Mists of Deception -- exploit??

[Morkilus]

Except that the attacker always loses when hitting the turn limit. This is the exploit I think he's talking about.

[CUnknown]

I will admit it is thematic, but it's still very exploitive. It's true, like Morkilus says, that the attacker always loses after 50 turns, and it's exploitive for that reason, but also when combined with Wrathful Skies or something similiar, it's just rediculous.

The situation I am whining about is this: I was seiging a castle with a powerful army that unfortunately didn't have any capable fliers in a storm. A weakness, I will admit. Anyway, the enemy pops in an Air Queen with a staff of storms who casts Mists of Deception, Wrathful Skies, and then retreats.

My army would have to be able to kill several etherial units popping up at random on opposite sides of the battlefield in a single combat round in order to get out of this deathtrap -- a basically impossible task in the mist/storm. My army was obliterated with no risk to the opposing player-- he didn't even have any units on the battlefield!

I should be able to deal with etherial units popping up at random. I should be able to deal with lightning strikes hitting my guys -- sure. If I can't deal with that, it's my problem. But, the fact that he didn't even have anything on the battlefield for 47 combat rounds of lightning hitting me is just out of control. And after those 47 rounds, I would be forced to retreat.

The tactic of Wrathful Skies and casting summoning spells (like living clouds) I have no problem with -- at least there are actual enemy units on the battlefield while the lightning hits me. In the case of Mists of Deception, it was an enchantment supporting the existence of another enchantment (wrathful skies) that did the killing.

While clever and viciously evil (which I consider a good thing), I believe this tactic crosses the line enough to be considered an exploit.

[Burnsaber]

Dude, that's a pure exploit. The battle shouldn't continue if there's no-one actually fighting in the other side.

[Xietor]

I have had wrathful skies used against me, with the mage that cast it retreating afterward, but with storm up and enough chaff that my my army suffered big damage before it finished off the chaff.

I agree that battlefield enchantments should end when mage is killed or he retreats.

[Nikolai]

This is very serious exploit, I think. And so is cast Wrathful Skies and retreat, while a super fighter stays on the battlefield. But in latter case, at least there is SOMEONE.

Two things can help, I hope we see at least one in next patch.

1. No commanders, automatic rout. Give Vengeance of the Dead a commander if that's a problem.

2. Mage leaves battlefield (dead or flown), battlefield wide spell ends.

[Edi]

The battlefield enchantments staying up after the caster retreats is a red-flagged issue that's been on the shortlist for quite a while. I'll add Mists of Deception as a spell bug.

[Xietor]

It also applies to artifacts edi.

In the Big Game the same race that used the wrathful skies retreat on me, has also used this tactic:

mage has forbidden light. The solar brilliance stays up the entire battle, even though the mage that has it casts returning and is gone after one round. A blind pretender(monolith) or chaff on battlefield, and the good army is blinded before it kills off the chaff.

If the forbidden light leaves the battle, solar brilliance should also leave.

BTW, I am not calling the users of these tactics exploiters. What I am saying is the result should not obtain.

[Edi]

It's the same issue.

Whether an enchantment is autocast by an artifact (Heat from Hell (Unquenched Sword), Solar Brilliance (Forbidden Light), Will of the Fates (Aurgelmer's Sword) or a regular item (Banner of the Northern Star) or a mage or the autocast being the property of a certain monster (Darkness for Mandaha etc), this bug tends to manifest the same way, i.e. enchantment stays in effect even if source leaves battlefield.

[K]

I don't think this is a bug, but a feature.

At that level of play, if all spells dropped when the caster left then you'd rarely see a use for battlefield enchantments like this. This level of play is so deadly that most battlefield spells rarely are as effective as just having one mage casting blasting spells, so nerfing them further would be to nerf them out of play.