Melee Monster Mash Build?

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

+20% damage, IMHO. Critical is nice, but doesn't happen all the time. Btw, I think a high attack skill is more important then high leadership. Especially againts non-hero armies, even if they are much bigger, you'll have the advantage.

Crit is probably the worst, unless it gets you 100% (in which case if you have the initiative, this guarantees you a fixed damage, which is harder to quantify in raw averages but is a clear tactical advantage). Crit is a 1.5 multiplier, so the expected value of a 20% crit item is 0.5 (bonus damage) * 0.2 (crit item) or about 0.1, 10% damage gain equivalent as an expected value. (statistics)

- Crit +20% is ~10% damage gain.

- 20% damage is pretty good, straight 20% damage gain.

However,

-20% leadership gives you 25% more damage IF your unit has a somewhat higher leadership. (say, paladins 200 leadership vs paladins with inquis 160 leadership).

It isn't obvious at first though.

[edit]
regarding higher attack skill, you always want to strive for the "60 attack greater than their defense" gap, so you can achieve 3X damage, which is obviously higher than 1.5X damage from criticals. However, this is much easier to achieve for the more useful units. You can also easily force down an enemy's defense with helplessness and / or debuffs which help lower their morale, which lowers their defense even more (all debuffs lower morale).

So basically you need ~60 attack rating for your units, and you are good to go since you can bring the enemy's defense down to 1. That's also why I prefer the scalable damage units such as the goblin and the troll PLUS the indomitable ability, FRENZY (in the Might Tree).

Troll's attack rating increases when anything dies (friend or foe, so your summon cannon fodder feeds the troll). Goblin attack rating goes up every time he attacks.

Anytime they kill, they get frenzy attack bonus.

So, as time goes on, I converge on the 3X damage bonus automatically. That's why I strive for max critical and damage when I can.

Frenzy is so useful in long battles that I even get it as a mage. I can't believe no one told me about this earlier.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

How can Morale be eliminated? Apart from Necromancers...

Burn, poison, mark of death, doom, any negative status effects bring down morale.

It is the same reason why the flame arrow + poison skull combo is so deadly besides the damage over time. It reduces the enemy morale status by 2!

It is also why helplessness is SO SO SO evil and it ONLY costs 6 mana. It helps me bring down the level 5s like candy.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

I agree there are some stupid skills like Diplomacy, but the makers made it sure even stuff like Neatness increases some other stat so it's not a waste of runes.

Hey, that might be the only way to get certain units in size, if not enough of them spawned. But yeah, it isn't exactly a creme of the crop skill and not worth maxing out usually.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

I found Dragons to be over-rated. In my Legend Walkthrough, my Blackies were my tanks, sure - but who did the most damage? Royal Snakes and Griffins. Simply, even with high Leadership, you will never get enough of them to do the same damage as a lower level unit with good attack and damage. Same thing happend with my Lizardmen army and I was using a Warrior - my Gorguls often did twice the damage then the Tirexes. The Level 5 units are very important as the damage-absorbers, though, and of course, Blackies can really wreak havoc on plants or if you cast Oily Cloud.

Well of course. That's the basis of damage per leadership. However, there are a few other factors to consider, e.g. overcoming the 60 attack/defense gap first so a 'low level unit' can converge to 3X damage. Plus survivability since that affects the damage you will do the "next round", etc.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Indeed. You are using Furious Goblins, then?

Nope. Assassin's dagger is basically 0.5 * 0.30 or +15% damage on average to assassins, BUT the +1 poison is basically about 1/3 or 33% damage increase to Goblins. Any +1 item is a HUGE damage booster to a low damage unit, it just isn't obvious.

Slap on Astral bow, Whip of Pain, Assassin's dagger to a skeleton archer, which does 2-3 damage base. Each of those items confers +1 damage.

You just increased the archer's damage by about 100%.

That said, I wish assassins didn't suck so much, but now that I got them somewhat near 100% critical, they can easily easily max out find weaknesses chart. I'm still wondering if they are junk or not though.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

I think the new boosted summons like Phoenix, Infernal Dragon, Evil Book are pretty powerfull too - only saw the enemy cast them, but they are wastly more potent.

The new Phoenix is excellent, but of course you really should only be using it with a mage or paladin since the mana consumption is INSANE. New Level 3 Phoenix can RESURRECT. That was the only reason I made it through with Impossible Mage without too many problems in the new OOTM.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

I'd like to see that Warrior... you have to sacrifice a lot of Warrior skills to get mana and intellect that high, or wear proper Mage gear.

No you don't. Mana accelerator, transmute, etc. I don't have any mage skills that specifically buff mana besides the pre-requisites, and only the Ancient Amulet, and I have around 53 mana with my OOTM build. My previous warrior build in AP, I can show you the save game file.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

But he'll never get enough Intellect or Mana to make those spells count, that's my point. He can stick to low-mana spells like Slow or Stone Skin, but try casting Level III Hypnotize with a Warrior, first you will not be able to Hypnotize any troop, second, you'll be out of mana in one turn.

Completely incorrect. You use spells that don't require intellect. (Ooh that sounded funny haha) Hypnotize is... potentially interesting, but I find it horribly mana inefficient so I don't use it even with a mage.

Pop Quiz again
which debuff does the most damage to an individual, assuming you already achieved maximum attack/defense gap of 60? (you already do 3X damage to the unit because your attack is 60 higher than their defense).

- Doom (guarantee critical) 20 mana 2 turn
- Pygmy (-40% health, -40% damage) 20 mana 2 turn
- Plague (-25% attack -25% defense -25% health) 25 mana? dont' remember the turns.

Pygmy. It lets you do about 66% more damage, higher than a critical which only does 50% damage, and it only costs 20 mana. Killing this unit will generate plenty of rage and you'll transmute him verry soon. (+4 mana)

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Again, why? I'll most likely replay the game on Hard with a Paladin, going with an all-elven army. It's not impossible.

Nothing personal, but based on what I have read, Hard is muuuch easier than Impossible.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

I thought you were doing an experiment on playing using only melee units... now I am confused.

Originally yes. But I came to another conclusion. I have zero flexibility options with the paladin if I want a very smooth, fast, hard hitting match on Impossible. I originally wanted to just do pure melee, and then I lamented that if that failed, I'd have to start over.

The warrior build has let me sort of still flesh out what units I want to use, be it melee or ranged or a mixture. I mean a STRONG mixture that can easily handle impossible in a fun way.

I'm struggling to decide if I want to stick with assassins or go with goblin, goblin shaman, catapult (and/or what mixture of that).

I found that mages have the flexibility of double cast, and warriors can have triple weapons for very interesting min/max builds, but the paladin... it has no advantage I can foresee.

Mage with RuneMage with level 3 Archmage Skill is a super healer.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

It'd be nice if the old Paladin Rune Stone skill would still be there, though yeah, the trading is an option. I forgot how the rates were, though.

If you plop 15, you get 8 in the other.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Magic Light only heals units, does not resurrect. It's a pretty useless spell, never used it with a Mage either, unless I wanted some enemy undead to move into a more favourable position for a Fire Rain.

Argh, the Magic Light MAGE SKILL that increases the power of resurrect, healing, etc. The "order equivalent" of chaos's "destruction" ability.

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

Paladins can easily max out Healer and thus can increase the effect of God Armour, Heal and Resurrect ( the latter even further as they have another skill for it). I know, you say a Mage can do this - yep, but in Battle a Mage will be busy chucking damage spells at the enemy, or hypnotizing enemies and putting Sheep and Doom/Pygmy on them. What I was trying to say all along, the Palading gaming style is buff spells/support, he can do that better then the warrior due to higher intellect/mana, and he has better attack/defense and leadership then the mage. He is your typical Holy Warrior leader. Pretty much the same as the Paladin class was in the original King's Bounty, where it was my favourite too.

Therein lies the problem and my point. What if, warriors had the intellect and mana and more leadership than a paladin? Would you still pick paladin?

Just think about that for a moment.

Actually, I find Mages are still better off doing debuff spells in Impossible mode.

Warrior can easily do the support build, they have to! Good support spells don't really need intellect.

I've killed many bosses, in Impossible mode, with the warrior, using support spells, no-loss. How can you tell me that doesn't work?

The only thing that really controls the stats are the runes. A lot of skills aren't really that needed, just like a lot of spells aren't really needed either. As long as you get the key skills for the min/maxing, that's all you need.

For that reason, the Mind Tree is generally weak for the reasons I stated in the previous comment. It has abilities which can be taken away (morale buffs can be removed), whereas the other two races abilities are essentially immutable.

As for casting spells, the best support spells are inexpensive or relatively so. Stone Skin, Pygmy, Helplessness, Precision, Healing.

So, if your primary tree had no real game-breaking skills, and the other guy can still cast all of the key support spells you can, and you have lower leadership, what advantage do you have left?

That's what I am proposing.

In theory, paladin should be better... it should be. But it isn't. They need to let the paladin have far more flexible item slots to make it more competitive.

By the way, this is all in Impossible mode, so, if you are just talking about hard mode, then I don't know if there is much point here. I mean, yes, I'm sure in normal or easy mode I might be able to win with an archdemon and some flame arrows.

Anyway I think I'm going around in circles here.

[edit]
Ah yes, I forgot to mention Phantom. Indeed, once I get that spell, things are a lot easier and more feasible. I do use that spell a lot and at worst, it costs 25 mana, but usually level 2 is ok as well at only 20 mana, you can still "profit" mana after consuming a mana accelerator (+25 mana).