E9 bless buggy with Abysia ?

[thejeff]

Actually this thread starting with Abyssia complaining about the E9 bless.

I don't think it's a matter of it not being equally good for all sacreds/nations. Even in Dom2 where it was a straight +4 to protection, it was really only useful for units who already had good protection to start with. Going from 0 to 4 is not nearly as useful as 16 to 20. Just like the defensive Water bonus is far more useful for high defense units.

Other blesses may be more or less useful for some units, but Earth is the only level 9 bless I can think of that actually gives no effect to some units. That's what I don't like about it.

[FrankTrollman]

Deleted.

[HoneyBadger]

Ofcourse, the solution is to have more and different Bless effects (along with more and different magic paths, naturally), and more strategic choices for your particular style of play.

[Jack_Trowell]

Important note about E9 blessing : it increase *all* armor bonuses.

What does it means ?

Take any humanoid unit

Give him for exemple the shroud of the battle saint (protection: body 8, give permanent blessing to wearer)

Add an helmet, for exemple the dragon helmet (protection: head of 15)

With E9 blessing you get this :

protection: body => 8+4 = 12
protection: head => 15+4 = 19

Not so bad, I often used this blessing on non sacred mages, the reinvigoration is good, and the final armor is good enough to take an arrow or two.

Then add the bracers of protection, and what do you get :

protection (untyped) : 2

... with earth blessing it become 2 + 4

Final protection :

protection => 2+4 = 6
protection: body => 8+4 = 12 + 6 = 18 !
protection: head => 15+4 = 19 +6 = 25

... and then you start adding half the natural armor ...


I discovered this not with the bracers, but with the fire helmet, who give at the same time protection:head of 20 *and* protection of 5 (but reinvigoration -3)

[thejeff]

That should qualify as a bug.

[Maltrease]

Yes if braces really give +6 protection with an Earth 9 blessing that invites all sorts of abus...cough... strategies.

[evil grin]

[Olive]

OK, I thought I understood, but no. Let's take the example of Abysians scorpion-men : I took the bonus for them and could at last summon some. Bonus for total protection is 21+2, so it's maybe not worth the cost of the bless.

They have a natural protection of 14 and wear a plate cuirass of 14. Here's how I try to calculate the values, but it doesn't fit. Where am I wrong ?

Without bless :

natural : 14
head : 0+14=14 (no protection, so no bonus added, just the natural value) : OK
body : 14+(14/2)=21 (armor protection + half the natural value as he wears an armor) : should be 23.
total : 14+(14/2)=21 (Highest+Half the lowest)

With bless :

natural : 14
head : 0+14=14 : no armor, so no bonus
body : (14+4)+(14/2)=25 (armor protection + half the natural value as he wears an armor) : should be 26
total : (14+4)+(14/2)=25 : (Highest+Half the lowest) : Argh, should be 23

[PhilD]

Back in Dom2, there was a "diminishing returns" protection formula, where protection values didn't exactly add up together. Putting, say, a 10 prot. armor on a creature with a 10 natural prot. didn't result in 20 prot, but something lower.

IIRC (but it's highly likely that I don't remember it 100% correctly), the formula was something like

FinalProt = 40 - (40-ProtA)*(40-ProtB)/40

That is, count a protection of 40 as "maximum", and, say, protection of 10 as "25% protection"; then protection values don't add, rather the "unprotected" percentages are multiplied.

Thus, a natural protection of 10 lets 75% go through, and an armor protection of 20 lets 50% go through - so adding the two together would let 37.5% go through, resulting in a protection of 62.5% of 40, that is, 25.

Now, I don't know how bonuses to protections would be taken into account with this formula, or even if it was completely correct, or if it could explain what you observed in Dom3...