Death vs. Fire bless

[Rytek]

Bless effects can't be judged.
It all depends on what unit is to be blessed.

A water bless for Nifel giants is ok. But they will fatigue faster and actually be less effective in larger battles where an earth and or nature bless is much more effective.

On the other hand a water bless is superb for a unit like EA TC's sacreds when an earth and or nature bless is not as good for this unit.

[JimMorrison]

Rytek said:
Bless effects can't be judged.
It all depends on what unit is to be blessed.

A water bless for Nifel giants is ok. But they will fatigue faster and actually be less effective in larger battles where an earth and or nature bless is much more effective.

On the other hand a water bless is superb for a unit like EA TC's sacreds when an earth and or nature bless is not as good for this unit.

Don't lie. You are just trying to confuse people so that they don't see that an A10 bless is always the strongest.

[MaxWilson]

Baalz said:
Hmmm, I think the damage done by death weapons is higher than the average implies because the variation is capped at 0 damage on the low end which is close to tie while there's no upper cap. If you hit twice and there's a difference of 10 between the attacker and defender's rolls both times but the winner is reversed, you deal 0 and 12 damage - it's a bit misleading to think of it as 2.7 damage per hit. Of course this doesn't take into account the MR check, but I guess my point is that 2AN damage is more than it sounds when you're talking about a lot of rolls. Look at it this way, if you hit twice, figure MR is gonna fail once, and you're gonna roll 0 damage once...then that means every other eagle warrior lands a kill or at least significant damage - not bad at all against heavily armored troops.

I also again want to point out the ignoring shields is almost always *at least* as good as +4 attack against any troops with shields, and often quite a bit better. Against units with tower shields (not common in indies, but much more so against real opponents) it's more than twice as good.

1.) That's why it's something like 2.7 instead of just 2. IIRC, of course. I ran a simulation to figure out exactly how much average damage 2 AN does but it was more than a year ago. A forum search for MaxWilson and "death bless" should turn up my posts.

2.) Don't tower shields give +7 to def? Ignoring shields is somewhat worse than twice as good as +4 to attack.

-Max

[cleveland]

Baalz said:
I also again want to point out the ignoring shields is almost always *at least* as good as +4 attack against any troops with shields, and often quite a bit better. Against units with tower shields (not common in indies, but much more so against real opponents) it's more than twice as good.

Are you certain about this? I was under the impression that the F9/D9 effects were secondary weapon effects, so only were applied upon a successful strike of the primary weapon. In other words, the to-hit probability doesn't change.

[JimMorrison]

I think what he's saying is, since the damage completely *Negates* shield protection as well, then even a shield hit will do damage every single time - thus an opponent with a large shield and heavy armor will more consistently take more damage from small AN hits than from large AP hits.

[Kristoffer O]

Cleveland is saying that the initial attack must hit for the AN effect to even be considered, so shields do matter.

I'm not sure myself, but I'm inclined to believe Cleveland is right. This does probably only affect melee weapons though. Blessed bows might work strange, much like poison arrows.

[Renojustin]

Only the Parry addition to Defense matters in that case, against the unit's normal damage, which works against Fire bless as well; the shield's Protection, however, is completely nullified against the Death bless damage, making it more useful against shielded troops than Fire bless as Baalz explained.

[JimMorrison]

Kristoffer O said:
Cleveland is saying that the initial attack must hit for the AN effect to even be considered, so shields do matter.

I'm not sure myself, but I'm inclined to believe Cleveland is right. This does probably only affect melee weapons though. Blessed bows might work strange, much like poison arrows.

But that's the point, imagine it like this. Opponent with 7 parry, 14 prot shield, and 18 armor. Your unit consistently hits for ~20. so when you get a clear hit, you're doing 2+2AN. When you hit the shield, which is quite often, you are still doing 2AN. In other words, on shield hits, you are still getting half of your typical damage on that opponent. In contrast, your Fire blessed friend is hitting a bit more often, but hits that shield just as often, and when he does, he has to roll 32+ to do -any- damage at all.

That's how shield hits work, isn't it? It's technically still a "hit", with the prot value of the shield added to the prot value of the armor. So if you are doing AN damage, a shield is useless, it is just encumbering your foe, and limiting their damage capacity. Obviously, it still has value if it's only a Death bless, and not an AN weapon, but still.

And then all of those little 2+ hits are causing Afflictions of course, wearing down your poor foe.

[Kristoffer O]

OK I follow you.
I was unintentionally thinking about effects upon dmg, not upon hit.

[konming]

cleveland said:

Are you certain about this? I was under the impression that the F9/D9 effects were secondary weapon effects, so only were applied upon a successful strike of the primary weapon. In other words, the to-hit probability doesn't change.

While you are right secondary effects only applied with a successful strike of the primary weapon (verified using -ddddd), you are wrong about the to-hit probability thing.

A hit can be an armor hit or a shield hit. In both cases, primary weapon hits. Fire bless secondary attack is an AP attack, so shield matters. A shield hit is as good as a no hit for most cases. This is especially true for a kite shield with its huge protection bonus. So your fire bless secondary attack pretty much requires an armor hit to work for heavily shielded opponents.

Death blessed secondary attack however, ignores protection. So it does not matter if you hit a shield or an armor. Therefore, its actual chance to do damage is greatly improved.