Dragon arrows on Skel archers VS Hunters

[iregev]

Guys,
I am playing with Elves Hunters and skeleton archers. and I noticed that dragon arrow spell is the most effective on the skeleton.

the hunter without dragon arrow will kill 2 black dragons and with dragon arrows will kill 3.

Skeleton archers will kill 2 w/o spell and 8-10 with it
any thoughts why

[Koki]

Probably leadership to damage ratio is better for the skelies?

[Zonc]

Originally Posted by Koki

Probably leadership to damage ratio is better for the skelies?

No it's not the thing (I mean not the ONLY thing). Both units were designed to have similar power without Dragon Arrows. Skellies have better leadership/dmg ratio, but Elves have no range penalty and better attack. Dragon Arrows change these two things, it turns off range penalty and blows through enemy's defence, meaning that skellies low attack isn't a factor anymore. That's why this spell is so awesome with low level archers (I use it with my Bowmen and it's always first spell in battle)

[Stepsongrapes]

Originally Posted by Zonc

No it's not the thing (I mean not the ONLY thing). Both units were designed to have similar power without Dragon Arrows. Skellies have better leadership/dmg ratio, but Elves have no range penalty and better attack. Dragon Arrows change these two things, it turns off range penalty and blows through enemy's defence, meaning that skellies low attack isn't a factor anymore. That's why this spell is so awesome with low level archers (I use it with my Bowmen and it's always first spell in battle)

OP's specific situation implies that he has a pretty high attack modifier. It sounds like the hunters are bumping up against the 3X damage cap at 30+ attack value on the hunter, but the skeletons are still under the cap. Essentially, the hunters aren't getting the full benefit of dragon arrows if your attack modifier to too high.

For players with a lower attack modifier, hunters tend to show more dramatic benefit from dragon arrows and closer parity to skeletons.

[iregev]

yes I have high attack modifier - playing warrior on impossible ~20 attack, and have the dwarven telescope. So If I was playing a mage would it been different.

[Stepsongrapes]

Yeah. Basically, if your archer unit (hunter or otherwise) has an attack value that stacks with your modifier to yield a modified attack that is over 30, you're losing the full affect of dragon arrows. The skeletons, having a lower unmodified attack avoid suffering from this or suffer from it less than a hunter.

Roughly speaking, each point of difference between defense and attack yields a 3.3% damage increase, capped at 300% (3X base damage). Dragon arrows drops the target's defense to zero leaving a higher chance that you will hit that cap.

EDIT: you can test it yourself by repeating your black dragon kill test with the hunters after shedding most of your +attack gear. Watch the damage numbers and you should see a bigger difference, with and without the dragon arrows.