Slow vs. drain

[nobody5]

Most units with drain attacks can be really pesky, especially bats. Slowing attacks are useful against these:

Drain attacks heal the unit for half of the damage it deals;

Slow attacks half the movement points and attack strength of the other unit;

So this means the drained HP is equal: Attack/2/2 e.g. Attack/4 e.g one fourth of the attack damage;

And finally that allows you to kill the unit faster

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While using charge attacks against draining is suicidal:

Drain attacks heal the unit for half of the damage it deals;

Charge attacks double the attack strength of both units;

So this means the drained HP is equal: (Attack*2)/2 e.g. the normal attack strength;

And finally that kills YOUR unit faster

[Skrim]

Yeah, sure, every weapon special has a time and place, and targets it's strong against and targets it's weak against.

Drain is strong against Firststrike, Charge and Berserk attacks. I've seen Ghosts go into fights against Ulfs with 14-15 HP and come out fully healed. It's also strong against opponents who can't retaliate effectively in melee, which become free healing for the Drainer.

Slow is strong against dangerous Drain, Charge and Berserk opponents, any target which is very hard-hitting or very fast, and is also good for self-defense against ranged attackers.

Firststrike is strong against Charging opponents, as it means that they can't just pull their 1-hit-kill tricks without getting punished for it.

Poison is good against high-resistance targets like Dwarves and Heavy Infantry who are difficult to damage using direct attacks. It can also force evasion-dependent targets to retreat.

Marksman and Magical are good for rooting out targets entrenched on high-defense terrain, and for killing evasion-dependent opponents like Fencers, Thieves and Orcish Assassins. Magical is also good for providing a relatively reliable attack when you really need to kill something.

[The1exile]

In fact, slow just plain rocks.

[Pentarctagon]

yes it does, especially useful against drakes. they can barely do a thing while slowed .

[Araja]

I always enjoyed getting my enemies 4-5 mp creatures slowed whilst they were trying to cross very difficult terrain, as the river/mountain/snow/cave whatever would then cost 6, rendering it impassable.
I was playing one of those User Maps with wide rivers and if my Netcasters hit an infantry unit halfway across the river then the unit couldn't move!
And weirdly enough slowed really hurt Fencers, I would have expected it to hurt 1 or 2 strike units most but a slowed Fencer is completely useless in combat.

[Darkaros]

Slow is so awesome, you can put it on any unit with at least 2 attacks and the unit's use is suddenly doubled. Especially peasants. Now, they're the backbone of your army! Drain also kinda has this effect, but it's use is a lot more varying. What I always wondered is what would happen if you had a Drain/Charge unit... Urgh, the overpoweredness.

[Pentarctagon]

What I always wondered is what would happen if you had a Drain/Charge unit... Urgh, the overpoweredness.

try a berserker drain unit , charge isn't so good a thing since while you drain twice as much, you also take twice as much damage in return.

[Araja]

try a berserker drain unit

Those already exist, they're a Lvl2 melee unit from the Era of Magic called "Fanatic"

[Darkaros]

Lol, I already tried a Berserk Drain unit. There used to be a bug in IftU that let you give the Berserker Potion to an Ancient Lich (Melee only, but then again it also removed impact vulnerability and increased blade defence or something). And it lasted the whole campaign. Pretty obvious what happened. He had like 7 AMLA's by the end.

The thing about charge/drain is that you can choose your opponents, and the charge doesn't activate in defence. Despite Berserk/drain, that Ancient Lich I had actually died once against mechanical units because he kept berserking them. Though, he did kill 6 of them before he did...

[Pentarctagon]

berserker units in general require more protection, but they can also be very useful if you really need to take down a unit that's about to level...or if the enemy's mage leader let's them get in range .

[ParadiseCity]

Personally I would prefer a slows unit to drains or berserk any day.

The main reason that drains is not as good is that it effects one unit, the one thats draining, so only one unit gains an advantage.

A berserk unit is hard to keep alive if in the front lines, and a drain of recruit gold and up keep if its just sitting behind your lines waiting for a chance to attack.

So while both of theses have a definite time and place to be used, slows is much more effective because:

You can stop a retreating enemy

You can slow a dangerous enemy(lvl2s or woses for example) and make it much easier to kill

It has a use most of the time in normal combat.

[Kuciwalker]

Yeah, slow is useful in every situation, and INCREDIBLY useful in some situations.

[krotop]

try a berserker drain unit , charge isn't so good a thing since while you drain twice as much, you also take twice as much damage in return.

It's the same for the berzerk special, when you get 2 rounds of attacks you also get 2 rounds of retaliation. Both specials are 2 avatars of the same principle, it's just that there is a lot more randomness with charge and more often the impossibility to kill.

[Pentarctagon]

however, berserker goes for 30 rounds of combat, not 2. so the opponent must either have a unit designed to counter the drain berserker (probably some kind of undead unit), or be willing to risk one or more unit in killing the berserker. charge, however, only activates on offense, so it is much less deadly.

[Joram]

Anyone here ever tried a beserker drain unit vs a beserker drain unit?