How to play dunefolk

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HonzaCZ
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How to play dunefolk

Post by HonzaCZ »

how
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patience_reloaded
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Re: How to play dunefolk

Post by patience_reloaded »

Version 1.14 dunefolk or Version 1.15 dunefolk? Since the faction got seriously reworked for 1.15, this makes a difference for some things (for example, the falcon got removed for 1.15, which removes a fast and cheap scout)

EDIT: I forgot to mention: I heard something about the way liminal works being changed. I don't remember how it was changed, but there was something... and Dunefolk in both versions have several liminal units.

EDIT 2: Asked on discord: Liminal before the rework was -25% during day and night, 0% for dusk and dawn. After the rework, it's 0% day and night, +25% dusk and dawn.
Last edited by patience_reloaded on August 18th, 2020, 8:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Poison
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Re: How to play dunefolk

Post by Poison »

Not to mention that 1.15 version all have ranged attacks and look really powerful.
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HonzaCZ
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Re: How to play dunefolk

Post by HonzaCZ »

so liminal is a better neutral in 1.15
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patience_reloaded
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Re: How to play dunefolk

Post by patience_reloaded »

Yes. If I didn't miscalculate, liminal is around 8 1/3 % better than neutral (or lawful or chaotic), averaged over 6 turns. This means that a liminal unit (in 1.15) with 20 damage on the main weapon is actually closer to a neutral, lawful or chaotic unit with 21 or 22 damage (If I calculated correctly).

On 1.14 however, liminal is negative, letting a 20-dmg-liminal unit end up on more like 17 average damage.

Therefore (and due to the whole reworks) the question: What version do you want to learn how to play dunefolk on?
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HonzaCZ
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Re: How to play dunefolk

Post by HonzaCZ »

patience_reloaded wrote: August 18th, 2020, 9:37 am Yes. If I didn't miscalculate, liminal is around 8 1/3 % better than neutral (or lawful or chaotic), averaged over 6 turns. This means that a liminal unit (in 1.15) with 20 damage on the main weapon is actually closer to a neutral, lawful or chaotic unit with 21 or 22 damage (If I calculated correctly).

On 1.14 however, liminal is negative, letting a 20-dmg-liminal unit end up on more like 17 average damage.

Therefore (and due to the whole reworks) the question: What version do you want to learn how to play dunefolk on?
when will 1.15 become the stable version?
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patience_reloaded
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Re: How to play dunefolk

Post by patience_reloaded »

1.15 will always be the development version. The stable one is going to be called 1.16. I guess 1.16 will use the dunefolk from 1.15, with possibly minor balancing fixes, but I don't think it will change too much.

I asked on discord about when 1.16 will be released. I'll edit this post once I get an answer.
EDIT: On discord, they said that there shouldn't be any changes from 1.15 to 1.16 (if I understood correctly).
The goal is to release 1.16 on 2021-10-23 (see https://wiki.wesnoth.org/1.15_Roadmap). Until then, 1.14 will remain the stable version.
Plq
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Re: How to play dunefolk

Post by Plq »

IMHO dunefolk as concept perform better in hands of player1 due to their liminalness. (Please take my input with big GRAIN of salt as I don't play online MP and only play mp within small group of friends so my tactics and thoughts might not be universally true due to this).

Let's say you want to poke wolfrider at dusk (or cavalryman at dawn) with rider/rover ranged attack as player1. Now if player2 wants to dogfight you intead of retreating he will still face TOD boosted retal which might bring his unit on very low hp. On the other hand if you try to do the same exact thing as player 2... after your turn your damage gets lower while player1 gets advantage of TOD damage boost and might deal whole more damage to you rendering your previous poke useless as your unit is more damaged than his and it's you who has to retreat.

But I think Dunefolk are quite enjoyable to play.
Imho key to play dunefolk is to coordinate their lawful and liminal units. You have three liminal units - Rider, Rover and herbalist - two of them quick and with good ranged attack who can soften up enemy units at dawn or finish units at dusk (or whenever). Then you have three lawful units - piercer, soldier and burner. Soldier is especially good for taking villages, outlaws or elves out of forest or merfolk out of water - his melee marksmanship strikes are no joke and he can really punish those units that rely on evasiveness rather than resistances (and he absolutely murders orcish assasins too). Burner is rather interesting unit with strong fire attack both ranged and melee and you will use this unit to burn woses, undead, trolls etc. Piercer is a weird unit, something like melee thunderer so it's either awesome or very bad. I don't really use this unit.
Dunefolk also has a healer. Herbalist ist IMHO least useful of all three lvl1 healers as he doesn't bring much more than his healing abilites. While shaman can use his slow so he doesn't have to heal that much and augur has good magical attack... herbalist only has his mace but he can heal 8HP so it's zero utility vs more healing.
Not to mention, majority of Dunefolk units have blade, arcane and pierce resistances which makes them very resilient against many core units of other nations. They are weak to impact which is arguably least used type of attack found among wesnoth units.
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