proposed death curse change

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Mirror Image would be slightly more effective than Twist Fate in melee, and ineffective against missiles or spells. I think that implies it would actually be an excellent companion to Air Shield, and would make A9/S9 an interesting choice for sheer staying power.

Mirror Image will be exactly as effective in melee combat as Twist Fate, on average. Twist Fate negates the first successful, damaging hit. Mirror Image has a 50% chance to stop each hit which would otherwise be successful and damaging hit, and if so it sticks around. There's a 50% chance of blocking zero hits, a 25% chance of blocking one, a 12.5% chance of blocking two, etc. Do the math and you'll see that adds up to exactly one hit blocked, the same as Twist Fate.

Two differences: Twist Fate works against spells, and Glamour scales with Air because it *is* Mirror Image. That's why high-level Vanir mages get multiple starting images.

-Max

Edit: Oh. One possible flaw in the above analysis is that I'm not 100% sure how Glamour interacts with the -2 penalty for each attack. That is, I've tested it by modding and concluded that Glamour/Mirror Image (unlike Ethereal) still reduces your defenses on a negated hit--but I haven't actually confirmed this by checking the debug log. (I did things like take an A9 pretender with high defense and measure how many attacks are necessary to get through after he's cast Mirror Image. With Ethereality the effects of high defense/Ethereality are multiplicative, with Mirror Image they're additive.)