Quote:
Originally Posted by Knai
I can't say I remember, but it is crippling to ranged units. Enemy SCs might be a bit of a worry, but no ranged troop is good enough, even boosted with Wind Guide.
Incidentally, the Mendeha works really well alongside the Dvati (or whatever the Air Demon is called).
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Many people hold that a Mandeha is crippling to precision.
That drastically simplifies the situation. In my opinion the effect on melee is FAR greater than the effect on archery, for a number of reasons.
Yes, precision is reduced 75%*blindfight. However, its still subject to the general rule that what goes up must come down. Huge masses of archers will still put up huge numbers of arrows
And the variance is only a function of the range.
So, you absolutely have no chance of hitting soldier A. You will however hit soldier b, c & d.
Also, the chance to hit, increases, and the variance decreases as the enemy approaches the archers. So it is perfectly possible to have whithering deadly archer fire under the effects of darkness.
For example, have screens of thug caliber, timed to advance just in front of the archers. (literally 1-2 squares). You will find archers *just* as deadly.
Now, I believe the effect on combat is much more pronounced.
First, because there are large numbers of darkness immune melee casters: skelly spam, bane lords, spine devils, horrors, Tarts, agarthan units, many underwater units to name a few.
These units get a huge boost under darkness. However, Darkness has an indirect effect as well.
By decreasing attack and defense, it slows combat down, which allows fatigue and spell casting to have a larger effect. Further more, it also generally shifts the balance further against armies and in favor of darkness resistant thugs/scs.
Now, finally, darkness does make a huge difference of course to spellcasting. Some of the same comments applied to archers apply to spell casters - however, in archery, you are can accept average results - and you have rounds for the enemy to get closer.
Spell casting has fewer events, and is therefor more subject to variance - and due to rapid fatigue, the spell casters may well fatigue out (and/or not have sufficient cover) before opposing forces get within effective range.
So, darkness is a great spell - and it has its uses in archery, melee, and spell casting. But for a serious archery counter I'd look more at mist, storm etc.