Mages, Spellcasters and Shamans etc (Buff version in specific) question

DarkLordD

Hey everyone, I had a rather hard to found out question.


For example, lets look at this battle




The Orc Shaman (old blacktooth the second) has some AWESOME HARDCORE BUFFS. My question is, how much kills do you think the buffs ALONE will represent if you use them hard ? Stuff like +40 MA is not nothing.

In numbers, how much would those buffs alone represent in actually extra kills BECAUSE of the buffs.

I know its kind of an impossible question, but never hurts to ask and discus these maters here, am I right ^^ ??


Gotta love Orc shaman as underling in my Goblin army. hahaha the other orcs must LAUGH at him so hard. Ruled by a FIERCE GOBLIN mhuahuauaua ! love the buggers.

elkapp

I'm gonna tell you, before talking about how much kills a stats can get and how much important the situation can be (which, short answer, a lot), is good to remember that NO SINGLE STAT IS GOOD BY ITSELF.
When counting the effectiveness of a buff you must ask yourself the questions: is it good for X unit? What buffs X unit needs to become effectively stronger? There are stats that if given in infinite quantities to X won't change it's performance? And so on.

In the case of the orc shaman, +40 MA might seem a lot, but might not be a big deal. At least, consider a couple of different situations: 1) you send your shaman against infantry, 2) you send your shaman against a single entity.
In the case 1) MA count but also damage, expecially if you deal more normal or ap damage, and in the case of single entities how many soldiers they can hit with each attack. The defence also count, and what defence: your character might have insane MD, so it won't get crushed in melee, but low hp and low missile res so it get destroyed by ranged. The size of your character also play a big role when considering ranged damage, so maybe you want to send your ork shaman in combat against infantry, but not if they're backed by 2 or more ranged units. And obviously same logic for hit and run tactics, that are available only if if your unit has decent speed, mass and charge bonus (this last one is not that useful for single entities). Then, case 2), same stuff, but you apply your logic to a fight a monster or enemy character. You may decide to use your shaman if he has good WS not on the front, but as an assassin doing hit and run while the enemy character/monster is pinned by your other units. Might also be part of a fast character team that might be by themselves not that great duelists but become good because numbers and speed.

One can use the same for other units to identify if they're going to be good or less given a specific buff. If, for example, you give a black ork or a chosen unit (which by default are not good units) +20MA +20MD +100% WS or even way more it won't make them any better because their problem is not that they can't kill people in melee (which technically is a problem, but that's a subtle campaign specific problem that all melee infantry more or less share, which i won't go in detail because this comment is already becoming the **** bible), their problem is that they get nuked by armor piercing ranged fire, therefore would benefit way more from a speed/resistance (ward save/missile/physical) increase than basically any numer of melee stats increase.

Also, there might be situations where buffs to a unit's stats make said unit actually worse. Talking about waywatchers, they can get a pretty fast reload and be extremely precise, but more often than not the fast reload is an issue because for them ammo is precious, so you end up needing to babysit them more all for an extra dps that you don't really need because of the big range and fire while moving things. Also the big precision is an issue, expecially against small targets (like goblin characters) since a small change of the target's direction will result in hundreds of arrows hitting the ground because the waywatchers shot them where they thought the character would have been (an issue completely non-existant if we use darkshards, which may lose total damage since they shoot basically in a small aoe, but will definitely hit the target, which will result in better results with less micro).
Same logic but different problems for demigryph knights, that can hit 3 enemy units of infantry at once but will probably not have the needed WS to 1-2 shot their targets (WS is divided when doing aoe attacks, so considering base demys have 3 aoe targets and 58 WS the resulting WS per target is 19.3, which is low af).

That's not a mathematical/any-idiot-can-do-it answer, but it's the best i can give considering the large ammount of variables in the game.

Vandicus

Depends on whom and the positioning. +40 MA is likely anywhere from almost double damage to triple for lower melee attack units. MA gets netted against MD and then respects minimum and maximum accuracy rules. So you could roughly compare the units you cast it on and their performance vs their peers.

DarkLordD

elkapp said:

I'm gonna tell you, before talking about how much kills a stats can get and how much important the situation can be (which, short answer, a lot), is good to remember that NO SINGLE STAT IS GOOD BY ITSELF.
When counting the effectiveness of a buff you must ask yourself the questions: is it good for X unit? What buffs X unit needs to become effectively stronger? There are stats that if given in infinite quantities to X won't change it's performance? And so on.

In the case of the orc shaman, +40 MA might seem a lot, but might not be a big deal. At least, consider a couple of different situations: 1) you send your shaman against infantry, 2) you send your shaman against a single entity.
In the case 1) MA count but also damage, expecially if you deal more normal or ap damage, and in the case of single entities how many soldiers they can hit with each attack. The defence also count, and what defence: your character might have insane MD, so it won't get crushed in melee, but low hp and low missile res so it get destroyed by ranged. The size of your character also play a big role when considering ranged damage, so maybe you want to send your ork shaman in combat against infantry, but not if they're backed by 2 or more ranged units. And obviously same logic for hit and run tactics, that are available only if if your unit has decent speed, mass and charge bonus (this last one is not that useful for single entities). Then, case 2), same stuff, but you apply your logic to a fight a monster or enemy character. You may decide to use your shaman if he has good WS not on the front, but as an assassin doing hit and run while the enemy character/monster is pinned by your other units. Might also be part of a fast character team that might be by themselves not that great duelists but become good because numbers and speed.

One can use the same for other units to identify if they're going to be good or less given a specific buff. If, for example, you give a black ork or a chosen unit (which by default are not good units) +20MA +20MD +100% WS or even way more it won't make them any better because their problem is not that they can't kill people in melee (which technically is a problem, but that's a subtle campaign specific problem that all melee infantry more or less share, which i won't go in detail because this comment is already becoming the **** bible), their problem is that they get nuked by armor piercing ranged fire, therefore would benefit way more from a speed/resistance (ward save/missile/physical) increase than basically any numer of melee stats increase.

Also, there might be situations where buffs to a unit's stats make said unit actually worse. Talking about waywatchers, they can get a pretty fast reload and be extremely precise, but more often than not the fast reload is an issue because for them ammo is precious, so you end up needing to babysit them more all for an extra dps that you don't really need because of the big range and fire while moving things. Also the big precision is an issue, expecially against small targets (like goblin characters) since a small change of the target's direction will result in hundreds of arrows hitting the ground because the waywatchers shot them where they thought the character would have been (an issue completely non-existant if we use darkshards, which may lose total damage since they shoot basically in a small aoe, but will definitely hit the target, which will result in better results with less micro).
Same logic but different problems for demigryph knights, that can hit 3 enemy units of infantry at once but will probably not have the needed WS to 1-2 shot their targets (WS is divided when doing aoe attacks, so considering base demys have 3 aoe targets and 58 WS the resulting WS per target is 19.3, which is low af).

That's not a mathematical/any-idiot-can-do-it answer, but it's the best i can give considering the large ammount of variables in the game.

Thank you for actually taking your time here for me, I appricate that a lot.

I am going to let this sink in for a while and read it over again a few times, you give some great info dude, thanks for that !

I mostly use the buffs specific for an army. Basicaly making there best charastatics even better, but true, why have 40 MA on a giant that already has 80+ Ma. I use that buff for my goblins to make them a bit harder hitable against cavalry. Stuff like that. Take the best assets of my army and use a lore bound to there specialty. and of course, ALWAYS love the physical and protecting wards etc, they pay off for sure.


THanks a lot man, like I said I am going to let this sink in and absorb a bit more when I read it a second and third time.

Again, thanks !