Dark Side Unit Analysis Part 1: Orcs

Since in Dark Side, Orcs, Demons, and Undead are your initial forces, for Dark Side I've shuffled them to the front of the list. By a similar token, I'll be using this post to cover broad mechanical changes.

First of all, crits. Crits are now identical to a full-damage roll, instead of being stronger than a full-damage roll. Crits now also have a 5% chance of causing Bleeding, which retains its Warriors of the North qualities of doing Physical damage each turn while also lowering the target's max Health. As such, damage is actually less swingy in Dark Side, but crits have gained a new element of randomness to them.

Furthermore, crit chance mechanics have been overhauled: Talents no longer have reduced crit chance, damage over time effects (Burn, Poisoning, Freeze, and Bleed) now have a flat 5% chance to crit instead of using Spell crit mechanics, Spells now have a base of 5% plus 1% per seven points of Intellect (ie at 70 Intellect your Spells crit 15% of the time) with current Mana no longer a factor, while Rage actually works similarly to Warriors of the North, just higher numbers. Specifically: if you're at max Rage, Rage moves have a 10% crit chance, while less Rage lowers crit chance almost in proportion to the Rage reduction. It's 'almost' because only 9 of those 10 points are modified by Rage amount; if you somehow used a Rage move at 0 Rage, you'd still have a 1% crit chance.

Second, Morale. It'
s finally been overhauled again, with its effects now operating in eleven tiers, reducing the impact of individual tiers of Morale but also allowing the game to play around more with eg more nuance in racial relations effects.


-5 Morale or worse: -50% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is 0.


-4 Morale: -40% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is reduced by 80%.


-3 Morale: -30% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is reduced by 60%.


-2 Morale: -20% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is reduced by 40%.


-1 Morale: -10% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is reduced by 20%.


0 Morale: Base values.


+1 Morale: +8% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 10%.


+2 Morale: +16% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 20%.


+3 Morale: +24% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 30%.


+4 Morale: +32% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 40%.

 (Yes, the Anticipating Trophies graphic has been coopted)
+5 Morale: +40% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 50%.

Notice that the benefits of the two new highest tiers beat out the previous highs, while the old positive tiers are weaker. Negative Morale, meanwhile, has been reduced in its impact, being more comparable to The Legend's values (Except you retain some crit chance out to -3) until you start stacking on really serious penalties. As such, it's a lot more plausible to just suck up a minor Morale penalty if you really want to mix a Viking into your Orc army for some reason, or the like. Of course, a lot of racial relations are way, way more hostile...

Anyway, Orcs.

First things first: general Adrenaline mechanics, or more precisely what's changed since Warriors of the North.

Most everything, actually.

In Dark Side, Adrenaline Levels are not a mechanic at all. Adrenaline is spent on Talents, and that's it. No passive benefits for getting high in Adrenaline. (Well, this is slightly misleading, as several Orcs have specific Abilities that do passively boost them for rising Adrenaline, but it's no longer a fundamental mechanic)  Conversely, Orcs don't deal with charges or reloads at all. All their Talents can be spammed infinitely so long as they have the Adrenaline to burn.

Adrenaline generation is loosely similar to how it was in Warriors of the North. Now Orcs always start a battle with 10-15 Adrenaline, gain 8-10 Adrenaline each time they dish out damage, gain an additional 15 Adrenaline when finishing off an enemy stack, gain 5-7 Adrenaline for taking damage... but Waiting sucks -10 Adrenaline down the drain instantly.

So compared to Warriors of the North, Orcs generate Adrenaline much more rapidly and consistently (Not quite twice as much Adrenaline for dishing out damage, 25% more kill Adrenaline than used to be the max roll, and of course taking damage generates more Adrenaline than you used to get doing damage) but Waiting with Orcs is even more harshly punished. (This is twice as much lost as the high roll was in Warriors of the North) Of course, since Adrenaline is made to be spent in Dark Side, the thing that actually matters is how this compares to new Talent Adrenaline costs...

Also, Adrenaline's max is a fixed 100, instead of starting from 20/30 (AP/WotN) and rising with Skills on the player forces and overall size of the battlegroup for AI forces.

Note that counter-attacks don't generate Adrenaline, and in cases where an Orc hits multiple units at once this doesn't generate Adrenaline per hit. (Caveat: multiple kills will multiply the kill-bonus for Adrenaline generation, as it always has) Also note that the game's logs still provide the final Adrenaline modification, rather than tallying each individual piece of Adrenaline modification: if an Orc burns Adrenaline on an attack (eg Onslaught), the log won't tell you that they used up 15 Adrenaline and then gained 10, it'll just tell you that their overall Adrenaline went down by 5. The game also doesn't explicitly spell this out, but the kill value is stacked on top of the hit value: a kill is actually worth 23-25 Adrenaline, not 15.

On the other hand, where in previous games kills gave Adrenaline to the entire Orc army, in Dark Side only the unit landing the blow benefits. As such, Adrenaline no longer incentivizes stacking Orcs together, a point exacerbated by other changes we'll see down the line; in short, where in Warriors of the North you had means of instantly delivering Adrenaline en mass, in Dark Side you can either boost the overall generation capacity of your army or instantly deliver a bunch of Adrenaline to a single unit. As such, Dark Side leans more toward using a single Orc unit in your army, with it acting as your meatshield and/or arranging to consistently have it land finishing blows.

Greed remains a factional semi-unique Ability, as well.

Greed
If this unit finishes off an enemy stack, it gains +10 Morale for the rest of the battle.

This is, of course, even more powerful now that max Morale is more powerful, though it's also slightly less perfect at protecting you from negative Morale -though this usually doesn't actually matter, as -3 is the largest 'dynamic' Morale penalty you can get. (-2 from having more than one negative status effect, and a further -1 from Curse's Morale-lowering effect) You have to have -3 Morale from other sources -such as racial penalties- for Dark Side Greed to not be pure improvement over prior games' Greed in practice.

-------------------------------------------


So Orc Morale.

Notably, Orcs no longer have a mono-race Morale bonus, presumably because Dark Side has made the dark races your early-game choice, equivalent to how Humans were in the first two games. This barely matters in practice because Dark Side has the majority of your Titles provide Morale to the core Dark races, and so your Orcs will generally always have a Morale bonus anyway.

Racial relations-wise...

-5 Morale for Light Human presence in allies.
-5 Morale for Light Elven presence in allies.
-5 Morale for Light Dwarven presence in allies.
-1 Morale for Viking presence in allies.

... Orcs are now comfortable with their fellow Dark allies, and instead are primarily offended by Light races, which is part of Dark Side's general design of Light and Dark hating each other. They're also now bothered by Vikings. Interestingly, Vikings seem to be treated by the game as basically a 'grey' species, as they're pretty broadly disliked by Dark and Light races, just less strongly so than the Dark/Light mutual hatred.

Also interesting is that Orcs have commented-out hostility to Demons and Undead. It's -2 in both cases, and that's not simply inherited from Warriors of the North. Apparently at some point they were running Orcs as bothered by Demons and Undead in Dark Side itself, which is actually consistent with how Bagyr is clearly not all that comfortable with this whole 'we're the bad guys' thing. (Which is, in turn, consistent with the fact that Orcs have never been straightforwardly The Bad Guys in any prior game) It's even an explicitly commented-on plotpoint that Orcs aren't 'traditional' allies of the Dark, referred to a few times throughout the game.

Oh, and yes I'll be listing Of The Dark on units for completion's sake, but I'm giving it no description because it doesn't actually do anything. The game description implies it factors into Morale, but eg Dragon Riders are Of The Dark Neutrals and they don't offend Of The Light units, nor are they offended by them.

Also note that, curiously, Orc Hunters/Trackers, Blood Shaman, and Goblin Shaman seem to have been removed from the game, or at least coded to not spawn anywhere. The game outright makes a reference to Orc Hunters not being anywhere in Netana quite late in the game, so it's not some weird oversight, not in their case. My personal suspicion is that Dark Side cut them because it ran out of time to fit them into the Orc overhaul, or something of the sort, because as we'll be seeing Dark Side has a lot of evidence that its ambitions were a fair bit beyond what it ended up actually achieving. Certainly, there's still a number of tooltips that directly reference these units, though maybe that's just a product of the English translation having obviously ported forward the Warriors of the North tooltip translation set -some of your tooltips refer to Valkyries in reference to Rage, for example!


Furious Goblin
Level: 2
Hiring Cost: 60
Leadership: 20
Attack/Defense: 7 / 6
Initiative/Speed: 6 / 3
Health: 18
Damage: 2-4 Physical
Resistances: Generic
Talents: Goblin Greed (-15 Destroys a corpse the Furious Goblins are standing on, generating some amount of Gold if owned by the player. Doesn't end the Furious Goblin's turn). Goblin Insolence (-25The Furious Goblin moves over to melee attack a target enemy for 3-5 Physical damage, and then returns to where they were before using Goblin Insolence. The target doesn't get to retaliate)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Irascible (Anytime the Furious Goblin stack takes damage, the stack gains +1 Speed for the rest of the battle, to a limit of +3 total), Giant Killer (Damage is increased the higher the Level the target is, +10% per Level advantage the target has. Every 10 Adrenaline past 50 the Furious Goblin has increases this by +1%, to a maximum of +5%, ie at 100 Adrenaline the Furious Goblin will do +45% damage against a Level 5 target), Greed

In Dark Side, Furious Goblins have been more than halved in Leadership and had various stats downshifted appropriately, though they've also lost 2 Initiative. (Bringing them back in line with The Legend/Armored Princess) They've also actually lost Running, making them reliant on Irascible to get into the fight quickly. Of course, with Adrenaline having been overhauled, one of the more notable aspects of Furious Goblins is that they can run around harvesting corpses for Gold until the bodies run out, especially if you're using Creation/Gifts to keep their Adrenaline topped off, since there's no charge limit anymore. This can be a nice bit of utility if you're wanting to push up your Gold funds early on and are confident in your ability to cleanly defeat battlegroups even with Furious Goblins in use.

Goblin Insolence is also potentially spammable if eg Gifts/Creation-spamming, so with support Furious Goblins can operate as an odd sort of No Retaliation unit. It's a bit of a silly scenario, but it's neat to have it as an option.

Overall I personally feel this is a downgrade for Furious Goblins, particularly from the perspective of the player using them, but it's a complicated set of changes and it's pretty obvious part of the point was to make Furious Goblins more in line with prior entries' low-Leadership basic melee units.

They're also a relatively tame introduction to how bugged Orcs are in Dark Side: Irascible claims to stack to a limit of +3 Speed, but actually stops at +1 Speed, and Giant Killer's in-game description claims a somewhat weaker formula for its boosts.


Orc
Level: 3
Hiring Cost: 190
Leadership: 75
Attack/Defense: 16 / 17
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 70
Damage: 7-10 Physical
Resistances: 10% Physical
Talents: Potion of Rage (-25 Causes the Orcs to be Furious for the next 2 turns, and they generate 10% more Rage in combat), Onslaught (-15 Runs in a straight line an infinite distance to attack a single target for 10-14 Physical damage. If the target is below Level 5, it's pushed back 1 tile and Stunned for 1 turn. The target doesn't get to retaliate. Can also be used to travel without attacking a target)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Armored (10% Physical resistance), Thirst for Fight (Counterattacks always crit, and every 5 Adrenaline raises crit chance by 2%, to a maximum of +20%), Greed

They've lost Running and Onslaught can't be used to shove Level 5 targets anymore, but in most respects Dark Side is actually really good to basic Orcs. The fact that Dark Side Adrenaline rewards taking damage is a nice point in their favor, making it a lot more appealing to take advantage of Vengeance Thirst For Fight autocrits and in general making getting stuck in a lot more appealing.

Note that Onslaught's 15 Adrenaline is something Orcs will occasionally start a battle with. You can't count on it, especially since Dark Side doesn't have any Skills granting starting Adrenaline (Though there's Items!), but it's something to remember. If you're using Orcs, consider checking their Adrenaline at the start of a battle, before you start making moves, so you can see whether they can Onslaught right away or not. Also note that Onslaught still doesn't require an empty tile of running room (Just like in Warriors of the North), and still looks very janky when used point-blank.

At the very beginning of the game, Orcs are a bit unappealing since you're ideally avoiding taking any casualties at all and Leadership values quickly reach the point that's hard to avoid, but once you reach the point where you don't mind casualties (Money is plentiful, Grand Strategian is maxed, etc) Orcs are one of the best units for acting as your core melee unit. I tend to prefer Veteran Orcs, but Onslaught's potential to cross the entire battlefield instantly has its advantages, as does the Stun infliction and the ability to push enemies. That last point is especially appreciated when you're trying to build up your Trapper ranks. As such, to a large degree which of the two you use is really down to a matter of preference.


Veteran Orc
Level: 4
Hiring Cost: 380
Leadership: 140
Attack/Defense: 26 / 26
Initiative/Speed: 6 / 3
Health: 130
Damage: 13-16 Physical
Resistances: 10% Physical
Talents: Running (-8 +2 Action Points), Fury Attack (-15 Does 13-16 Physical damage to the target and to enemies to the side), Potion of Rage (-25 For the next 3 turns the Veteran Orcs are Furious and also generate 10% more Rage in combat)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Counterattack (If counterattacked, the Veteran Orc makes a second attack on the target), Armored (10% Physical resistance), Prudence (30% chance to evade enemy attacks base. This chance raises by 2% for every 5 points of Adrenaline past 50, and also raises by 1% for every 10% of the stack that has been lost in the battle), Greed

Their actual stats are unchanged from Warriors of the North, but their Talents have been overhauled: Running is connected to the new Adrenaline mechanic, meaning it's spammable but requires Adrenaline to start, Fury Attack is spammable with no cooldown and actually costs 2 Adrenaline less than in Warriors of the North, while Potions of Rage have been massively nerfed by increasing their Adrenaline cost from 8 to 25 and replacing the instant Rage injection with a weak boost to their personal Rage generation. Nimble has been renamed and reworked, having an (intentional) innate evasion bonus and actually having higher potential scaling not to mention now scaling with casualties.

As with Orc's Onslaught, Veteran Orcs will occasionally begin a battle with enough Adrenaline to use Fury Attack. The Adrenaline numbers relating to Running are also a bit interesting, in that you'll always start with enough Adrenaline to Run, but never more than once. (Though if the Veterans take a hit before their turn rolls around, they'll almost always end up with enough Adrenaline for two Run activations: they have to low-roll on the initial Adrenaline generation and the take-damage Adrenaline generation to not have 16+ Adrenaline)

I'm particularly fond of backing Veteran Orcs with Orc Shield: hurling them into the fray, building Adrenaline, soaking hits with Orc Shield and periodic dodges, etc, can produce a whirlwind of lethality that suffers nearly no casualties, and it doesn't require any special support since Orc Shield is your only hit-everything-guaranteed Rage attack so you're going to use it anyway fairly often. With Potion of Rage, they can even turn absorbing a bunch of attacks into even more damage output, and of course Adrenaline is now generated when attacked. And since their dodge chance rises with their Adrenaline, they end up dodging quite often. It's a fun little mini-tactic, and I quite like how the ultimate Orc Rage Skill combines so nicely with one of the upper-tier Orc units. It's good thematics.

Of course, part of why this strategy works so well is more bugs: Prudence is supposed to be a base 10% evasion rate, not a base 30, but there's a value of 20 which is supposed to be the cap on the Adrenaline-based boost to evasion chance and instead acts as a minimum. As such, at maximum Adrenaline an Orc Veteran actually has a 50% chance to evade any attack, higher than any deliberately-given evasion chance on any unit in the series -and they also still gain a little more evasion from casualties! A max-Adrenaline Orc Veteran stack down below 10% of their original numbers has a 59% chance to evade any attack, specifically.


Ogre
Level: 5
Hiring Cost: 3000
Leadership: 1000
Attack/Defense: 37 / 47
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 680
Damage: 50-60 Physical
Resistances: 10% Physical, 10% Poison, 10% Magic, 10% Fire, 10% Ice
Talents: Ogre's Rage (-10 +1 Action Point, and Attack is doubled for 2 turns. Also clears Weakness from the Ogre), Forceful Strike (-20 Targets an arbitrary enemy, inflicting 50-60 Physical damage, Stunning it for one turn, and dropping it in a random tile within 2 tiles of its original location)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Heavy Hand (Melee attacks do 50% more damage against flying enemies, 25% more damage against Soaring enemies, and attacks have a 30% chance of reducing any enemy's Speed to 2), Thick Skin (10% to all resistances except Astral. Every 5 Adrenaline increases these resistances by 1%, to a maximum of another +10%), Greed

They've actually lost a point of Initiative, as well as Draining, which hurts, but new Adrenaline mechanics let them use Ogre's Rage basically every turn if they like, Thick Skin is a little bit better (Especially if you're willing to eg use Creation to top them off), and they've actually picked up Greed, which they didn't use to have, so letting them grab a kill is a big boost to them now. Overall this might actually be their apex in the series, though given how insanely good Drain is it's hard to say.

I've never really given them a chance, personally, but that's kinda true of every entry. I always end up going 'oh, let's give Ogres a try' and then go 'eeeeeh they're underperforming and they're kinda boring'. That's not Dark Side screwing something up, and in fact once you've got Grand Strategian maxed this is probably their best entry, or perhaps second-best after their fairly impressive showing in Orcs on the March.


Shaman
Level: 4
Hiring Cost: 600
Leadership: 200
Attack/Defense: 24 / 32
Initiative/Speed: 5 / 3
Health: 180
Damage: 15-18 Physical
Resistances: Generic
Talents: Dancing Axes (-15 Targets a single enemy anywhere on the field to do 20-25 Magic damage per Shaman in the stack, with 50% of the damage done healing allied organic units. The healing rises by 10% for every 10 points of Adrenaline, to a limit of +30%. Ignores Attack and Defense modifiers), Totem of Life (-20 Sets a Totem in an empty tile anywhere on the field, which in a 2-tile radius around it bolsters the Defense of allies by 20% and once per turn heals organic allies in that radius, starting from the turn after it was set. Level 5 units don't benefit from either effect. The Totem has 7 health per Shaman at casting, and similarly heals 7 Health per Shaman at casting), Totem of Death (-20 Sets a Totem in an empty tile anywhere on the field, which in a 2-tile radius around it lowers enemy Speed by 1 and once per turn attacks all enemies in its radius for 5-8 Physical damage per Shaman at casting, starting from the turn after it was set. Level 5 enemies aren't susceptible to either effect. The Totem has 10 health per Shaman at casting)
Abilities: Of The Dark, Adrenaline Control (For every 10 Adrenaline gained by allies, the Shaman gains 1 Adrenaline), Calm (Only generates 75% normal Adrenaline values for inflicting damage, but Morale can never be negative), Shaman (At the beginning of the Shaman's turn, they have a chance to gain 75 Adrenaline. The base chance is 100%, lowered by 1 for each point of Adrenaline they currently have), Persistence of Mind (Immunity to mental effects), Greedy,

No actual statistical changes. Dancing Axes is now terrifying, though, and the fact that they can spam it every turn most of the time means they're much more like a conventional ranged attacker, only hideously powerful. Additionally, Calm means Shaman can almost ignore racial tension. Overall, Dark Side boosts Shaman in practice.

Though honestly probably the most significant point is that they can very consistently spam Totems. This is incredibly abusable since the AI tends to prioritize attacking Totems over nearly every other possible course of action, and so you can keep a key problem unit tied up basically indefinitely, or multiple of them if they're failing to one-shot the Totems. And of course slower units can be really messed with through Totems of Death.

I tend to prefer more aggressive options, but Shaman are very handy for a stall-y strategy.

Note that though the game claims the Shaman Ability will set them to 100 Adrenaline, it's actually affected by Calm and so only adds 75 Adrenaline. This is probably a bug. Definitely unintentional is that the game claims they have Persistence of Mind, and they just... don't. Same for Adrenaline Control. It also doesn't actually mention them having Greedy, and Shaman are supposed to be tagged Of The Dark, but while the Ability shows up in their summary the internal tagging is not there, and so for the effects that specifically check for Dark alignment Shaman don't count. Another bug is that they're the only Orc unit that doesn't receive Adrenaline for being attacked; they're supposed to, but under-the-hood stuff didn't get applied to them so they don't.

Yikes, that's a lot of bugs on one unit.


Goblin
Level: 1
Hiring Cost: 19
Leadership: 15
Attack/Defense: 6 / 4
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 10
Damage: 1-2 Physical
Resistances: Generic
Talents: Distant Throw (-15 A ranged attack with an effective range of 5 tiles that does 1-3 Physical damage), Goblin Rage (-25 A ranged attack with unlimited range which does 2-4 Physical damage and pushes the target back 1 tile if there's room to push)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Giant Killer (Damage is increased the higher the Level the target is, +10% per Level advantage the target has. Every 10 Adrenaline past 50 the Goblin has increases this by +1%, to a maximum of +5%, ie at 100 Adrenaline the Goblin will do +60% damage against a Level 5 target), Axe Thrower (The unit can perform ranged attacks to a hard limit of 3 tiles out), Zeroing In (Each time the Goblin's targets a tile with a ranged action, the target tile takes 10% more damage from later attacks, to a maximum bonus of +30%), No Melee Penalty, Greedy

Like Furious Goblins, Goblins have been dramatically re-tuned, dropping a Level, their Leadership dropped to about a third, and their various other stats noticeably slashed appropriately. They've also lost 1 Initiative and gone from being a true ranged unit, if painfully short-ranged, to being like an Alchemist only minus the splash damage and ability to fire at point-blank without retaliation. Amusingly, their damage with Goblin Rage is actually overall higher than in previous games, as it's dropped by about a third while their numbers have nearly tripled. Of course, now Goblin Rage requires a whopping 25 Adrenaline to activate, which is fairly burdensome to actually acquire, especially since Dark Side doesn't provide much support for having Orcs start with high Adrenaline... of course, if you're willing to drop Creation/Gifts on them, then suddenly they can be a surprisingly decent ranged attacker that incidentally keeps pushing enemies back.

Note that Distant Throw's in-game description implies it's fully effective out an infinite distance. This isn't true, not in its case: that's true of Goblin Rage, but Distant Throw is like a regular ranged attack, dropping to half damage if launched further than five tiles out. As such, a Goblin truly operating at decent effectiveness at long range is very Adrenaline-hungry. Which is a problem since Goblins aren't really designed to get into the thick of fighting and there's no kill-spillover Adrenaline in Dark Side.

I personally occasionally use Goblins very temporarily toward the beginning of the game when options are extremely limited, and try to move on and away from them as fast as possible.

A weird point is that the in-game damage number is, like a few ranged units in prior games, actually informing you of their melee damage. Most of the time this doesn't matter since they have the same base numbers, but there are conditions in which their ranged damage will be modified without modifying their melee damage (Or vice-versa), and in those cases the game will thus be misleading.

Also, Zeroing In is struckthrough because it's severely bugged and doesn't work at all. It's actually even buggier than that, as fixing the issues preventing it from working at all actually skips the first damage bonus, so you go 100%->120%->130% without hitting 110% anywhere in there. Its English description is also pretty bad, making it sound like it would trigger for repeatedly targeting a specific unit, but if you correct its bugs it's actually for targeting a specific tile, where if you hit a target, they move out of that tile, and a different unit moves into that tile, your damage bonus will apply to the new unit and be lost if you continue to focus on your original target. If fixed, it actually applies to their Talents as well And if fixed, it actually stacks multiplicatively with Giant Killer, where a Goblin could theoretically hit 208% damage against a Level 5 unit that held still!

But, y'know, Zeroing In doesn't work at all, so...


Goblin With Catapult
Level: 3
Hiring Cost: 300
Leadership: 130
Attack/Defense: 23 / 15
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 80
Damage (Ranged): 6-11 Physical
Damage (Siege Weapon): 12-22 Physical
Damage (Melee): 7 Physical
Resistances: -50% Fire
Talents: Fiery Shot (-12 Ranged attack against an enemy, which does 8-13 Fire damage to the target and 50% that to adjacent units, with each unit having a 50% chance to be Burned as well), Explosives (-15 Sets three explosive objects no more than 4 tiles out, placed semi-randomly around a targeted tile), Second Wind (-25 An allied unit of 260 or less Leadership per Catapult that is below Level 5 gets to take another turn. Does not end the Catapult's turn)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Archer (Range: 5), Siege Weapon (Calls the Siege Weapon attack against Gremlins and the like. Effective range is 6 for such targets), Pyromancer (50% more damage from Fire, but attacks and Talents do doubled damage against Objects and each point of Adrenaline gives +1% chance for attacks and Talents to Burn enemies, to a maximum of +50%), Commander (Furious Goblins, Goblins, and Spirit Talkers gain +1 Morale), Greed

They've lost Recruiter, but Explosives has been made stronger but more random and instead of being able to give Goblins a second turn they can give anything below Level 5 a second turn. Warriors of the North already did a good job of getting them away from the whole 'why not use Cannoneers?' problem, but Dark Side takes it even further, and I quite appreciate it.

They still also only lose 20% of their damage when firing beyond their effective range, including against Gremlins and whatnot. As Dark Side has some enormous battlefields, this is particularly relevant now!

Explosives has two kinds of bombs it can make, picked at random. Both have 50% Poison resistance and -100% Fire resistance, while the stronger one additionally has 50% Physical resistance. Both of them detonate for Fire damage without regard to Attack/Defense modification (Making them more useful against high-Defense enemies), with the weaker one doing 1-4 damage per Catapult while the stronger one does 2-3 damage per Catapult. (So the stronger one is actually more stable and tougher to detonate, not reliably more lethal, but work with me)

Note that the in-game description for Pyromancer claims to automatically detonate explosives, and does not mention the doubled damage against Objects. Also note that this stacks with Siege Weapon, and so a Goblin With Catapult actually does 24-44 damage per head against Gremlins and the like.

Commander is supposed to boost Morale on Spirit Talkers, but oops it actually doesn't. The in-game description also claims the Goblin With Catapult will gain a point of Adrenaline anytime a regular Goblin or Furious Goblin gains Adrenaline, which is a neat idea, but this is not so; there's absolutely nothing in the code to even try to do such a thing.

Also, this doesn't matter to gameplay, but Second Wind's animation is borked. In Warriors of the North, a Goblin Catapult would play their standard victory animation when using Second Wind, ie pumping a fist and cheering. In Dark Side, the Goblin With Catapult instead uses their regular attack animation. Everyone is invigorated by a rock to the face, right?

At least it now has a sane Leadership limit, unlike Warriors of the North...

While we're looking at a (real) ranged unit: one subtle yet significant difference between Dark Side and prior King's Bounty games is that the AI does not prefer to target a unit that was just a moment ago blocking off the ranged attacks of a ranged unit. They'll wander away from your distraction and mete death out upon whatever you least want on the literal opposite side of the map. Not always, but considerably more often than in prior games.

Personally, I tend to find Catapults too Adrenaline-hungry to be practical, but then I've never really given them a proper chance with, say, Neoline, and Dark Side has a fairly substantial element of unit value being heavily class-dependent in a manner that's just not nearly so true in prior entries.


Orc Chieftain
Level: 5
Hiring Cost: 4000
Leadership: 1200
Attack/Defense: 40 / 35
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 740
Damage: 50-70 Physical
Resistances: 10% Physical, 10% Poison, 10% Fire
Talents: Drain (-10 Steals all the Action Points of an arbitrary target enemy without ending the user's turn), Sneer (-10 Provokes a target enemy of below Level 5 that hasn't moved yet to attempt to attack the Orc Chieftain, with the targeted unit's resulting behavior being exactly as per Scoffer Imp's Sneer), Power of the Horde (-25 One enemy takes Magic damage equal to half the Health of the stack. Ignores Attack and Defense modifiers)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Heavy Hand (Melee attacks do 50% more damage against flying enemies, 25% more damage against Soaring enemies, and attacks have a 30% chance of reducing any enemy's Speed by 2), Devastate (Melee attacks additionally hit enemy units one tile beyond the target for 20% of base damage. Every 5 Adrenaline increases this splash damage by 1%, which at 100 Adrenaline is thus 40% splash damage. No friendly fire risk), Armored (10% Physical and Fire resistance), Poison Protection (10% Poison resistance), Commander (Allied orcs-the-subspecies plus Ogres gain +1 Morale), Greed

They've actually lost some Health, some Attack, some Defense, and some Damage, not to mention Recruiter, but before looking at their Talents they're otherwise just flatly superior, and kind of ridiculously so. And picking up Drain is amazing, honestly. Power of the Horde seems to be a bit buggy, as I've had a run where initially it would only do half the top member's Health in damage, but when I came back to Orc Chieftains much later in the game they were doing the expected 10,000 damage. I have no clue how this bug works and so no idea how to work around it: just keep in mind it exists.

The overall result is that the big thing Orc Chieftains bring to the table in Dark Side is the potential to just spam Drain if you support their Adrenaline generation properly. This can literally disable entire armies turn after turn if they're unfortunate enough to be slower than the Orc Chieftain, with pretty much no protection beyond going first: Drain doesn't care about Level, stack size, immunity to mental effects, or any of the other common or semi-common protections against crazy-powerful effects. This is obviously insanely abusable if eg you've gotten a hold of Creation/Gifts, though the deeper you get into the game the less common it will be to be facing armies with low enough Initiative for this to be at all plausible... but even just having the ability to disable the entire enemy army on the first few turns thanks to Onslaught and Foresight is incredible, especially since battles in Dark Side often only last a couple of turns once your Hero really starts getting into their unique Skills.

Outside of the Drain spam though, Orc Chieftains are a bit disappointing. Sneer is useful, particularly since Dark Side has inexplicably made it so immunity to mental effects no longer protects against it, but if you want Sneer Scoffer Imps can do the same thing and instead of operating on an Adrenaline economy for it they can just toss it out and maybe Frenzy will get it ready to go and if it doesn't that just means they get to tossing fireballs, where for the Orc Chieftain using Sneer costs them in a more meaningful way. Scoffer Imps having greater base mobility also means they're generally better at maneuvering into a position to use Sneer to drag an enemy into a Trap or Zlogn. So Orc Chieftains are mostly operating off their melee combat ability -which Veteran Orcs will usually do better, and even the durability advantage per head is easy to gloss over if you're supporting them with Orc Shield- and Drain, and that's... really all they have going for them.

It's also difficult to get Orc Chieftains early enough to leverage their individually high Health, unlike in Warriors of the North where you could potentially get them from the Isles of Freedom and have them basically invincible for a decent chunk of the game.

And then there's the bugs. Orc Chieftains don't actually have Heavy Hand at all, and Devastate's complicated in-game description is wildly wrong; the Orc Chieftain simply does what they did in the prior two games of cloning their damage against any enemy that happens to be standing on the other side of their target. The odd thing is that the animation has been modified in a manner somewhat consistent with the in-game description (Which claims it can spread to 3 tiles beyond the primary target), suggesting that the team genuinely intended the claimed change and just didn't get around to coding it in.

Similarly, Commander is supposed to give +1 Adrenaline to the Orc Chieftain when allied basic Orcs, Orc Veterans, or Orc Scouts gain Adrenaline, but this component simply doesn't exist. Also, it doesn't boost the Morale of Orc Scouts, which it's supposed to do.

Orc Chieftains are supposed to be much stronger units than they ended up being, but alas.


Spirit Talker
Level: 3
Hiring Cost: 250
Leadership: 50
Attack/Defense: 8 / 8
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 25
Damage (Ranged): 3-6 Ice
Damage (Melee): 3 Physical
Resistances: 10% Magic, 15% Astral
Talents: Avenging Spirit (A single target ally gains a permanent buff. When attacked by enemies, those enemies will suffer 1-2 Magic damage per Spirit Talker in the casting stack, and the Spirit Talker will suffer -5 for each such activation. This damage ignores Attack and Defense modifiers. If Avenging Spirit is targeted anew, even on the original unit, this will cancel the current Avenging Spirit buff), Hex (-15 Target enemy has a 20% chance to Miss any of its attacks for 3 turns), Thread of Life (-25 Two units whose Leadership is each no greater than 15,000 per Spirit Talker are connected. For four turns, 20% of the damage inflicted to the first targeted unit will be transferred to the second targeted unit. Cannot be used on inorganic units or units immune to Spells)
Abilities: Of The Dark, Ancestral Anger (Range: Infinite. The Spirit Talker's ranged attack treats the target as having 20% less resistances than their current numbers. This effect can result in effectively negative resistance on the target. Additionally, this effect increases by 2% for every 5 Adrenaline past 50 the Spirit Talker currently has, resulting in a maximum of -40% to effective resistance), No Melee Penalty, Spirit Talker (10% Magic resistance and 15% Astral resistance), Keeper (At the start of its turn, the Spirit Talker gains Adrenaline equal to the averaged Adrenaline of all Orc allies, excluding the Spirit Talker), Greed

The Spirit Talker's ranged attack is one of the weirder, more obviously hacked-together bits of creative animation in the game, as it literally spawns a Ghost that... awkwardly slides over to the target, playing its idle animation the whole trip, and then performs its attack animation and spontaneously vanishes with no visual effect to make its disappearance look less like a glitch. It's a cool idea that I like, but yikes does it look bad in action.

It's also part of a larger thing with Spirit Walkers being a bit... confusing. They've got an axe in hand, and more on their back, but most of their animations don't actually use them: at range, they have the aforementioned ghost-summoning attack, albeit they pull out an axe and make a throwing motion so maybe originally that was intended to be an axe-throwing animation. In melee, the hyena they're riding on does the regular Hyena attack animation. The only real axe animation they have is that if they charge into melee (Most units have a different attack animation for 'moving up to and attacking in one motion' than for 'attacking a unit having stopped next to it beforehand'), they actually take a swipe with their axe.

Just as prior cases of Thread of Life claim to only connect allies, so too does this game's in-game description claim it specifically connects allies, and it's wrong, a fact the AI is quick to educate you on if you run into Spirit Talkers. You have to pick an ally for sending damage, but not for receiving.

Keeper's in-game description claims to only give 25% of the averaged Adrenaline, where if the Spirit Talker had exactly one Orc buddy who was at 40 Adrenaline, the Spirit Talker would gain 10 Adrenaline. In actuality they gain the full averaged amount; combining them with a regular Shaman and no other Orc allies will result in the Spirit Talkers getting to basically basically have the Shaman Ability themselves and so likely start their first turn somewhere above 75 Adrenaline.

This is notable given that Ancestral Anger will give them up to a 40% damage boost against units with neutral resistances, based partially on current Adrenaline. The in-game description itself gives a weaker-sounding formula that would start from 0% and rise to -20% effective resistances, but nope, it's this stronger one. The in-game description also doesn't clearly communicate that it can go into negatives, so it's easy to think it's just a way to make them less ineffective against Ice-resistant enemies, but no, it's a general damage boost that's effectively more impactful against units with relevant resistances.

Also, Avenging Spirit is supposed to spend 5 Adrenaline on initial usage, but is bugged and doesn't do so. It does spend Adrenaline when the retaliation triggers, though. Thread of Life is similarly supposed to be bounded at 150 Leadership per Spirit Talker, but in actuality has the absurd 'cap' of 15,000 I have listed; you can basically treat Thread of Life as having no cap, because unless you're doing weird stuff like only going in with 1 stack member its Leadership cap is so absurdly high as to be impossible to matter in 99.9% of situations.

Not a bug per se but still worth noting is that some units have attacks that can't miss, and Dark Side is perfectly happy to let you waste your time throwing a Hex on them. So don't do that.

An odd point; Dark Side is really fond of semi-hidden conditional stat modifiers. Most of these stat modifiers are to your enemies in specific segments of the game, but not all of them. I'm mentioning it in this case because one Quest chain -Mimicromania, specifically- ultimately gives you the 'Blessing of the First Blood'. This is not actually explained by the game, and is a permanent bundle of stat bonuses to several of your units, with of course one of them being Spirit Talkers. For most units, including Spirit Talkers, this bonus is +1 Initiative, +5 Attack, and +5 Defense -not huge, but bumping Spirit Talkers up from a lackluster 4 base Initiative to 5 matters in a fair few matchups. Nicely, it doesn't pull them ahead of regular Shaman, so the Keeper trick I covered earlier still works.


Orc Scout
Level: 4
Hiring Cost: 600
Leadership: 200
Attack/Defense: 24 / 32
Initiative/Speed: 5 / 3
Health: 180
Damage (Ranged): 12-18 Physical
Damage (Melee): 10-15 Physical
Resistances: Generic.
Talents: Piercing Shot(-10 Perform a regular ranged attack against a single enemy target, but ignoring the target's Physical resistance), Support (-15 Select an arbitrary ally. For the next 3 turns, the Scout will automatically fire for 6-9 Physical damage on any units the targeted ally attacks without consuming its turn. Each time this effect triggers, its duration is reduced by 1. Support shots can't crit), Companion (-25 Generates a stack of allied Wolves in an adjacent tile whose total Leadership is 150 per Scout)
Abilities: Of the Dark, Shooter (Range: infinite), Crossbowman (Ranged attacks and Talents ignore 20% of the target's Defense, rising by 1% for every 5 points of Adrenaline the Scout currently has), Wolf Cavalry (Allied Wolves as well as werewolves of either type in either form gain +1 Morale), Greed

The game itself doesn't actually mention Orc Scouts having unlimited range. The in-game damage also incorrectly lists their weaker melee, making them seem weaker than they actually are. The Crossbowman and Wolf Cavalry Abilities also don't do anything; the game claims they do the things I've listed, but they don't have any code to do things. Crossbowman is easy to test with Creation or the like; just before-and-after their damage and you'll see it's totally unaffected by their Adrenaline.

Also, you might intuitively expect the Bone ability to protect against Orc Scout shots, but it does not. I'm genuinely unsure whether this is a conscious design decision or a casualty of Dark Side's general unfinished state.

Further note that while Companion's in-game description claims you can only have 1 Wolf ally out at a time, no such limitation exists. You can absolutely spam a new Wolf stack every turn for as long as your Adrenaline holds out: with Creation, this can go on a long, long time.

Also note that Piercing Shot is unusual and actually calls the regular basic ranged attack, and so is affected by some things that normally don't apply to Talents. Its Adrenaline cost is also bugged in a favorable way, in that it can be used even if the Orc Scout has less than 10 Adrenaline. The game's Adrenaline calculations cope with this surprisingly well, where the Orc Scout will lose 0-2 Adrenaline since the hit generation is 8-10, rather than the game skipping the cost entirely or whatever. But yeah there's basically no reason to ever fire an actual regular shot.

Support is also coded pretty bizarrely. If you use Support on, say, an Imp, and then that Imp hurls a Fireball at a group of three units, the Scout will immediately fire on each of them one by one. This is more cool than anything else (ie it's not an 'oh god what' bug), but I'm still almost completely certain it's not the actual intended behavior. It does at least cap at three targets per use, though; if you Support a Giant and have them Earthquake a field of 15 units, the Orc Scout will still only shoot three of them. They also don't get Adrenaline from these Support shots (Not even if a Support shot finishes off a stack!), in spite of what you might expect.

While Orc Scouts are kind of overpowered nonsense in practice (Yes, in spite of all the nonfunctional or bugged qualities making them weaker than claimed), the game design is fairly frustrating. They're the end product of one of the longest Quest chains in the entire game, and they're merely a bit overpowered. Dragon Riders, as we'll see later, are available from shockingly early in the game, if hideously expensive, and yet are quite clearly deliberately game-breakingly amazing. There's something wrong here, that one of our new Quest-locked units takes forever, another is available almost immediately, and the one that's clearly superior to the other is the easier one to unlock by far.

You don't even get a Horde of them when you do finally unlock them! They're endgame content, and the amount you get is unlikely to be able to fill out your Leadership, let alone have spares to make up for casualties. It's crazy.

Aesthetically, notice that Orc Scouts seem to be riding a Werewolf Elf in wolf form. Not even a Cannibal Werewolf, at that. The strange thing is that concept art depicts a regular wolf, and the Quest involves retrieving regular Wolves to provide mounts for the Scouts, yet the model, UI graphic, and loading screen closeup all depict a Werewolf. I'm genuinely puzzled by this inconsistency. Was there some miscommunication that they didn't have time to correct? Did the person who made the model just go off on their own without informing anyone else? Did the team actually decide to switch to or from using Werewolves, but not manage to get everything consistent internally? Seriously, what happened here?

As a bonus bit of aesthetic oddness, Support and Companion are inconsistent about what animations they can play, potentially grabbing each others'.

Orc Scouts are another unit that benefits from Blessing of the First Blood. You're very, very likely to have Blessing of the First Blood by the time you unlock Orc Scouts, so you might as well look at their statline above and add +1 Initiative, +5 Attack, and +5 Defense. 6 Initiative is really good, as I've been over before.

They also have a personal Quest that is incredibly poorly-communicated (Not to mention poorly-placed: you may well complete it substantially before you unlock Orc Scouts themselves), where you're asked to go train with Amazons to make your Orc Scouts better. Once completed, this invisibly grants your Orc Scouts a variation on one of the Amazon's otherwise-unique Abilities, specifically 'Retreat': now the Orc Scout will respond to melee attacks by backing up on tile and responding with a ranged shot, instead of their weaker melee attack, and has a 30% chance to evade melee attacks.

In addition to being communicated extremely poorly, this particular Quest is bugged. First of all, completing it permanently sets the Scout's melee retaliation to 5-7 Physical damage, around half their regular melee damage; you might think that's irrelevant since they now counterattack with a ranged attack, but it is possible for them to be unable to back up from their attacker, in which case they'll use this sad counter. Indeed, this leads to another bug; if an Orc Scout can't retreat when attacked, it retaliates even if it's already done so that turn, effectively giving them a situational Furious! Third, the ranged counter actually retaliates with 10-15 Physical damage, not the 12-18 their proper ranged attack does; this does at least mean that in most conditions they're better off from this Quest, but ouch, bugs.

-----------------------------

An Item worth mentioning is the Banner of the Horde. As far as I've seen you're guaranteed to find it relatively early in the game, and it claims that it will add 1-3 units to your existing Orc stacks below Level 5. In actuality it has a Leadership-derived effect, specifically 4% percent of what you can currently lead of a randomly-chosen unit type, which can add up to a lot of units in the late game, and even more oddly it's not restricted to providing a unit type you're actually fielding! It looks very lackluster, but it's actually quite good for an Orc-dominated army, though it's another case of the series basically discouraging you from actually using Ogres in your Orc army. It also excludes Spirit Talkers, whoops, but still; free Orcs-the-unit, Goblins-the-unit, and Furious Goblins is pretty good already.

It's also worth pointing out that you almost never fight Orcs in Dark Side at all. There's a handful of guaranteed fights across the game, but they're incredibly rare. As such, their performance in AI hands is largely irrelevant -a given run may never see a given Orc unit at all!

Next time, we check out how Demons have changed.

Comments

  1. Ok here is a comment i wrote to a KB LPer friend of mine explaining Spirit Talker Ancestral Anger-

    I actually figured out why my Spirit Talkers were doing so much range damage (which little can compare to in the game), besides the fact that i have damage boosting equipment raising their base 3-6 cold damage to 5-8 cold+physical. It's likely a bug in their Ancestral Anger ability- Ancestral Anger allows for 2% of resistances to be bypassed per 5 adrenaline, allegedly it is only able to ignore a max of 20% of resistances if the Spirit Talkers have 50 or more Adrenaline. However in reality it actually goes up to 40% of resistances at 100 Adrenaline. Not only that, but the way it works is that if an enemy unit has 0 resistance, it's instead counted as negative resistance, up to -40% negative resistance if the Spirit Talkers have 100 adrenaline (which they will gain very quickly in an all Orc Army, very likely by turn 2 since they have an ability called "Keeper" which grants it additional adrenaline at the start of it's turn equal to 25% of the adrenaline all Orc race units have). So that means that in reality Spirit Talkers can do up to 40% more damage on top of the max possible. This allows them to be the premier range unit in the game, with perfect range shots regardless of the distance, a great base damage type in cold, and them really enjoying +damage boosting gear, all with the up to 40% extra damage boost from the seemingly bugged Ancestral Anger.
    Here are 3 screenshots that tell the full story, and i'll explain the math behind it:
    The Spirit Talkers stats in battle- i.imgur.com/AWkhubf.png
    The projected damage range- i.imgur.com/8qTWIbh.png
    The unfortunate victim of an incoming nuke with 0 base resistances- i.imgur.com/EgBXtjH.png
    So as we can see Spirit Talkers 90 attack easily meets the threshold of 3x max damage due to being well over 60 above the werewolf elf's 18 defense. That means that the projected damage of 658 Spirit Talkers is 658 x 5-8 or 3290-5264, then multiply that by 3 due to max attack and we get the expected damage range of 9870-15792. Low and behold though that isn't the damage range that is being shown in the screenshot, so what explains it? The Spirit Talker had 100 adrenaline, so if we factor in Ancestral Anger ignoring the full (likely bugged) 40% of resistance, and count the werewolf as having -40% to cold and -40% to physical damage, we then multiply 9870-15792 damage range by 1.4x and we get = 13818-22109 (rounded up), which is exactly what the damage range shows.

    I'm glad you included the info i gave up you about the Blessing of the First Blood, that helps bolster them as well with even more power.

    I have a ton more notes including bugs on Orc units from DS, maybe i'll get to it another time, for now you can update that heavy hand 100% never ever works on Orc Chieftain (Works properly on Ogre) versus anything. I don't have screenshots saved with the damage calculation to prove, but you can rely on my word until you test it yourself and are satisfied (actually screw it i'll see if i get 2 screenshots of an attack on a regular unit with 60 attack over it for max damage, and will then show the exact same attack against a soaring/flying unit to show it's the same and not getting boosted). Also the cudgel action reduction never ever procs, so as i said it's 100% bugged, pretend the ability doesn't exist on him sadly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ok here are screenshots showing that Ogre is doing 25% more damage against a Soaring Dryad relative to a werewolf elf, but that Orc Chieftain is not-
      i.imgur.com/UBkNj0M.png
      i.imgur.com/Pa0caEN.png
      i.imgur.com/TD7DynZ.png
      i.imgur.com/CNg9RED.png

      If you need screenshots proving it also doesn't grant the 50% damage against Flying units I can. If you need proof that Chieftains non-existent cudgel never ever reduces the speed of units by 2 (as opposed to Ogre's which is working properly), that i can't provide since his attacks will never ever apply it. If you want to use his attack a few hundreds until you are satisfied it's not working, be my guest. Hopefully this is enough proof that his Heavy Hand is 100% not working (likely was just ported over sloppily from Ogre).

      There are too many other bugs to tackle now, but ill touch on Devastate from my notes-
      Orc Chieftain's Devastate is not working as it states. Instead it's like a Dragon attack whereby it hits the unit behind. However at 0 adrenaline it only does 1/4th damage to the unit behind, but at 2 adrenaline or more it does the normal attack damage to the unit behind. I've seen 1 adrenaline do only 1/4th the damage and seen it do the full damage, so I dont know what the deal is with 1 adrenaline. For certain though 2 adrenaline or above will do full damage to target behind, and 0 is guaranteed to do 1/4th.

      Delete
  2. Krit chance calculations are changed in DS.
    Talents just use crit chance stat now.
    For spells it's 5% base that is increased by 1% per 7 INT. It is the same for both player's and AI heroes.
    For Rage SKills it's 1+9*(current rage/maximum rage).
    DoTs have fixed 5% (actually base unmodified spell chance).
    Crits have only 5% chance to apply Bleed - it's directly set in krits' coding.

    As usual, AI Orcs receive free Adrenaline at the start; exact numbers are dependant on location difficulty.
    It looks like there were plans for some variation(s) of 'receiving Adrenaline on getting hit' mechanic for some specific units.

    Of the Dark/Light (just Dark[One]/Light[One] in Russian) is checked by some spells/talents/abilities.

    Both Blood Shamans and Orc Hunters were clearly cut relatively late in development. Goblin Shamans were propably removed earlier.
    Out of curiosity, do you remember where exactly there are mentions of Valkyries? I don't remember seeing such in Russian version but kinda want to make sure.

    Alright, the last dive into the murky bug-filled swamp that is post-Legend KB Orcs' code.

    Furious Goblin has 18 health, not 20.
    Irascible is bugged and can never go above +1. This happens because of a mistake in the script - when Furious Goblin receives 2nd+ hit, instead of storing new number game restores the old one.
    Goblin Greed costs 15 Adrenaline, not 10.
    In Russian version Giant Killer is called Titanslayer in the hint (when hover cursor over the ability). Instead of being maximum, +5% is actually minimum possible bonus, so Furious Goblin actually deals +10% damage per level advantage. Bonus is increased by 1% per every 10 Adrenalin points above 50. The actual limit is thus +15% per level advantage at 100 Adrenaline points. So Furious Goblins with maxed Adrenaline will deal +45% of damage against level 5 target. This bonus is applied to all attacks.
    I'm still unsure if I should change description or script. I don't think Furious Goblins are anything close to OP with Giantkiller current version, thrugh it does feel weird.

    There were atleast some people who saw both goblins' stats from previous games as too 'elite' for what they are supposed to be, so their rework is not exactly unexpected.

    Orc's Onslaught does not need a tile between the Orc and his target.
    Potion of Rage gives +10% to received Rage. It does not touch Adrenaline at all, other than using cost on use. I even made a quick test (with mini-mod to be able to use the Potion from the start of the combat and with Adrenaline gains being non-random) - both common Orcs and Veterans gave +6 Rage on attacks on average. Restart, now they both drink their potions - attacks give +7 Rage on average. Adrenaline growth is unchanged. In another test average +7 Rage was increased to average +8. Btw it gave +10 Rage at some earlier point.
    And no, original does not use the same or in any way similar words for Adrenaline and Rage (it's Адреналин and Ярость). That said, Adrenaline costs are called 'rage_spent' internally.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Orc Veteran costs 380 gold, not 280.
      Prudence is problematic too - it's Adrenaline mechanic, to be precise. It's description claims it has limit of +20% (you didn't mention it for some reason), but this number is actually used as minimum - so Veterans always have 30% evade chance, which is increased by 2% for every 5 Adrenaline over 50. Evade increase with casualities works as description says. At 100 Adrenaline and 10% of initial size Veterans will have 59% evade chance. "Description or script?" again. Such high evade chance on an 'Orc' feels kinda wrong to me. And it generally just weird - if such high chance is intended, it would be more logical to just set base chance to 30% than having it at 10% but getting automatic +20% bonus in combat. On the other hand, "fixing" the script will be a serious nerf - and even your post mentions Veteran's high evasion rate as one of his noticable points. And a lot of games have code parts that look illogical or overcomplicated for seemingly no reason (usually because of devs reworking/simplifying earlier mechanics but not wanting to rewrite the whole thing).
      Also, current mechanic, just like with Goblins' Giantkiller, encourages storing large Adrenaline numbers (55+/60+), which is kinda interesting - but also weird.
      Through Veteran is the best runner already, so him also being super-evasive fits in a humorous way. And we have an elite Orc being THE spy of the dark forces in story...
      Ultimately, just like with Giantkiller, I'm not fully sure it's a mistake, but even if it is - should it be fixed or just legalized, so to speak? Hm...

      Ogre's Thick Skin uses the same core calculation mechanic as Giantkiller and Prudence - but this time the numbers are the same as description tells. Key code difference between this ability and the other 2 is very noticable; this can be taken as argument for the idea of those two being different on purpose, but than again, we already saw enough very obvious yet unfixed bugs (like that Lizard necklace from WotN).
      Anyway, Heavy Hand should reduce speed the same way as in previous games, so to 2, not by 2. But you better test it to be sure.

      When Shaman's Shaman (...) ability triggers, it actually adds only 75 Adrenaline points, not 100, because it is affected by 'Calm'. Another oversight.
      His new Persistence of Mind doesn't work.
      Neither does Adrenaline Control. If fixed, it will give +1 Adrenaline even if 10 Adrenaline that an ally got is intermediate result i.e. if, for example, Orc-the-unit uses Onslaught, he burns 15 Adrenaline but gets 10 for attacking, game will display Adrenaline change as '-5', but Shamans will still get +1 Adrenaline.
      Shaman is not actually a Dark unit; he has no alignment tag at all. It is not intended.
      He does not receive Adrenaline points from being attacked as he is not linked to that mechanic.
      He is just as Greedy as any other Orc, even if it's not listed in game.
      Dancing Axes still get flat +10% to healing power per 10 Adrenaline to the maximum of +30% at 30 Adrenaline. In practice Shaman will pretty much always have maximum bonus.
      After seeing all this, one may ask - "what happened here?! Even by post-Legend Orcs standarts Shaman is ridiculous!" Well, to me it looks like that atleast DS Shaman ATOM file is a very much unfinished work-in-progress object. I don't know if devs somehow mistakenly put it instead of the finished one or, say, run out of time and just decided to put what they could. But I do believe that this was really not intended as the final version.

      Delete
    2. Goblin's damage is 1-2, not 2-4.
      "Like Furious Goblins, Goblins have been dropped a Level" - but Furious Goblin is still level 2?
      Giantkiller works the same way as for Furious Goblin (including applying to all attacks), but is technically a different ability. It shares the same description/script discrepancy, so at 100 Adrenaline Goblins will deal +60% damage to level 5 units.
      Zeroing In works not like you describe it. Like atleast it's Russian description tells, it only adds damage if Goblin repeatedly attacks the same TILE, not specific unit. Hitting another tile clears the stored bonus. It's not important through, as it's horribly bugged and have 3(!) different code issues that stop it from working. Even if they all fixed, there is another mistake that makes it skip first damage growth step, so it goes like 100%/120%/130%. Also, it will work for any attack but melee if fixed.
      It is useless info for the unfixed game, but Zeroing In and Giantkiller stack multiplicatively. If fixed, in the extremely unlikely situation where Goblins have 100 Adrenaline, attack the same cell 4th time in row, and their target is level 5 unit, they will deal 208% of normal damage. For Goblin Rage it means slightly above 4-8 damage per Goblin.
      Just like with Axe Thrower, Goblin's in-game stat block shows melee damage, not ranged. In Goblin's case both numbers are same, but there can still be purely visual problems with effects affecting ranged damage.

      Goblin with Catapult costs 300 gold, not 180. Building siege weapon is not cheap, you know.
      This unit too looks unfinished, but not to the extent of Shaman.
      As expected, melee damage is 7, physical. Siege attack deals 12-22 physical damage and have 6 range. Both normal ranged and siege have only 20% penalty for far range.
      Instead of auto-detonating explosives, Pyromancer just make Goblin with Catapult deal doubled damage to all objects. That means ranged attack will deal 24-44 damage per Goblin with Catapult if target is barrier or Gremlin Tower (Siege + Pyromancer). There is also disabled code for always dealing 10*target's health damage against objects and developer commentary about all the nonsense here. WOW. So I should either accept uber-catapults and just change the descritpion or completely rewrite this part of the code. It is almost like a recurring theme for DS Orcs to have abilities that are much stronger that described. Thoughts? I have literally zero people around who played DS.
      Fiery Shot checks if target is an explosive of any kind but does nothing with it.
      Explosives-the-talent can summon either Bombs or Barrels. They both deal fire damage (2-3 and 1-4 per Catapult for Barrels and Bomb respectively) and ignore attack/defense mechanic. They both have 50% poison resistance and 100% fire weakness. Bomb also has 50% physical resistance. Also, I propably forgot to mention earlier that in WotN and DS (not in AP) explosives stats scale with location difficulty.
      Commander does not actually increase morale of Spirit Talkers (bug).
      Commander's mechanic of getting +1 Adrenaline when Goblins/Furious Goblins receive some does not even exist outside of it's description. It was planned but never actually implemented. So I need to write it myself. Sure, why not.'sigh'
      Second Breath should use victory animation, just like in WotN, but instead uses animation for ranged attack. Nothing helps your allies to feel invigorated more than a stone in face./s Weirdest thing is that I don't even understand what causes this bug - all animation links are correct; what is weirder, for some reason this talent completely ignores any animation parameters - as in, it uses 'ranged attack' animation regardless of ANYTHING. It's like it is hard-set somewhere for some reason. Weird.

      Delete
    3. Chieftain is yet another unfinished unit. God...
      He doesn't actually have Heavy Hand. And just adding it will make Chieftains receive doubled Adrenaline from attacks.
      Chieftain always deals full damage to an enemy behind the main target. In fact, it's actually a trait of his base attack; Devastate is just a bunch of outdated non-functioning WotN code. It may decrease damage to secondary target by 75% if Adrenaline is below 10, but for me even it doesn't work. DS Devastate exist only as description/idea. I'll try to create it myself, but the default KB AoE-on-hit mechanic works only for ranged attacks. So far all my attempts of making my own script for this either don't work or cause game to freeze on Chieftain's attack. My test AoE-buffs/debuffs-on-hit scripts (like blessing/burning/freezing/bleeding/poisoning/everything-at-the-same-time target/everyone around target/all enemies) work perfectly, but any attempt of direct damage... Hopefully I just miss something.
      Russian description of Chieftain's Commander ability only mentions morale increase for Orcs-the-units, Veterans and Scouts. In reality it affects Ogres and all Orcs-the-subspecies EXCEPT Scouts (bug). And Adrenaline-getting mechanic is not implemented too. And it should work only with regular Orcs/Veterans/Scouts, not all Orcs-the-subspecies; it's supposed to ignore casters, just like Catapult version.
      I'm surprised that you didn't mention how monstrous Power of the Horde is. Even through it ignores attack/defense mechanic, 370 damage per Chieftain is ridiculous. And anything that will increase health will make it stronger. Also, I never had problems with it only using health of a single Chieftain instead of the whole stack - and I don't see anything obvious that can cause it; script uses usual 'get stack's total health' function for calculations.

      Spirit Talker deals fixed 3 physical damage in melee, so only under Weakness he will deal same damage in melee and at range.
      Ancestral Anger has some pointlessly overcomplicated damage calculation. I will not torment you with it and just explain what one need to know:
      1) Limit of 20% that description tells about (you didn't mention it again) is actually minimum. So in practice the number is 20% + 2% per each 5 Adrenalne over 50 to limit of 40% at 100 Adrenaline. And yes, each step is +2%, not +1%.
      2) It does not ignore [percent], it just considers current resistance being equal to [resistance - percent]. So, for example, Spirit Talker with base 20% number attacks enemy with ice resistance of 0% - he will deal 120% of normal damage.
      It's not what description tells but is pretty simple, right? But the way game calculates it... Anyway, script or description?
      Keeper actually adds 100% of averaged Adrenaline of allied Orcs. Spitit Talkers themselves are not counted for this. There is not even a hint of reducing it to 25% in the code. Script of description? On one hand, other abilities that give Adrenaline due on other units' actions have pretty minor effect. On another - Orc Shaman has a 'ton of free Adrenaline' ability.
      Avenging spirit ignores attack/defense mechanic. It's use doesn't burn Adrenaline due to a bug; spirit's loghtnings use it as expected.
      Hex (basically "Evil-Eye-effect" in Russian) does nothing if applied to creatures that can't normally miss, like Guard Droid or Burrowed Brontor. Also, have you noticed that this talent's icon change after you click on it but before using it?
      Due to somebody misunderstanding how modifiers work Thread of Life actually has leadership limit of 15000 per Spirit Talker. And it still can't be dispelled or used on golems/mechanical/Immune to Magic units. Also, Russian description tells nothing about allies.
      It looks very possible that originally Spirit Talker was intended to be just normal, non-magical Goblin cavalry. At some later point his idea was partially merged with now-removed Goblin Shaman. Result is interesting, but not exactly successful.

      Delete
    4. Orc Scout costs 600 gold.
      10-15 is his melee damage. His ranged is 12-18. Range is unlimited. Well, "unlimited range" in KB series is technically either 60 or 100; in this case it's the latter.
      Crossbowman is another mechanic that exist only as description. So I'll need to write it myself too. I wonder if I'll finish Assassin's Creed 3 in this month? Or in this year?:)
      The same with Wolf Cavalry. Exist in name only.
      Certain quest gives Orc Scouts 'Retreat' (like one Amazons have) ability, which isn't shown in stats but works in game. Only, getting this ability will decrease Scouts melee retaliation damage to 5-7. Shooting during retreat will only do 10-15 damage. In case you are interested, those numbers supposedly were Orc Scouts' melee and ranged damage respectively in earlier stages of development. At some point the unit was buffed but quest-unlocked Retreat still uses old numbers.
      Orc Scouts' late access is ridiculous indeed. Aralan intended as either final or second final (Helvedia) island difficulty-wise. Story-wise too, I'd say. And than Orc Scouts are upgraded through a quest related to Amazonia, and said quest doesn't even require to finish Orc Scouts quest in the first place. So a lot of people get upgrade quest before getting Orc Scouts themselves.
      Than again, special unit quests in general have nonsensical progression. Propably related to location order being changed. A few times, possibly.
      Piercing Shot is literally just normal ranged attack with resistance ignore and Adrenaline cost added.
      Support is coded as posthit-added-damage buff. So it's not actually Orc Scouts shooting at target, just buff's damage (it does use Scouts' attack stat) being dealt after a pause while Orc Scouts just play animation without actually doing anything action-wise (think Gorguls who hear Whispers). This means that:
      1) It working against every target of AoE attack is working as intended, as damage buff is applied to all attacks. If we use Support on Giants, Support damage should trigger against Quake victims, for example. You can try it in game to be sure, of course.
      2) As it is not actually Scout attacking, Support won't give him Adrenaline. Hm, I propably can find a roundabout way to add Adrenaline generation here, but will it really make sense? And it's not like Orc Scout needs more buffs.
      3) Crossbowman ability (if/when I implement it) won't work on Support too.
      Support triggering and Companion have their animations and sound effects switched. So summoning wolves by shooting at the air is not intended.
      Companion indeed supposed to have limit of one summoned stack; repeated use should add animals to said stack, like in WotN Orc Hunter talent. But it too is bugged.
      Also, companion actually has randomised summon result - 50% chance for wolves and 50% for wolves. 'sigh' My theory is that second variant was hyenas at some point.

      Russian description of the Banner of the Horde says about adding level 1-3 Orc units. Their leadership is 4% of hero's. Russian description is correct; through Spirit Talkers are indeed excluded from the list, so it's only Goblins, Furious Goblins and common Orcs. Easily fixable.

      Delete
    5. This was by far my most exhausting and headache-giving code dive so far. I really hope that it's the usual post-Legend Orc thing and that other races will be not THAT mangled. Otherwise DS code researching will take A LOT of time. That said, code organisation in general is even worse that in Crossworlds. Especially jarring after WotN that had best one IMO.
      So, we have a lot of cases where description and actual mechanics are different. If I want to bring order here (and I do), I need to decide what will be chosen in each specific case. It would be nice to hear your opinion on atleast some of this. I can't promise that results will always be the same, but I will take your thoughts in consideration.
      At this point I'm thinking about just changing all Adrenaline-scaling abilities to work like descrption says.
      I may need a pause. I mean, from further code diving. Fixing all the Orc mess need some time, and I would prefer to finish their part before moving to Demons. And maybe rest a little afterwards.

      'sigh' It's one thing to just know about game being rushed and unfinished, and another thing is seeing it from the inside. There is non-functionig code from previous games, abilities that have only description but do not exist in code, mostly finished abilities that are just disabled (not for Orcs)... Even finished abilities/talents sometimes have parts that are not blocked but do nothing due to being nonsensical. Or sometimes scripts calculate the same thing twice for no reason. Or use complicated code when simpler one will work jusr fine. Or make pointless things like "change critical chance of [animation](!) by -1000". Wow.

      Delete
    6. You sure Bleed-from-crit is truly 5%? The 20% from the config files fits so much better with my actual play, and you've already relayed 'code here says X, actual gameplay works some other way'.

      Implemented the other crit info, in any event.

      I can't boot up Dark Side right this second (Windows update is being a giant pain, and I'm not sure when it'll release its stranglehold on my computer) so I can't double-check where Valkyrie get referred to in-game (Or anything else, even though I really want to start double-checking right away), but I know one place was somewhere on the Hero screen.

      As for bugfix judgment stuff...

      Giant Killer I'd personally revise the description. The behavior is reasonable, it's a plausibly intentional buff, and honestly Goblins and Furious Goblins are really weak in Dark Side; a fix that nerfs them is kicking them while they're down.

      Orc Veteran dodging is a case I'd personally bring in line with the description. A free, passive 30% evasion chance puts them ahead of the generic/universal evaders (eg Pirates) and equal to situational evaders (Beauty, prior Cautious behavior), and then they get to rise still higher? On top of all their other benefits? This looks like an accident out of step with the series tuning, and a bit overpowered of one; I just figured I was lucky on Veteran dodges, not that their evasion numbers are weirdly high!

      I don't follow what you're saying about the catapult's Ability wonkiness (In terms of requesting input from me) beyond that there's disabled instant-kill code that's very silly. (10 times the target's HP? That's some serious overkill...)

      And I did notice Second Wind playing the attack animation. I didn't think anything of it because DS is blatantly rushed and buggy, but... that's a lot more confusing than what I'd been expecting. (I'd figured something like the code falling back on the basic attack animation if nothing is specified)

      I never got a good sense of Power of the Horde's potential, because I always have it misbehave early in a run. In conjunction with DS having the player get absurdly powerful later in a run, it just doesn't end up standing out.

      With Spirit Talker's Ancestral Anger, I'd probably go with updating the description. Knowing how it actually works explains their so-so base numbers; WotN Bowman, for example, have the same Leadership, the same Initiative+Speed, the same minimum damage, Flaming Arrow spikes their damage, they have 8 more Attack and 2 more Defense, and cost 40% the gold, but Ancestral Anger's true numbers give the Spirit Talker a clear advantage in sustained damage if supported properly.

      With Keeper, I'm on the fence. It's not overpowered in real play, but it does 'feel wrong' to get so much Adrenaline for free. And it sounds like probably the 25% was intended but never written, not, say, mechanics being overhauled and the description missed.

      Is THAT what the 'let's train with Amazons' Quest does? I thought it was just part of unlocking Orc Scouts!

      Orcs are certainly the worst-looking at the superficial level, if that helps any... but I'm not sure how meaningful that really is, given how many issues they have I simply didn't register. But yeah, if you need breaks, take breaks; there's no urgency here.

      Delete
  3. I am sure, yes. But I tested anyway, just in case, by changing this 5 to 100 and spamming forced crits - every single one applied Bleed. So yes, game takes krit stats from the same place as in previous games.
    Btw what exactly this conifg file you mentioned?

    Goblin Catapult - Pyromancer claim to auto-kill explosives. Instead, it just doubles damage against all objects i.e. for non-barrier/Gremlin tower objects (like Totem of Death) it will be shot for (6-11)*2=12-22 damage. For barriers/Gremlin it will double Siege attack to the result of (12-22)*2 = 24-44. It doesn't even make sense in relation to the ability name, and it's quite overpowered.
    Also, Siege weapon own base damage is still 12-22, not 18-33.

    If no animation set, a talent will just work without any - unit just turns towards target - and things happen.

    In Russian version Sorug directly tells about wanting Orc Scouts to learn how to control the mounts and evade attacks Amazon-style.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pretty sure I got to everything now.

      It's been years so I'm not sure which config file to look in. I might dig around later and see if I can find it, but not right now; transcribing this and updating descriptions and all was already a bit draining.

      As for the Valkyrie reference, it's specifically hovering over the Rage bar in the Hero Screen; in English, it gives the WotN description about how this is spent on your Amulet of the Valkyrie. So that'd be the thing to check if you're wondering if the Russian text has the same issue.

      And yeah okay I can see why you dislike Pyromancer's actual effect. That's two stacking effects for making the Catapult kill Objects harder; there's no reason for it to be two separate effects like that. And yeah, automatically detonating explosives is a bit of a joke, but this is not an improvement to the design.

      In English Sorug talks about wanting to learn from how the Amazons ride, too, but it's all worded so vaguely I just figured it was more like 'Orcs don't know how to ride non-yak mounts, we should learn from the experts', not 'now that we've figured out how to ride wolves, let's go get better at it by learning from the experts'. English Dark Side has by far the worst translation in the series (Even if I count Red Sands...), and in conjunction with the game's general bugginess and opaque Quest construction where often multiple Quests are necessary to complete to enable some other Quest with absolutely no sign before or after that any of these Quests were connected... it was easy to think it was just one more requirement for unlocking Orc Scouts, rather than an improvement to them. Especially since I've only unlocked them in one run so far, whereas I have four runs that have completed the Amazon training!

      Delete
    2. Out of curiocity - are you familiar with release version of Dark Side? It had crits with 100% Bleed chance. People hated it for being really annoying. It also made Bleed-applying abilities/talents/spells much less useful.

      In Russian version hovering over the Rage bar refers to Blackie, as expected.

      Yeah, Dark Side can be confusing. I can imagine how much worse it can become with subpar translation.
      In Russian version of Amazon training quest Sorug speak about Orc Scouts as if player already finished their quest, familiar with them and they are already used for a while in-story. Which is pretty confusing.

      Third paragraph from the beginning has "...Talents no longer have reduced crAt chance..."

      I found what caused Goblins with Catapults use wrong animation for second wind - it is an unforeseen consequence of sloppy transfer of said talent from Paladin to Knight. Knights themselves do not suffer from it through.

      A couple of additions on Orc Scout: Support can never crit. Not even egainst Doomed units.
      If Companion is fixed* to work like it's supposed to, adding units to the summoned stack will always make combat log say about 0 unit added, just like in WotN.
      When hovering mouse over the summoned stack, fixed Companion will show how many units will be added. Well, it should, but it's bugged too and instead show difference between current count and added one i.e. if we have stack of 100 Wolves and use Companion to add 120 more, hint will only show 20. And log will tell about 0 :) But 120 will be added properly.

      * If you are wondering, script fails to make the game remember that summoned stack is here, so every time Orc Scouts use Companion, game think that it's either first time or the summoned stack already died.

      Do you think Support should add Adrenaline after all? I mean logically (and without thinking about how it's coded) it should. Through it will make Orc Scouts even stronger by making it free and even adding 15 Adrenaline in long-term. And it will allow fixed Chieftains get free 3 Adrenaline :)

      "Admittedly, I'm not sure how firing a shot into the air is supposed to tie into Support's mechanics and ensuing animations" - triggering Support should use normal Orc Scouts' ranged attack animation against the target of Supported unit.

      And you didn't mention that Retreat also gives 30% chance to evade melee attacks. I'd say it's rather important detail.

      Delete
    3. I didn't get to Dark Side until patching was over and done with, and it was by far the worst-documented entry in the series -with the other games, I could find a correct or mostly-correct summary of Rage upgrades, where for Dark Side I had to manually note down upgrade offerings as I went. So this is the first I've heard of this. And crit=Bleed does sound problematic on the face of it, yeah.

      What I mean with Support's animation is that the 'set buff on ally' animation is firing a shot in the air. They do indeed fire at targets when it's actually triggered.

      I'm not sure for Support providing Adrenaline. Its current price is already a bit cheap, it'd be even worse with gaining at least 9 Adrenaline out of using it, and Orcs don't get extra Adrenaline for splash damage, which is related. But it does feel viscerally wrong, and multi-action effects like Furious or Crossworlds Astral Attack don't cap the Adrenaline generation per turn... I do think it should at least give Adrenaline on a lethal hit. It'd be infuriating to make an all-Orc army and then miss out on Adrenaline because shooting someone to death with an Orc doesn't count in this one case. Maybe raise its cost to 30, maybe 40? Or give it reduced Adrenaline generation, like half value, so it stays accessible but isn't a rapid injection of Adrenaline.

      God, Dark Side is an onion of bugs; you peel away a layer and find still more!

      Updated the post.

      Delete
    4. About Support - so English version has it's own animation bugs then? In Russian version applying buff is animated with 'victory' animation, as intended. When triggered Orc Scout uses animation intended for summonong allies, with green effects and all that. The same happens when Orc Scout shoots during retreat.
      I prefer not to modify stuff unless I have to so, but I think halved Adrenaline generation sounds like a good compromise.
      Interestingly, Orc Scout have an unused but fully functioning animation, just called 'power' internally. It looks almost like his normal ranged attack one, but he loads a sparkling bolt before shooting. I guess it was intended for Piercing Shot.

      Delete
    5. And another bug - Piercing Shot can be used even if Orc Scout does not have enough Adrenaline. It will still try to burn it's cost through.

      Delete
    6. Testing more heavily, I'm getting inconsistent results on the Orc Scout's animations. My new tests had them play their basic attack animation when I used Support the first time, and a second time in a separate battle it instead played their victory animation, followed by Companion also playing the victory animation. I also had Retreat fire a sparkling bolt when triggered, which I don't think happened in my initial testing of Orc Scout Retreat. So this seems to be a bit stranger than just 'Talents got pointed at the wrong animations'.

      And tested and implemented the Piercing Shot info -I'm pleasantly surprised at how well the game copes with this particular bug.

      Delete
    7. For me Orc Scout's animation are consistent. Switched (well, not anymore) but consistent.

      Btw a crossbow bolt is kind of arrow, too, so I guess atleast some player could expect Orc Scout's ranged attacks be affected by 'Bone'. They are not.

      Delete
    8. Aaaaand I forgot to mention that Support uses base attack stat of Orc Scout/Amazon.

      Delete
    9. Updated with the Bone bit.

      Do you mean Support ignores modifications to their Attack?

      Delete
    10. I was wrong, I apologise.
      It uses proper attack stat after all. It is coded in such way that make it look like it only takes unmodified number, but it's not true. Support is unique in the way it it coded; so I misunderstood that part.

      Delete
    11. Hm, shooting from retreat doesn't give Adrenaline. Melee retaliation will stop too once player finish training-with-Amazons quest.
      Through it would be nice if you could test it to be sure.

      Delete
    12. Quite the opposite! Orc Scouts that have Retreat ALWAYS melee retaliate, even if they did so earlier that turn!

      Updated the post appropriately, including the Adrenaline info... which applies to melee retaliations as well, by the way. So many bugs on this one unit... not that it really matters given probably basically no players actually use them.

      Delete
    13. When I said "melee retaliation will stop too", I meant it will stop giving Adrenaline. It looks like you understood it as "it will stop working"?
      But you confirmed it stopping giving Adrenaline anyway, so it doesn't matter.

      Yeah, I almost feel like each time I look on this unit, game creates a new bug for it :)

      Delete
    14. Units killed through Support won't give Orc Scouts their Greed bonus.

      I have a question about your experience with Chieftain's Power of the Horde. When you said that it dealt wrongly low damage for you - did it actually 'dealt' it? There are some weird problem with this talent's expected damage hint showing wrong numbers (talent deals correct damage through).

      Delete
    15. It was sub-1000 damage being done by a stack of 8 Orc Chieftains. The fact that it was barely any actual damage done was got me scrutinizing it and arriving at the guess of 'half the top member?' for trying to make sense of it being like less than a third of what it should've done.

      It's also been years and years so it's possible I missed something else, or misunderstood something, or it's a completely different bug, or whatever,

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts