Possble to resist eye shield?

[Sombre]

I like the fact that on a budget thug if it loses to sacreds, for instance, it will still have blinded several of them.

[cleveland]

As the perpetrator of the Great Kingmaker Blinding, I suppose I'll reveal the true power of the Eye Shield.

As vfb has pointed out, you do not have to hit the shield to gain the effect. In fact, you don't even have to hit the opponent...the very act of initiating the attack triggers the effect, BEFORE THE ATTACK ROLL. The attacker must then PASS A MAGIC RESISTANCE CHECK AGAINST 12, or lose 1 of his eyes.

Think about the two embolded points for a moment. Since the effect is triggered before the attack roll, if the attacker does indeed lose an eye, his attack is immediately and permanently lowered by 2. He then makes his attack roll, and if your Eye-Shield wielder manages to survived the mallaced attack, the adventure repeats the following turn...only this time, if the attacker loses his other eye, his attack is immediately and permanently dropped to ZERO.

So basically, all one needs to do is design a thug that can reliably survive being swarmed for a grand total of 2 turns. If he makes it, he's now surrounded by pile of blinded foes that can't hit him, and can't defend themselves. As Baalz latest guide points out, this is VERY easy to do.

In fact, my Kingmaker expansion was done using E9N4 blessed & Air Shielded Sidhe lords with Eye Shields...their glamour, high defense, and decent protection would keep them alive for those critical 2 turns, and then the only problem was dealing enough damage to inspire a rout before the turn limit was hit.

All that for a lowly Construction-2 item.

And they retained their usefullness right up until I overextended myself out of the game. But I have to say, the best part of the Eye Shield was that, while I could only kill maybe 10 regenerating Woodsmen each battle, my Lords would rout to safety taking 50-odd eyeballs with them, who's owners continued to demand a paycheck and that cushy Utgardian benefits package. You think it sucks getting 40 militia from a(n un)lucky event, ask DC what it's like to finance a Convalescence Home for Elite VFWs. Unintended economic warfare!

[Sombre]

I think you've gone a bit overboard with the hyperbole there Cleveland.

2 rounds? Only if every attacker fails his mr roll every single time and you don't kill any of the people surrounding you (or new, sighted people will step in and attack) and the enemy has no missile weapons or spells.

It might be interesting to have a double shielded (eye and something else) thug with astral 1 keep casting blink and bouncing around, 'exposing' himself to more and more troops to blind them without killing them.

[Amhazair]

Thanks for doing the testing vfb. I've seen this discussion spring up at least 3 or 4 times since I'm on the forums, with all kinds of theories being floated around, but as far as I can remember no one ever actually offered conclusive evidence.

[cleveland]

But if he can survive the through the 2nd round, he can surely survive beyond that...the swarmers get rapidly and progressively worse as time goes by.

Missiles are indeed a different story, but Vine/Gold/Charcoal/Aegis shields all have the same problem.

If you're building a thug and plan to spend 10N on a shield, I'd recommend (in general) a Vine Shield if he's high defense/low protection (who needs to avoid hits to stay alive) and an Eye Shield for a low defense/high protection thug (who can take the hits and permanently disable his foes), as this will make him much greater threat to anti-thugs.

[DonCorazon]

Hehe, is that you Cleve - I can't see?
Yeah, the Eye Shield/Sidhe combo sucked. I even had squeezed in an S blessing for a +1 MR boost knowing woodsmen can get pwned, but still ended up with legions of blind woodsmen and skratti on my disabled roster. Until, that is, I was able to find some warmongers who would trade me brands, which were worth their weight in gems, since even a blind skratti can hit the side of a barn with a frost brand.

Blind skratti can still research and blood hunt luckily, so its not complete disaster. But kudos to Cleveland for demonstrating to me, at least, the power of the Eye Shield. On a difficult research setting like we had in KM, it was a masterpiece of annoyance!

[Tmoe]

Sorry for going a bit off topic but couldn't find a thread concerning this. Vine Shield vs. Eye Shield

Originally Posted by Tifone

well less attacks in a turn = less def penalty

I was wondering if the enemy units having attack skill reduced to zero still lower your SC/thug/whatevers defence skill?

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Sombre

It might be interesting to have a double shielded (eye and something else) thug with astral 1 keep casting blink and bouncing around, 'exposing' himself to more and more troops to blind them without killing them.

Don't need Blink, just use Stymphalian Wings and a Shield of Gleaming Gold.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Tmoe

I was wondering if the enemy units having attack skill reduced to zero still lower your SC/thug/whatevers defence skill?

Yes, they do.

[Agema]

There was definitely a debate on the merits of vine versus eye shield somewhere, but not necessarily in a topic specifically on it.

My feeling is that vine shields are best when you aren't sure your character can suck up enough punishment when swarmed, usually because it's more defence-dependent rather than protection, awe, mistform or ethereality. Eye shields are good against thugs or giants, as they aren't so hampered by tangle vines, don't have exceptional MR to resist eyeloss. Against SCs likely to have MR in the 20s, eye shields aren't so useful as the attacker will almost certainly resist. A vine shield however can often tangle an opposing SC which can inactivate it occasionally, which can make for a big advantage.