fight that you can not win honestly. Weapon immunity can be great against lesser normal units.