Resistances vs Defense

[tido61037]

Im a fan of Resistances because i love to watch my tanky boys receive a lots of hit but still make it out alive. How about you ? Between a high Resistances unit and a high Defense(no resistances penalty) unit which do you prefer ? Why ?

[Atreides]

Well there is a significant difference in terms of how they feel. Defence depends on die rolls. Resistance is totally reliable on the other hand.

Personally I have no preference though as a player. For unit design though it matters as I stated above.

Interesting point about resistances is that they have levels or stages to them. Due to how damage is rounded 10% resistance only kicks in at higher damages and does 0 for small hits. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a table on the forums with the number. I'd worked them out myself but I've, uh, forgotten the exact details now. : ) But basically 10% means 1 off 10 dam. 20% means 1 off 5 dam.

[patience_reloaded]

Resistance has some interesting quirks if you dive deeper: If you have a unit with very high resistances but very low HP, the unit might take a similar amount of raw damage to bring down as a unit with much better HP but no resistances. However, if the highly resistant low HP unit is on 1hp and has to heal in a village or with healers, it will heal to full health quickly because the healing is a constant number that ignores the resistances. After only a few turns, the resistance unit will be back to full health, while the non-resistant high-HP unit might only be back to half of its HP, and thus won't be able to take the same number of hits again.
It's similar with poison, which ignores resistances too.

This means that for those high-resistance units, healing is more effective, but poison is too. That's why dwarves are countered by poison, and it's why a ghost in a village can seem invincible.

With the effect of healing being amplified for high-resistance units, drain too is amplified, since a unit with no resistances would have to drain twice as much to get the same amount of raw damage taking potential back.
High resistances also decrease the effects other units get from draining the high-resistance unit.

[shevegen]

> Im a fan of Resistances because i love to watch my tanky boys receive a lots of hit but still make it out alive. How about you ?

I don't know how the things really work in wesnoth (you would be surprised how much I don't know), but I absolutely love steadfast, in particular the dwarven guard unit that has it. I put these little tanks at choke points and they just put a whole enemy unit to a stalemate! THis is a lot of fun. Ideally with a healer in backrow too.

As for drain: I love ghost/wraith. Their speed and mobility is so cool and they are quite sturdy too even if they lack hp.