Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

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Tom_Of_Wesnoth
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Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

On the Discord server this morning, EoZ, catbegemot, and I were discussing the maximum possible damage that a unit can do in mainline Wesnoth, both with a single strike, and in a single turn.

For the single strike calculation, we arrived at 81 damage.

This involves using a Grand Knight, which deals a base of 17 damage with its lance attack. With the Strong trait, this rises to 18 damage. A combined 50% increase comes from a 25% Time of Day bonus, and a 25% Leadership bonus from a Grand Marshal, bringing us to 27 damage. If we give this Grand Knight Holy Water, changing the damage type to arcane, we can now factor in the -50% arcane resistance many undead units have, bringing our damage up to 40.5. Finally, we add in the Charge ability that doubles damage dealt and received, and we arrive at 81 damage.

This can be achieved in mainline conditions during Eastern Invasion.

In practice, this is limited to 80 damage, as the Ancient Lich has only 80 hitpoints, and no unit with more than 80 hitpoints has the -50% arcane resistance that is so important to getting the number up to 81. Of course, you could always feed the Ancient Lich a stream of sacrifices so he levels up, and gains the extra hitpoints that an AMLA brings... But that's getting into the realms of silliness.
catbegemot was kind enough to provide us with an example of this in action
catbegemot was kind enough to provide us with an example of this in action
For the damage in a single turn calculation, we arrived at 256 damage.

This can be achieved by keeping Konrad at Level One during the Heir to the Throne campaign, and giving him the Sceptre of Fire - an item that grants him a 16x4 ranged fire attack. With the combined 25% Time of Day bonus, and the 75% Leadership bonus from a Grand Marshal leading a Level One, we can double this to 32x4. 1.14 Giant Scorpions have a -100% fire resistance, meaning we can double that number again to reach 64x4 - a total of 256 damage, if every attack hits. In 1.15, Giant Scorpions have a 0% fire resistance, so this method works for 1.14 only.

However, as the keen-eyed among you have surely noticed, the Giant Scorpion only has 40 hitpoints. So while the theoretical maximum is 256 damage, we have to look elsewhere to find our practical maximum damage.

For this, we turned to the Lancer, who can in ideal conditions deal 108 damage in a single turn.

The Lancer starts out with a 12x3 pierce attack, 13x3 with the Strong trait. Add in 25% Time of Day and 50% Leadership and we arrive at 22.75 damage, which we can double with Charge to arrive at 45.5 - rounded down to 45 damage per strike. However, this damage is then reduced by 20% thanks to the Yeti's 20% pierce resistance, giving us an actual damage of 36x3. If all three strikes land, without the Yeti killing the Lancer in retaliation, the Lancer will put out 108 damage in a single turn.

This should be possible during Heir to the Throne. Ideally, you'd give the Lancer arcane damage, but EoZ and I don't think that's possible during the scenario with the Yeti.
I can't be bothered to test this in campaign conditions, but creating the relevant units with the debug console demonstrates that it should be possible.
I can't be bothered to test this in campaign conditions, but creating the relevant units with the debug console demonstrates that it should be possible.
Have we missed anything? Can you beat our numbers of 81 theoretical/80 practical, for a single strike? Can you beat our numbers of 256 theoretical/108 practical, for a single turn? And - most importantly - can you achieve it in mainline Wesnoth?

EDIT: Quick edit to say that with Berserk against a Yeti, you could theoretically deal 142 damage - but the odds of this are so vanishingly small that it might not actually be possible. The Berserker would have to output somewhere in the region of 20-24 strikes, without taking more than a single strike in retaliation. The Berserker never gets more than 50% terrain defence, while the Yeti never gets less than 20%. Also, I don't think a Berserker can ever face a Yeti in mainline. Also, Berserk takes the fun out of it :p

EDIT2: I should also point out that this is using 1.14. Older versions of Wesnoth gave some undead a -100% holy resistance, which can lead to even higher numbers than are possible today.
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MathBrush
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by MathBrush »

Very cool!
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by Velensk »

"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

Always interesting to see how the game has changed, and yet even over thirteen years it's the Horseman line that remains the best damage-dealer in the game, and it's achieved through giving it holy/arcane damage.

Your old idea of a Yeti with holy water, defending against a Chocobone, would hit for 96 damage these days, which would break the record - but there's nowhere in mainline where that combination is possible.
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by Nivanpylte2 »

With a chokob's charging on a lvl3 shock trooper in perfect conditions we can get a 100+ damage per strike in retaliation !
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

Nivanpylte2 wrote: February 17th, 2020, 10:35 pm With a chokob's charging on a lvl3 shock trooper in perfect conditions we can get a 100+ damage per strike in retaliation !
How did you get to this? I tried this with a strong Iron Mauler, with 25% leadership and 25% time of day, and got 86 damage per strike.
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lhybrideur
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by lhybrideur »

Can you have +50% instead of 25% from time of the day with illumination ?
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by EarthCake »

No. Time of day and illumination ability are not cumulative.
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patience_reloaded
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by patience_reloaded »

I see an possible issue with using Konrad in combination with a Grand Marshal: I don't remember where in the Campaign you get to have a unit of the Grand Marshal line. I don't remember gettin one, but I last played the HttT in 1.12 or before.
Therefore: Do you know where you get to have a Grand Marshal in HttT?
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by dwarftough »

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: February 26th, 2020, 5:45 pm
How did you get to this? I tried this with a strong Iron Mauler, with 25% leadership and 25% time of day, and got 86 damage per strike.
Iron Mauler's base damage is impact 25x2. I guess if you charge at him with Chocobone, you can get enormous retaliation by Iron Mauler.
patience_reloaded wrote: March 26th, 2020, 3:38 pm Therefore: Do you know where you get to have a Grand Marshal in HttT?
After you found the Sceptre of Fire and emerged to the ground, move a mermen to the far right of the river, after which you proceed to Cliffs of Thoria (instead of clearly mentioned paths to the north through mountains and to the south through swamps). And in that Cliffs you could find and rescue a Sergeant whom you could upgrade up to the Grand Marshal (if you'd manage to do it until the campaign's end)
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by patience_reloaded »

I didn't know about the possibility to go to the Cliffs. That fully explains my issue, thanks.
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by dwarftough »

Behold this retaliation! (Day, under Grand Marshal's leadership)
maxretaliation.png
And with strong it's even more
maxreveretaliation.png
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by patience_reloaded »

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: February 26th, 2020, 5:45 pm
Nivanpylte2 wrote: February 17th, 2020, 10:35 pm With a chokob's charging on a lvl3 shock trooper in perfect conditions we can get a 100+ damage per strike in retaliation !
How did you get to this? I tried this with a strong Iron Mauler, with 25% leadership and 25% time of day, and got 86 damage per strike.
If the Iron Mauler has Holy Water, he can strike against the -50% arcane resistance of the Chocobone instead of the -10% impact resistance. This theoretically increases the possible retailation Damage to 117 per strike (according to my calculation), although to achieve this it would require that the AI performs the attack with the Chocobone. This would remove the possibility for the player to see the attack calculation window, except in the recording. Also, it would be pretty tricky to persuade the AI to perform such an extremely inefficient attack. Also, I don't know if there is any situation in any default campaign where this is possible, since access to both Iron Mauler and Grand Marshal is not exactly popular in campaigns, and the situation would require to have an enemy that can recruit Chocobones and a bottle of holy water somewhere in the scenario, since the effect usually wears off after the end of the scenario. I guess Eastern Invasion might be the best bet, since there are those necklaces that change the damage type to arcane permanently, and the player has access to the heavy infantry line and the leader can become a Grand Marshal.

My calculations: strong Iron Mauler has 26 Base Damage. ToD and Leadership are +25% each. The resulting Base Damage is 39. Factoring in +50% for the weakness to arcane, and *2 for charge retailation.

An entirely different approach: Do multiplayer scenarios count? And does the Dunefolk count? If yes: which version?
I mention this because of two things:
1) In 1.14.x, the Dunefolk has the Dune Cataphract (Lawful, Level 3) with an attack that does 44-1 pierce (45-1 if strong). Even though it might be tricky to get this one to have the leadership bonus, it might mix up things a little. In 1.15.x, this attack was changed to a 13-2 charge.
2) In the Multiplayer Scenario "The Wilderlands", when I played with the Dunefolk (1.14.6) I wanted to use a falcon's beak (has charge) against that Yeti that is standing around in the south east corner of the map. 70-2 retailation damage convinced me not to do it.
What I want to say is that there might be some surprises when using the Dunefolk or multiplayer scenarios, since both of these might provide unexpected results useful for this discussion.
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

patience_reloaded wrote: March 31st, 2020, 8:43 am An entirely different approach: Do multiplayer scenarios count? And does the Dunefolk count? If yes: which version?
I mention this because of two things:
1) In 1.14.x, the Dunefolk has the Dune Cataphract (Lawful, Level 3) with an attack that does 44-1 pierce (45-1 if strong). Even though it might be tricky to get this one to have the leadership bonus, it might mix up things a little. In 1.15.x, this attack was changed to a 13-2 charge.
2) In the Multiplayer Scenario "The Wilderlands", when I played with the Dunefolk (1.14.6) I wanted to use a falcon's beak (has charge) against that Yeti that is standing around in the south east corner of the map. 70-2 retailation damage convinced me not to do it.
What I want to say is that there might be some surprises when using the Dunefolk or multiplayer scenarios, since both of these might provide unexpected results useful for this discussion.
There's no reason multiplayer shouldn't count. The 'rules,' such as they exist, are basically just 'it has to be possible in the vanilla game' - otherwise Legend f the Invincibles (and similar add-ons) would absolutely dominate this thread. 1.14 and 1.15 are both fine.

1) In ideal conditions - lv4 leadership, time of day bonus, against a Horseman or other cavalry unit with -20% to pierce - I think you could get that number up to 84. If you've got an allied faction that has lv4 leadership, that should be possible.

2) 70-2 is pretty impressive. Not quite up to the same level as the 'arcane charge' options, though.
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Re: Maximum damage from a single strike, or in a single turn

Post by patience_reloaded »

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: April 14th, 2020, 10:26 am There's no reason multiplayer shouldn't count. The 'rules,' such as they exist, are basically just 'it has to be possible in the vanilla game' - otherwise Legend f the Invincibles (and similar add-ons) would absolutely dominate this thread. 1.14 and 1.15 are both fine.

In ideal conditions - lv4 leadership, time of day bonus, against a Horseman or other cavalry unit with -20% to pierce - I think you could get that number up to 84. If you've got an allied faction that has lv4 leadership, that should be possible.
Unfortunately, leadership doesn't seem to apply to allies: The red grand marshal is next to the Cataphract and allied (blue sphere), but the leadership bonus isn't applied.
EDIT: Sorry for the german language of the screenshots.
DamageCataphractAttack.PNG
However, if you let the Knight charge against the Cataphract, the result is doubled:
DamageCataphractRetail.PNG
135 Damage in one hit. This most likely tops even the previous (unproven) best mark of arcane iron mauler being attacked by a Chocobone (resulting at maybe 122). And the Cataphract one doesn't technically need any supporting units, unlike the iron mauler. The Mage of Light in my screenshot doesn't acutally do anything.
Quick note: when I tried this with a Horseman, the Cataphract wanted to retail with his mace. After promotion to Knight, this changed.

I found another approach: Time-of-Day-Bonus can go up to +-35%: While the illumination ability and the illuminated terrain don't go above +25%, if there is lava at daytime, this can go up to 35%. This can be used by drakes or if there is a bridge across it, by any unit. However, finding a patch of lava with a bridge across it where the entire scenario isn't underground might be difficult in default wesnoth. At least I couldn't find one in the default multiplayer maps, also I have the feeling that most lava is underground in the campaigns. There could be an exception, however, since I don't know most campaigns well.
For the chaotic side: There are a few scenarios that play "deep underground", at -35% -30% light level. That might bring some undead units into question, but since they don't have Level 4 leaders, finding something of use will still be difficult.

A further approach lies with the Fire Dragon. Rarely, in a campaign, the player has to fight one. These guys have Level 5 Leadership, and could theoretically produce some nice damages for their minions.

Edit: deep underground is only -30% light. Thanks dwarftough for pointing out.
Last edited by patience_reloaded on April 20th, 2020, 7:18 am, edited 2 times in total.
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