DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

New Mage Troops

I like the new mage troops, they certainly spice up the magic tree. They also add a little more diversity to the possible troops you can build. Not to mention they just look cool.

However I think they need a fair bit of work. They have a few problems:

-There is no real reason to actually give them robes. You are better off equipping them with armor. The fact the AI doesn't is a huge weakness.

-Their damage is completely tied to their equipment, their stats never come into play.

-There are no interesting trait combos.

In order to fix these problems I would suggest allowing some stats like intelligence or spell mastery to boost the damage of the staffs, or add a min req to use the staffs. Then add some robes to the beginning of the magic tech tree. These robes could do everything from protect from fire, cold, pierce, or ranged attacks. They would also all boost intelligence or spell mastery so that mages have a reason to use them. Also there is no reason robes need to have 0 defense. Then you could add a intelligence boosting trait to unit design.

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I agree. For one thing I think we need an entire dev post about how the damage mechanics work for this. We should also be able to get 3 or 4 traits that increase the power of these staves throughout the game.

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Agree with all points. Int is an underimplemented stat and iI really dislike the staves/staffs currently in game. Int and Dex need some love too.

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Not that I'm against letting items scale a little better, but archery is in the same ballpark - worse perhaps since armor can effectively negate the damage - and needs addressing too. Regular units don't necessarily need scaling mechanics. Even non-buffed short bows are still deadly in the hands of enough figures.

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i think archers are fine

troops are very powerful since the raw power they have

and champions are decent, with the right traits and equip they can do safe dmg, ofc the dmg a 2h melee can do is much more but archer is much safer

also you have 1 free bow early with noble escort that is kinda powerful early (maybe a bit too much for the effort it takes)

still unsure if what i reported here:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/418353

is a bug or intended

many times i find archer crits a bit over the top dunno

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All stats need to be useful and I agree intelligence is currently less use than it should be in a lot of cases.

I like the MoM mechanics where physical attack is countered by defence and magical attacks are countered by resistance. All 4 of these (physical attack, defences, magical attack, resistance) should scale appropriately with stats. Some of these mechanics appear to be in FE but they I don't see magical damage scaling with intelligence as I would expect and similarly resistance seems to help counter effect spells (eg blind) but not damaging spells.

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Does a mage's Fire Attack/ Ice Attack ignore the target's defense?

imho it should, and I think it should also have effects other than just damage.

-> others have suggested initiative hits for those hit with Ice mage attacks, and damage-per-time (burning) for those hit with fire attacks.

(not for spells already balanced, but for these new types of ranged-magic attack weapons)

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I agree with mage troops lacking the kind of flavor that melee troops have, though I haven't gotten far enough into a game to test archers (I'm a pure caster pretty much all the time, and got the beta mere days before I have to move ). If troops could be given traits that would improve elemental/magic damage like champions and sovereigns get, that would be a good start, as would having staff damage scale with int. However, I do think that archer champions are a little underwhelming, considering there's no way for their damage to come anywhere near the damage a melee or mage champion can pump out given the right talents and items. Also, any way we can get a staff for our custom sovs that doesn't cost a talent point?

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yea ... I think archer damage should be in some ways affected by Dexterity. imho

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I miss the ability on my mages to cast an actual spell, apart from their ranged magical attack.

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StevenAus22

Join Date 06/2010

+110

If they were casting a spell, they would have to use mana, to be true to the lore.

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I think a successful spell resistance check should reduce the damage of the mage units by 50 % and robes should increase the spell mastery. This would make int useful for them, because it increases the spell mastery.

Dex should not increase the damage of ranged attacks, but it should increase the armor penetration by dex * 2.5 %. This should apply to spears and daggers, too.

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StevenAus22

Join Date 06/2010

+110

Good idea!

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Quoting Tasunke,

reply 8

yea ... I think archer damage should be in some ways affected by Dexterity. imho

well it is in fact

since that make crit

if it would affect EVEN the ranged base dmg it would be insanely op

also it does increase dodge, really dex is more than fine, maybe even too good right now

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all dex does is crit and dodge. Sometimes its good, sometimes it isnt.

Constitution is always good.

Strength is always good for melee.

-> Dex as pertaining to armor ignore would be fine for daggers.

-> Dex should be something worth investing in ... not just something to add via Champion's Gear for extra dodge n crit.

For instance, if I want to make a good archer unit ... Why would I want to add dex? I don't. Low level dodge bonuses are pretty useless until you get towershields, and regular units can't crit.

Therefore, I just want fast (+2 init) and accuracy (+3 acc).

Would be more fun, imho, if you could invest in Dex on your ranged units similar to how you invest in strength for your melee units.

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Quoting StevenAus,

reply 10

If they were casting a spell, they would have to use mana, to be true to the lore.

yeah, or a CD.. there are items ingame that can casts spells.

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With regard to mages I put some on wargs and there seems to be no animation or particle effects for their ice staves so there is a loooong pause before they do damage - I think the unit is fine as is though it would be nice if intelligence boosted damage for wands

BTW intelligence boosts xp gain and spell resistance so it is fairly useful IMO

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I added some new mage staves to the community content request thread. Hopefully we can fill in the blanks for the devs.

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Mage stave damage -does- ignore armor. They are solid units against heavily armored opponents. As far as crits being affected by dexterity.. meh, it's pretty sad in my opinion. I would much prefer a lesser critical damage effect and a much greater critical damage chance. Not to mention regular units cannot crit without graveseal.

As far as archers being useless.. we must be playing different games. I killed an obsidian golem with an army 6 5-figure longbowmen (with a champion for free xp ^^) simply due to the way armor works. (Heck I probably could have used shortbows). Damage has a minimum of 1 per figure and armor rating is calculated in such a way that it already makes it extremely difficult to reduce that damage to one. My archers inflicted an average of 10 damage per volley.

In otherwords, archers are pretty solid the way they function now. Ignoring defense might be 'too' good on mage units.

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That needs to fixed then. Archers need to be totally blocked by good armor. The current mechanics need to be fixed.

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I think if mages gain the ability to cast a spell, they should have their own private mana pool per tactical battle, or only be able to cast a certain amount of spells per battle, ala MoM.

However I think giving the new mage units the ability to cast spells , makes them a little closer to champions and a little further away from army units.

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I agree with all the OPs comments.

My suggestion for Archer (Units, not champions) is simply to move all the techs for it closer to the beginning of the warfare tree.

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Quoting seanw3,

reply 19

That needs to fixed then. Archers need to be totally blocked by good armor. The current mechanics need to be fixed.

If good armor should totally block archers, then fighting in melee should wear down the armor, so that archers would eventually be able to work.

(requires melee units, but mixed army composition is a good thing).

That wear and tear would be 'fixed' either after the battle or at the end of the season ... not sure which is better.

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DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

True bows also don't progress with stats but...

-There is no real reason to actually give them robes. You are better off equipping them with armor. The fact the AI doesn't is a huge weakness.

This is the real problem and why they are different from archers. Archer using armor is no big deal but mages shouldn't be using armor.

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Intelligence should make mages stronger. Equipping robes/ alternatives to armor should increase intelligence

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Is there some comprehensive list of what affects what? Because I was under the naive impression that "accuracy" actually mattered for mage staffs, that strength mattered for archery damage, etc.

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