Dark Side - first impressions

[Zhuangzi]

I thought I would start a Dark Side thread where people can post about their early experiences (first few hours) with the game to give those who haven't bought it an idea of what they can expect if they pay their $25. I know the game isn't officially out for another three days but it's the weekend and the game seems pretty stable and complete to me. Bear in mind I've only been playing for about two hours.

The first thing that anyone who has played KB games will want to know is: is it better than Warriors of the North (WoTN)? I'm not far enough in to say for sure, but my initial answer is YES, it's better.

Things I've liked so far:

- being able to choose from a vampire, demoness or orc hero at the start

- unique starting locations for each of the three classes

- I've always liked the Demon race in KB games, but it was rarely possible to have a whole Demon army until mid game, and then only in Demon lands for restocking of troops. Now I can play as a Demon straight from the beginning!

- a minimum of grinding in the early game. I'm about to go to Portland for the first time and I think I've only had about 15 fights, and yet the story is advancing at a rapid rate.

- New rage spirit (Blackie) seems solid so far and his rage abilities seem useful, especially the statue one.

- No having to click which rune to use before every attack! Man, I hated that. In fact, I just hated WoTN altogether.

That's all I can think of right now. The only negative I can see so far is that Whitehill seems ridiculously empty and underpopulated. Perhaps it's deliberate, but it seems unfinished. I am playing Impossible Demoness (Paladin class) and I've had to give up on no-losses already as some of the required early fights are quite challenging. And that's how it should be.

[zjazd18]

I'll add few things:

- Game is much better than WoTN, so don't be discouraged if you didn't like previous one

- Game seems easy, so it may be not so good for those seeking challenge. There is 1 bottleneck, 3 battles early on that are very though to do (no-loss), but you can easily brute force them (nothing like spider in WoTN) and past that point you won't have any problems

- Some skills seems ridiculously overpowered, there is certain need of balance tweaks

- Excellent pacing, you won't be spending much time on the same island grinding

- Can't seem to find spells early on. Might be a problem for vampire (mage class) play-through.

- Fun to do quests, although there are still some boring ones (like bringing stuff all over other islands), those are definitely in minority

- Class only skill tree talents are very powerful, and encourage trying other classes after you are done with the game ( I'm already thinking of next play through and what I'll do)

- I'm around level 30 and haven't seen single big boss fight (like spider etc.), maybe there are none?

- Few new units, and few changes to the old ones. Especially in undead/demon department

[Zhuangzi]

I'll add few things:

- Game is much better than WoTN, so don't be discouraged if you didn't like previous one

- Game seems easy, so it may be not so good for those seeking challenge. There is 1 bottleneck, 3 battles early on that are very though to do (no-loss), but you can easily brute force them (nothing like spider in WoTN) and past that point you won't have any problems

- Some skills seems ridiculously overpowered, there is certain need of balance tweaks

- Excellent pacing, you won't be spending much time on the same island grinding

- Can't seem to find spells early on. Might be a problem for vampire (mage class) play-through.

- Fun to do quests, although there are still some boring ones (like bringing stuff all over other islands), those are definitely in minority

- Class only skill tree talents are very powerful, and encourage trying other classes after you are done with the game ( I'm already thinking of next play through and what I'll do)

- I'm around level 30 and haven't seen single big boss fight (like spider etc.), maybe there are none?

- Few new units, and few changes to the old ones. Especially in undead/demon department

I read on the Steam forum that the only boss (no rage) fight was the last battle of the game.

[Zhuangzi]

A couple more hours in...

- Your companion, Blackie, can teleport you to and from two of the initial areas, Whitehill and the Shelter, for free, or to any other island for 1000 gold. That's great and will help a lot to reduce travel time for high scores.

- Portland is great fun and reminds me why I like playing KB games. Beautiful landscape, well crafted, maybe 20 enemy stacks max on the island, lots of quests, a few castles. Good fun and completely different to the empty Whitehill.

- Not sure how I would go about no losses. I am losing small amounts of troops on every battle playing as a Demoness. It's great being able to go back to Shelter to replenish units that I've rarely ever used in KB games before, such as Imps and Scoffer Imps.

- Because there is a ridiculous amount of spider eggs to pick up early in the game I'm using Cave Spiders as a meat shield unit for the first time ever. Obviously you wouldn't use them if you were going for no-losses.

- The frenzy mechanic for Demons seems pretty OP/broken to me. The Cerberus has a 'Leap' attack now which allows it to attack the length of the screen without being able to be counterattacked. Because of frenzy I'm ending up being able to use this practically every turn. That's pretty ridiculous and will make the Cerebus an excellent unit.

[zjazd18]

A couple more hours in...

- Not sure how I would go about no losses. I am losing small amounts of troops on every battle playing as a Demoness. It's great being able to go back to Shelter to replenish units that I've rarely ever used in KB games before, such as Imps and Scoffer Imps.

- The frenzy mechanic for Demons seems pretty OP/broken to me. The Cerberus has a 'Leap' attack now which allows it to attack the length of the screen without being able to be counterattacked. Because of frenzy I'm ending up being able to use this practically every turn. That's pretty ridiculous and will make the Cerebus an excellent unit.

You can go into catacombs in Portland and go back to demoness starting location (now changed) and buy some better no-loss units. I bought there demons and demonologist, maybe even you will be able to find executioners. Imps are poor man's royal snakes ;), i used them both successfully on Portland.

There is spell that reduces cooldown of abilities, so demons can spam their abilities like crazy. Also there is spell that add charges to abilities, so we kinda have Gift spell back. So there will be some ridiculous combos. I'm not even searching for them, as I'm disgusted enough by halving talent.

EDIT: Minor spoilers - In terms of ridiculous stuff, check those dragons out. One of the abilites is summoning other dragons. , i guess I won't be needing red dragons:

[DGDobrev]

You two are making me rub my palms in expectation. The game unlocks tomorrow and I am jumping in it right away. Just finished another XCOM EW Classic/Ironman, so I am all good for it now :)

[zjazd18]

Ridiculous stuff update. What is possible with ogres :cool: :

[Zhuangzi]

Ridiculous stuff update. What is possible with ogres :cool: :

Holy Christ, that attack is absurd. :eek: :!:

[DGDobrev]

This is amazing. I wonder if they are keeping the old damage formulas. The KBAP & CW formula was as follows:

Damage = TroopCount * random (MinUnitDmg; MaxUnitDmg) * (1-Resistance%/100%)

Damage modifier = (1 + (Attack - Defense)*0.3), and if it was more than 3, it automatically goes down to 3. In this case, that 1300 attack doesn't mean all that much.

TotalDmg=Damage*Damage modifier

Edit: If not, these ogres can kill a stack of Black Dragons in a swing, sheesh.

[zjazd18]

Yeah, most definitely it's still capped like that. Anyways stone skin made their dmg manageable, also it's possible to dispel it.

Which brings me to another point, attack seems completely useless in this game. Mostly because of halving talent (i hope they change it somehow), what's the point of having high attack when you can destroy half of the troop size having 1 attack, that also make resistances of enemies redundant.

I'm pretty far in the game now, and haven't met one enemy that would require me to reload to get done no-loss. I basically destroy stacks so fast it's not even funny, there are 2 rage spenders that deal % dmg, one 20% other 30%, then add units doing 50%. It's get ridiculous(sure it's only 15% but believe me it happens very often). So if you want challenge definitely skip that talent.

Post damage effects (burning etc) are still extremely strong and annoying so i recommend getting Shield of Rage in warrior skill tree, as it's impossible to dispel them.

Creation spell gives 4 charges to your unit special abilities for 16mana, i don't have to explain how ridiculous it is. I fought one champ that cast geyser every turn i just stood there in circle resurrecting everyone with my paladins. At least with phantom you could eventually run out of mana, impossible with creation efficiency.

Seems they run out of ideas and quests decrease in quality the further you go in the game. Also i would love quest log manageable by location, sometimes there are so many quests active at the same time it's hard to keep up with all the stuff.

I'm definitely enjoying the game, but I'm player that seeks challenge and at this point there is none. I'm meeting equal in strength stacks on impossible, so the sheer power isn't there and amount of ridiculous new combos make it even easier.

Had one crash with error so far, other than that was pretty smooth ride. Haven't tested turn back time, as someone mentioned it causes problems.

[DGDobrev]

The halving talent was based on leadership vs leadership. Is it still so? Or is it a chance ability? If it's based on leadership, it immediately means that halving on Impossible will happen very rarely - usually after a troop has been already damaged to some extent.

The no-loss game tends to run this way in all KB games. It is much harder to do it in the beginning, and once you get your fave lineup going, you are golden. There are still some armies that can provide some challenge, but it is usually not that hard. I am glad it is the same here. As for challenges, no worries. Impy will eventually buy the game. Look for his posts.

[zjazd18]

It's 15% chance, but it says it also depends on leadership (no specific numbers). I'm playing summon heavy army, and my summons proc halving a lot. Obviously units with aoe shine with this, my necromancers probably will have the highest damage done in my play-through.

Yeah challenges and mods will hopefully make this game hard even in the mid/late game.

EDIT: Found screenshot from earlier game where my summoned black dragons, do some halving action:

[DGDobrev]

Very interesting. Halving used to work on a leadership basis before - and ONLY if your Achdemons' stack leadership was higher than the stack they are attacking. This may be a completely different thing, very interesting.

[Zhuangzi]

Ugh, I don't know how to maintain no-losses as a Mage early in the game. I just started a Mage (Vampire) Impossible this morning and I got through four fights unscathed, but I can't defeat the Captain of the Guard in front of the Black Gate without losses.

All I have is 2 Vampires and then trashy units like Ghosts, Snakes, Zombies and Skeleton Archers. Only spells as Poison and Slow. Obviously you'd want to use the Vampires to suck up the damage, but even so I can't keep everything alive with all those dwarves running at me.

Anyone else got further than this as a Vampire without losses?

EDIT: similar problem with the Orc and the Captain of the Guard. This battle seems easier as an Orc but with only Slow and Haste, I can't take those dwarves down very easily. There's a vendor on Tristem at the beginning who has Trolls for sale, but one Troll is 3600 gold and I only had 1600 or so :(

EDIT 2: Demoness class is SO much easier than the other two at the start! Not only did I get past the Captain of the Guard, but I was able to defeat all but one of the spiders in the Catacombs without loss. So now that's 12 no-loss fights by the time I reached Shelter. I didn't do that very early quest to kill a hero. Basically, the Demon unit is by far the best thing this early in the game.

[DGDobrev]

Looks like it, playing the Demoness and managing to do the no-loss for now. I didn't put much effort to defeat the Knight in Atroxis - he was constantly "healing" my imps, so he always got one down before I could destroy his troops. Tried to do it without imps, but then he started "healing" my blood priestesses... So I left him be. Maybe I shouldn't have.

[fockerius]

Ugh, I don't know how to maintain no-losses as a Mage early in the game. I just started a Mage (Vampire) Impossible this morning and I got through four fights unscathed, but I can't defeat the Captain of the Guard in front of the Black Gate without losses.

All I have is 2 Vampires and then trashy units like Ghosts, Snakes, Zombies and Skeleton Archers. Only spells as Poison and Slow. Obviously you'd want to use the Vampires to suck up the damage, but even so I can't keep everything alive with all those dwarves running at me.

Anyone else got further than this as a Vampire without losses?

EDIT: similar problem with the Orc and the Captain of the Guard. This battle seems easier as an Orc but with only Slow and Haste, I can't take those dwarves down very easily. There's a vendor on Tristem at the beginning who has Trolls for sale, but one Troll is 3600 gold and I only had 1600 or so :(

EDIT 2: Demoness class is SO much easier than the other two at the start! Not only did I get past the Captain of the Guard, but I was able to defeat all but one of the spiders in the Catacombs without loss. So now that's 12 no-loss fights by the time I reached Shelter. I didn't do that very early quest to kill a hero. Basically, the Demon unit is by far the best thing this early in the game.

agree, me playing as demoness too, trying no loss,

have you trying the diversion skill? i't put 4 trap with lv 3 skill on the battlefield. :cool:

i am lv 10 now, any other good strategy? :cry:

(sorry 4 bad english, not my natv language)

[zjazd18]

For talking to the witch (first quest) you get random spell. I guess with trap and getting trapper before fighting guardians is the only hope. I haven't tried yet but might be the time to do those early fights no-loss :-P

[Zhuangzi]

agree, me playing as demoness too, trying no loss,

have you trying the diversion skill? i't put 4 trap with lv 3 skill on the battlefield. :cool:

i am lv 10 now, any other good strategy? :cry:

(sorry 4 bad english, not my natv language)

Now I'm stuck on those three guardians at the Shelter. I managed to kill off the dwarven one, but the other two are very difficult. I will try again. Basically you are trying to use the Demon as a tank and the Imp/Scoffers to burn everything, but it takes quite a few turns and they always seem to kill something.

[DGDobrev]

Exactly. The dwarf was easy, and after a good amount of retries, I managed to kill the Elves too. The key to this fight was baiting the werewolves into moving, rather than howling, and as soon as one got close, I swapped him for the Fauns, who are easy pickings for the imps and the cerberi. The most important thing is to then bait the wolves into advancing from one direction, so that they meet your solitary Demon, who can tank them for a bit.

I also had the fauns actually suiciding on my Diversion-trap once, so if that happens, just swap the elves instead. It is winnable, but it is very very tough.

Now down to the Human troop... This one is a huge pain - freaking 17 Priests of the Light, 7 Inquisitors of the Light, like 20+ Bowmen and 26 Witch Hunters crawling up my flank. The ranged units snipe at least 1 imp during the fight. It will be a big cat and mouse game to fool them into not doing that...

[Zhuangzi]

Exactly. The dwarf was easy, and after a good amount of retries, I managed to kill the Elves too. The key to this fight was baiting the werewolves into moving, rather than howling, and as soon as one got close, I swapped him for the Fauns, who are easy pickings for the imps and the cerberi. The most important thing is to then bait the wolves into advancing from one direction, so that they meet your solitary Demon, who can tank them for a bit.

I also had the fauns actually suiciding on my Diversion-trap once, so if that happens, just swap the elves instead. It is winnable, but it is very very tough.

Now down to the Human troop... This one is a huge pain - freaking 17 Priests of the Light, 7 Inquisitors of the Light, like 20+ Bowmen and 26 Witch Hunters crawling up my flank. The ranged units snipe at least 1 imp during the fight. It will be a big cat and mouse game to fool them into not doing that...

I got the Human after many retries but now I am stuck on the Elves. I don't have trap yet :( (Diversion) I guess I picked something else...

[fockerius]

trying to complete the dragon oncolgodon quest in portland asap,
the dragon then will appear as merchant in shelter.
it sell red dragon dan black dragon :)
you will need 2000 and 2500 leadership to buy.

[Kiras]

I've been playing as a vampire. The starting period was tougher than I expected - poor access to spells. Once I got that new chaos attack spell (can't remember the name, it chooses 9 random damage types), I started feeling powerful. Kamikaze is nice too, once I finally got it. Still don't have geyser or fireball (if they're available), and I'm past level 50.

The new dragon riders are sick with the halving talent. They can essentially do dragon dive every other turn. On the other hand, they're really expensive, and they cost a princess too.

I'm using that new gravity rage ability to clump up enemies, then my imps/liches hit the whole stack at once. Quite effective, especially with the halving talent.

The storyline amuses me so far. I'm going around killing inn keepers everywhere.

[DGDobrev]

I will say it in 3 words: BUY THIS GAME!!! Especially if you are a KBAP enthusiast.

THis game has everything that KBAP had with only 1 bottleneck (honestly, they could have done away with it, but it is extra challenge), till you get your spirit, which gives you the rage box. After that, fun times abound!

[Kiras]

Some of the new spells are a bit overpowered. Chaos breath in particular. It took me awhile to try it out. Well, I have a vampire with 67 int right now. I've had a chaos breath make an enemy royal thorn stack's max hp be 5 per unit. It's a bit random, but it's really powerful.

[jake21]

they added some auto rotate feature that is drivng me mad - is there any way to disable it ?

[DGDobrev]

You mean like the camera rotating around your hero? Just move and it stops. I had it happen rarely.

[SoNiC]

Well the game looks a bit unfinished yet. Im at the Snow Island after the Shelter now and it looks different to the maps i know from KTCW.

No loot, very few enemys, empty shops (ship wreck next to the start point).
Quest log says i should defeat the Guardians of Light but HOW? im stuck...

[MattCaspermeyer]

Some of the new spells are a bit overpowered. Chaos breath in particular. It took me awhile to try it out. Well, I have a vampire with 67 int right now. I've had a chaos breath make an enemy royal thorn stack's max hp be 5 per unit. It's a bit random, but it's really powerful.

No kidding - I'm Demoness with I think 33 Intellect and it gave my summoned Royal Griffins 7500hp!

That spell can turn any stack invincible on paper as I cast it on my Red Dragons and they had about 7k hp, but they were bleeding and the bleeding was causing 4 to 6k damage every turn - ouch!

That's essentially how Dark Clot works as well when it freezes targets and causes thousands of damage to enemy troops every turn because of their huge stack sizes.

/C\/C\

[travelingoz]

they added some auto rotate feature that is drivng me mad - is there any way to disable it ?

Go to options and deselect the "auto rotate map box.":grin:

Any quest breaking bugs yet guys that would result in a game restart? I'm really keen to get this on steam, but after the WOTN debacle.......:confused:

[Zhuangzi]

Go to options and deselect the "auto rotate map box.":grin:

Any quest breaking bugs yet guys that would result in a game restart? I'm really keen to get this on steam, but after the WOTN debacle.......:confused:

I strongly recommend this game! I can't promise that there are no broken quests (I'm not sure) but so far I am having a great time with it.

[DGDobrev]

Seconded. So far the game is providing plenty of challenge as it is. I like it.

[Kiras]

Thirded. This is not another WOTN. This is still slightly rough around the edges, but the core is there.

[jake21]

Where ? I see the no auto-rotate mini-map but that is just the small mini-map...

Go to options and deselect the "auto rotate map box.":grin:

Any quest breaking bugs yet guys that would result in a game restart? I'm really keen to get this on steam, but after the WOTN debacle.......:confused:

[SoNiC]

anyone knows how the "call of death" spell is working? i tried it on a stack of dead evil fish
but it wont work..?

[jake21]

Doesn't call of death summon a death troup if you have a free slot for another army ?

anyone knows how the "call of death" spell is working? i tried it on a stack of dead evil fish
but it wont work..?

[MattCaspermeyer]

anyone knows how the "call of death" spell is working? i tried it on a stack of dead evil fish
but it wont work..?

Call of Death does not work on "nonnecro" stacks. Devil Fish, Griffins, and Dragonflies are examples of "nonnecro" stacks.

/C\/C\

[kekel]

anybody knows what triggers Necromancer and Demonologist medals? thanks

[ICECOOL]

Where I can recruit dragons in DS?

[aghiuta]

for dragons, you get reds and blacks and red eggs from the dragon you get to move to the shelter.

also posting here a bug (since we don't have a dedicated forum): CTD when hero casts last hero on stack and it takes dmg from retaliation, happened 3 times in the fight so was consistent enough for reporting, (fight with king of portland, for reference)

[Zhuangzi]

for dragons, you get reds and blacks and red eggs from the dragon you get to move to the shelter.

also posting here a bug (since we don't have a dedicated forum): CTD when hero casts last hero on stack and it takes dmg from retaliation, happened 3 times in the fight so was consistent enough for reporting, (fight with king of portland, for reference)

Yeah, I've had that problem with Last Hero too. Also several occasions where, for reasons unknown, no one wants to have their turn and I have to reload :confused:

[MattCaspermeyer]

anybody knows what triggers Necromancer and Demonologist medals? thanks

Have Blackie convert prisoners to either Undead or Demons.

I think you need 500 for level 1 and then I can't remember after that, but something like 1500 for level 2 and 2500 for level 3.

By the way, if you have the money, this is a great way to get, for example, Demons very early.

/C\/C\

[ICECOOL]

Sorry my fault, I meant where I can recruit dragons beside shelter. Theres only 2 black dragons to recruit in all game?

[Zhuangzi]

I had this problem and in the end it made me give up on using Dragons (other than Dragon Riders, which you don't get until later). There is an island accessible from Darembam where you can purchase more, but you have to defeat the Black Dragon first so that the dirigible can fly there. I am playing a no-loss game and I had a hard time with this fight, so I didn't complete it until level 50 (it says you have to be at least level 30 to fight). By this time, I'd given up on Dragons...

[hippo]

Is this game playable now without any patches?

[aghiuta]

very playable, with some rare crashes, but they are rare.

Quick question, in anyone knows, does puppeteer works on summons made by creatures or just on summoning spells, and how does it work with recruiter for demoness, recruiter i tested and offers mobs already present in army, will puppeteer add to the percentage or just give option to recruit from summons, and if the last one does it work before/after recruiter or instead? (long convoluted question, i know, please have a +1 mana potato :D)

Also for both recruiter and puppeteer, I managed to get dark Giants and Archdemons from recruiter, can I get any other lvl 5 units (like dragon riders or blackies?)

Sweet lord, Matt, the engineer in me loved your explanation. At least now i know i have to buy my riders :D

[MattCaspermeyer]

See my post here (http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=705967&postcount=68). I actually looked into the code to see how it works as well as who it works on...

/C\/C\

[aghiuta]

now that i saw your skills i will try to abuse them (no good deed goes unpunished :P)
anything in the code about the love our summons have for traps? just had a cerberi in the optimal position, with three enemies lined up next to him, so the logical action would be to attack all three, instead he opted to run away from them toward a trap, even if no enemy was near it.

[MattCaspermeyer]

I'm almost 100% certain that the AI does not see the traps.

Some of the summoned troops are controlled by the AI and so when they move, they move as if there are no traps on the battlefield.

We'd probably have to go through the LUA function that controls the summoned units and have them check to avoid traps.

It'd be nice if the devs could do this...

/C\/C\

[Elwin]

All i cna say i love this game.
I waited with purchase to avoid gamebraking bugs.
( and vusy with ESO) I have feeling like quest form shelter are little buguged, and not always complete when suposed. Like bring 50 girls to marie i borught and got vamps but quest stil going, had to bring another 50. I brought princes to feline she took it but nothing else happened.

I cant be bothered wih no loss, however monst of thme are, most of mylosses were due ti wrong playing with blood priestes sacrifice than realy enemy. I am level 46 atm

I rely realy wanted to didnt mes anything o Atrixus, went thorught it many times whenm i started but seems i misssed demonologists (from what i red here) ) god that woul change entirely my early game. Now its just Dragon rider faceroll ;
Sand box of this game .. on the first thing we love it on the other hand i hate since i dont know where ot go, i completly forgot aobut atrxus and now i have like 4 lands also open and no idea where to go now ;p I was a bit mad that i didnt have any spell for "wariror of demonis" medal Played half the game without finding any, while book of evil was just here and armies are weak Ugh ;p Just came to sandy island to see weak forces while i just slaughtered daeadly on bear butte ugh ;p

[BB Shockwave]

I will say it in 3 words: BUY THIS GAME!!! Especially if you are a KBAP enthusiast.

THis game has everything that KBAP had with only 1 bottleneck (honestly, they could have done away with it, but it is extra challenge), till you get your spirit, which gives you the rage box. After that, fun times abound!

You guys must be really "hungry" for a proper TBS if even you veterans are playing this game. It took me less than a week to give up on it. No fun at all, badly designed empty maps, terrible dialogue, issues from WOTN still unfixed... The new units are very lame, and some (the priestess for example) have graphics that seems like it was taken from another game, it doesn't fit the KB style at all.
I'm enjoying playing Crossworlds more.

Which brings me to another point, attack seems completely useless in this game. Mostly because of halving talent (i hope they change it somehow), what's the point of having high attack when you can destroy half of the troop size having 1 attack, that also make resistances of enemies redundant.


I knew the programmers were not even trying anymore when I saw that skill. IT's like... how can you make it even more munchkin-y than havign Dragon Riders that summon Black Dragons? Having one of the most powerful skills, that previously was only available to an otherwise not that strong Tier 5 unit, and was restricted by Leadership, be available to EVERY unit, unrestricted. Hey, why not give Soul Drain with 30% kill chance as a rechargeable ability to Necromancers next? Or Armaggedon on every critical hit for demons! :D They are not even trying to make this game good or balanced, just throwing in every mod they found online...

[Elwin]

actualy i didnt like when i got black drgons out of summon, couldnt use target etc on them.Game is alright sure ywe can point ouit many flaws but its enjoyable

[Tianx]

Is it intentional that dispel is not supposed to work on Poison, Fire, Bleed etc?

Since healing is much less used now, the DOT ability is draining my army like crazy

[Elwin]

It is intended, read skil description. Actualy heal III cures them IIRC

[BB Shockwave]

Is it intentional that dispel is not supposed to work on Poison, Fire, Bleed etc?

Since healing is much less used now, the DOT ability is draining my army like crazy

That's really weird, since Dispel removes them in AP and CW.