Area of Effect Ramblings

Now, it's been a rather long time since I've played, so bear with me. I seem to have forgotten just how devastating those little bastards with large ranged AoE can be. The Weather Witch and Fire Mage both have a distance 'rain' of damage. Two or three well-placed attacks can kill Elsin. I found this out the hard way.

I'm currently playing the main campaign of the original, the "Walls of Elam" mission. (Well not 'currently' currently. Currently I'm at the \"****\" beach far from TA:K.) In the game, before I saved and left, I had just reached the walls proper.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with this level, you begin with Elsin and Kirenna in the southeastern corner of the map, and at various places all around the map are units set to spawn upon your approach (or rather, they are built-in, but don't react until you arrive). You begin just south of a line of walls, and a 'gate' area guarded by several mage towers. These can be taken out easily enough, and then you can use those same relatively undefended walls to hold back the coming tide. That wall runs off to the west a good ways and then north to the "Walls" of Elam itself, which are in fact the indestructible and impassable Berns. There are two rings of Berns forming a killing ground in between if you get caught there. Now beyond the wall in the east, before you reach the berns, there's a sprawling urban area full of those dark palaces, shacks, hovels, gibbets, and so forth.

I had shorn up my operation in the south with an adequate base and a small security force, keeping my monarchs near enough the fighting to help out, but far enough to extract quickly. My Gold Dragon was ranking up kills at an astounding pace while I built my mobile shock force of knights and amazon knights. Taros had a number of factories at the north of the urban sprawl, at twin openings in the Berns where more forces from further into the 'city' could pour out and join the fight. After quite a while, my Gold Dragon was gold veteran and wrecking the place, but had to be careful about it. Meanwhile, I finally got a couple of trebs up smashing away (the 'npc' buildings had previously blocked direct long-range attacks, hence the Gold Dragon).

So after into this I charge my mobile forces, finally wrecking the last of the 'outer' base, pushing the enemy up into the bern openings. During the charge, however, with all the units backing up around the buildings, I lost quite a few forces to demons, mages, and sky knights. So I run up a few mage builders and priestesses to clear away the wreckage and build some forward defenses while I ramp up for round two and push beyond the berns.

Well, another opening to the west allowed a few small forces to scoot in behind me and kill my builders as I go. There were primarily Abyss units with a few scattered mages and executioners. I thought little of this, but under pressure at the berns, my dragon and knights were busy. I'm also coming under occasional pressure from the west, so I have keep my small security force back at the base. So I needed some builders who could fight back.

So I march Elsin and Kirenna up to clear the wreckage and build basic fortifications. I figured, "Screw it, I'll be fine!" Well, several of those strike forces were smashed aside by the siblings throwing meteors and water, once in a while waving to make it quick. But one particular group had two weather witches, a fire mage, and enough other critters that I couldn't kill them all at once. And Kirenna (being slightly weaker with a tracking 2nd attack) was stationed a little further back. Elsin, then, took fire from both of those witches back to back. Hail Shower (or whatever it is) rains down for just a couple of seconds, but is devastating, even to monarchs. Before I could blink, Elsin vanished in a mist of mogrite dust. I'd lost the battle, though thankfully I'd saved.

This was a shock, so I did some reconfiguring (i.e. cheating) and made a version of Taros which produced only Witches and Fire Mages and Executioners. I then played as Aramon to test it out, playing my typical style. In no time I was fighting for my life as every wave thrown at me was enough to demolish everything I'd built. Why is it that these units, so effective, are so rarely utilized in full?

Not sure what you mean, they are rarely utilized? Do you mean just on campaign or online? Any decent Taros player online will have a few Weather Witches or Fire mages in every game depending on which building they had up fastest or what the map terrain looks like Rachy x

i almost never use firemages and im a decent tarosplayer i just dont like them thats all and i only use weatherwitchs and firemages only when need be or when im starting to be killed off but yeah most other players make firemages for killing off units and weatherwitchs for mons

BTW he might talk about that AI almost never use 3rd spell, (it is caused by 3.0 patch or 2.0 because on 1.0 almost always any unit were using the strongest spell, and you could move one bird inside enemy base and enemy monarch almost always would wave it (and hurt many things inside base))

But only firemages + weather witchies + executioner suxs, firemages are soo expensive and have small 2nd dmage, 3rd you can't spam as much as possible (i mean that firemages and weather witchies are only special forces troops not frontline units, they won't hold bunch firedemons/cannons etc).

Anyway Taros and Zhon team are IMO the strongest one's (weather, firemage, lich, drops)

Weather witch 3rd spell have almost 15k dmg (monarchs have 15,9 16k health (expect Thirsha ofc) ) +ofc 75% edgeeffectdamage
so yea weather witch + any archer and mon can die

well malin i seen a witch 1 shot elsin and lokken and they both have 16k health and where un injuried before the wave so witchwitchs 9 times out of 10 can 1 shot a mon can almost be consider 1 of the most powerful units in the game because of her 1 shot abilty but due to her health and cast time makes her from being a broken unit

maybe weather witch was little upgraded?

hmm yea i am also quite sure that witch sometimes can make 1shot 1 mon kill, but its also quite imposible during watching weather witch stats

$ MalinOMW wrote:

maybe weather witch was little upgraded?

hmm yea i am also quite sure that witch sometimes can make 1shot 1 mon kill, but its also quite imposible during watching weather witch stats

I don't know if I can calc like that, but look:

Weather witch's 3rd attack duration is 2.75 seconds, and it's 10 particles per second, each particle have 555 of damage.
So, 10 x 2.75 = 27,5 particles x 555 = 15262.

Elsin has 16000 life. Then it stays with low life and you use 2nd attack that gives 792 of damage. 15262 + 792 = 16054. Bye bye elsin. ^^

But depends, he must be in THE MIDDLE of the area to take full damage.

I know Elsin got smashed without being in the middle, but then... He did get hit with two of those attacks.

Here, he gets 5 posts in a row of sentences without dots, including 2 from chris, and says nothing.

What a fatheaded cunt lol

(Cavedog before its demise and with the V3 patch) should have balanced those cheap powerful (units that can shower an area with deadly type meteors or hail) with some kind of damage reduction versus unique units such as Mons and Gods.
Then again, maybe everything is working as intended?

Vaerun

I think the area attacks are one of the few Taros good aspects, but can be countered. I'm not sure if they really are so cheap considering their chance of dealing damage, compared to many other units in the game they are just one more useful unit.

Vaerun wrote:

(Cavedog before its demise and with the V3 patch) should have balanced those cheap powerful (units that can shower an area with deadly type meteors or hail) with some kind of damage reduction versus unique units such as Mons and Gods.
Then again, maybe everything is working as intended?

Vaerun

Honestly, Aramon has Cannons, Veruna has Berzerkers, Zhon has Spirit Wolves, Creon has Beast Riders and Taros is broken because it has Weather Witch and Fire Mage!?!?!?

$_ARTHAN wrote:

Vaerun wrote:

(Cavedog before its demise and with the V3 patch) should have balanced those cheap powerful (units that can shower an area with deadly type meteors or hail) with some kind of damage reduction versus unique units such as Mons and Gods.
Then again, maybe everything is working as intended?

Vaerun

Honestly, Aramon has Cannons, Veruna has Berzerkers, Zhon has Spirit Wolves, Creon has Beast Riders and Taros is broken because it has Weather Witch and Fire Mage!?!?!?

Arthan, you should compare equivalents elements. You can't compare cannon with berzerker. You can compare berzerker with spirit wolves. You can't compare spirit wolves with cannoneers and beast riders.

They have their function, berserker is good for monarch hunting, so you should compare with other mons hunters of each race, like that: Aramon has Knight, Taros has Blade Demon, Veruna has Berserk and Zhon has Spirit Wolf.

If you want to compare cannoneers: Aramon has Cannoneers, Taros has Fire Demons, Veruna has... mortar?, and Zhon has Stone Giant.

Btw none of mons hunters can "hit kill" a monarch like Weather Witch can. Btw a Weather Witch costs only 1403... Now see how much a Blade Demon? 1444. So I agree with Vaerun, these deadly skills could have less damage when it's a Monarch or God.

Spoiler:

Of course I know they are different. I just try to show that every race has its "broken" units. Weather witch needs time to load its attack and when it is released it is gone, while Blade Deamon rapes by the time it hits the battlefield. Moreover, Weather Witch dies like a tier 1 builder (I mean she dies very easily). Now, if we consider the casting time of her ability we will see it is quite easily countered via plenty of ways.
As for Fire Mage, he is good, but he is expensive and by the time he hits the field, the opponent of Taros is capable of getting rid of him.

(replying to Manolo, before seeing Arthan's last post) In the other hand that's also a balancing effect. Witch can't really hit kill mons everytime, there's the duration of the shot, edgeeffectiveness and areaofeffect. Witches' low hp means that pretty much anything will kill her even before she manages to shoot. And if you lower the witche's dmg against Elsin, he will just Gate/Cannon run over Taros without fear of being stormed and lose his gate maker.

I think things are more complex than that and I agree with Arthan.

Weather Witch needs just 3 secs to fire her attack. Ok, you are walking with your camera around the map. And you hear the sound of a witch firing her spell. Ok, passes 1 sec, you press ctrl+m and see where the weather witch is, more 1 second, you target her. Boom. Byebye monarch.

Your monarch cost 1403 now. Very nice not? Oh, and how many witches can you make? Now, how many monarchs can you make? Ops. I think none.

Landherr, not every race has cannoneers.

True, others have beast riders. lol

I think it depends on the players, if you just leave your mon at danger then it's your fault, not the game's.

In TAK you can't really compare equivalent units because races can be very unique. Only Zhon has a Roc, only creon has neo, etc.

And witch is too slow to even reach the mon. Then taros has a ghost ship to transport her but it still sucks and, if you are half cautious, you won't lose your mon.

Yeah, but I still think Weather Witch's third attack is so powerful, it doesn't matter if it has low life or it is slow. It can inflict about 15k damage in one go. What the \"****\'?

Manolo but look, if you send ex.(2 blade demons)* against mon there is huge chance (typical on begin match) to kill or hard damage mon (at least 50% health), if you send 2 weather witch with ghost ship you can take 100%(kill it) or lost weather witch,
weather witch is like poker all in unit, huge damage, or nothing (which usually happen)

*2 blade demons,or 3-4 serkers, 3 knights, 2 spirit + roc, or nothing from creon lol (discover that creon don't have mon assasin (ok neo but he is other type unit) )

Manolo Veruna Sux stop playing that race

Edit 1
its really hard to use weather witch against good player
usually taros need to disturb enemy then use weather witch

or pray for luck as Sokka and get 20% working drops

Edit 2
yea weather witch in 1v1 with ghost ship, are so slow anyway.
only with rocs there is some bigger chance to gain succes

$ MalinOMW wrote:

Manolo Veruna Sux stop playing that race

\"****\", you got me! LOL
AHH COME ON IT'S 15K DAMAGE \"****\' LOL.

Ok, but anyway, look, if you send witches to kill a monarch, and lose witches, you say... Okay, it was just 2 witches. Now if you kill, what will be the reaction of the enemy? MY MONARCH YOU MOTHERFUCKER HACKER WTF I LOST MY MONARCH FOR 2 INSIGNIFICANT WITCHES.

It's the same thing as lose your monarch for a goblin? But it's 15k of damage.
What unit can do 15k of damage in one go? Gods? Oh no, gods yeah, they have reduction in damage vs monarch.

2 veruna zerks can kill a mon too (can easily inflict 15k dmg in a sage), and they cost a bit more than 1 witch.

yea and 2 zerks probably gonna at least for almost sure hit sometime mon,
ofc in early game, same with maybe working witch, but witch HAVE always only MAYBE i gonna be super or most common i gonna be totally 0

$ Landherr wrote:

2 veruna zerks can kill a mon too (can easily inflict 15k dmg in a sage), and they cost a bit more than 1 witch.

Not faster, in 3-6 seconds? haha. Also there is a lot of strategy going on, when comes 2 zerks, the player can think, at least?

most important
if witch would be so OP, they would be so often use, but they not much popular as 15k dmg would say, usually we use blade demon to hunt monarch, or fire mage to hit important buildings, or we gonna take risk and use weather witch which usually do nothing*


BTW goblins can be also OP 3-5 goblins can easly destroy any buildings

Edit
witch die by 1 hit almost from little stronger unit (and 2-4 hits from archer type unit)

Edit 2
*thats why i hate when somebody in my team go only for weathers drops, they usually do nothing, liches, FM drops hits destroy something, weathers usually dies, or get bugged also sometimes

2 veruna zerks can kill a mon too (can easily inflict 15k dmg in a sage), and they cost a bit more than 1 witch. A witch usually makes 10-14k of dmg.

zerk has 610 of damage, 1.2 of rt.

508 of dps. fucking absurd lol, and consider the absurd speed it reaches at roads, it's a fucking nightmare and can often be more efficient than witches.

2 zerks during 15s chasing a sage will kill him.

Things can be as complex as you want. Witch is poker like OMW says, zerk will at least give some good damage. And that's part of what has been TAK for more than a decade, changes should be done very delicately.