Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Hello everybody,

I've been playing Dominions with my gaming group since the original. Our latest game drove home how overpowered the paralysis spell is. I don't think it's functioning quite like it's meant to.
(Christoffer asked me to make a thread about this to see what others think).

[first some background]
Our latest 4 way game on a large (120 province) map run close to 130 turns, before we declared it a three way tie. I've never seen this much high level battlefield magic, summons and artefacts in play. What I saw, is that paralysis, cast by humble Astral 2 mages was the bane of supercombatants. Even when we were equipping our pretenders and other SC's with enough gear to get MR 24+, they get paralysed, and then it's all over.

I don't have a problem with them getting paralysed as such, but even on a high MR Size 6 creature, the paralysis practically always lasts 20+ turns. That, is the problem. In effect, Paralysis has the same effect as Soul Slay, unless you win the fight.

I'd be fine with Paralysis if it would last a more sane number of rounds. Maybe d6 + the extra power the caster has, maybe even an open ended d6.

What do the rest of you think?

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I'm not MP-experienced enough to have a very
extensive insight on the problem. But I've recently seen Paralyze used/spammed (via Paralyze or via Mind Blast) in 2 occasions : once against an opponent, once against me. In both cases, I've been surprised but the number of turns (>20 !!!) a big unit with high MR (namely : a god) can be crippled... and promised to a pityful death.

OTOH, it may just be a question of (un)luck. But the fact is that I will massively try to use S2 mages ASAP in the future :D

I think that
could be a good patch.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I've always felt paralyze is a bit overpowered. A single S2 mage is enough to really bring down any thugs/SCs not boosted with MR gear, and with light of the northern star even S1 mages can spam it. I think your suggestion on the effect length is a good one.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Isn't soul slay more powerful? If you can do light of northen star, a simple reverse communion by enirely S1 mages can spam soul slay as well. Against heavy astral nations, I felt MR27 should be standard. :)

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I think, also, part of the problem may lie in the fact that MA/LA R'yleh has access to cheap paralyzers.

Jazzepi

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

There are plenty of cheap ways to kills SCs with less research and/or paths, and paralysis isn't even one the best ways so "no, I don't think it's overpowered."

In general, I think most people always declare anything that hurts SCs as "overpowered." Since I don't want SCs to become the only end-game tactic, I'm in the other camp. I think SCs should have a place in the game, but not the dominant position that people who invest heavily in them would like.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

My feeling isn't so much that there aren't lots of other ways to kill SCs, it's that paralyze shouldn't basically be a kill. Not at 2S and that low a research level. I'm gonna go ahead and throw down that gauntlet K, what is a better way to kill a SC with less research and or paths. Without using gems go ahead and show me how a mage with 2 magic in whatever paths you want can stop a SC with less research than paralyze using a PD screen. Heck, even using gems there's not much short of high research that can't be fairly easily countered by the right immunity.

From a thematic point of view it seems much better to me to think "We paralyzed the cyclops! Lets quickly try to kill it before he recovers" rather than "We paralyzed the cyclops! Whew, lets get a drink and then set up a rotation chipping away at him. I'll take the first shift."

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

The challenge was thrown down for K but I accept it. SPAM HORROR MARK!

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I hate paralyze and blindness too for that matter, lost a very big number of SC to a single mage in a province with big PD that managed to pull out a lucky paralyze, and often in first shot!
It should be either a little easier to resist or less turn paralyzed.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Ok-dokey. Here are a few examples of comparable MR resist spells that are good when you've mages spamming them:

I've killed an enemy SC god using Rage in an MP game. He turned and killed most of his own army before they killed him. F2 at Thaum 3. I didn't even script Rage.

Sleep is mighty effective if you have a few guys spamming it. N2 at Thaum2.

Decay, while hard to actually hit anyone with, can do the job as well if the battle is long and he's not undead or lifeless.

If you don't like the MR-saves spells, we can go back to Astral for Starfires. It's armor negatingm kills with real damage and comes in at S1 at Evo1.

If you are lucky and your enemy SC is Astral, you can can do Magic Duel at S1 at Evo3. Sure, you may lose a few S1 mages before the rolls favor you, but it can be worth it to kill an SC (I've killed fully-kitted golems in MP with S1s before).

And, if none of those are right for you, Vengeance of the Dead comes in at S3D1 and Thaum4. It's a little more expensive than Paralyse in terms of mage paths and gems but it's the same research cost and it kills things dead pretty well.

I'm not saying that any of these are perfect, or even as good as in as many situations as Soul Slay or Paralyze, but they are comparable and the counters to them are all the same: don't overuse SCs or thugs. Considering that Astral is very weak early on against most enemies, it compensates by being good against SCs and thugs.

The one thing that really gets me is that every time someone whines "oh no, it's unbalanced because it kills SCs" then people seem to ignore that the fact that the same tactic is almost useless against a regular army.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I think the duration can be ridiculously long sometimes. Once I was paralyzed for 52 turns which is basically longer than the entire battle anyway. Open ended d6 sounds like a great idea, possibly with multiple applications of paralyze being additive, so if you really wanted to permanently paralyze someone you could but it would take several mages.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

[quote=K;634015]Stop insulting people please. Nobody is whining. You are putting words in people's mouths and burning straw men.

Other than that, interesting replies.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

It seems to me that the power of this spell fits the overall "unbalanced" way the counters of this game works - intending for "unbalanced" not the negative meaning of the term, but the simple statement that very often the countermove is MUCH stronger than the move. I must say I see it as a feature - which kind of compensates the difficulty you get sometimes getting to counter the move your opponent threw at you if your nation has not the good path / research level for going with the best counter in time.

But I'm a n00bie so just feel free to kill my point badly ;)

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

K:

Decay works on undead.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Have you ever looked at an undead unit's lifespan? Decay may effect them, but they live so long it's irrelevant.

Jazzepi

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Here is what a strawman argument is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man. Please read it completely before charging someone with that particular offense.

And back to the issue....

My point is that "balanced" in the context of Dominions is "good vs some enemies and bad vs others." Anti-SC tactics are usually very good against SCs and very bad against decently-sized armies (which can very effectively use high HP or other kinds of units to draw away anti-SC spells).

While not all the pro-SC crowd are whiners, there are enough to color them as a group. It seems that every week I see a "this spell is broken because it killed my SC" argument, but I rarely see a "this spell is broken because it killed my army" argument. I apologize if that seems like an insult, because I see it as a valid observation about complaints that stem from emotional rather than logical reasons.

I understand that people get attached to their SCs. I don't understand why they ask others to play differently or change the game itself in order to respect that emotional attachment.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I thought that Decay didn't have a chance to kill old undead like it does with living units who are -- or have been taken by the Decay effect-- into old age.

Am I wrong about that?

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I think paralysis should allow those paralyzed to have another MR roll each turn, if they succeed the MR roll then an extra 2 to 10 turns of paralysis are removed. Those with strong MR should overcome the paralysis more quickly since battle turns are so limited.

Just another DOM_4 improvement. :)

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I do not really know about that. Soul slay is just one level up there and it is generally much better against SCs. Paralyzed SCs still may have cold/heat aura, fire/astral shield, blood vengence, awe+fear and more. Why should we nerf a spell that's specifically against thugs/SCs so it would not work on thugs/SCs? Paralyze already has 0.7% chance of working casted by a base caster against 25MR. Who would ever use paralyze against anything if each turn it can shrug off 2-10 turns?

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Not to sound contentious, but most of your suggestions all have the same *big* disadvantage to paralyze, a precision weeeeell south of 100 and also a much shorter range. Paralyze hits every time, from the first round of combat until you run out of fatigue. Those other spells are going to miss a single target the vast majority of the time unless he's close enough to poke you with his sword. This translates into drastically less MR checks and thus a drastically lower effectiveness. Sleep has to overcome the MR on the one or two hits you manage to land after the SC has run through his buff cycle and closed to kill your troops. Not really what I'd describe as the same ballpark as effective as paralyze.

Re: Rage - are you sure you didn't use charm? (tongue in cheek in case that didn't come through). Rage I've had cast many, many times by the unscripted spellcasting AI and the best result I've every gotten was getting a Neifel Jarl whacking a Neifel giant a couple times and giving him an affliction before they both turned back around and stomped my troops. Without arguing the point I'll just say I've had quite different results with Rage that what you describe.

Magic duel is a very special case and not really reasonable as a comparison.

Vengeance of the dead is kinda out there for comparison. It requires a much more powerful, specialized multipath mage and pearls to burn spamming it. It's also a ritual, and that's rather an apples to oranges comparison.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Sure, and I admitted they they aren't as good. The point is that they can be used and only need a hit and a failed save to be effective. Some effects have to be better than others at the same level, and Paralyze sucks at killing units but is great at SCs.

It was Rage. Pretenders are immune to charm.

I think the Raging unit attacks the closest units to it. My mages were at extreme range and the Pretender ran back to his army which was not advancing because they were archers (and my troops were not advancing because I didn't have any). I think he killed himself on their Fire Shields.

Really? Aside from a gem cost, weird mechanic, and requirement of Astral, it has a lot in common with Paralyze. It's Astral, low research, and always hits. It's even better in that kills, can kills things with stupid-high MR, it costs less in research, and it can be cast by a weaker mage without doing anything crazy like communions or having powerful mages cast battlefield spells.

It's a save or die that you don't have to leave home to do, so if it requires a slightly more powerful mage then who cares? The fact that at level 4 you can be killing SCs with a save or die proves my point that there are comparable SC-killers.

I mean, I only highlighted the sexier single casting options. There are plenty of SC killing tactics at low levels. For example, ten Storm Demons on Fire Large Monster vs an SC not immune to lightning can be instant death.... Swarms or summoned undead can be instant death on turn 75....a single caster E1/S1 with Gifts from Heaven can just be a dedicated SC killer with a few common items.....

My point is that nerfing a type of magic that is already weak at low levels is not the answer. It's not going to solve the problem of people killing your SCs and it weakens all existing Astral nations.

Considering that with a high MR it still takes an act of God to even work.... well, that just confuses me. I mean, why nerf something that only has a 1-2% chance of working anyway? Is the pro-SC lobby that insecure? Don't they want their opponents to have any chance?

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Could someone post the actual paralyze mechanics from the manual?

I'm at school and don't have the manual with me, but IIRC paralyze damage is transformed into rounds paralyzed through some pretty weird formula that takes size into account, so that big units spend less time paralyzed. Analyzing the damage caused by Paralyze and the formula, and then looking at how different values would compare, seems like a much better idea than comparing Paralyze to other low-level spells.

IMO, 20 or more turns of paralyzation for a size 2 unit is fine (almost as good as Soul Slay, at small units), and even size 6 units should be paralyzed for several turns (because big units are targeted first, and it wouldn't be fun if your mages spammed Paralyze at an Elephant that only gets 1 turn of actual paralyzation, recovering just in time to be targeted again). I don't know what would be a good average amount of paralyzation for big units, but I expect that the average isn't 20 turns even with the current values.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Bows of Botox. Visions Foes.
Communion + just about anything.


Sure tho bows dont actually kil em. But does render them useless.

Also, to enter a comment in - for S3 mages etc, paralysis is deprecated in favor of soul slay, at least often.

1. I think SC's are too strong.
2. I think paralyze is stronger than other schools spells, but I would rather boost other schools than penalize paralyze overly much.
3. Ryalla is a big part of the problem.

If you had to fix it - why not make it instead of turns of paralysis - a cumulutive action point drain?

That way, quicken, haste, would counter act it somewhat - and faster units would resist paraylsis somewhat better than slow ones.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

In my experience with Paralyze, no matter what size, the vast majority of your successful casts result in either around (3) turns Paralyzation, or (20)+ with some individual casts going past 30 turns.

Regardless of what the manual says it does, or did 2 years ago, that's what it actually does in game. :p

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

S2 & S3 make a big difference. Because of the extreme duration, paralyze is almost as powerful as soul slay and disintegrate. We know disintegrate need Alt 8, and there is no way to empower death path other than item & communion. But with a mere astral gem(light of the northern star), all S1 mage in the battlefield can spam paralyze like crazy. I think it's overpowered for a Thau 4 spell. Either increasing the prerequisite to S3 or increasing the research level to 6(same as frozen heart) or 7 looks fine to me. Or give it a reasobable duration like 3-5 rounds.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Paralyze damage is (damage-size)/2 so on short duration things like mind blasts and a failed petrification size has a major effect, but paralyze does 60+ damage, so knocking off 6 isn't gonna make much of a dent. Seems like it actually works like it's supposed to as well. =)

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Finally, a debate that I have something to add to! ; )

Once you look at all the factors (100 Prec, long-ish range, low research, easy paths, low fatigue, paralysis duration, etc etc), it is very hard to consider Paralyze balanced in comparison to other SC killers. In that respect, Paralyze is overpowered.

However, it is also hard to consider SCs and thugs *themselves* as balanced, compared to regular armies. It is a common (although perhaps not universal) belief--one that I happen to share--that Dom3 late game in particular is all about the gems. Once the SCs and battlefield spells arrive, armies of 'regular' units become so much disposable chaff. In that respect, SCs are far more overpowered than Paralyze.

Anything that weakens SCs and thugs--balanced or not!--is a *very very good thing* in my book! ; )

--IndyPendant.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

A simple reverse communion and power of the sphere plus that banner of the northern star is all you need for S3. If you can go S2, you have all the research done for S3. And all that are required are just a bunch of S1 mages.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

LoNS is virtually free for boosting 10+ mages in one round, but reverse communion is dangerous, I think it should be acceptable if one can take the risk.:p

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

The only thing annoying about paralyze is when your playing a nation where mages have more HP than your units. Since paralyze targets the units with the highest hp your units are virtually ignored while your mages are paralyzed. Can be a pita.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

It is dangerous in no way. Just set your master to retreat or fire once he buffs the slaves with PoS and possibly Earthpower.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Interesting discussion.

I have a slightly different perspective. I believe the real issue is not so much whether paralysis is too powerful, but whether astral is too powerful as a magic path - especially since Tartarians have now been nerfed. What are other players' views?

(Disclosure: I believe paralysis is not overpowered as SC's are not weak even with paralysis as it currently stands - not every nation can access astral anyway. Unstoppable SC's was the bane of Master of Magic and I am glad that Dominions have counters like paralysis and others)

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I think the paralysis spell was designed with CoE in mind. In CoE a paralyzed unit was removed from battle and if you won you got it back. If you lost the paralyzed unit was also lost. Paralysis is supposed to remove a unit from the battle for the remainder of the battle. A poor-mans soul slay so to speak.

Being of lower paths than soul slay it can become quite powerful/accessible, but primarily as a SC-counter. I'm quite fond of SC-counters :)

On the other hand I'm fond of scaled effects. I'm not entirely fond of MR-or-die effects (at least in RPG's). That's JK's cup of tea. Since people tend to get emotionally attached to their SC's you might call dom3 a SC-RPG and I understand that people get frustrated when puny mages paralyze their Great God.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I wouldnt mind seeing the duration scaled back, but not so far as a single d6. In keeping with the original intent for paralyze that KO states above, I think the duration should be something like 10 or 15 base + d6. So in most cases, your SC will be knocked out of the battle, but not killed. But if you are lucky, they may break loose and fight again towards the end.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

15 base +d6 is quite fine. If you can kill the SC you'll have enough time for it.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

What happens is the AI casts paralyse first. If you have a lot of casters, they spam paralysis spells. After the most threatening / high value targets have been paralysed the slay soul spells start.

This is how it seems to go in the current version.

I'll clarify this a bit more. I don't have an issue with paralysis being efficient and useful. It's the rediculously long duration that I hate. The battles don't last long enough that the 20 - 40 round duration would have time to pass, so at the moment it's practically "paralysed until the end of the fight". That's the silly bit.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

"paralysed until the end of the fight" is still way better than "killed in a single hit". Comparing paralyze to soul slay, which is one level higher and just as easily spammed, I do not see how paralyze can be overpowered. Unless you also mean soul slay is overpowered. Then isn't SC even more overpowered?

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Not that much, since you'll loose your unit if you loose the battle.

Anyway, I agree on the fact that as an anti-SC weapon, paralyze & some other spells can be interesting. But I'm unable to clearly state how much interesting or spoiling it is. Still reading the discussion with attention, though :)

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

What is CoE ? Company of Eroes ? :confused::D

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I like the idea of shortening the duration too. Given the way the AI spams paralyze, any unit seriously susceptible to it will just get re-paralyzed anyway. But this way a high-MR SC can still be useful by tying down several mages casting. As it stands, it seems too easy for the mages to go after everyone else instead.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Conquest of Elysium, the RPG predecessor to Dominions. I never played it, but if that is the explanation of how it worked in that game, then it makes sense how it is implemented in Dominions.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

A paralyzed charcoal shielded N9E9 nief jarl is still pretty sacry, to normal troops anyway. A soul slayed one, OTOH, is nothing. You see, SCs can still be somewhat effective even when paralyzed, but no way they can be when soul slayed. And if you bring several SCs, one paralyzed generally does not get killed if you win in the end. One soul slayed, well, you get the drill. Paralyze is mostly a problem when you send your SC soloing. I do not see having an effective counter for that is a problem.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

[quote=K;634116]You are pushing so many buttons there again, I'm having trouble remaining civil in answering this. *deep breath*

Stick to the topic. Don't try to be psychic and claim to know what others think and why they are doing things.

I don't belong to your imaginary pro-SC lobby. You are also using nasty rethorical devices and exaggerating things terribly. It's not 1-2% chanse of working. 4 - 5 astral mages, and it's been a practically a sure thing even against very high magic resistance.

Maybe this will help clarify things for you. It was mostly my astral mages, stopping things I don't feel I should have been able to stop so easily. And even that is not the core point. The core point is the overlong duration.

If you honestly are trying to say that scaling down the duration of paralysis will do horrible damage to the viability of astral heavy nations... then I probably just found your pet spell in the whole game and you are willing to say anything to invalidate any criticism of it. Shees...

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

As I have stated above, base S2 mages casting paralyze has 0.7% of success agaisnt MR 25 SC. So it is less than 1-2%. You can do the math yourself to verify.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

A change in the formula so that the size divides the damage instead of just giving a tiny minus would fix the spell. I'd still prefer just open ended d6 + extra caster power. The 15+ d6 is no fix, since it would result in the same durations anyway *eyeroll*

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

I don't see any problem with scaling the duration back, for Paralysis, and then maybe having a higher level, longer duration version. It'd be funny to have a version that paralysed your enemy and then 'blinked' him/her around the battlefield to some random location, before release.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

Paralyze is not that scary. It will always target the highest hit point unit, so you just need to bring along another SC to be the target and give him lead shield, rainbow armor, astral cap and AMA for 31 MR.

What is more, the paralyze spammers will continue to cast paralyze on the already paralyzed unit if there are no more targets of his size. Bring one elephant with your army and you'll see that he continues to be targeted even when already paralyzed.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

And that is the winning argument.

Considering that any nerf on the duration of the spell would make it useless against regular armies, and it can be easily countered anyway, any change might as well be a straight deletion of the spell. Simply put, not having a spell on the casting list is better than having a useless spell.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

But are 25+ MR for SCs a common feature ?
I'm not a SC specialist, so I won't answer. I can just say that the few SCs I saw & the few SCs I built were often < 25MR, thus leading to a considerably more important exposure.

Re: Paralysis is overpowered.
 

If your opponent is an astral heavy nation you are likely to adopt and focus more on MR than on other traits. Thus MR 25 + I suspect. MR is also the only trait that counters automatic death. Other effects are HP dependent in one way or another. Resistances and protection and stuff reduces dmg, but MR removes death. That is often more important to the sentiments of the SC owner :)