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Terror is a different story. Terror-routed units will come back later, but in the case of Dwarfs, they just abandoned their posts i.e. they just left a big gaping hole for other units to punch through to their backline. Of course, if a simple hero can give Immune to Psychology (which prevents both Fear and Terror and anything else) to all units in the army, it would be incredibly OP so that's why only selected Dwarf units have it and its equivalents. (If you didn't know already; Thorgrim's "High King" ability grants Immunity to Psychology to all units in his army, it's a map-wide buff as long as Thorgrim's leadership is above 50%.)
The same applies with Master Rune of Oath & Steel. Every bit of armor matters.
I can't remember what the Master Rune of Wrath & Ruin (post patch) does, so no comments.
As for the Runelord, you've probably missed the part where they essentially have a few skills where the effects of their runes are doubled from their hero counterparts. Meaning, their version of Master Rune of Oath & Steel gives +60 armor, not +30. This changes your regular 80 armor Dwarf Warriors to a whopping 140 armor. It might mean nothing against AP damage, but AP damage only makes up a portion of your total weapon damage. Only the AP portion will skip armor damage reduction calculations, everything else is still reduced by armor. If the enemy unit has 30 non-AP damage and 31 AP damage, the AP sign will show, but the actual damage done will be significantly lowered if your Dwarf Warriors have 140 armor as opposed to 80. The same if they charge into your Dwarf Warriors, the charge bonus is divided over the ratio of non-AP and AP damages.
Lastly, Rune magic cost no Winds of Magic. This means they can be spammed, and Dwarfs are all about holding the lines while their shooters make the kills. On top of that, all lords have Obstinacy skill which makes all units in the army have vigour reduction buffs.
If anything, Runelords are arguably more powerful than their Warlord counterparts, and to some degree even make Runesmiths less valuable since you can simply recruit Runelords than recruiting their Warlord counterparts and recruiting Runesmiths to buff the armies. +60 armor should be reduced to +45 or something. What about Ironbreakers with 100 armor? That turns into 160 armor in addition to Expert Charge Defense, in addition to Master Rune of Negation which is +44% ward save (Runesmiths only have +22%). It's more powerful than you make it to be.
Also, consider what races Dwarfs generally have bordering them. Thorgrim and Ungrim are neighbors with the GS and VC. Neither have much armor-piercing units. GS have a few but they're mostly cavs or monsters, which almost all Dwarf melee units have charge defense against. The same with VC. In VC's case, their Grave Guards (GW) can't even land much hits against Dwarf melee units due to their low MA.
GS right now have nothing to rely on for killing Dwarfs except Black Orcs and the Araknarok Spider, and some cavs if they can get some rear charges going. On the other hand, Dwarfs have a slew of killer toys to destroy Black Orcs and Araknarok Spiders. So I really don't know why you're asking for Dwarf heroes to become better than they already are...
Just one little point, and this comes from my experience... Grimgor tends to trash Dwarf Warriors and even Longbeards when he crashes into the front line. If that unit turns around and bails, it opens up my backline to get interrupted and forced into melee combat (which they'll lose and run for the hills eventually, and it'll happen sooner too). I can send Thorgrim in there but he will lose to Grimgor in a straight-up fight. So the solution? I send in my Thane and possibly Runesmith as well.
3v1, Grimgor will definitely lose the 'duel'. But the Runesmith isn't there to save Thorgrim and the Thane. He's actually there to save the Dwarf Warriors or Longbeards around the area from getting chewed up badly by Grimgor's melee aoe attacks, which will make them rout. Of course, his rune buffs make it easier for Thorgrim to beat Grimgor, but the main purpose is to protect the backline by protecting the front line.
Also, there aren't many flying units that have access to AP damage, at least until late game. Runesmiths can save your ranged units just a tiny bit more by buffing their armor. Don't ever discredit slight bonuses because your units could literally be that close to breaking, which means not shooting and even run their short legs out of range, out of formation and get chewed on by some Warhounds...
Can you explain how? In your example the 80 armor should be more than enough to absorb 30 (non-AP) damage from my understanding of how the armor mechanic works. Hence why I mention that I don't see how adding even more armor on top of that matters. Theoretically 30 armor should be enough to block the 30 damage, but the game might calculate AP damage first so the 30 AP would go through 30 armor and then there isn't enough armor for the remaining non-AP damage, in which case 60 armor would be enough to block a 60 weapon strength attack where half of it is AP.
It reduces speed and acceleration by something like 75% for about half a minute.
+5% missile damage is one of the first techs you research on the Vampirates tech tree. 5% on 16 ranged damage... It barely amounts to 1 damage. (They add up over time, in case anyone thinks I think it's worthless. It's not.)
You're probably playing on Normal difficulty, which is why your Dwarf Warriors last even without the leadership buff. But this won't be the same case for others who play at higher difficulties. Dwarfs are meant to be the easy race, no micro management, no need to worry about winds of magic, all units have innate 25% magic resistance so no need to worry about most spells, etc. There's no problem with playing at Normal but just keep that in mind when you think a skill is not worth taking and you're just taking it just because it's a prerequisite. On a higher difficulty, you might be taking it first thing that hero gets to level 2...
I'll be honest and say to you I don't know the exact damage calculations, but every bit of armor should count or else you should be complaining about the tech tree instead. There are some techs that give your melee units +5 armor across the board. If +30 armor is meh to you, +5 should mean even less. And if that means even less, what about +5 armor on Ironbreakers with 100 armor? +5 armor will be a boon to your Grudgethrower units if the war machines were broken due to mismanagement, and you're left with those units picking up their shovels to try to contribute to the fight.
If a lord with no AP damage comes over to your front line, even without AP he will still wreck your front line because he has 50+ MA, 300+ non-AP damage. Without armor, anything will get chewed up by that. Armor mitigates that, you skipping the entire part about this and jumping straight to armor-piercing alternatives is the flaw in your argument here. AP is not readily available to most factions early game, and even if they are (Nasty Skulkers), they have no MA to even land the hits in the first place. Dwarf Warriors have 41 MD by default, Nasty Skulkers have 20-something MA. Even after a charge, it puts them at around 41 MA which is 50% chance to hit. And you want higher armor buff for Runesmiths? What else can be a match for T1 Dwarf Warriors if that were to happen?
Ah yes, I remember now. I can't remember exactly but it might also reduces charge bonus. It basically negates a charging lord or cavalry, very handy to have. I tend to forget to use it but its usage is mainly to negate charging melee infantry. Most Dwarf units have charge defense against large, but not infantry i.e. Expert Charge Defense. This ability basically makes it so that the unit of Nasty Skulkers about to break your front line (with 50/50 hit rate, I wonder if they can if they're unsupported) doesn't get to, because they'll get peppered by arrows while they're slowed to a crawl.
It's handy, just that you won't really need that skill if you're playing at Normal.
[Edit]: Re: damage calculation, if you Google search for it, you should find it somewhere on, I think a Fandom website. 30 armor is a big deal. It's definitely not as big as +22% damage resist aka. ward save but it's still something. If you can get that skill at level 2 earliest, it can't be some powerful skill like +22% ward save...
Oh and, armor damage reduction is not a direct reduction. It's not 100 damage - 80 armor = 20 damage. I mean, it's obviously not... Barely any infantry have damage per hit over 60 (unless you include Monstrous Infantry), Dwarf Warriors already have 80 armor. Are you saying Orc Boyz do no damage to Dwarf Warriors? Put them against each other in 1v1 custom battle and see for yourself.
And I'm not writing off the character type because of a single (or the level 1) ability. I'm looking at the whole package, if you couldn't tell, and I find it very lacking with my current understanding.
I'm not talking about (optional) technology here, technology doesn't cost upkeep or take up an army slot. I'm talking about picking one character type over another, who both have the same upkeep but one seems to easily outperform the other.
But even then in almost all cases tech that gives such minor bonuses lead to something more useful, meaning its a stepping stone. Regardless I'm certainly not looking to rush +5 armor on units that already have 80 or even 100 armor because I do think that its useless on such units.
You're contradicting yourself in the very next sentence after your first here. If a lord with not alot of AP can wreck your infantry because of their huge weapon strength and melee attack the logically speaking a rune that gives +60 armor wouldn't negate this.
For clarification I specifically mentioned AP units such as black orcs and greatswords, and I also mention non-AP alternatives. I never brought up lords VS infantry units so you're pointing out a flaw of an argument I never made.
You're repeating the argument I was making: Either a unit will chew through Dwarven infantry, or it won't. An armor buff for 30 seconds or so doesn't change much of anything here. I don't think you read my post well at all.
Nasty skulkers have a charge bonus of like 20. Not exactly what I would call devastating, not to mention they don't have the mass of cavalry or other large units which means negating their charge does next to nothing. Pretty sure black orcs will still chew through Dwarf warriors even if you use the Rune of Wrath & Ruin on them.
Then maybe you should wait until after the Greenskins update before you talk any further. And it's not like the Runesmith doesn't have +10% weapon strength, he gets it in one of his later passive skills (in the form of an equipped item, don't know why but it's probably to do with lore, you'll have to ask someone else for that).
The Runesmith is not meant to be a fighter, there's already the Thane for that.
I did notice you're looking at the whole package, but I think your whole package only looks at the hero's skillset package, not "entire army" package. You're nitpicking Dwarf units' high armor by using armor-piercing examples which completely bypasses the benefits of high armor to start with. Going by your arguments, you might as well say Swordsmen are useless, Balthazar's +10 armor across all units in his faction is useless, because there's armor piercing. And you think you have a valid point...
Dude, this is not an optional tech. Do you even play Vampirates? Locked behind that tech is another +5% missile damage, +20% armor-piercing missile damage for Zombie Gunnery Mobs, +10% range for Zombie Handgunners, +15% range for Zombie Handgunners (follower item), +5% missile damage for artillery etc. Right in front of all those useful tech is a +5% missile damage tech, at a time when Vampirates desperately need +10% range than +5% missile damage, and the latter doesn't even give their units 1 damage yet they have spend several turns researching it just because it is a prerequisite!! Furthermore, that tech won't even give Zombie Handgunners more than 1 damage until many turns later when they probably have been phased out by that time.
You'll probably think otherwise when you're playing Clan Angrund with that extra upkeep for your Dwarf units until you take Karak-Eight-Peaks.
Just to pull this bit here back on topic; if you want to turn your Runesmith into a support caster, by all means rush those rune spells. If you want him as a field agent wrecking walls, turn him into a field agent. Runesmiths aren't meant to be all-powerful melee units who can cast support spells without using up Winds of Magic. Or else you wouldn't need Thanes anymore.
It is clear to me that you don't even understand how damage calculations work. Armor does not directly negate weapon damage. It's dealt in percentages. A high non-AP damage is weighted against armor, and a total damage (of a lesser total sum) is dealt. This lesser total will be a PERCENTAGE of what your original "high non-AP damage" is. Therefore, a higher armor reduces this percentage which means lower damage overall.
How did I contradict myself again? I keep telling you Dwarf melee units are meant to hold the line so their shooters can finish the job.
Whoops, sorry I missed that. But why are you comparing a level 2 skill to T3-T4 units that obviously require a completely different skill (which Runesmiths have) to counter? You seem to want that specific rune skill to be of use in every situation, in that case you don't even know how spells work in this game.
Feel free to put this to a test in custom battle. One army without Runesmith buff, one with. Test 3x each. And time all 6 of them. I dare you. And don't you dare misinterpret my words by only casting the rune spells only once. There is a cooldown reduction ability for rune spells for a reason.
Again, you use a strawman argument.
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Long story short; you're wasting my time. Anyone here who knows how to play this game *properly* would know after reading your arguments that you're a troll.
[Edit]: It sounds to me like you're a beginner who doesn't even know some basics. Go watch some tutorials - proper ones - that explain how MA/MD works, armor etc, before you start suggesting some changes.
Have you noticed that no one actually suggests any Dwarf unit/hero/lord changes around here? It should come as common sense that this is because they're powerful as they are now.
That's not how armor works. That's how Melee Defense works, abbreviated as MD. MA/MD factors in enemy's chance to hit/miss. Armor reduces the non-AP damage, and nothing except physical and damage resistances reduce AP damage. With around 80 base armor at least, the vast majority of Dwarf units can survive against non-AP enemy units, which is over half of them. As for AP damage units, they don't usually come in until later in the game, and even if otherwise; the early AP units will have low MA, which Dwarf units also have a counter against (high MD). Therefore, low chance to hit, and therefore, survivability. The best part here is Runesmiths have nothing to do with this........................................ since they don't buff MD in any way except with items.
If you're using LegendOfTotalWar tactics and cheesing the game by fielding mostly ranged units and shooting everything to pieces before they even get in range, great for you. But feel free to play in multiplayer and try not to use any Runesmiths, against another (mind I say, 'competent') Dwarf player.
When you play campaign, there is a progression for literally every faction in the game. Armor obviously becomes less and less effective over time, until it reaches a cap. Yet Ironbreakers with their insanely high armor still manages to hold the line, even without physical resists. Why? Insanely high armor. Expert Charge Defense. Insanely high MD. Their blasting charges are just additional toys.
Perhaps you should tell CA to remove that 25% physical resist, and put it somewhere on his skill tree, instead of on his mount.
As they are right now, Runelords are freakin' powerful. I don't even bother with the regular Dwarf lords anymore if I see a Runelord with a good lord trait like -20% enemy hero action success. Because with that 25% physical resist, innate 25% magic resist, another +44% ward save, he's near invincible and this is not even including items that he might be equipping for additional ward saves. The only reason I'd get regular Dwarf lords is that they have Expert Charge Defense, Runelords don't.
This I agree.
You must be new or something, this change was around looong before the port nerf came.
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Just so you know what I'm talking about; Rune spells are meant for situation use. They're spammable, you can use it anytime you wish, there's a cooldown, that's about it. But you obviously can't use it to buff your whole army without any down times.
Given that you now know armor doesn't reduce enemy hit chance, but actively reduces non-AP damage - and MD is the one that reduces enemy hit chance - you can perhaps stop saying that armor is useless. Against AP damage, of course it is useless. But even Black Orcs have portions of their damage that is non-AP. If mitigating that bit of non-AP is going to save your Dwarf melee front line from dying, even if just 1 hp away; that 1-hp model is still going to cost that 1 Black Orc model another hit (which will consumes vigour) to kill off. And this is assuming the Black Orc even lands the attack, or he'll have to try again.
That +30 armor might make that difference. And that +60 armor is definitely going to make that difference, even in late game.
Black Orcs and Greatswords huh... What about Blood Knights? 1/3 of their damage is AP. And you honestly think it's going to be the AP damage that wrecks your back line? Blood Knights have well over 100 charge bonus post-buff/tec/lord-buff/etc. It means they get a boost of well over 50 non-AP damage if they get their charge in. If Blood Knights are entirely reliant on their AP damage to kill Dwarfs, Vampire Counts need a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ buff right about now because Dwarfs always declare war on them, and confederate en masse on top of that.
What is the title of this thread? "Are all dwarven units bad?" Or "Are two very specific character types for dwarves bad". The whole point of this was to compare lords with runelords and thanes with runesmiths.
I don't know how to make this more clear to you, and nitpicking doesn't mean what you think it means. I repeatedly mentioned non-AP damaging units being taken in to account of my evaluation.
Putting aside that you need to stop making this off topic by bringing up vampirate technology and other faction's units. If we were to actually go by my traing of logic then swordsmen with 30 armor gain 33% armor from Gelt's faction trait. Again, most infantry seems to have between 30-40 weapon strength so against non-AP units with 40 strength that extra 10 can help negate 10 extra damage on each attack.
What you keep failing to grasp is that in my view there is a threshold where armor is already high enough and absorbs the maximum amount of damage from attacks (when talking about regular units, excluding monsters & characters) that it can. For example, if we assume 40 is the highest average damage an attack can do and is mostly non-AP then having anything above 40 armor on a front line unit wouldn't absorb any extra damage.
Therefor, because dwarven infantry got 80+ armor, adding another 60 isn't gonna help it against a bunch of orc boyz. Get it now?
I literaly explained in my very first post, and have repeated it in most replies to you, how I think armor negates damage. I also literally asked you before how "every bit of armor matters" and you replied with "I don't know the exact calculations". Only now after multiple back and forths you suddenly explain how damage is actually mitigated? The ♥♥♥♥ dude? Shoulda started off with that.
If what you're saying here is true, then my arguments can still be true but we would need to know the exact armor-damage mitigation ratio's. For example if 100 armor mitigates say 75% of non-AP damage, then adding another 60 on top of that shouldn't bring the negated damage up to (and over) 100%, it might just increase it by 10% or less.
Which is alot better than what I had originally thought but I still wouldn't call it useful either. If you know of a source that verifies how damage is absorbed by armor feel free to leave a link, I couldn't find it.
I can't help you if you can't read. I explained it very clearly in the bit you quoted and put these words under.
Well yeah, at least in most situations. I'm evaluation the usefulness of the kit of this character type. If most abilities are only useful in highly situational moments then I don't see the point of recruiting either character over the regular version.
If it helps to clear things up for you, if we were to compare an empire wizard hero with an empire captain, specifically what they bring to the battlefield for their cost. Then Its very easy to see that they both serve a different purpose. Captains provide a mobile morale boost seperate from your lord which is needed on the average morale of empire units. They also help the front line against being charges with their Hold the Line ability, and to top it off they're good in melee.
Where the wizard gives you spells, pretty much all of which have a usefulness most of the time. Almost all lores have an AoE (de)buff which are useful in every single fight regardless of context, they also tend to have a single target damage ability which is great most of the time against other characters or single entities like giants. Some have AoE damage abilities which again are always great regardless of context, then there's your wind and vortex spells which are great most of the time and with which a wizard can single handedly win you a battle.
Now to translate this back to dwarves. A thane does the equivalence of an empire captain except it doesn't need to act as mobile morale support because of the Dwarves' high leadership, nor does it provide charge-negation but it is also similarly good in combat. But a runesmith in no way does the equivalence of a wizard. I'm not saying they should also get 200 kills with a single good cast, but most their abilities are very underwhelming and borderline useless (this is not made up by the fact that they do not cost any mana, if something is useless theres no point in using it) which makes it impossible for me to justify getting a runesmith over a thane, or a runelord over a regular lord. Again, especially considering they both have the exact same upkeep.
For an equivalent price you would expect a runesmith to bring useful abilities to the table that a thane lacks but makes up for in melee prowess. You keep mentioning that dwarves are about holding the line, but I can do that very thing better by sending a thane to reinforce a unit losing in combat. The AoE ward wave is the only real useful ability, for when my lord is losing a duel or whatever, but once again I could acomplish the same goal of keeping my lord alive just by sending a thane in to combat which does not only prevent the lord from dying but has a good chance of turning the fight around and killing the other lord in the 2v1.
That is the problem that I realized the other day, and you're coming at me by talking past me most of the time instead of addressing the problems I've laid out.
This is not properly addressing my arguments, putting aside that dwarves don't fight dwarves in campaign. A better test would be to have a runelord with dwarf warriors fight against a regular lord with dwarf warriors.
Which just to prove a point I did (TL:DR; below): I removed the regular lord's abilities and equipped the runelord with everything, no chevrons on either units. I didn't adjust the formations, and mirror charged at the AI. I gave the initial attack order for the runelord to go on to the dwarf warriors but after clashing I didn't gave additional attack or move orders. As soon as the lines clashed I first used the Master Rune of Oath & Steel and waited for its duration to expire before activating the Master Rune of Negation (assuming your theory about damage mitigation is correct this should spread out the total amount of time where the runelord's dwarves have an advantage over the enemy's). Then I used both abilities as soon as they came off cooldown (which because of the CDs was never simultaneously anyway) throughout the rest of the fight.
What I found was about what I expected: At first the runelord's warriors were at about 95% HP and the regular lord's warriors were at 90% HP, likely because of the negation rune. At this point the lords were fighting eachother mostly and creating a small hole in the clashing lines where their splash attacks only did minimal damage to eachother's units. At this point the runelord was taking about 100-200 damage per hit with no ability activated, and whenever I activated the Oath&Steel rune it didn't seem to take any less damage (although a small sample size this supports my theory of damage mitigation on first glance) and noticably less when the Negation rune was active.
After the regular lord was at 80% health the runelord was at about 60% health, at this point they opted to attack eachother's units instead. The regular lord was consistently getting more kills and had almost x2 the kills of the runelord's at any given time. The runelord's health dropped to 40% or so whilst the regular lord was still at around 70%, with the warrior's health dropping past half at about the same rate. Then the lords went at eachother again, although the runelord seemed to last longer than before he was still easily losing the duel despite his mount (which gives him a ~500HP advantage). A few minutes later the regular lord was at 50% health and the runelord at 20% health, this is when the runelord's warriors routed with like 1% health. While the regular lord's warriors had like 5% health. In an isolated duel the regular lord naturally routed off the runelord and won with about 40% health remaining.
TL:DR; The frequent buffs provided by the runelord did not enough to outperform, or even perform on par with the regular lord. The Oath&Steel rune had no impact that I could notice on either lord of warrior unit (admittedly for the latter, they do so little damage to eachother anyway). Whereas the negation rune helped prolong the fight it eventually was still lost.
And this is in a completely unlikely scenario of dwarf VS dwarf. Going back to my overall position on the runelord: Your units either will get chewed through, or they won't. The runes will not meaningfully impact the outcome of combat, making the runelord a bad lord option compared to the alternative.
First off, "again"? You're the one who strawmanned me before, which you acknowledged.
Second, this isn't a strawman. You said the primary usage of the rune is to negate charging infantry. I pointed out that infantry does not have large charge bonuses which warrents a charge negation be put on them. This directly counters your argument, just because you're making bad arguments doesn't mean I'm strawmanning.
You keep acting condescending by pretending I'm a newb who only plays on normal difficulty and runs to the forums to ask for a nerf when they don't understand something. I've mentioned before I got nearly 1,5k hours on both games combined and that I am talking in the context of very hard difficulty. Its pretty clear to me now that you're trying to downplay my knowledge/experience because you can't win an argument.
To anyone with a triple digit IQ, after reading these back and forths they won't conclude I'm a troll. They will either conclude that what I'm saying makes sense or they will understand I'm missing something and expand upon it. So far the latter hasn't happened yet.
I don't care what other people have or have not asked for on the forum here, I don't monitor all threads 24/7. For all I know there was a big discussion on this a week ago, I couldn't tell you. This is an attempt at a cop-out because you can't seem to make a valid counter argument.
First, I apologize if I made you feel like a newb. I don't care how many hours you've put into this game but hours don't make you a veteran. I can sit here and afk my machine while I go to work, repeat that several months and voila! I have 3,000 hours now, that makes me a veteran? So don't chalk your playtime up as experience, it means nothing when what you say doesn't even imply you're a veteran of any sort.
A so-called veteran should know the damage calculations or at least how to find it. "total war warhammer 2 damage calculations" was all I put into Google search box. Took me a few clicks but I found one that links to WH1's damage calculation. But anyway, here you go, I saved you some time:
https://totalwarwarhammer.gamepedia.com/Combat
There isn't a WH2 damage calculation, which is why I said:
This is a logical thinking. If +30 armor buff is meaningless by your logic, then isn't +5 armor even more worthless? Then why is there such a tech in the Dwarf tech tree for this long - in fact, even since WH1 - and it's never been changed, and no one even talked about it? Basically my premise here is that you're complaining about a buff that logically speaking should have no problem at all, or else other buffs and faction traits and techs etc would be the first things to be complained about first. Empire Swordsmen have even less armor than Dwarf Warriors. There's a tech that gives them +15 armor across the board now, but it still means they have less armor than vanilla Dwarf Warriors.
Also note that I said "I don't know the EXACT damage calculations". I know about it, but not enough to guarantee you that it is what it is. I even said something like this:
T1 Orc Boyz cannot hope to fight in a straight-up battle against T1 Dwarf Warriors, that's why I told you to go test with DW vs DW.
Aside from this; if you want an answer and you don't want to listen to what others are telling you, then feel free to test it out. I gave you a perfect scenario to test out because: as mentioned, Orc Boyz can't win against Dwarf Warriors in a head-on clash. But more importantly, because Runesmith's focus is helping the units hold out longer, even if just temporarily - an attrition battle is what you want to use to find your benchmark. If the battle lasts too short, you won't see the effects of having a Runesmith or Runelord in the army. Dwarf Warriors, with low MA and high MD and high armor on top of it all, gives you more or less a good start. Whereas if you used Chaos Marauders, many other factors will come into play.
There's another thing regarding Runesmith that I've been emphasizing that you don't seem to get. Runesmiths are not there to save your units in a pinch. They are there to help the line hold out just a little bit longer. Since you claim to be a veteran and all, I'll assume then you know about Dwarf formations. Dwarfs do not break formation no matter what happens. Therefore, it is logical to think they want to hold out as long as possible. You seem to think Runesmiths don't contribute to that, while I (and many others I'm certain) do.
To this end, I raised the point htat Rune spells cost no Winds of Magic (WoM in short). Not having this cost means they can cast Rune spells as much as possible, fight a battle of attrition in the front lines while the back lines destroy the enemy army. Therefore, since these spells are free-to-cast, they cannot be too powerful. The ward save spell is powerful because it's meant to be so. The armor buff, not so much. But it is still spammable, and only limited by cooldown. Whereas you compare this to wizards of other races, their lores of magic all cost WoM, but in return they provide table-turning buffs.
Before you say I'm going off-topic again, listen to what I have to say first instead of switching off. OTHER FACTIONS NEED THESE MIRACULOUS BUFFS. Whereas Dwarfs DON'T. This is why I said you haven't been looking at this in the right direction. If you want to correctly evaluate Runesmiths and Runelords, then see them in action when they are at their best.
Instead, you're comparing Runesmiths with Thanes. Thanes are tanks, probably duelists. Check their unit card descriptions. They play entirely different roles. Runesmiths can hold their own but they're ultimately support casters.
There's another reason why I pointed to other factions instead of just talking about Dwarfs. This is due to campaign reasons. In campaign, Dwarfs are bordered with a bunch of Orcs, some humans (that you'll likely not go to war with aka. Border Princes) and Vampires. Your immediate threats are Orcs and Vampires. Neither of these have good armor-piercing options against your highly armored units. This means that if you factor in what damage minus armor calculations *should* be; Dwarf Warriors punch well above their recruitment and upkeep values. (Ask any other veterans here and they'll tell you the same.) And they have no immediate threats around them that can so much as scratch them. And having a Runesmith will only buff them up even more.
The GS will eventually field Big 'Uns which might break your Dwarf Warriors. Because if you check their weapon damage values, they have some decent AP damage as well, at least more than Orc Boyz. But they're T3, against T1 Dwarf Warriors. You try and pit Big 'Uns against Empire Swordsmen, both unsupported, and see what the result will be. You'll realize the Dwarf Warriors hold out much longer. Then you add a Runesmith to that army in custom battle and test again.
This is the only way to ascertain what you yourself are saying - that Runesmith buffs are not useful. And of course, Dwarf melee units generally don't do the killing. Buying time is what they do best.
Lastly, as I keep mentioning; Runesmith's role in an army is to help the units he's supporting hold out longer. They don't do one-off miracles that Empire wizard do, that Empire Swordsmen also need (simply because Empire Swordsmen do not have the capability to hold out like Dwarf Warriors can). And therefore, Rune spells cost no Winds of Magic - if it costs Winds of Magic, it would suck to be the Runesmith because +30 armor indeed pales in comparison to +22% phy resist from the Lore of Beast or Life etc.
It is a fool's errand to compare Runesmiths and Thanes. Runesmiths support the army. Thanes act as a one-model defense against everything in front of it. Thanes have Expert Charge Defense. And you seem to even make light of that by saying infantry charges are not significant enough to matter.
It matters because armor is not the only thing that contributes to Dwarf units' sturdiness. MD as well. MA/MD work in ratios. 40 MA to 40 MD = 50/50 chance to hit/miss. This is also measured "per swing". This is why monsters generally have low MA, but each swing hits for an area, so multiple RNG rolls are made. Their charge bonus can also be high to temporarily buff their MA up to make up for their innate low MA.
This charge bonus matters to infantry even more because by default, Nasty Skulkers can't so much as land a reliable hit on Dwarf Warriors due to Nasty Skulker's 20 or so MA, and Dwarf Warriors' 41 MD. To make up for it, Nasty Skulkers need to charge in. And Dwarf Warriors have no defense vs infantry aka. Expert Charge Defense (vs large and infantry).
Buffing MD would make Dwarf units incredibly OP, since a low chance to hit means it doesn't matter what type of damage, none of it matters if it doesn't land anyway. This is why Runesmiths buff armor instead. You can argue and say armor buff doesn't mean anything against AP but that's the thing I said above: not many factions anywhere near Dwarfs have AP damage that early in the campaign. They don't really have bruiser infantry either, which is why you seem to think charge bonus don't matter on infantry. It certainly doesn't when you're playing campaign, but it will matter in multiplayer when someone amasses Longbeards and Dwarf Warriors against a DE player having a line of Har Ganeth Executioners.
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Basically, if you simply want to continue your discussion here with your little scenario that you've placed for yourself, there is no discussion. Your scenario heavily favors your argument - that Runesmiths and Runelords need new skills to make them more useful etc etc. But it's not going to work because rebalancing affects multiplayer, affects AI decisions, affects a bunch of stuff. I at least agree with you that Runelords need some changing, but we're in opposite camps as to what needs to be changed. I think Runelords are somewhat too strong right now. 25% phy resist just for getting on a mount, and having innate 25% magic resist. Add a few ward save items, it could be 30% ward save, 25% phy resist, 25% magic resist. Add the +44% ward save rune spell and we're talking 74% ward save and 25% phy resist, albeit just for a short period of time.
Thankfully there is a cap to all resistances but that Runelord is nigh invincible during that time, and the enemy might as well be wasting vigor chipping his own sword while getting hit in return. Dwarf Lords can't hope to match that, even with Expert Charge Defense. (But Dwarf Lords do have more MA/MD so they're arguably invincible in other areas too.)
If you are a veteran as you claim to be, perhaps do your own research next time and think outside your own little box. I apologize for assuming you're a newbie but you presented yourself as such in the first place.
And if you're a real veteran, you should know who else is a veteran around these forums. I'm pretty active around here and I enjoy a good strategy discussion. I guess it makes me a veteran but I'm a newbie compared to some other people... So if you don't see any other vets like Inardesco or RCMidas or Whoopar or whoever responding to your thread, you should already know something's off. And I'll spell it out to you: your suggestions are not worth considering. Dwarfs are good as they are. Hell, you try and play Vampire Counts now and have Dwarfs declare war on you all the time even if you don't have much options against them other than casting the almighty WoD. A veteran knows right away that if Runesmiths get any stronger, you're going to regret playing VC. So why did I consider other factions? Because the changes you're asking involves balancing. If I'm actually as smart as you think me to be, I should be considering other factions. Because I know full well where the power balance is right now and evil factions are not doing well at all.
(Yes, I know I just said something [seemingly] 'wrong' here. "If I'm actually as smart as you think me to be" is no typo. Go figure it out if you have triple digit IQ.)
I'm bowing out because I think maybe I shouldn't have responded in the first place. This is a waste of my time.
And Dwarfs can always craft magic-attack equipment on the spot and equip their heroes and lords anyway.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/594570/discussions/0/1489987633998777774/
Keep in mind none of this is guaranteed 100% accuracy but you pick up repeated points and realize some things are more believable and others not so much. Again, why I said I don't know the exact damage calculations..................
Read what others say next time instead of trying to win an argument. You posted the thread, I'm answering it. If you opened a thread just to want to win the argument then I'm not gonna bother with this ♥♥♥♥.
Well, I am a TT player, so I consider any unnecessary deviation from TT convention as heresy :)
In terms of game-play balance, I also think that the Dwarves need some sort of nuke, given that they lack so many basic elements (e.g. cavalry, monstrous infantry or cavalry, etc.).
I don't play MP because I used to be a DotA veteran (by this I don't even mean Dota 2, I mean the Frozen Throne mod) and it's a MOBA i.e. MP to some degree. Not really eager to go back into that lifestyle where I have to keep some virtual skillset to be able to enjoy a mere game on a casual basis...
If you have 50 Armor, it will reduce damage between 25% and 50%. In other words, the armor value is the maximum % that can be reduced(capped at 100%), and half of that value is the minimum value reduced. A unit will always deal a minimum of 1 non-AP damage, no matter the amount of reduction(so even if the roll was 100%, it would still deal 1 non-AP damage + whatever AP damage you have).
If a Unit ends up with 140 armor(80+60), it means that non-ap damage will be reduced between 70%(half of 140) and 100%, which is better than if you only had 80 armor(40%-80%). If a unit got 200 armor, it would be nearly immune to non-AP damage(will still take that 1 damage though).
So Armor is a very important defensive stat, as it is a % reduction. The more you have, the less damage you will take, no matter if it is weak attacks or heavy hitters.
As for Rune of Wrath and Ruin, I feel the change was kind of bad as well. Dwarves do not have a whole lot of magic damage sources(no spell casters), so it was a useful tool against enemies with very high Physical Resistance(as physical resist works against both AP and non-AP).
Also, it used to have a slow of 48%, which basically meant that a unit took twice as long to get to you. Combined with the fairly high damage of the ability(about 500 for the regular, about 1000 for the master), it was a great tool for assisting your dwarves with enemies that require a lot of effort to kill, or to slow down fast flankers to allow you to react in time. You could even stack a Master Rune and a regular one for great effect. It was very flexible and powerful in a lot of situations.
Now, it is simply a 72% slow ability and stacking them is definately not worth it(the slow already makes them move at roughly 1/4 of their normal speed). To capitalize on the slow, you need to focus fire the enemy as well(which you could also do before, but it had it's own damage as well). You can no longer use it as a "fire and forget" ability.
Overall, I still think Runelords and Runepriests are better than Dwarf Lords and Thanes(especially after the Lords and Thanes have had their number of targets hit by their AoE attacks reduced). They give you more flexibility due to abilities and allows your actual killing units work more efficiently.