What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Ok folks, your opinions please.

In the red corner, we have the ice devils Oriax and Cimejes. One is armed with an athame and enchanted shield, the other with athame and shield of the accursed. Both are wearing winged shoes, starshine skullcaps and red DSM and carrying pendants of luck. One has an antimagic amulet and the other has a heart of life. Oriax has 88hp and heroic precision (bummer); Cimejes has 174hp with heroic toughness.

In the blue corner, the nataraja SliceyDicey. She's wielding four mains gauche of parrying, and is wearing the armour of virtue and a starshine skullcap, plus winged shoes and a burning pearl. Her paths are A3W2E1S3 (S4 with skullcap). She has 144hp.

All three cast quickness in round one.

Round two, SliceyDicey casts Personal Luck and Ironskin. Protection now 29. Both ice devils cast Breath of Winter and then fly across to the nataraja.

Round three, SliceyDicey casts Astral Weapon and attacks. All four attacks appear to miss. She has 22 total attack (four stars plus quickness plus pearl) - one ice devil has 20 def, the other 26. So I assume she was attacking the tougher one, though not necessarily, given that all three combatants have Luck.

Still in round three, the ice devils' attacks appear to miss - SliceyDicey still has 144hp, she does not have regen, and the Returning does not trigger. Yet Oriax now has 101hp instead of 88, and his fatigue is way down. (Cimejes still has 174hp and fatigue as expected - consistent with his attacks missing.)

So, suspected bug #1: the life drain on the athame appears to give life even when no damage is dealt. I suppose Oriax could have scored a hit which was not strong enough to penetrate the 29 protection, but I fail to see why that should result in him gaining life + fatigue.

Round four, SliceyDicey appears to miss eight times. The astral weapon spell should ensure that the minimum damage from a successful hit is well over 20 (~25 str plus 3 from the main gauche). Oriax's hp drops from 101 to 99 (which I assume are just the excess from lifedrain "wearing off") and Cimejes' hp are unaffected.

Yet SliceyDicey now has a horror mark, consistent with having hit the bearer of the shield of the accursed. Can anyone explain how this can happen? Can you get such a mark from merely attacking, even if you don't hit??

Then the ice devils attack and the Returning triggers, so I assume one of them scored some damage.

Can somebody tell me how flanking is supposed to work? It's -1 def per attack beyond the first each round, I think. Does that include attacks from the same creature?? ie. is my nataraja's 8th attack going to be with a -7 def penalty for the defender, if all 8 attacks are on the same target? Or is the penalty limited to -1 per attacker?

And if you can't beat ice devils with 43 def and astral weapon, how do you beat them? They both have >20 MR so spells are unlikely to succeed ...

Confused,

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

What was his attack rating listed for each weapon when you right clicked on the attack rating.

The actual damage dealt by an armour negating weapon in this case would be 28 + 1d6oe - 1d6oe.

It's this case.

Well, for one, don't cast returning, since you are bound to get hit once in a while.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

22,22,22,22

?? Oh. I never knew that. Even so, the chances are good that the damage would be higher than 2!

Er, sorry, I didn't understand that.

I didn't cast it, it's intrinsic to the Virtue armour - but that was just a precaution. I wanted to see how much damage I could do before getting hit. That would be a good guide to see whether I could kill an ice devil or two without too much risk. I'm not surprised about getting hit at all; I am surprised that I did no damage whatsoever, despite 8 armour negating attacks, and that the flipping ice devils are draining life when they didn't damage me! Given my 22 att and their 20|26 def, cf their 20|28 att and my 43 def, I would expect to hit a *lot* more often than them - given that there were 8 attacks per round on each side.

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I recall reading on the forums that special effects are somehow 'seperate' from the weapon attack - so that accounts life drain and accursed shield. Some may call it a bug, especially for life drain.

You may just have had unlucky rools. Also, against ID, why not try the +damage vs undead and demons weapons like herald lance.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

It's definitely buggy for life drain - makes no sense at all. I guess one could argue that the cursed shield effect could trigger on a blocked attack (ie. a miss).I don't think I need more damage, I need more hits! If I could hit the bastards I'm fairly sure the astral weapon would be enough. One hit should have a ~10-20% chance of giving them a battle affliction, and it'd be downhill from there. 8 attacks per round should make short work of them, if only they were hitting.

While I'm here, can *anybody* confirm or deny whether Frozen Heart works on ice devils? Logically it shouldn't work on anything with 100% cold resistance, but you never know with this game - maybe it's not classed as a "cold" attack ...

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I've seen ice devils not taking any damage from my Astral-Weaponed Freaklord for like ... 20 rounds of battle. Thought it was a bug with Astral Weapon not affecting trample, but possibly Astral Weapon doesn't affect Ice Devils?

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

There are lots of ways to kill an ice devil. Ice Devils are classified as SC's, and there is a very recent thread on magic vs SC's. 20 resistance doesn't make them immune to spells.

What weapon is the athame. I don't recognize it and I couldn't find it in the magic item list.

The Naj has the ability to conifg a lot of different ways weapon wise. If the Athamme doesn't give fire protection, the dragon scale armor won't give 100% resistance to fire, so you could use any of the multiple fire weapons.

Vine Shield/Eye shield could also work.

And as Oversway mentioned there are a few +demon weapons that you could use. The flambeau does fire dmg + 3x dmg to demons. You could use 2 of them, 1 + weapon + shield or 1 + 2 weapons.

Also, why not use more of the buffs you have available?

A3 has Mistform and Mirror Image
S3 gives you access to Astral shield and Body Etheral
W2 gives you access to cold resistance

And if I'm not mistaken Naj are cold blooded...you could be going in with a stacked deck if the province your fighting in is cold. Not only does it effect you, but it buffs ice devils.

Anyhow, Ice devils are great, but theres a ton of ways to beat them.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Blood Athame, IIRC - Blood booster, and a life-draining dagger. The life-drain is good enough even in such a small form.

Natarajas aren't cold-blooded, but they are affected by cold dominion more than other pretenders because they make more attacks. The normal slight increase for extreme cold affects every attack IIRC.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Attack is decreased by high fatigue. So after casting all those spells, with no reinvigoration, what was the Nat's fatigue? Also, if it fell asleep, the Ice Devils would hit it 100% of the time, and (IIRC) ignore the armor.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

If that's true, it makes IDs even more unbalanced than we already know they are. How come nobody's noted this in a bug thread in the past ~3 years? (I can only assume it's a bug because the game gives no indication of this.) Is anything else unaffected by AW?

It would certainly explain the observed combat results though - both IDs had prot 28.

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

That's true, and it looks like I'll have to rely on spells. It's a shame that they're unbeatable in melee though - they are only research level 5 summons with level 6 kit.It's shown on the item list as "Blood Thorn", but once equipped it's called Athame.As I replied to Oversway, it's not dealing damage that's the problem - if Astral Weapon actually works as stated in the game, I don't need AP weapons or anti-demon weapons or fire weapons or anything special. If AW is buggy then my whole strategy collapses, because without the insane DEF the nataraja will not last long enough to kill them whatever her weapons.Mistform vanishes on being hit with a magic weapon, so it's useless vs equipped SCs (I don't know if it protects from that first hit or not, but it's no better than Twist Fate even if it does).
Mirror Image potentially absorbs up to 4 hits, though I'm unconvinced by this - anyone want to argue in its favour? (Would you use it over Quickness, Personal Luck, Ironskin, Astral Weapon or Cold Resistance?)
Astral Shield is defeated by an MR check, so is pointless against SCs with MR in the 20s.
Body Ethereal doesn't protect against magic weapons so is the same as Mistform (and doesn't even protect against the first hit).
Cold resistance is a good suggestion though - thank you.You are mistaken - the Nat is not cold blooded. Besides, the IDs are Abysian, so the whole world is boiling, and their cold bonuses are the least of my worries (in fact the heat is making them weaker).

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

It didn't fall asleep. The Nat had fatigue in the 50s after buffs, with +3 per round from encumbrance. The returning kicked in when her fatigue was about 65, so she hadn't fallen asleep at all.

I knew fatigue lowered DEF, but I didn't know it lowered ATT as well - is it the same mechanic? -1 per 10 fatigue or something?

In every MP game I've played the player with the IDs has won. Usually it's me, but this time I decided to stay away from blood entirely and see if I could defeat them. The combination of AW not working on IDs and ATT reducing after fatigue from buffs makes an SC pretty unlikely to work. Which is ridiculous, since the IDs are nowhere near the most expensive summons, so why should they be the best SCs?

I'll try using spells - most of the best anti-SC spells seem to need E3 or more, and Tien Chi lacks earth mages (only the Celestial Master with a random pick in earth). Frozen Heart would ironically be the ideal spell vs Arch Devils, but not Ice Devils. Ho hum.

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I've read that Frozen Heart does NOT check cold resistance, but I havn't tried it myself.

On the other hand, I've never heard of astral weapon not working. Especially with one class of monsters. I'm not that suprised it doesn't work with trample, however.

I'd still have a go at the ID with your nat again. If you were going for the high def ID with luck, missing all those times could be possible.

If still no luck, you could try a couple other weapons to test the theory. The armor negating dagger (I think its 1s1d) might help. A higher attack weapon - fire sword or better yet firebrand might also help you hit.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I think that SCs including Ice Devils are a bit overpowered in Doms 2, afaik SCs will be "nerfed" in Doms3.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I knew items which had life stealing were being nerfed, but I didn't know the SC's themselves were also being nerfed.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

even if only lifedrain is nerfed, most sc's will take a big blow from that (which is why ive been making non life-stealing sc's/thugs lately)

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I assume your not using CB because Bloodthorns got nerfed.

If I'm not mistaken Astral weapon isn't tied to the actaul weapon dealing dmg outside of the weapon damage, so 3x multipler for deamons is still a very good thing.

I have seen Etheral units equipped with defense + luck give magic weilding enemies fits. Its just standard for me...any melee combatant with 1s casts body eth, astral shield and astral weapon. I never cast luck personally if I am concerned about the 5 script limit. Theres 2 really cheap ways to get it, and the other buffs are either impossible to get or really expensive. And normally I never do so end up casting the same buffs.

I'd run a solo test game playing two sides, get both sides equipped the same exact way, and play with your script, then if all else fails, play with your item config. That is if your only option is your one SC vs the two ID's. Massed undead, those Angel toting flambeus etc etc.

NT Jedi - In one of the threads there was mention that there was a sift away from SC's and more towards ground pounding armies.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Correct. Will try CB one day, if Dom3 doesn't come out first!Correct again - you are quite right that higher-damage weapons would be better, but my primary concern is def. So I'll replace the mains gauches once I've forged the Summit, Stone Sword and Mage Bane ....I promise you, Body Ethereal is just a waste of fatigue if your opponent has magic weapons. I would usually put a coin, amulet or a Faithful on my pretender and not script Luck, but couldn't in this build.Well, I never did get to see how well Frozen Heart works against IDs. My god, my entire army, and my 26-strong mage cadre got absolutely raped. I'm not sure if it was really the IDs that were the problem - there were 30-odd devils who made my troops rout before a single Frozen Heart got cast.

It occurs to me that it would have been very different if I'd been defending rather than attacking (breaking siege counts as "attacking", so the sieging force gets to move first). Then the FHs would have started coming a round earlier and it might have looked different.

Ho hum. Off to try and remember how to play VGAP.

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Watch where you point that thing! Only recommended for expendable, possibly immortal commanders. Ideally ones without any other artifacts.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

if you want mass defence/prot go: 3 main gauches, accursed shield, black steel helm/spirit helm, that air armour that gives 3 defence (and possibly mirror image) chi shoes and cat charm/ring of regen

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Well, he's going to forge some nice weapons (Magebane + Summit is awesome): that's more defence with some mean fighting power.

I have heard that area attacks completely bypass defence, so you might wish to make sure there aren't any such item in the game before going too high on defence. I think a couple artifacts have this effect, but I could be wrong (I have seen more of them in CB 5.2 or so). I haven't had the opportunity of checking that, though, but I know my 52 defence would have very much disliked that sort of trick. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

demon whip is a cheap AoE weapon, some artifacts such as ember and sword of many colours are more potent (you could always get a nataraja with 4 demon whips, quckness, luck and astral weapon since the fire should also help vrs the devils)

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Whips don't add strength and they descrease defense, I believe... you usually want to do more damage than 40 a turn against 2 ID.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

you could get a bunch of banelords or something with 2 whips and boots of quickness or something (or a bunch of guys with gatecleavers, boots of flying, burning pearls and rings of the warrior

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

For both SP and MP I use both CB and Patch_only.


My comment was I recall reading that life draining weapons have been made less effective.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

It doesn't. It affects every attack action, of which the Nataraja gets one per turn, like every other unit.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

It's -1 per 20 fatigue, so your Nataraja had an attack of less than 20 versus a defense of more than 25. That kind of attack/defense disadvantage is extremely hard to hit through. I wouldn't have expected very many hits given only two rounds of combat.

This is how faulty information and rumours get started. Nobody has said anything that even suggests that there's evidence that astral weapon doesn't effect Ice Devils, and you're already posting it like it's a fact.

They aren't. Arch devils are certainly better given that they can cast phoenix pyre.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Mirror image potentially absorbs dozens of hits, since they only dissappear when the real unit is hit, and you can have 10 or more images with a high enough air magic.

I'd defintely use it instead of cold resistance. Breath of winter isn't going to cause you significant damage with reasonable protection.

It's still going to succeed 1/20 times for MR 18, and 1/100 times for MR in the 20's. That's about one paralysis per battle.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I think they're better, though it depends on the map and nation. Self-casting Quickness, the ability to go underwater, higher base protection, bonus protection in cold provinces, and no weakness to fire (versus 50% weakness to cold, for Arch Devils) make them extremely potent. Not so great for Abysia, though. Also, some people might prefer Fire Shield, but Breath of Winter can be used similarly, against non-undeads.

Neither of them are really as good as Tartarians, though, at 10D+20N each; the differences in HP, encumbrance, size (for trample), and magic skills are pretty major. Immortals such as Wraith Lords and Vampire Lords, and non-standard choices like Vastnessess can all be more effective in many situations, too.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

a bunch of un-equiped vampire lords ar e amazing at harrasing the enemy as he trie to reinforce his main invasion (aslong as you stay in friendly dominions)

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

No, but more than the IDs hitting me! (effective att 25 vs effective def ~38)
Er, remind me who was the first person to suggest that AW didn't affect IDs? All I did was repeat Cainehill's theory. I assumed that nobody would take it as fact, since his suggestion was a few posts up in the same thread. If I had posted it in a different thread, I would have been more careful to note that it was merely a suggestion. It is probably wrong though - he did hit Cimejes for ~25 damage one time, so I guess it works.It's by no means certain, as Saber Cherry has illustrated. Given that they come at 5/7 the cost an entire research level earlier, they're pretty near untouchable in a cost-benefit analysis.

My main problem, as Tien Chi, was no access to decent thugs or summonable SCs of any sort (apart from the paths on my pretender). You can eventually summon elemental royalty once you've managed to forge enough path boosters (elemental staff, air hat and bag, water bracelet, fire helmet and skull), but you're likely to be beaten to the punch there. With almost no access to death or blood you can't have wraiths or vampires. So it really calls for a totally different strategy, of troops backed up by mages with plenty of carefully used battle spells, but I just didn't get it right. In the army setup screen it looked like my mages were carefully protected inside a big square of high morale troops, but in the actual battle they were side by side so the mages got killed before they could do their work.

CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Theres a simple explanation. blood thorn got nerfed in the mod. it does 0 damage and strenght is not added. so is useless in combat.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Well, if your idea is to have some ID-killer Natty, I think you need her to have more attack punch (at least one weapon with high att and damage), and some sort of regen as well as reinvig would be nice too. If you play vanilla Dom2 a life-drain weapon is nearly a must also.

I don't think *any* lone creature can kill well-equipped IDs if equipped with an Armor of Virtue, you'll always be hit before finishing one.

As for your battle, maybe there's a Life drain bug, but what I think occured is that you made some hits - but without much damage done-, and then a lucky hit from an ID sent you away. Nothing unusual...

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

but if he can curse them, all of his attacks+quickness should be able to give them a few afflictions

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

True. I replaced the AoV with rainbow armour as soon as I got a random nature on a Celestial Master (my 26th - took quite a while).

I don't get why ppl think you need more damage when each hit does 25+ with AW. Anyway, leaving aside the weapons, I'd be interested to see what people would change on a nat:

rainbow armour (the displacement armour is twice the enc and gives no reinvig)
starshine skullcap (means the astral buffs give less fatigue, and there are no hats with reinvig)
flying boots (essential for strat mvmt - was going to go Anteus or Calius for combat)
burning pearl (essential vs. Abysia, though Krupp's bracers would have been nice)


CC

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

the reason people said you need more damage is because it means by the time you do hit it wil be more than 25 dmg.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Amon Hotep could be nice in the Helmet department. It also is expensive. Very much so. Still, you might find some use for 50% fire resistance, 30 natural protection and Awe +5. Besides, it looks good. Crown of the Ivy King might be another option, and a much more reasonable one; it would give your Pretender some regeneration.

In the upscale department for armours, there is always the Robe of the Magi. It would work out much better than your current Rainbow Armour, but it is, of course, much more expensive (and finding the right mage could be troublesome, if you haven't been blood hunting).

The Stone Bird could help you with attacking, though I suspect its "lessen defence of the target" effect happens after your main weapons. That one aside, a Crystal Heart/Elixir of Life comes to mind, if you are concerned about your Pretender biting the dust; I know I like too much Immortality, the Armour of Virtue and things of the like. Well, live and let live and all that...

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

Theres better buffs then cold resistance, my point was that he was only using part of his script with those paths.

Re: What\'s wrong with this battle?
 

I'm still working on how the ice devils were managing to hit the Nataraja... Let's see... A defense of 43, taken down to 38 by fatigue (10:1 ratio... Right? It's 20:1 for protection?). Now, each ice devil has four attacks per round (two with the dagger, two with the tail). That means the last attack of the round will be an attack rating of 22 versus a defense of 31. How unlikely is that to hit? Consulting Zooko's experiment, that's about 5%... So, pretty unlikely that you got hit, even for no damage, in a given round. Two rounds in a row, even more unlikely (considerably less than one percent). Could it have happened, though? Sure. Try this: make a little test map. Give one side the two ice devils, equipped as they were, and the other side a nataraja appropriately equipped. Add the spells to the appropriate nations, so they can cast them in the battle. Re-run the fight a few times. See how it goes. I'm guessing most of them you would get hit much less often.

I do have a vague recollection that the healing/reinvigorating effects of a life drain weapon are independent of whether it actually does any damage. Not sure, though, and an uninspired search of the forum revealed nothing. If you do run the tests, let me know how it goes!