Repel is broken.
 

Repel is broken. Witness 40 dragonflies from Swarm attacking someone. They all die. What would cause that to happen? Well, Repel is not working properly. Repel does NOT subtract Attack for each successful Repel that turn. That makes it extremely powerful. Much, much too powerful. This means that anyone with a lengthy weapon and high Attack is basically immune to ANY NUMBER of units with a shorter weapon with a lower defense. And that can be... pretty much anyone in the game, for a properly outfitted thug or SC.

Discuss?

Re: Repel is broken.
 

are you sure? I mean, maybe that one had some kind of "damage attacker" buff, like fireshied, or simply poison barbs.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

I'm sure.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Kind of an ironic thread from the poison arrow man. Hahah.

This has been discussed before. It's something about the mindless tag that seems to remove the -2 to each subsequent repel.

You're wrong that repel makes units with high att and long weapons invulnerable to units with shorter weapons though. They can still attack if they pass a morale check, they just have a chance of taking 1 damage.

Before anyone states unequivocally that a mechanic is broken they should probably run a few tests.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Yeah, this only works against mindless beings. If you replace morale 50 with morale 30, the Dragonflies suddenly deal a respectable amount of damage if they focus all of their damage to the same target.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Hey Sombre, they can still attack, but the Repel goes in first, thereby killing the dragonfly before it attacks. So how does that seem to be working to you?

I guess Repel is only broken against 1hp mindless creatures. That sucks bigtime for a few nature spells.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

I didn't say it's working as the manual states. Just that people should run tests before claiming something is broken.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

It is broken. How does that not seem broken to you? It doesn't work properly when faced with certain scenarios. That's like... the definition of broken, exploitable, and buggy.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

but the level of "brokeness" is way lower. It's not the same that dragonflies have a problem against high attack repel SC, than high attack repel SC are completelly invulnerable to everything. The second one would shake the very foundation of the game, drastically changing how you build up SC. high attack and high length weapons would make Awe/etherealness obsolete.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

But here we have multiple spells that could otherwise be used to harry and harm thugs, SCs, and assassins, become complete wastes instead, and actually a detriment to cast. It's very disappointing, because it SHOULD work... but the mechanic for Repel is broken. So people counting on these spells to work properly could recieve a very nasty surprise, and that's just not cool.

So maybe it's more accurate to say that the spells are broken. Either way, it's disappointing to say the least.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

The word "broken" might not have the power you think. It can win you points in this forum, but if you want it fixed then getting agreement that something is broken is not the best route.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Maybe bugged is a better word. Still, if the designers choose not to fix it, it certainly is not the fault who raise the bug.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

*deleted due to slow internet connections*

Re: Repel is broken.
 

it's hardly a problem in any game, lets forget it

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Why? Because the manual says so? KO stated in the thread about prophetising under siege that the manual is wrong rather than the mechanic in some cases.

Repeating that it IS broken and SHOULD work a certain way is a bit pointless.

I don't see how the spells are broken. It doesn't say in the description of swarm that it's an anti SC spell does it?

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Swarm would be an anti-assassin spell if it weren't for the repel-bug. If you pay one gem for summoning lots of troops to protect you, you expect them to actually be able to stall an assassin armed with fire sword for more than one turn.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

It is bugged not only because mannual said otherwise, but also because the current behaviour is neither consistent nor logical. Why would someone repel ten attacks as easily as one attack? Even this is a fantasy game, your spear/sword still cannot be at all places at the same time, regardless whether the attacker is mindless or not.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Well the bug can be mitigated to an extent by making dragonflies non mindless.

I'm definitely not saying it isn't bugged. I think the fact that it works differently with mindless units isn't what the devs intended and doesn't make much sense. I just want the thread to be clear about exactly what's wrong with repel, why it should work differently and what could be done to fix or change it.

I always regarded swarm as an army delaying spell rather than an anti SC or anti assassin spell. The dragonflies suiciding themselves against a single sword doesn't seem right in any scenario though.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

It's a small thing in a big game, but it makes no sense.

• If a defender successfully puts his weapon in front of the attacker, and the attacker is brave enough to attack anyway despite taking 1 damage, and dies from this, then the defender wont be hurt. Makes sense.
• 50 dragonflies all at once decide to bump into the enemies sword before biting him in the ear, no matter hos slow and unskilled he is. Thus losing their one hp. Why would they do that?

So this 1.07 patch change ("Dragonflies' strength changed from 0 to 1 and they can now inflict damage.") only matters against unarmed foes?

This should mean that soulless always takes one point of damage when attacking armed foes. (Almost always. The repel attempt dont always penetrate their 0 prot). Dont remember seeing it, but easy to miss. Unless it's not for all mindless units.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Well look at shields. They are 'bugged' in the same way. A comander with a parry 8(or 9?) shield can survive thousands of archer shooting against him. There is only an insignificant chance of a hit and each parry is like you parry the first arrow.

I agree that this is somehow illogical.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Works that way in the film 300 as well. So dominions got it spot on. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Repel is broken.
 

you said it before I could

braveheart, same thing.
speaking of repel mechanics...

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Nah, that concept I like. I imagine pythium infantry moving in a turtle formation with shields in front and above. Arrows are too fast to react to, you just hide under the shields and hope for the best. Thus the first arrow has the same chance as the last.

(though yes, a sc holding a parry8-shield above his head to block arrows while also using it to block melee attacks is funny. But nevermind that).

Has anyone ever seen dragonflies from swarm kill an armed guy?

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Yes, apparently they killed a marshmaster with a skull staff rather handily. We believe this is due to his lower attack (than a towering SC like an archdevil).

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Parry 8 or 9 is bigger than a tower shield and should protect someone from all arrows of one direction, which is the majority of cases in dominions battles. One arrow or 20 arrows does not make a difference, they all hit the shield. Now shooting from different directions, OTOH, is another question.

More troublesome, is that shield bonus applied to all melee. If you block one attack, or attack from one direction, you are unlikely to use shield on other attacks.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Melee attacks are different in that they reduce Defense by 2 for each additional attack, thereby fulfilling a more realistic model. So I think that everyone is happy with that.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Well i don't think its logical just to have a big shield to be protected from all arrows regardless the shield holder is a simple comander or a hero. You can even totally surrounded by enemies and they miss you.

Thats the reason why long range weapons are irrevelant (besides some autoeffect weapons) in lategame.

I wished more dependencies to the abilities of the bearer. A high precision shooter should be able to hit even a shielded target, but precision helps only to hit a special field but you still automiss (99,999%) a high parry target.

The shield parry value should also be modified by a bearer ability (maybe defence?) to reflect heroic or just dumb reactions. Not every 30 gold commander is a 300 hero!

So enough offtopic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Repel is broken.
 

I noticed this in one of the Worthy Heroes games where my opponent cast a swarm against Beowulf, and all the dragonflies went Pop!

Nevertheless, I've also seen swarm cast effectively in MP games where it has caused a lot of disruption to an army. There may be a bug here, but Swarm has not been rendered useless.

As for deflecting 68 million arrows, I could draw attention to, say, the film Hero. It's not entirely out of character with legendary achievement.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Hmmm, I guess you didn't watch that one all the way through.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

[spoilers within for the film Hero]


The assassin refuses to kill the emperor because he is persuaded that the emperor is the best hope for China and will bring peace and rule fairly by law. Consequently, he (and the emperor) believes the emperor must enforce the law and execute him for the attempted assassination: he dies willingly for his belief in justice and the emperor.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Ahhhhhhhh. I guess I'd forgotten the details of the story, it being one of those predictable, cloyingly fatalistic Crouching Tiger clones like House of Flying Daggers.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Hero isn't in any sense a Crouching Tiger clone, unless you mean that it's made with western audiences in mind.

That genre of film and TV had been popular in China for a looong time before CT came on the scene. You might have a case with HoFD, but again I think that's part of a different genre, with strong influences from korean adaptations of chinese historical drama. But this is off topic, so nevermind.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

And movies like Hero really stink. No sane Chinese will want to watch movies like that.

Re: Repel is broken.
 

... I do not consider Repel broken. From what I have seen it is very seldom useful. If it was broken everyone would be building pikeneers who I see very seldom.

Most of the spells are useless against a SC so what kind of argument is that?

Re: Repel is broken.
 

To me Hero is great ^^ It's so estetically wonderful I would like it even if the story was sh*t (and it isn't at all) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Crouching Tiger, and the Flying Daggers, i didn't like.

To me shields make sense, you rise it and hope you are not hit, we can all imagine this as we've seen it in movies so let's not overcomplicate mechanics plz ^^

Yeah repel is a little worst. I can still imagine the game battle as an actual /sample/ of a real battle, so yes, maybe 3 or 4 subsequent attacks don't happen in 1 sec, but in some minutes for what we know, the defender moves the spear around. Still, things like the Dragonflies are supposed to be little, dodgy, and to attack in swarm, so really difficult to me imagining all of them impale all on the same spear like a kebab XD

Re: Repel is broken.
 

Actually, the dragonflies land on the spear, but it's so sharp that it cuts them in half just from the force of their own weight. That's how the spear got its name, Tonbo-Giri (Dragonfly Cutter).

...Oh wait, you meant an ordinary spear? Well, that shouldn't happen then. You should only be able to kill a couple dragonflies per round with it.