Legion's Demise is far too powerful

[Autisticus Maximus]

For those of you that don't know, Legion's Demise is a Thaum 9, glamour 7 battlefield enchantment that, while up, deals 1 MR-negated false damage to all enemy units on the field every turn.

For comparison, all(?) other damage-dealing battlefield enchantments deal damage to 1% of the battlefield 23 times a turn. Acid Storm or Fire Storm will wear down your units eventually - but Legion's Demise will do it very, very quickly, and can't be meaningfully countered.

If it were just 1 damage everywhere every turn, I think that'd be fine. But Legion's Demise deals false damage. False damage cannot be regenerated, so there really isn't an achievable counter to this. You could try to bring only mindless units, but that has a slew of issues. You could equip every commander with amulets of clarity, but in a lategame scenario where Legion's Demise exists, you're probably fielding over 50 mages - assuming you use a hammer for each craft and aren't Phaeacia, that's 150 glamour gems to protect just your mages, and your troops will still die because you can't paint disbelief.

I like this spell conceptually, but with the mechanics being what they are right now, it's extremely game-defining to a much greater extent than any other spell is or has been for the couple of years I've been playing Dominions. If there's going to be battlefield-wide, constant false damage, there has to be a counter to false damage. Every other damage spell can be countered either easily or with some effort - elemental resistances, regen, Will of the Fates, protection buffs, antimagic, whathaveyou - but Legion's Demise stands on its own as the premier uncounterable source of damage.

Example scenario from a current game. I'm MA Phaeacia fighting MA Agartha. I'm fielding a huge communion with every trick in the book, he's fielding a smaller communion also with every trick in the book. We're both casting life after death, all elemental resistances, army regen, soaring army, army of mist, will of the fates, army-wide protection buffs, AP buffs, strength buffs - basically every contingency is covered by both of us. But also, we're both casting Legion's Demise, and that's really the only spell that matters. Thinking soldiers die quickly to false damage on both sides before other spells can clear the field like you'd see without Legion's Demise on the field. Whoever gets unlucky and loses their Legion's Demise holder first loses the fight. Other spells don't matter.

I hate this. It makes all my planning irrelevant unless I commit massively to countering one specific spell, in a way that doesn't benefit me in any other way. At least having a Demon Bane on every mage for FFTS gives them health and lets them slice demons that get close. Amulets of clarity don't do anything else!

[kazthefirst]

Originally posted by Crunbum:

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

....

First of all, no. Just. No. To everything you said. It is for the most part all just as factually incorrect as this :

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

Well, your G3 with +3 from items probably dies when he hits 400+ fatigue, so I'm not sure how this is a viable tactic.

Units dont die when they hit 400 fatigue. They just take 1 damage per 50 fatigue in excess of 200. This means a human mage needs to take ~700 fatigue in one cast to die by taking 10 HP, while casting a 400 fatigue spell like LD just deals 4 damage. Which is irrelevant since you only need that one cast. Plus since its a single very important caster they probably have an armor for HP, buffs etc.

Dom6 manual: Pg 69 "No unit can have more than 200
fatigue – each 25 fatigue points inflicted once a unit has
reached 200 inflicts 1 point of hit point damage. If fewer
than 25 fatigue points are inflicted, the chance of taking 1
hit point of damage is (the number of fatigue points inflicted
x 4)% except that a single fatigue point will never result in
any damage."

It's 8 points of damage, my dude, or maybe 9 if you get a bad roll because it's more than 400 fatigue because you add encumbrance. Not a fatal hit to a human commander that might have 10-15 HPs, but if the enemy is using literally anything damaging the battlefield, I'd expect that mage is not surviving the battle. That's a big enough hit that stray arrows are taking your guy out.

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

Seems like you just lost a lot of gear and killed a mage for a win 10-15 turns in the future, a future that might not come considering how quick endgame battles can be.

And then you go on to speculate based on incorrect information. All your arguments are this - incorrect assumptions lead to incorrect conclusions and it is tiring to argue with walls of text so I'm not going to do that in full.

I would say if you want to argue about game balance a good first step would be to actually play more mp games and watch less tourneys because your discussion points are all frankly riddled with silly mistakes that anyone who played a single proper mp game to its conclusion would not make..

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

And seriously, do you know what a gemburn tactic is? It's where you send just big enough of an army to provoke the enemy to cast their big spells that cost gems. No one is immune to that, but I guess you could load up your mage with stacks of gems so your gem losses are even more devastating when your mage explodes while killing a tiny sacrificial army.

Oh, I assure you, a single glamour mage who only needs to cast a single spell round 1 for 4-5 gems and then sleeps for the rest of the battle as that spell wipes the enemy is quite immune to gemburns.

A Master Enslave communion that needs to cast 200+ gems worth of spells out of a dozen mages in this case, both as the core loop and as buffs to protect itself, is very much not.

I'm beginning to think that if you saw a properly executed Master Enslave strategy where the spell is costing a base 9 gems before buffs as I described in my last post, you'd be back on the forums demanding it be nerfed.

I mean, it's clear YOUR strategy for casting Master Enslave is terrible. Your idea to spend hundreds of gems per battle to cast 16 Master Enslaves with 44 capital-only quality mages is the the kind of move that ends one's game. One or two gemburn attacks at that gem use rate and then someone is cleaning up your army for cheap.

But I'll just add one last thing, for informational purposes. A gemburn tactic is where you send just big enough of an army to provoke the game AI to use gems so that the enemy uses up their gems for their big scripted battle spells. So the efficiency is to get people to blow large numbers of gems on battles against like 25 enemy units and a few mages, so when the actual big battle comes they don't have gems any more.

That's not a tactic one can be immune to, my friend. It's wild that you keep saying that. You can keep lots of gems on your mages in the hopes of still having enough gems for a big battle, but the burning of those gems is completely out of your control because if you scripted the gem use, the game AI executes it, and at some definite point you run out of gems or the ability to resupply.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

Originally posted by TheMeInTeam:

The manual could do with making how gem usage in combat works more clear. It does imply gem usage to reduced beyond raising path might be possible. Regardless of how it's supposed to work, the information about it should not be vague.

pg 81: "However, a mage may never increase his skill level by more than one by using
gems, or gain skill in a path in which he or she did not already have at least one skill level."

That being said, point taken. I was looking for this and learned something new on another topic that surprised me. It's a lot of reading for a complex game.

It also says that mages can use as many gems as they have paths, and that gems can be used to reduce fatigue.

It does not state that the only way gems can be used to reduce fatigue is to increase the mage's paths. At best, this could be inferred. I hold this is not a well-written part of the manual, though it's better than examples where Dominions just straight up doesn't tell you how something works at all.

---

Edit: by the time people are casting legion's demise, it's reasonable to expect a piece of armor (for hp buffer and such) and regen on the side casting level 9 magic, so unless the mage casting it inflicts himself with feebleminded upon doing so, legion's demise will stay up through things like stray arrows easily. If you want to kill that mage, you'll have to use something a bit more impactful...and it better hit fast.

[Crunbum]

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

Dom6 manual: Pg 69 "No unit can have more than 200
fatigue – each 25 fatigue points inflicted once a unit has
reached 200 inflicts 1 point of hit point damage. If fewer
than 25 fatigue points are inflicted, the chance of taking 1
hit point of damage is (the number of fatigue points inflicted
x 4)% except that a single fatigue point will never result in
any damage."

It's 8 points of damage, my dude, or maybe 9 if you get a bad roll because it's more than 400 fatigue because you add encumbrance. Not a fatal hit to a human commander that might have 10-15 HPs, but if the enemy is using literally anything damaging the battlefield, I'd expect that mage is not surviving the battle. That's a big enough hit that stray arrows are taking your guy out.

The manual is wrong here (and in many places actually). Which you would know if you actually played the game. It is 1 damage per 50 fatigue, not 25 like it says.

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

...

I normally detest ad personam arguments, but every other sentence you write reinforces my opinion that you never ever won (or even played) a single proper mp game.

Why? Well, you show an erroneous understanding of basic game mechanics every other sentence you write. You reference the manual (which everyone who is active in the community knows is an unreliable source of information) as well as random youtube series an awful lot. Your actual experience with the game? You don't talk about that at all. You see... you are theorycrafting and talking hypotheticals. Me? I'm talking from experience.

I have played.. I don't remotely have an idea how many games actually, Assuming standard 4 concurrent with each lasting 2.5 months on average and how rarely I ever get knocked out early and that I played much more than 4 concurrent in early dom 5, I must have played almost 200 classical, 24h-48h turn timer games, by now? Not counting blitzes, duels etc.

My aggregate winrate is ~5 times the player count average, aka 40% in 12 player games and thats only counting intermediate and advanced lobbies. Its more in all-skill ones and more still if I don't count modded games or those where I played meme builds for fun. Then there's obviously a clear upward trend over the years. Though I did win the first mp game I ever played. And the second. And the third.

By now? I win games more often than I lose them. As far as dominions is concerned, I'm one of the relatively few people who can say that they've seen it all and done it all. You, sir, are wrong - and you lack the experience to understand why. Good day.

[kazthefirst]

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

...

I normally detest ad personam arguments, but every other sentence you write reinforces my opinion that you never ever won (or even played) a single proper mp game.

Why? Well, you show an erroneous understanding of basic game mechanics every other sentence you write. You reference the manual (which everyone who is active in the community knows is an unreliable source of information) as well as random youtube series an awful lot. Your actual experience with the game? You don't talk about that at all. You see... you are theorycrafting and talking hypotheticals. Me? I'm talking from experience.

I have played.. I don't remotely have an idea how many games actually, Assuming standard 4 concurrent with each lasting 2.5 months on average and how rarely I ever get knocked out early and that I played much more than 4 concurrent in early dom 5, I must have played almost 200 classical, 24h-48h turn timer games, by now? Not counting blitzes, duels et

...blah blah

Yikes, my dude, you LOVE ad personem arguments and have been using them constantly. Go back to your own posts in this thread and learn that about yourself.

One of the ways to know someone has no good arguments and they know they've lost is when they start personal attacks and calling on argumentum ab auctoritate (argument from authority).

[Sombre]

Stepping in here, end your argument now please. Nothing further to be gained.

[Selgeron]

Where are you getting the average length of games at 53 turns Crun, did clockwork publish it? I would love to see the data out of curiosity. I am also a person with an absolutely huge amount of MP games played, but I feel like the vast majority of my games end well past that. Maybe I'm personally throwing off the average, lol.

[TheMeInTeam]

You can alter expected game length drastically just by changing throne point % to win and player count.

Considering that some settings nearly force the game to last long enough for level 9 magic, balancing it would be helpful.

Or I guess you could go the other direction and make it provide a decisive advantage that tends to end the game if it isn't already (aka instead of nerfing this spell, make lots of alternatives similarly powerful).

[kazthefirst]

Originally posted by TheMeInTeam:

You can alter expected game length drastically just by changing throne point % to win and player count.

Considering that some settings nearly force the game to last long enough for level 9 magic, balancing it would be helpful.

Or I guess you could go the other direction and make it provide a decisive advantage that tends to end the game if it isn't already (aka instead of nerfing this spell, make lots of alternatives similarly powerful).

I've also found that wrap-around maps increase game length because players have trouble gaining decisive leads without being triple or quadruple-teamed and there are long stretches where people are doing diplomacy to figure who to tag-team next and no active wars are happening.

I been a supporter of spells that have more decisive effect, but in general that seems to not the fashion. I mean, I've seen communities basically accuse players of cheating when they cast the Armageddon version of Wish even though it was not a table flip move, but a move where their nation survived pretty handily and everyone else suffered.

[crawlers]

I am against spells being so decisive as to end the game by themselves, and see diplomacy as one of the main things I play the game for rather than as a problem. It dragging out the game seems like a positive as well since I don't like the early game and prefer the lategame. Complicated diplo that makes the game more than just a snowballing contest and whoever gets bigger early winning is something I would probably feel considerably less interest if a game lacked it. A game of who schemes better as opposed to who expands early better.

If the game was set up so there are decisive spells throughout all the paths and schools, the house banlist I go with would get a lot bigger to remove all of them. I had enough games where I (or occasionally someone else) rushed for astral nexus and wish because they outclassed almost everything else as prov count per player got larger. Making a bunch of spells do the same thing results in the same problem of the game degenerating into a research rush, just having more paths to pick from, which warps the balance towards nations with good labrats (bandar log likes this, ma ermor does not) thereby making worse the issue of some nations being strong/weak.

I don't have an issue with spells being powerful, but not to the point where simply getting it operational is enough to win by itself - there is a difference between powerful and decisive. To actually win would need an accumulation of different things to make a solid build rather than just one spell to rule them all.

[kazthefirst]

Originally posted by crawlers:

I am against spells being so decisive as to end the game by themselves, and see diplomacy as one of the main things I play the game for rather than as a problem. It dragging out the game seems like a positive as well since I don't like the early game and prefer the lategame. Complicated diplo that makes the game more than just a snowballing contest and whoever gets bigger early winning is something I would probably feel considerably less interest if a game lacked it. A game of who schemes better as opposed to who expands early better.

If the game was set up so there are decisive spells throughout all the paths and schools, the house banlist I go with would get a lot bigger to remove all of them. I had enough games where I (or occasionally someone else) rushed for astral nexus and wish because they outclassed almost everything else as prov count per player got larger. Making a bunch of spells do the same thing results in the same problem of the game degenerating into a research rush, just having more paths to pick from, which warps the balance towards nations with good labrats (bandar log likes this, ma ermor does not) thereby making worse the issue of some nations being strong/weak.

I don't have an issue with spells being powerful, but not to the point where simply getting it operational is enough to win by itself - there is a difference between powerful and decisive. To actually win would need an accumulation of different things to make a solid build rather than just one spell to rule them all.

I think that's a very understandable position, but I like that this game in particular rewards so many play styles and tactical skill and how meaningful choices surpass single spells or units or nations.

For example, the game rewards players who have figured out a good early expansion tactic, and it rewards people who can handle the macro of pumping out research mages, so you can be a nation with bad labrats and good expansion and have research parity with a nation with bad expansion and good labrats because the first nation bought more mages with the income from their good expansion.

The big spells, whether they be globals or rituals or battle spells, form the basis of your strategy for your whole game. The nation with a plan to beeline to the spells for their strategy and an plan to use them immediately is taking advantage to what I'd say is a core design philosophy of the game. For example, let's say you beeline for a gemgen global and have a great national summons that uses that gem type; well, you just jumped ahead in the power curve and people who just researched willy-nilly are probably looking to you as a threat.

This does lead to a situation I'd call The Tyranny of Right Choices. Some nations ARE better on certain maps and game setups. Some nations ARE more powerful depending on their opponent choice. Some nations ARE pre-built for certain strategies and not executing those strategies leads to being weaker than you should be.

The Tyranny of Right Choices means that Arcane Nexus is very powerful on big maps and large games, and scales down as those things scale down. Legion's Demise is powerful if no one else can cast it and no one is fielding high MR armies that have strong offenses, and weak when someone fields army-crushing SCs instead of traditional armies or attacks armies indirectly to kill mages before sending in clean-up armies. Casting Armageddon with Wish is a terrible choice for a human-ish nation who is relying on good scales and high income as a core part of their strategy, and can be a great attack with a monster nation relying on gem armies as a main strategy.

Many spells are very specifically strategies you pick at nation generation. People don't just luck into casting Arcane Nexus. They specifically picked either a high Astral nation or started with an high Astral pretender with the goal of casting it at an opportune moment. Ban it, and then the reason to pick that pretender design or nation goes away.

It's a game of asymmetric choices, and it's brilliant because of that. Making things fair is a laudable goal, but making things more equal makes the game less asymmetric, and thus less brilliant.

[mestaritareenalla]

Legion's Demise is simple enough to cast that it's semi easy to airdrop a caster and some protection, to wipe out a vulnerable human army. When that's too easy, it just limits the variety of the kind of armies you're encouraged to field at all.

[Bazongo]

Originally posted by mestaritareenalla:

Legion's Demise is simple enough to cast that it's semi easy to airdrop a caster and some protection, to wipe out a vulnerable human army. When that's too easy, it just limits the variety of the kind of armies you're encouraged to field at all.

the only problem with this is how OP demilich is, especially on water nations. That's the only remote caster I see get constant use because it's disgustingly cheap and immortal. Nerf that ♥♥♥♥ into the ground. Or better yet, ban it from water nations entirely

[mestaritareenalla]

Originally posted by Bazongo:

Originally posted by mestaritareenalla:

Legion's Demise is simple enough to cast that it's semi easy to airdrop a caster and some protection, to wipe out a vulnerable human army. When that's too easy, it just limits the variety of the kind of armies you're encouraged to field at all.

the only problem with this is how OP demilich is, especially on water nations. That's the only remote caster I see get constant use because it's disgustingly cheap and immortal. Nerf that ♥♥♥♥ into the ground. Or better yet, ban it from water nations entirely

I probably wouldn't use demilich for Legion's Demise, it'd still be likely to die before winning if you just sent it in casting that. For a kamikaze demilich dive, Bone Grinding or Wind of Death are prob better.

Better send a Faerie Queen / Queen of Winter and some skelespammer / SC / etc for protection, and actually kill the whole army.

[crawlers]

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

The big spells, whether they be globals or rituals or battle spells, form the basis of your strategy for your whole game. The nation with a plan to beeline to the spells for their strategy and an plan to use them immediately is taking advantage to what I'd say is a core design philosophy of the game. For example, let's say you beeline for a gemgen global and have a great national summons that uses that gem type; well, you just jumped ahead in the power curve and people who just researched willy-nilly are probably looking to you as a threat.

Casting a gemgen global (other than nexus) and relying on it to spawn gem-summon troops is not anything I find powerful (mainly due to how limited gem summoned troops are compared to blood summons/fort recruits), so it seems like an example of a single spell important to a strategy which doesn't immediately crush all opposition due to being vastly more powerful than anything anyone else can answer with. Other people probably have similar tactics that can match up with this or be stronger, so going from the level of being a non-threat to actually being relevant sounds like a not bad spot for a spell.

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

This does lead to a situation I'd call The Tyranny of Right Choices. Some nations ARE better on certain maps and game setups. Some nations ARE more powerful depending on their opponent choice. Some nations ARE pre-built for certain strategies and not executing those strategies leads to being weaker than you should be.

The Tyranny of Right Choices means that Arcane Nexus is very powerful on big maps and large games, and scales down as those things scale down. Legion's Demise is powerful if no one else can cast it and no one is fielding high MR armies that have strong offenses, and weak when someone fields army-crushing SCs instead of traditional armies or attacks armies indirectly to kill mages before sending in clean-up armies. Casting Armageddon with Wish is a terrible choice for a human-ish nation who is relying on good scales and high income as a core part of their strategy, and can be a great attack with a monster nation relying on gem armies as a main strategy.

Many spells are very specifically strategies you pick at nation generation. People don't just luck into casting Arcane Nexus. They specifically picked either a high Astral nation or started with an high Astral pretender with the goal of casting it at an opportune moment. Ban it, and then the reason to pick that pretender design or nation goes away.

The tyranny of right choices does not apply for all level 9 spells, only a few of them. I admit, a number of level 9 spells are not worth it but that is a separate problem - an underpowered spell is probably less problematic than one so cranked that it warps the meta.

I am aware that banning spells reduces the reason to pick certain builds, but I believe that by banning certain ones, the reason to pick many builds that would otherwise not be considered due to the tyranny of right choices now suddenly appears, thus increasing the variety of genuinely viable options. But what if these spells were nerfed? Then they would no longer shrink the variety of viable options.

Originally posted by kazthefirst:

It's a game of asymmetric choices, and it's brilliant because of that. Making things fair is a laudable goal, but making things more equal makes the game less asymmetric, and thus less brilliant.

I am not of the position of making things the same (the factions being different is a big reason of why I play dominions), but rather of nerfing the most cranked options and buffing the things that are borderline never used viably. This in turn would increase the number of choices, and maybe even the asymmetry too.

All of this I combine to make a point that legions demise in its current state, by outclassing so much other magic and rendering nonviable so many armies that might oppose it, greatly shrinks the number of late game options to those who can use legions demise effectively and those who must find a way to win outside of battles. Maybe this is to some extent exaggerating but it seems to line up with what people previously found with iirc 20 mr tomb wyrms dying to it in 20 rounds, and few builds are capable of fielding chaff of such durability against it and would last far shorter amounts of time.

[kazthefirst]

Originally posted by crawlers:

All of this I combine to make a point that legions demise in its current state, by outclassing so much other magic and rendering nonviable so many armies that might oppose it, greatly shrinks the number of late game options to those who can use legions demise effectively and those who must find a way to win outside of battles. Maybe this is to some extent exaggerating but it seems to line up with what people previously found with iirc 20 mr tomb wyrms dying to it in 20 rounds, and few builds are capable of fielding chaff of such durability against it and would last far shorter amounts of time.

Well, everyone who reaches even the middle game needs to adapt their tactics to whatever is in play. If the enemy is using lots of Fire evocation, you need resistance in some way. If they have heavy armor troops, you need to start hitting harder or finding AP attacks. Etc, etc.

I think the thing about this conversation so frustrating is that it focuses on "how can I make my army immune to this tactic" and not "how do I adapt to this tactic?"

I mean, it's a battlefield spell that will quickly end most early and middle game armies and will grind down an endgame army in short order, and it also comes in the late endgame when you should have adapted to the needs of the late endgame.

It's pretty cheap to field, but is it more dangerous than most other battlefield spells being fielded in the late endgame? The tactics to defeat it are the same used to defeat most other battlefield spells.

You can still kill the caster or drive them off. That's a tactic that works especially well on drop units scripted to cast battlefield spells, and in the endgame your armies should be handling that kind of threat handily.

Big army vs army battles are still an issue, but both sides can use this tactic considering it's cheapness to field, and those battles usually have so many big spells dropping that battlefield spells aren't reliable anymore because the odds of your battlefield casters dying are unpredictable.

It's going to change the meta as well. Suddenly Fall Bears and Summer Lions and everything else I haven't seen in a while that happens to be Mindless becomes very useful. I ran a test game with no penetration boosters or Antimagic (so basically a wash as the basic +4 penetration from a Runesmasher + Eye of the Void cancels the +4 from Antimagic) and saw MR 9s with around 20 false damage at turn 10, MR 13s with around 10 at turn 10, and MR 17s with like 6 at turn 10. I'd check random crap I'd summoned and be reminded that units like Killer Mantis are mindless and I'd totally forgotten.

Honestly, I had trouble keeping the battles to 15 turns because the attrition on both sides was so intense from the summoned units I was fielding for the good MR and their three leader mages using endgame spells off script.

I think with Dominion 6 nerfing spells like Army of Gold, shorter and more intense battles will become the norm and Legion's Demise is less valuable when you don't expect turn 50 battles.