Dark Sorcerer tank

[Yoshi]

What I have noticed about the Dark Sorcerer leader is that he has pretty high hp. Out of the other level 2 units he has the highest hp and 2nd is the Revenent. The only way to get a level 2 with more hp is to use a Necrophage and make him get alot of kills.

Compared to most ranged units he has very high hp at 48 only less then the longbowmen but Nercomancer gets more hp then Master Bowman. This is more then the Lieutenant the Elvish Captain. Also if you level him into a Necromancer he has as much hit points as an Elvish Champion and since he has no weaknesses it seems to me like this would make the best tanking unit if you level up a res int adept.

[psychic]

And your point being?

[hhyloc]

Maybe he just want someone come and discuss the matter...

Compare to other lvl2, ranged units, the Dark Sorcerer could be used as tank, but the Bone Shooter will suit the role better: 40HP (lower than the Dark Sorcerer 48HP) but good resistance, better cost (not important in multiplayers) and better ranged attack and need less XP to level up.

[HomerJ]

Maybe he just want someone come and discuss the matter...

Compare to other lvl2, ranged units, the Dark Sorcerer could be used as tank, but the Bone Shooter will suit the role better: 40HP (lower than the Dark Sorcerer 48HP) but good resistance, better cost (not important in multiplayers) and better ranged attack and need less XP to level up.

Which brings up a general question: Is a unit with major weaknesses (as all the undead have) to be considered a tank anyway? Imho, the Dark Sorcerer fits the role much better because he lacks negative resistances.


Greetz
HomerJ

[hhyloc]

Which brings up a general question: Is a unit with major weaknesses (as all the undead have) to be considered a tank anyway? Imho, the Dark Sorcerer fits the role much better because he lacks negative resistances.

The Bone Shooter does have negative resistance but he'll perform better than the Dark Sorcerer in many cases
Why?: The Bone Shooter has 40%, 60% and 40% resistance to blade, pierce and cold (140% total) and -20%, -20% and -50% resistance to impact, fire and arcane (-90% total).
According to my statistics, lvl 2 units with:
Melee blade, pierce or cold: 45 units
Melee impact, fire or arcane: 23 units
Ranged blade, pierce or cold: 22 units
Ranged impact, fire or arcane: 18 units
(note that units like Dark Sorcerer has both cold and arcane ranged, in this case I choose the damage type that do most damage to the Bone Shooter, so I put him him in ifa ranged group but not bpc ranged group).

So in many cases (facing bpc foes) the Bone Shooter will perform as a tank better than the Dark Sorcerer. (of course when facing ifa foes the Dark Sorcerer is a better choice, but the chance to face such foes will less than the chance to face bpc foes )

[HomerJ]

statistics

Interesting...
But consider this:
Campaigns: whenever you have control over undead units, most often the opponent has arcane/fire units at their disposal.
Multiplayer: when facing an undead opponent most likely the player will have a unit up their sleeve to dispose off skeleton based units

So while statistically, the bone shooter is the better tank, I feel like there are only limited scenarios (scenario out of the campaign context here) for it to tank.


Greetz
HomerJ

[Dunno]

I think ghoul is better, because it has high resistance to everything, except impact, and no negative resistance. And it has poisoning melee, and as lvl 2 it also has feeding. Too bad it doesn't have ranged... but that only shows us how balanced default era is, there is no flawless tank unit, there's always a way.

[hhyloc]

statistics

Interesting...
But consider this:
Campaigns: whenever you have control over undead units, most often the opponent has arcane/fire units at their disposal.
Multiplayer: when facing an undead opponent most likely the player will have a unit up their sleeve to dispose off skeleton based units

So while statistically, the bone shooter is the better tank, I feel like there are only limited scenarios (scenario out of the campaign context here) for it to tank.

Agree, but it will only work with fog of war/shroud turn off or both player choose a specified faction (not random). Without these, your opponent won't know what units you have, when he realized, you at least already have some advantages over him, then if he spam bone-crushing units you can spawn Dark Sorcerer to counter him.

Edit: @Dunno Well I 100% agree with you about the Ghoul, he is a good tank, but we talking about lvl 2 ranged tank, and also it's not about a tank unit is flawless or not, it about which tank unit is better (in most cases).

[pauxlo]

In a normal random MP game, you won't have any boneshooters or dark sorcerers, apart from maybe your leader (which you can't select), so then it is not really a question which of them works better as a tank against which enemies.

Or do we talk about age of heroes or similar era?

[hhyloc]

In a normal random MP game, you won't have any boneshooters or dark sorcerers, apart from maybe your leader (which you can't select), so then it is not really a question which of them works better as a tank against which enemies.

Or do we talk about age of heroes or similar era?

I'm not sure I think he was talking about MP
I assumed there was both Dark Sorcerers and Bone Shooters available to recruit (not in Default MP of course, maybe in some campaigns or Age of Heroes era )

[Zarel]

If the Bone Shooter only had a few weaknesses, it'd be fine, but it's weak to half the damage types in existence. I'd prefer a ghost - that at least removes the Impact weakness.

The Dark Sorcerer is really weird as far as spellcasters go. Not only does it have high HP, it also has relatively low damage. It's more of a mixed unit than a dedicated ranged spellcaster, I think.

[Yoyobuae]

High HP or not, won't it die to a couple of attacks from pretty much any lv2 units? 48 HP ain't that high when many lv2s surpass 30 dmg total with their main attack.

Besides, being mainly a ranged unit exposes him to being attacked by the vast mayority of melee units (a whole lot of them being blade wielders).

It just doesn't work. One cannot make blanket statements that apply to all situations possible in Wesnoth. Maybe it turns out the HP isn't that important (you have other, cheaper, units provide a ZoC wall). Maybe the damage types are just not right (cold/arcane is no good against cavalries, while pierce is very good).

In the end, the player won't really care that much about the "high" max HP, but instead will use them for being a magical attack and ranged damage dealer unit.

[Dunno]

fun fact: Yoshi made no replies in this thread. It looks like a very advanced trolling, make a statement and watch people argue

[pauxlo]

Off topic:

Spoiler:

fun fact: Yoshi made no replies in this thread. It looks like a very advanced trolling, make a statement and watch people argue

Or he simply did not have time to get on the forum, or whatever. This is an on-topic post with a legitimate follow-up discussion (until now), it seems to me.
Assume good faith.

[hhyloc]

If the Bone Shooter only had a few weaknesses, it'd be fine, but it's weak to half the damage types in existence. I'd prefer a ghost - that at least removes the Impact weakness.

Wow, talking about Ghost, after checking Wesnoth Units Database, I found that the Ghost has 50% resistance to all type of physical damage! It even has 10% resistance to Fire! His only weakness is a -10% Arcane.
I didn't know that until now. Well, Ghost rocks! (see my sig and my avatar)