Legend of the Invincibles

[Dugi]

Also, what weapons are Faerie Incarnations supposed to wear? I think this was mentioned as a bug somewhere here before: I have 2 Faerie Incarnations, one of them can use a staff, the other can't.

It could happen if one of them was bugged in a specific way. That bug is extremely hard to identify, removing the code that causes it can be done only on wesnoth 1.13. The one who can't was bugged.

That sounds like a good idea. But I don't think there are even that many cases where the extra attack is no use at all. Usually, the breath attack can become stronger or has extra features.

I have decided to put there resistance penetrations.

I have suggestion- give Snow hunter´s Blizzard explosive slow. Attack 22-2, is not really usefull, even if it have a storm. And it takes a lot of AMLAs till you get it. And I think that his Ice bolt could have slow too.

Something with such a range will never be useless.

Assuming Dugi is fine with this, I'm taking the initiative to go through each and every high level unit and outline their advantages / weaknesses as well as give any balance suggestions.

You are welcome to do it.

[nuorc]

Controversially, I'd even push to decrease Celestial Messenger's healing advancements beyond +8 entirely as it's sufficiently powerful with both melee and ranged

Nah, that's the healer line, they should keep it.

And at least I don't use my CMs for melee.

edit: What kind of a weapon is the Dragon Rider's dragon's bite?

[Dugi]

What kind of a weapon is the Dragon Rider's dragon's bite?

None, just like lich's touch, skelton fist etc. These attacks usually have quite strong AMLA to compensate it.

[dabber]

I'm playing 1.12. I tested this on a few more occasions, and I kind of suspect that redeeming adjacent units never works when the chance is not 100%. Of course, right now I am only testing this with redeem on 11 and trying to redeem adjacent level 5 units. I remember some earlier occasions with lower levels, but of course I mostly tried to redeem with low levels adjacent, so I did not extensively test this.

This is what I reported some time back, but I had no hard numbers to back it up and couldn't see a possible error in the code. Now you think you are seeing it, and now I can say today I am 0 for 11 at AoE redeeming a level 5.

[nuorc]

@Dugi: thx

Regarding redeem: I had it failing missing even on level 1s and 0s...

[Whiskeyjack]

Regarding redeem: I had it failing missing even on level 1s and 0s...

Thats because it is a normal attack. Even if it gets to a 90% hit chance on later levels, it can still miss.

[Delicius169]

Lethargy- is working in a bad way. When its AI turn, Efraim hits for normal damage, when it is mine turn, Efraim hits normaly.
I dont use a lot explosive, or storm attack. I dont like, when I kill something a and will get no experiences. Therefore I dont find it really usefull on Elvian ice scout.

[Xargon]

Storm has a bigger area than explosive or am I missing something here? It works all around the unit, not only in one direction. I think they do not need slow on the Ice bolt since they already have slow on their bolas.

I think storm has a fixed area of 2 hexes around the caster. Explosive can have a bigger area when the damage is high (at least 3 hexes around the target, no idea if there is a maximum). Explosive slow, however, always has a fixed range of 1 hex around the target.
Buuuut: since when do snow hunters have blizzard at all? Maybe the standard bolas attack was meant? Anyway, I'm against giving explosive slow to a standard unit. It is very powerful and should not be common (so far, there is already ancient liches, Cunctator's sword, arctic blast and blizzard).

Assuming Dugi is fine with this, I'm taking the initiative to go through each and every high level unit and outline their advantages / weaknesses as well as give any balance suggestions.

I will make some quick remarks since I am posting already...
My most popular units:
- Duke: penetrate aura, warlord's rule
- Champion: give him "suck health with hit", things giving evasion, the armor Dark Sarcasm (mockery!), and he will heal himself when hitting and when not being hit (which is most of the time) while dealing out massive damage. Oh, I also gave him berserk from lycanthropy, and backstab... the only possible problem is ranged, but he has ice dragon legacy. Still not overpowered, I think, but a very fun unit.
- Scythemaster: probably too powerful because of no retaliation. You can give him anger or lesser berserk through many options which let him deal insane damage without retaliation
- Celestial messenger: Fast, conviction, illumination, high damage. Healing is an extra.
- Ancient lich: Explosive slow, yay! Got him a bit late, though. And of course, arcane weakness is dangerous.
- Dwarves. All of them, really. Their base resistances make them ideal for steadfast/unyielding, while the low speed can easily be mitigated by items or AMLAs. More details:
- Dwarvish hero: All-round massive power. High resist, high health, high damage.
- Dwarvish protector: Perfect frontline through adamant. Lower damage is fine to compensate.
- Dwarvish battlerager: Berserk plus items and support units means everything dies to him (give him horrid and slows if needed...). Maybe changing it to lesser berserk would be enough?
- Dwarvish Technocrat: attack voracious herb: 251-4. This is by no means maxed out, just a current example.

Good units:
- Prophet: Good, but I like him a lot less than the above.
- Elvish warlord and overlord: Both very good.
- Duelist wizard: Didn't think about increasing fireball attacks until I read it here. I'll have to see...
- Elder mage: Does what it says on the package. Not much more, though.
- Destroyer, Blackguard: Big impact damage is nice. A bit limited apart from that
- Elvish Assassin: Big ranged damage. Never used him that much, though. Maybe because I got Technocrats.
- Elvish Juggernaut: Fine, but the units from above do everything better.
- Shadow prince: good and versatile unit, but did not use it much.

Might need improvement to keep up:
- Dragon rider: arcane and cold are dangerous weaknesses, plus low defence.
- Champion Bowman, Swordmaster, Pilum Master: There is nothing to see here, please move on.
- Elvish Seer: arcane damage vs demons. But I guess that's fine.
- Chaos rider, lunatic knight: Never found a use for them.
- Trolls: Do they get good AMLAs? Never levelled one, seemed to have similar problems to dragon rider.
- Undead in general: weaknesses. But that's fine.

I think that's all units I remotely used in the recent past...
In general, I think support units become too strong in later chapters. I have a faerie with Legacy of kings, royalty, armor of the friendly general. That's 60% resistance bonus and 55% damage bonus - the resistances are the main thing, though. You can add leadership from other units and bardsong for more damage, plus warlord's rule, of course. A cluster around such a unit is almost unbreakable.

This is what I reported some time back, but I had no hard numbers to back it up and couldn't see a possible error in the code. Now you think you are seeing it, and now I can say today I am 0 for 11 at AoE redeeming a level 5.

I really think something is wrong with the formula. I made the following observation:
For redeem levels 11,12,13, they all say that adjacent level 5's are redeemed with 50%. However, I tried it in MANY occasions, and levels 11 and 12 never redeemed, while level 13 always redeemed. I have some save files with lots of Inferno plants to test.

edit: forgot Elvish warlord and overlord

[dabber]

When I compare things, I make Excel charts.
Elven units:

The coloring is their relative ranking in each column. I forgot to list hit and run on Gryphon Rider.

Of these, my conclusion is that only the Gryphon Rider and maybe Assassin are really worth using. The Gryphon Rider has the best balance of melee and ranged and by far the best mobility. His biggest weakness with ranged (accuracy) is easily negated by the many magical bows that exist. I like Assassin for Distant Attack and Focussed, but his melee damage is so pitiful he is really a one use guy. I don't see a reason to use the Juggernaut - the Overlord is better, and the Overlord's slow attack is much better than Horrid. Mayhem has potential value, but the Juggernaut doesn't have enough attacks to make it really good. The Nightprowler ... why use him?


On Champion and Scythemaster, I see the ranged weakness as huge. You can make up for it with the Dragon Legacies (my Swordmaster has Dark), but it means these units always get attacked with range, and rarely kill the attacker.

[Whiskeyjack]

The Gryphon Rider has the best balance of melee and ranged and by far the best mobility. [...]
On Champion and Scythemaster, I see the ranged weakness as huge. You can make up for it with the Dragon Legacies (my Swordmaster has Dark), but it means these units always get attacked with range, and rarely kill the attacker.

I think this is a thing about playstyle, but I do not fully understand why you value the balanced units so much. For me the most important point is if I can make my units strong on defence (which is realatively easy later on with Legacy of Kings, AotFG, Greater Guardsmans Leather Armor, etc.). If I do this and do not leave my units alone it does not matter if an enemy does not take much retaliation. The units that specialize in one of range/meele are able to wreck face on my turn way heavier (and under better control and without the fear of them killing so many enemies that they get taken down by numbers - a big problem for me in earlier chapters on Leth and the Celestials) and the defences + positioning gain me more safety than a fast and (on both sides) bloody brawl. If you want a solo unit, healing (with suck) on a strong attack and slow on the other is in my experience stronger than a balanced one. (e.g. One of my strongest solo units is a Swordmaster with Ice Dragon Legacy).
Therefore I also do not think that a missing ranged attack is a big problem if the unit has a Dragon Legacy (and those attacks get pretty powerful as well). Without one on the other hand...
In conclusion I think that having balanced meele/range is a far weaker special than in "normal" Wesnoth and depending on playstyle not nessecary at all.

- Trolls: Do they get good AMLAs? Never levelled one, seemed to have similar problems to dragon rider.

I played one of the hammer trolls in part one and thougt him to be stronger than Destroyer with comparable gear and less AMLAs but both of them did not get very far with those. I would say that both are considerably weaker than a Dwarvish Hero though.

PS: dabber, I think you should switch the coloring on Exp, in this case less is more

[Aevyn]

I'll start posting suggestions for unit balancing.

My reasons for doing this are because over time, players seem to have different ideas as to how each unit should function. The goal is to create a properly documented, standard, and balanced base for each unit as well as a guide for any player to reference (containing AMLAs, resistances, and unit descriptions).

So, lets start with the Elves. For the sake of forum clutter, it's probably best to discuss a few units at a time. This will be an ongoing process but for right now I'm only posting four to test the waters and see how this works out. If a firm consensus can't be reached, Dugi may have to be the one to make the ultimate choice.

ELF RACE BALANCING - PART 1

Elvish Seer

Personal Opinion: Needs Improvement
Suggestion: Increase arcane resistance to 40%, Add Arcane Resistance Penetration AMLA (Similar to Elder Mage AMLA style), and allow flying (movement through unwalkable areas) as lethalia does.

HP: 75, Movement: 6
Resistances: Arcane: 20%; Blade: 0%; Cold: 0%; Fire: 0%; Impact 0%, Pierce: 0%
Usage: Mixed Fighter
Base Attacks: Melee 7 - 3 (Impact), Ranged 6 - 6 [Gossamer] (Impact, Slow), Ranged 11 - 6 [Faerie Fire] (Arcane, Magical)
Possible Leveling AMLAs: Faerie Sabre (melee, magical, struggle)
Max Melee Attacks: 4 (1 AMLA required); Max Ranged Attacks -- Gossamer: 7 (1 AMLA required); Max Ranged Attack -- Faerie Fire: 7 (1 AMLA required)
Weapons Used: Staves

Description: "Sometimes, an elf can get so close to the faerie world, that it grants her a knowledge all the other beings never even dreamed about. This allows her to be both a good healer and a powerful spell-caster."

Elvish Overlord

Personal Opinion: Needs Improvement
Suggestion: Change Arcane and Blade resistances to 20% and 10% respectively. Add radiation (poison support) and maybe Damage Aura (10) to the leadership AMLA line. Remove ambush AMLAs within trees. Consider allowing staff equipment

HP: 78, Movement: 6
Resistances: Arcane: -10%; Blade: 0%; Cold: 0%; Fire: 0%; Impact 0%, Pierce: 0%
Usage: Mixed Fighter
Base Attacks: Melee 10 - 5 (blade), Ranged 8 - 5 (arcane, magical)
Possible Leveling AMLAs: Leadership (4), Ambush, Sticky Sword (Melee [blade], Slow)
Max Melee Attacks: 7 (2 AMLAs required); Max Ranged Attacks: 7 (3 AMLAs required);
Weapons used: Swords

Description: "Sometimes it happens that an elf gets so much skilled in swordsmanship, that he decides to walk the path of faerie in order to discover more and be even a greater warrior in combat. This requires extensive knowledge about both faerie and mundane things, that allows him to take away the traditional elvish bow, and use faerie fire instead. The main problem of winged fighters is that touching iron causes pain to them - that is why they use weapons made from various rare metals."

Faerie Incarnation

Personal Opinion: Generally Balanced

Elvish Warlord

Personal Opinion: Generally Balanced

PS: I'll add the Faerie Incarnation and Elvish Warlord references soon. Should you have questions as to why I suggest the above, I have no issue explaining my reasoning. I had planned to originally, but in a rush at the moment.

[Paulomat4]

hey dugi,
currently playing through part one again. I'm nearly through and must say the experience was really good. I was surprised by much better dialogues in chapter 1 and 2. Really pleasant.

The only bug that i have encountered until now:

[dabber]

I think this is a thing about playstyle, but I do not fully understand why you value the balanced units so much.

I feel it isn't difficult to get any one of my units to kill one enemy on my turn. Certainly every unit does not get a kill every turn, even with a mass of enemies around, but I feel confident I can grant a kill to any unit most anytime I want. Therefore I get ambitious and look for ways to get more kills faster. One way is Explosive, which is really effective but doesn't grant experience for each kill. The only way to get experience faster than one kill per turn is by killing enemies on their turn, and that means balanced damage output and not dying. Slow, Suck and Resistance are the keys to not dying, but those are largely dependent upon equipment, not unit type. So my goals for units are (roughly) balanced damage output first, mobility second and resistances third.
That said, I do value certain abilities for demon boss smashing. Having available Distant Attack with slow, Doom, Trickery and Mayhem ensure any boss can be taken down with minimal risk. I'm not saying I use those all at once, just that they are sufficiently useful to be mentioned. The same effect can be achieved by stacking unit buffs like Legacy of Kings, Shield, etc.

[Jeffers0n]

In chapter 3 (may happen in other chapters but I haven't noticed it) the bosses always attack the leaders as soon as they get in range. That way the witch in the first scenario was killed on retaliation so she didn't give the message about the temple. Could you prevent the enemy leaders from leaving they're keep?

[Dugi]

@Delicius169
I fixed that issue. It's not uploaded yet, so enjoy the advantage.

@Xargon
Snow Hunters are getting blizzard from the time they were added, that means like two years. It just requires really many advancements to unlock (about 10).

#Redeem
I have found an error in the code. It was a silly mistake created by writing not attentively enough (and being used to a different programming language more). It caused that if a unit was to be absorbed by the area of effect and its chance to absorb was not 100%, it always failed. It will be fixed from the next version.

@Paulomat4
I have been reported that already, I can't quite understand what is the cause. Do you know when it happens or it just happens on startup? I think I will need to contact mattsc about this.

@Jeggers0n
I'll see what can be done.

#unit balance
I'll let your discussion flow, your experience far exceeds mine in this.