buggy blade wind?

Pocus · #1 March 5th, 2004, 10:48 PM

After having watched several casting of blade winds, against a big army, and having seen that the trajectory seems rather strange (total miss several time!), I wonder if there is not something buggy here. Are the blades supposed to be spread everywhere, except toward the intended target (or group of targets?).

#2 March 5th, 2004, 10:51 PM

I think with the new patch that Blade Wind has been more targeted to nearer the back of the units. It hits rearmost alot more often than it used to, but anything in the front 1/3 of the formation is pretty safe.

SurvivalistMerc · #3 March 5th, 2004, 11:48 PM

I have noticed what Zen describes also. This even seems to be the case post the 2.06 patch with archer fire.

For the most part, I like spells and archers aiming for the rear portion of a given group since that's less likely to cause friendly fire casualties.

I've not seen total miss of all blades against a big army unless we're talking a lot of shielded units. What patch Version are you using? I'm still using 2.06.

Pocus · #4 March 6th, 2004, 08:36 AM

PDF · #5 March 7th, 2004, 02:54 AM

Here's an example : the battlefield is relatively full of troops (200 on each side), and the blades get *out* of it

!
In this battle there was maybe 5 casts of BW, everytime it gets spread everywhere with nearly no hits.
IMHO the spell is broken : in Dom1 it was very powerful, now it's as useless as Flying Shards

...

SurvivalistMerc · #6 March 6th, 2004, 03:26 PM

Wow. I didn't notice this. It was very powerful pre-2.08, too.

I haven't experimented with 2.08 due to Utgard and the increased battle replay inconsistency in SP. This looks like perhaps a third reason not to.

I wonder if the devs would comment on this. I don't have any real answers for you. The only thing I can think of is that blade wind is distractable with small numbers of troops in a unit just as archer fire is. Does it look as if it's being aimed at a small unit off the screen that you can see?

Even in 2.06 it would occasionally target a close group of high protection shielded troops and when far juicier non-commander targets weren't that far away. Might that be what is happening?