OP Items

[white-haired-uncle]

Breaking out discussion which began #715 on items that are perhaps way too powerful and "need" to be broken up, nerfed, made into super items, etc.

Adding Holy Sword. Other than the fact that 90% of all units have Legacy of Light so some of this is redundant, wow. For example, illuminates and align=lawful together seems about right for a single item, perhaps with a low level resistance bump or something, but in this case they are just a small part.

[Dugy]

Yeah, I can agree that it has a bunch of abilities that are all quite powerful even individually. Does it feel so powerful that it needs to be weakened, either turned into an item set or just by removing some properties, or it could just be made super rare?

Other than the fact that 90% of all units have Legacy of Light

What do you mean by that? Is the random assignment of legacies broken and Legacy of Light is the most common one?

[Dugy]

I changed murderlust to work only on offence. The old murderlust is now called supreme murderlust and is obtainable only as AMLA (Werewolf Rider and Abomination).

[white-haired-uncle]

Yeah, I can agree that it has a bunch of abilities that are all quite powerful even individually. Does it feel so powerful that it needs to be weakened, either turned into an item set or just by removing some properties, or it could just be made super rare?

I would weaken it. My problem with making it super rare is that when you get enough super rare items, you're going to end up with a small collection of them. I tend to focus on a core of about 10-12 units in my army and make them as powerful as possible. So even if HS was super rare, I'll probably find at least one, and of 10-12 units I only need 3 or 4 super rare swords to ensure that every unit that relies on, if not just carries, a sword has a super rare one.

I should note, when I say super rare I mean there's a very small chance of a boss drop or rare item find. If super rare meant there was only one way to get it, like killing Abbadon in VS (great fight, and totally optional) then I wouldn't have such a problem with it the way it is.

Making it a set? In general I'm a fan of sets, but there's plenty of other ways to get illumination (for example).

I think what really bothers me about HS is the combos. It sets align=lawful and illuminates, which not only work together, but also setting lawful alleviates a potential downside of carrying HS (it illuminates, so if you're not lawful that could be a detriment). It also sets damage type to arcane and gives arcane penetration.

I would probably give it unholybane (either the ability or the weapon special), a weapon special lawful, and then pick one of the four other benefits, probably one involving arcane. I say weapon special lawful because it's the best way I can think of to make it so that you only want to give this to a lawful (probably illuminating) unit. It would be cool if there were a weapon special that focused on the alignment of the holder and not time of day (better yet if there were item specials that did focused on alignment, and this weapon special was just one instance). It could have one more beneficial property, if it was offset by a negative one like slows (can't use poison since so many chaotic units are undead) all adjacent chaotic (easy/normal) or non-lawful (hard) ALLIES.

Hmm, there's a thought. A weapon special that slows/poisons/incinerates/something the user if they don't have the proper alignment. Slow is probably a bad choice since it will wear off so quickly. Or a chaotic armor that hits a lawful wearer for -4MP. Or whatever.

Other than the fact that 90% of all units have Legacy of Light

What do you mean by that? Is the random assignment of legacies broken and Legacy of Light is the most common one?

I don't think it's any more common, it just seems that way because it's so annoying:

1. It's arguably one of the most powerful legacies, so it's extra annoying when it's wasted.
2. It's wasted on two of my favorite units, Prophet and Cel Mess.
3. It's wasted on anything chaotic if you want to keep them chaotic. Like my Nightprowler with nightstalk and a darkens item. Side note: there's an enemy with daystalk, but it's not available to the player.
4. The overall balance between light and dark seems decidedly shifted toward light, to the point where it is almost not worth having chaotic units. This is unfortunate because they have different talents that would be interesting to explore, but with so much of my army lawful/illuminating, chaotic/darkens just kind of get in the way.

I changed murderlust to work only on offence.

Cool.

supreme murderlust and is obtainable only as AMLA (Werewolf Rider and Abomination).

Very cool. Abomination needed some help. I'd never even heard of WWR until now. I usually advance wolf riders to pillager for the slow attack, and I can't seem to keep them alive long enough to get to L4 anyway.

[Dugy]

From your descriptions, it sounds like if Legacy of Light was making lawful units more powerful overall than chaotic units, which could be the root of the problem. It seems really powerful - exceptional illumination + lawful + healing. Maybe some of these upgrades could be removed, like the exceptional illumination.

Holy Sword could have some of its properties removed, I would start with those that are easily available from other sources.

I will think about the rest of things you've said, I have to dash to work now.

[white-haired-uncle]

From your descriptions, it sounds like if Legacy of Light was making lawful units more powerful overall than chaotic units, which could be the root of the problem. It seems really powerful - exceptional illumination + lawful + healing. Maybe some of these upgrades could be removed, like the exceptional illumination.

I suspect a few causes for the light/dark balance thing.

1. Personal preference. I like Prophets and CMs.
2. I don't think there's really a counter to LoL. Undead comes to mind, but it seems weak to me and with all of its negative resistance/HP I never really use it
3. Items. In particular, Purity seems to be a lot cheaper (common) to craft than Deflector of Light.
4. Enemies seem to tend more toward chaotic. Illumination is a weapon against them.
5. ToD. I bet if you were to count all the turns spent in day/night, between underground and long dark/etc, it would come out with a lot more dark. This might seem like a reason to focus on chaotic units, but given all the other factors it's probably more of a reason to focus on a lot of illumination.
6. Units. Seems like there are more lawful units available to recruit than chaotic, and the balance is almost certainly heavier on lawful early which means that they have a lot longer to advance. And undead are mostly pretty weak/fragile, at least at first, so they're harder to level.
7. There was a 7. I was just thinking of it.

Coming back to items, Hatred and Chaos just seem like they should be tailored for chaotic units based on the names. And I think one could argue that poison is kind of a "bad" thing to do, in the same vein as necromancy, so probably Intoxicator.

[Dugy]

Celestial Messenger and Prophet are generally highly popular units that are probably OP by themselves. I wanted to make them slightly weaker, most likely just by reducing some numbers. Celestial Messenger was recently made even better by making conviction more important.

I could revise the sources of illumination, there really may be many of them and giving stronger versions of illumination. Meanwhile, it's true that darkens usually makes enemies stronger (except for demons). Maybe they could be paired with despair?

I am aware of the unpopularity of undead, I even have a concrete list of extra abilities they could get to be more attractive. Previously, I added a few new undead unit types one Halloween a few years ago, but it didn't do much.

The item Chaos intentionally has a bunch of unrelated mods. I created it out of curiosity if it will be useful somewhere, but it seems that its +1 attacks is the main reason to use it. Or maybe skirmisher.

[Dugy]

I have changed Holy Sword in 836f8c8.

[white-haired-uncle]

Celestial Messenger and Prophet are generally highly popular units that are probably OP by themselves. I wanted to make them slightly weaker, most likely just by reducing some numbers. Celestial Messenger was recently made even better by making conviction more important.

They are way OP, IMO. One easy thing I was thinking about was changing the AMLA order so you couldn't take the great stuff so early.

I am aware of the unpopularity of undead, I even have a concrete list of extra abilities they could get to be more attractive. Previously, I added a few new undead unit types one Halloween a few years ago, but it didn't do much.

I am quite interested in the undead, probably because I've never done much with them. I only recently learned about advancing soulless to interesting things like Abomination and Monstrosity (which may need some attention). I had a thought that might make them even better, soulless advance based on their variation. So the only way to get a new Wose Lich (whatever) is to advance a soulless with a wose variation. Nice side effect is that would put a lot more emphasis on plague, so instead of your leaders slaughtering everything in sight you end up using them as support (softening up/slowing enemies, providing leadership, etc).

My problem is not so much the units (though they do need some work), but mainly that when close to half of my army is lawful and I have a lot of illumination, the chaotic units and lawful/illum don't play well and it becomes a bother to keep them separate. The undead lines are interesting, just too much hassle at the moment IMO. Perhaps more scenarios that are undead-only/mostly so you have to build some up.

[Dugy]

They are way OP, IMO. One easy thing I was thinking about was changing the AMLA order so you couldn't take the great stuff so early.

Yeah, requiring some boring AMLAs before the exceptional ones could contribute to making them less overpowered.

I had a thought that might make them even better, soulless advance based on their variation. So the only way to get a new Wose Lich (whatever) is to advance a soulless with a wose variation.

I mean, the idea is okay, but I have already learned that adding more variety doesn't help. This might be done later, but not with the goal of making undead more used.

My problem is not so much the units (though they do need some work), but mainly that when close to half of my army is lawful and I have a lot of illumination, the chaotic units and lawful/illum don't play well and it becomes a bother to keep them separate.

That's why it's important to make them more worth the investment. Especially other units than Ancient Lich.

[white-haired-uncle]

Just crafted a Soul Hunter staff for my prophet. Pretty cheap, a little resistance, waste of good weapon damage, but it has murderlust. This lead me to wonder if murderlust would not be better as a weapon special than an ability (probably with a different name, murderlust sounds like an ability). I wouldn't advocate for changing anything now since it was just updated, just a thought I wanted to get down -- maybe it applies to something else.

Another idea to restrict murderlust or something similar is to combine it with an attack type like backstab or charge, maybe even berserk.

[Dugy]

I think it would compete too much with drain-like weapon specials if it was a weapon specials, and there are already quite a few drain-like weapon specials that are too similar to each other.

[white-haired-uncle]

Brightslash is pretty useful. Combine it with high HP/resist, and you have a healer who can defend from the front as well.

heals/absorb(2)/damage+20% would be a pretty good item, above average I think. regenerates(16) is just way too much on top of that IMO.

[Dugy]

Maybe I could reduce the absorb to 1, as absorb 2 is a rather strong an rare ability.

[white-haired-uncle]

Wrathful Combat Tech. Furious5 + wrath!

I gave it to a Dwarf with the Blue Orb and Anger. The axe can get a ton of hits, but the mace has magical and still gets a lot this way. Either way, he's a mean little fella. I guess I could craft anger for the axe and use that anger mace too.

This time I'm looking to combine WCT with Blue Orb and Stormrend. I can't find a unit with inherent marksman for sword (odd), but with 40-50 trickery hits per turn, sooner or later I won't need it. Good thing the lightning gets overridden by fire.