Halt Heretic - Opinions

[Edi]

Priest smiths are going to get some modifications in the next patch. Personally, I wish the master smith had a 15% or 20random instead of 10%.

The reason why the priest smith has no randoms is that they are basically washouts or failures who are trying to get more importance by latching on to the Order of the Iron Faith. That's the interpretation I make from the various descriptions anyway.

[Edi]

One question I'm wondering about is whether Bane of Heresy (the aoe effect from Black Halberds) should be "strength of wielder not added"? Because 15 AP damage without strength added is not going to cause a whole lot of fatigue to anything with even half decent armor. Upping the stun damage to 20 AP would make it more useful but still not overkill. Of course, since there are three guardians per square and if all three hit the same enemy square, it adds up fast.

Opinions?

[llamabeast]

I just did a test of 8 Black Halberds against 9 W9F9 jaguars. The halberds won easily. They seem pretty effective, some of the jaguars were knocked out almost immediately.

[johan osterman]

Edi said:
One question I'm wondering about is whether Bane of Heresy (the aoe effect from Black Halberds) should be "strength of wielder not added"? Because 15 AP damage without strength added is not going to cause a whole lot of fatigue to anything with even half decent armor. Upping the stun damage to 20 AP would make it more useful but still not overkill. Of course, since there are three guardians per square and if all three hit the same enemy square, it adds up fast.

Opinions?

As the fatigue increases the targets will lose attack and defense and will get the occasional armour piercing hit though. So the halberds will dish out considerable more normal damage vs sacreds than they did before, and take less themselves, as well as possibly eventually knock them unconscious.

[Edi]

Ah, that and llamabeast's test results provide a quite satisfactory answer. I tossed an off the cuff estimate without actually doing any real number crunching, so I was not at all sure if I was on the right track or not. And as it turns out, I wasn't.

[B0rsuk]

What about the results of the 'halt heretic' ability itself ? Sacreds are known for unusually high morale, blessing adds +2 morale (I think), and N9 bless causes berserk, which is likely to negate the awe effect.

I'm deffinitely NOT complaining that the halberds work well. But Ulm is supposed to be anti-supernatural nation, right ? So far, they have tools for:

- sacreds (black halberd, halt heretic)
- magic beings (Iron Angel - high research and path requirements)
- undead ? Nothing
- Demons ? Nothing

I appreciate that Ulm finally has unique tools that do their job well... but there's much more to supernatural than sacreds. Sacreds are a good start ;-).

[Xietor]

undead/demons nothing? They have level 2 priests now. That is a great improvement. You do not see many demons in the MA.

I would not mind seeing the level 2 priests recruitable at all castles though. Arcos. has its level 2 priestesses that can heal available at all castles, and it is clearly a much stronger mp nation than Ulm even with the additions. If arcos does not have to choose between its astrologers and priestesses, I am not sure why Ulm has to choose among lesser commanders.

[Tuidjy]

> I just did a test of 8 Black Halberds against 9 W9F9 jaguars. The halberds won
> easily. They seem pretty effective, some of the jaguars were knocked out
> almost immediately.

I'm extremely impressed. I cannot understand it, though. How did the
halberdiers even manage to hit the jaguars? Does the halberd get a to hit
bonus as well? Or is it a 'trigger everytime' area of effect ability? If
that's the case, I still welcome the boost to Ulm, but I have to say, I do
not like it from a lore perspective. I wave my magic halberd, heroically
attacking empty air, and the enemy elite are impressed. Pff...

Come on, give us Ulmish that we can be PROUD being. *cough* Ulm Reborn *cough*

> Black Lord vs. Lord Guardian for early game thug.(All this cheap forging needs
> to be put on SOMETHING, right, sinces its a big part of Ulm you'd prolly want
> to get them into action before powerful summons are available.)

At the onset, Black Lord all the way. Being mounted, he does not care about the
huge encumberance of most earth items. Later on, there will be a place for
Lord Guardians, maybe.

[Edi]

Tuidjy, Bane of Heresy is 15 ap nostr aoe 1 stun damage autoeffect that hits the target square regardless of whether the actual halberd blow lands on target. If you have three halberds hitting the same square simultaneously, each jaguar warrior in that square takes 3x 15 ap stun and the next round it's a whole different ballgame when they start getting criticals due to fatigue lowering their defense.

[VedalkenBear]

Sombre: I recruit a Preacher for each army I put into the field. I find it very useful. I don't get more than 1, though.