Magic question.

[FentanylWallaby]

If my unit has magical attacks enabled and an enemy unit has the trait "magical resistance" set at maybe 25%. Will my magic melee / ranged attack damage be reduced by 25%? Or does magic resistance only count when it comes to spells being cast?
Thanks.

[RCMidas]

Yes, your attack damage will also be reduced. You can see this most clearly if you start up a Wurrzag campaign in Mortal Empires and check out how quickly your enemies die during a fight against some dwarves. Afterwards, pick his skill which grants the entire army magical attacks and go for another fight against dwarves - you'll notice that they are living longer than they ought to, because their natural magic resistance is reducing your damage against them.

Similarly however, units with innate magical attacks will cause bypass all physical resistance that an enemy unit has - so taking Wurrzag again, giving his army all magic attacks will make them far more lethal against such units as Hexwraiths, Syreens, Death Runners, etc. who only have physical resistance.

[FentanylWallaby]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a good reply.
Good to know these little things

[RCMidas]

Also worth pointing out if you have an item (one of the Trickster Shards, I believe) which causes increased vulnerability to magic damage, then using that whilst your magic-attacking units are hitting them will cause more damage too. So those Hexwraiths with 80% physical resistance suddenly have NO resistance to your attacks, AND get an extra 20% (?) damage on top of that if you were to pop the item on them in the middle of a melee.

Little interactions like that are worth experimenting with.

[Falaris]

Magic damage bypass physical resistance, but not armor.
Armor piercing bypass armor, but not physical resistance.
Fire damage doesn't do much usually but units with regeneration tend to take more damage from it.
Poison doesn't cause damage, like you might think, but a defbuff.

(This is partially a question - it's my understanding of this stuff, but I'm not sure about it.).

[Dezpo]

If you get a fire mage, each time he cast ,all enemy army get a debuff from taking fire damage, 20% maybe i don t remenber
This with the fire banner thats give your units around fire damage can be good

[RCMidas]

Yeah, let me see if I can break it down:

--You can have either Physical or Magical attacks; you cannot have both on the same unit
--Damage can be either Regular or Armour-Piercing; combine these for the listed total damage
--The most important damage modifier is Fire; I will explain some others at the end

--All damage is reduced by a Ward Save. You may as well assume this is the first "damage debuff" that is applied.

--All Physical Attacks are further reduced by Physical Resistance. All Magical Attacks are further reduced by Magical Resistance.

--Any attack with the Fire Damage Modifier will also be reduced by Fire Resistance. Some units, such as those with Regeneration, have a Fire Weakness, which will actually increase the damage they take from attacks with the Fire Damage Modifier.

--If the attack is ranged (not artillery) it is also reduced by Missile Resistance.

--The reductions in inflicted damage are applied equally to both Regular and Armour-Piercing damage. The increase to inflicted damage applied by an Anti-Infantry or Anti-Large bonus is similarly applied equally to both Regular and Armour-Piercing damage.

--Regular damage, whether from a Physical or Magical attack, is always reduced by Armour. The amount it is reduced by is worked out as a random number between zero and the Armour value, eg. an Armour value of 50 will reduce Regular damage by anywhere between zero and 50. This is calculated on every individual hit.

EXAMPLE 1: You have a Lord who has Physical Attacks which deal 100 Regular and 100 Armour-Piercing damage, with no modifiers. This Lord goes up against a rival with a 30% Ward Save and 0 Armour, so all their attacks immediately are reduced to causing 70 Regular and 70 Armour-Piercing damage.

EXAMPLE 2: Your Lord faces a rival who has 50 Armour but no other resistances. Their Armour-Piercing damage will continue to be 100, but their Regular damage will be reduced due to the enemy's Armour. Your Lord will have their 100 Regular damage reduced by zero to 50.

EXAMPLE 3: Your Lord faces a rival who has 10% Physical Resistance, 25% Magic Resistance and 100 Armour. Their attacks are reduced to 90 Regular and 90 Armour-Piercing damage, because they are Physical. The Magic Resistance has no effect. Your Lord will still do 90 Armour-Piercing damage on each hit, but their Regular damage will be reduced by anywhere between zero and 100 (effectively entirely negated) due to the Armour.

EXAMPLE 4: Your Lord faces a rival who has 10% Physical Resistance, 25% Magic Resistance, 25% Fire Weakness, and 100 Armour. A fire wizard ally casts a spell on your Lord to give them Magical Attacks with the Fire Damage Modifier. The rival's Physical Resistance no longer applies. Their Magic Resistance and Fire Weakness cancel each other out. This means your Lord is now doing up to 100 Regular (subject to the Armour roll) and 100 Armour-Piercing damage again.

EXAMPLE 5: Your Lord gets an item to reduce Magic Resistance in the area by 22% and faces the rival with 10% Physical Resistance, 25% Magic Resistance, 25% Fire Weakness, and 100 Armour. If their fire wizard ally casts that spell on them again and they use the item on their rival...the Physical Resistance will not apply (your Lord has Magical attacks), their rival takes 22% more damage (3% less from their lowered Magic Resistance and 25% more from their Fire Weakness), and your Lord's Regular damage (now effectively 122 owing to the rival's weakness) will be reduced on each hit anywhere from zero to 100.


**NOTE** **NOTE** **NOTE** **NOTE** **NOTE** **NOTE**
Every hit, regardless of how much Ward Saves, Resistances, Armour etc has been stacked will do at least one point of HP damage. There is NO way, full stop end of discussion, to become immune to damage.

Hidden caps exist in the game anyway to prevent Ward Saves and Resistances from passing around 80% anyway, no matter if the actual value is listed as higher (such as the Green Knight being able to hit 105% Physical Resistance - in truth, he still only has around 80%).

[Sins]

I don't think your understanding of armor is correct Midas, unless things have changed recently. Also on resistances, the cap is 90%, unless again things have changed very recently.

From my understanding armor is yet another percentage of damage reduction, except it reduces damage from anywhere between 50-100% of the armor value, in percentage.

So for example, lets say you deal 100 non-armor piercing damage. Your opponent has 50 armor. Your damage is reduced by between 25-50%, so you deal 50-75 damage.

Now lets say your opponent has 180 armor. Your damage is reduced by between 90-100%, with a heavy bias towards 100%. You will deal between 0-10 damage, with an 80% chance of it being 0, which will be bumped up to the minimum of 1 damage.

This is why non-armor piercing lords can see their damage tank so hard even if they're swinging for well over a thousand points of normal damage- it can be severely or entirely cut out by armor.

[RCMidas]

I worked off of memory, not hard code. You'll have the right of it, I'm sure.

Oh yeah, wait of course that's how Armour works. That's why you get effectively no Regular damage ever if you hit 200 Armour, that was the whole point of that thread way back when. But since every unit has at least one point of AP damage, last I checked...ok right yeah, that makes sense.