Units Analysis

[rayruan]

I made this excel sheet for units analysis. all the units information is copied from Russ manual, only the column in yellow and red added by me.

I treat every leadship point as a unit and compare with the most powerful unit black dragon. The red column is conclusion, the value is smaller the unit is more powerful. Please be noted I modified some min and max damage base on their damage skills and this analysis only consider physical damage because most damage type made by units is physical.

the formula I use is

Difference= 0.32/((AD/L)/(1+(56-Attack)*0,0333))-(Health/L)/(0.048*(1-physical resist/100)*(1+(56-Defence)*0.0333))
0.32 is Health/L of Black Dragon
0.048 is AD/L of Black Dragon
56 is attack and defence of Black Dragon (They are same)

Sorry about the mess of formula, it's pretty complicated. I am not expect you can totally understand it. But, if you got any question, please put your comments here.

From this analysis, we can see:
1, the powerful units is not only level 4 and level 5 units. Such as Guardsman and Ork are good melee units
2, Range units has less power than melee units, but they have advantage of distance. So, you shouldn't compare range units with melee units. Ranger units are very useful, normally I take 4 range units and 1 melee units in my team.

Hope you enjoy this!

Thanks

[Namel]

Very interesting table. Do I understand correctly that "To BD" column compares attack force and "By BD" column is how good defense is? And lower "To BD" is better while higher "By BD" is better?

It seems skeleton archers and thorn hunters are really on level of their own as ranged damage makers. Near twice as damaging as anything else and 3 times better than many. (Of course special abilities make this up for some units.)

[player1]

Well it all depends what you want from unit.

For example, Evil Beholders have very low health compared to their leadership requirement, making them very easy to lose in melee.

But, that's compensated with good damage rating and their special ability.

Also, it is also depends from what you want in army. If you play warrior, maybe you need units that can take as much punishment as possible (good health per leadership ratio), since you can't control losses as good as mage or paladin.

[rayruan]

Very interesting table. Do I understand correctly that "To BD" column compares attack force and "By BD" column is how good defense is? And lower "To BD" is better while higher "By BD" is better?

It seems skeleton archers and thorn hunters are really on level of their own as ranged damage makers. Near twice as damaging as anything else and 3 times better than many. (Of course special abilities make this up for some units.)

If you take a look my formula, you can find

To BD show how many strikes 1 point leadership unit can kill 1 point leadership black dragon. By BD show how many strikes 1 point black dragon can kill 1 point leadership unit. So, smaller To BD unit can make more damage, bigger By BD unit can take more damage.

[rayruan]

Well it all depends what you want from unit.

For example, Evil Beholders have very low health compared to their leadership requirement, making them very easy to lose in melee.

But, that's compensated with good damage rating and their special ability.

Also, it is also depends from what you want in army. If you play warrior, maybe you need units that can take as much punishment as possible (good health per leadership ratio), since you can't control losses as good as mage or paladin.

Actually, Evil Beholders make less damage than the thorn-hunter at same leadership not same quantity. To approve it, you can easily try to use them attack same target, you will see the damage.

[player1]

I never claimed otherwise.

But with Thorn-Hunetrs, biggest problem is to find them in quantity that maches full stack. Also, their effective range is smaller. You'll need to move a few tiles forward just to not get half damage.

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As for table, not all is seen when comparing to BD. Those low attack units get especially good when when attacking targets with lower defenses. Also, in actual game you'll never see such disparity like in that table, since your hero will have increased attack rating.

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As for Evil beholders, I think they would fare rather poorly against BD. For sole reason that they are doing magical damage, and BD are 80% protected from it. On the other hand you would rock against Ghost or similar.

[Dorkus]

Can you explain these variables? looks interesting! thanks

[Namel]

Of course that table doesn't really tell what is best unit. It just tells their damage making and soaking potential. But I think it is great help in seeing what kind of units perform well in different tasks.

I love evil beholders and would take them any time over skeleton archers. Their sleep and hypnosis ability are just great and their range, speed and initiative are lot better. On the other hand that table makes me really think of using skeleton archers instead of normal archers if I have way to replace the dead.

[Namel]

One bug in table. Cyclops is actually ranged unit.

I just got them and love them. :) They have unlimited range and are very very tough. Of course their damage isn't that great but they also got nice melee skills to punish archdemons or dragons that get too close.

[Xelian]

Good job. Though from my expirience tables with stats aren't the best way to show which unit is good and which is bad. It usually depends on the playins style of the person. I personally find Ancient Ents, Ogres and Giants very crappy cause of their slow speed. They are only usefull later when you start fighting dragons. There is a few units which are very tough to fight agains but they suck. Let's take for example dragons. They are very good units but at the time you get them for first time (Land of the Death) the enemy which have remained you to fight agains are mostly demons and dragons agains which the dragon fire damage isn't good. Also they are hard to maintain as they can't be resurrected. I personally prefer 3-4 level units as Fear work mirracles when you have large quantities of low level units. Also they are easier to ressurect.

[player1]

Let's take for example dragons. They are very good units but at the time you get them for first time (Land of the Death) the enemy which have remained you to fight agains are mostly demons and dragons agains which the dragon fire damage isn't good. Also they are hard to maintain as they can't be resurrected.

That's why I like Emerald Dragons the most.
They do physical damage, not fire (and decent one, not like crappy bone dragons). Also, they have two special attacks with no retaliation (grab and mana drain), so less chance to get them killed.

[Dorkus]

Not sure i'm understanding this chart. shouldn't the black dragon have a difference value of zero against itself?

[rayruan]

One bug in table. Cyclops is actually ranged unit.

I just got them and love them. :) They have unlimited range and are very very tough. Of course their damage isn't that great but they also got nice melee skills to punish archdemons or dragons that get too close.

you are right, thanks

[rayruan]

Not sure i'm understanding this chart. shouldn't the black dragon have a difference value of zero against itself?

No, black dragon also make damage to black dragon. The damage chould not be zero

[rayruan]

Good job. Though from my expirience tables with stats aren't the best way to show which unit is good and which is bad. It usually depends on the playins style of the person. I personally find Ancient Ents, Ogres and Giants very crappy cause of their slow speed. They are only usefull later when you start fighting dragons. There is a few units which are very tough to fight agains but they suck. Let's take for example dragons. They are very good units but at the time you get them for first time (Land of the Death) the enemy which have remained you to fight agains are mostly demons and dragons agains which the dragon fire damage isn't good. Also they are hard to maintain as they can't be resurrected. I personally prefer 3-4 level units as Fear work mirracles when you have large quantities of low level units. Also they are easier to ressurect.

I aggree, my work doesn't show which unit is best, but only show which unit is good at physical attack and defence. Best unit also depend on the stratige of player, unit abilitly and skills, char type and enemy to fight. My work only a reference for you. Please be noted again, this chart only consider physical damage and resist, but maigc attack and resist.

Thanks

[player1]

Still, I think that most valuable part of the chart are those AD/L and Health/L columns, since any other analysis starts from them. How tough is the group and how good is in dealing damage.

From these values you can start any analysis.

For example, archer vs Thorn-Hunter comparasion:

Archer AD/L: 0,07, Attack: 16
Thorn-Hunter AD/L: 0,188, Attack 4

Attacking creatures with defense of 10:
Archer damage: 0.07 * (100+6*3.33)/100 = 0.084
Thorn-Hunter damage: 0.188 * 100/(100+6*3.33) = 0.157

So full thorn-hunters stack deals almost twice damage compared to archer.

But, if player has bowman talent at 3rd level, his archers would have -20% lower leadership needs. So actual damage would be 0.084/0.8 = 0.105. Much better.

There are other factors too. For example archer effective range is 6 tiles, while for thorn-hunters is just 4. So archer will more often deal full damage, and thus be better then Thorn-Hunter if attacking stacks from distance. On the other hand, archer uses arrows, making him deal just 30% damage on skeletons. But from plus size, archer has freezing arrow talent, very useful on stacks with slow speed, and fire arrow talent for more damage with proper training (0.108 damage, 0.135 with full bowman talent).

So anyway, while core of the unit usefulness can seen from those AD/L and Health/L values, there are always other factors.

[Infiltrator]

Practice shows that Royal Snakes are simply great at almost every situation. Their health, damage, ldrs, no retaliation ability and lunge just make them too good in the first half of the game at least.

Demonesses are another great unit imo. Charm, Distant attack and Infernal swap just offer an amazing array of strategy.. basically with just swap I win 9/10 battles without a single causality.

[Dorkus]

No, black dragon also make damage to black dragon, so the last column's value ("difference") should be zero. The damage chould not be zero

No I am saying that a black dragon does the same damage as itself (obviously). So it should take an equal number of strikes for it to kill or be killed by another black dragon.

Or does this table assume the designated unit strikes first?

Also, it doesn't seem that the table reflects no retaliation? This is in essence the same as the ork veteran's ability. You double the veteran's damage but don't adjust other units that have a no retal strike (snakes, vampires, etc)