"Undying" bless mechanics

[76561188078797539]

I've never really bothered with MA Ermor (or anything undead-heavy, for that matter) to the point where I would go deep into the mechanics, but wanted to get some better feel of potential opponents' capacities lately and ran into a question that I cannot find an answer for anywhere. Figured asking it on the boards could save me trying to figure out a test game's logs ;)

How does exactly "Undying" work in combat?

I understand the whole "extra HPs, will die after combat if living and not regenerated above 0 HP." My specific question is on how the damage calculations actually work.

Let's say we have a +1 Undying blessed undead with 10 base HPs getting hit for 12 damage.

Does that immediately put them at 0 HPs (10 base + 2 Undying), or is the unit considered "killed" by the attack at 10 damage, with Undying kicking in afterwards, negating the 2 additional points of damage in that round and leaving it with 2 Undying HPs for the next round?

Also trying to figure out the interaction between Lucky and Undying. Do the extra HPs count toward damage necessary to trigger Lucky (in above case requiring 12 points of damage to trigger, rather than 10 without Undying bless), or does Undying kick in after "death", meaning Lucky already triggers on only base HP damage treshold?

Thanks :)

[Alias]

For some reason I always end up with the throne that grants 3 undying, and I've noticed my sacreds simply go in the negatives. So, hp10+1undying being hit for 12 is still deadly, but hit for 11 would remain at -1 hp, fight the battle, and die afterwards (if living),

[76561188078797539]

Yep, finally got somebody to actually damage my Knights of the Unholy Sepulchre (despite their low HPs, these things are absolutely wrecking every independent I ran into so far with the flank "attack rear" scripting). With an arrow, of all the things (and they went through 100 unit barbarian army without taking damage o.O), for 7 damage. HP went into -1, so presumably a hit that overcomes Undying bonus would immediately kill the unit.

Now need to get to the point where I can figure out how Luck interacts with Undying.

I'm having far too much fun with the skellies. I don't want to end up being the guy everybody hates in MP XD

[Philipwn]

I believe that Lucky only works for living units, so you'll need a nation other than MA Ermor to test Undying+Lucky.

[Phenian]

For undead units, undying simply adds to there maximum hp. When it affects living units they die when still alive using the undying hp.

[wilson.max]

And therefore, Undying synergizes with Regeneration, since it turns Undying into just plain +HP at half the price of Resilience or Strong Vitae. E.g. Undying-10 + Regeneration is actually cheaper (usually) than Resilience-10.

[Phyvo]

Originally posted by wilson.max:

And therefore, Undying synergizes with Regeneration, since it turns Undying into just plain +HP at half the price of Resilience or Strong Vitae. E.g. Undying-10 + Regeneration is actually cheaper (usually) than Resilience-10.

This description is not wholly accurate. Normal + HP effects can increase your rate of regeneration at 11 max hp and every 10 hp after, since regeneration is max hp / 10 rounded up. Undying does not count. An undead shadow vestal (9 max HP) with reformation and undying 6 will still only regenerate 1 hp per round. I tested it in game.

Still, regeneration prevents your living units with undying from dying at the end of combat, and if you have a pretender with base d3, then grabbing a few points of undying may be cheaper than grabbing the same amount of hp from nature, even if you already spent 7 death points on reformation.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by Phyvo:

Originally posted by wilson.max:

And therefore, Undying synergizes with Regeneration, since it turns Undying into just plain +HP at half the price of Resilience or Strong Vitae. E.g. Undying-10 + Regeneration is actually cheaper (usually) than Resilience-10.

This description is not wholly accurate. Normal + HP effects can increase your rate of regeneration at 11 max hp and every 10 hp after, since regeneration is max hp / 10 rounded up. Undying does not count. An undead shadow vestal (9 max HP) with reformation and undying 6 will still only regenerate 1 hp per round. I tested it in game.

This is true, and Undying also does not increase the amount of HP you get from Enlarge. It does increase the amount of HP you can get from life drain though; I am not sure whether or not it currently increases the amount of HP it takes to sever your limbs. (It used to but there's been an Undying fix since then and I'm not sure whether that behavior was a bug.)

For most intents and purposes though, Undying + Regen is just plain +HP. It's relatively rare that you'd purchase Resilience + Regen specifically to increase your regen rate, since each point of Resilience would cost you at least a scale and a half at that point (since you need N8 to get even one point of resilience--counting MA Mictlan's bless bonus as +1 N).

Originally posted by Phyvo:

Still, regeneration prevents your living units with undying from dying at the end of combat, and if you have a pretender with base d3, then grabbing a few points of undying may be cheaper than grabbing the same amount of hp from nature, even if you already spent 7 death points on reformation.

It's not just a D3 pretender. You can take a plain old Mother of Monsters, for example, and compare the price of D5N7 (Undying-10 + Regen) to N10 (Resilience-3 + Regen) on any other chassis available. You'll see that D5N7 is much more attractive. You might do this on e.g. Sauromatia, in order to make your Warrior Sorceresses better thugs and increase the durability of your Oiorpata. Doubling a unit's effective HP has dramatic effects on attrition. I've been VERY happy with the Undying component of my bless for Marignon/Shinuyama: 50 HP Shuten-dojis (effectively 58 HP) with quickness and damage 25 life-draining are extremely durable even against lightning evocations.

[Alias]

Resilience doesn't stack favorably, if at all, with Large; which makes me think it won't stack with Regen either.

[76561188078797539]

I just wanted to thank all involved for a lot of detailed information I'd otherwise have difficulty in obtaining :)

That said, do carry on, gentlemen.

[Phyvo]

If you take N7 and you have 19 hp, it seems like a no brainer to do something like B5 to grab +2 hp and +2 strength, or grab an extra S3D3B3 to grab some undying + 3 HP. I agree that undying is actually a pretty dang strong minor bless, but combining it with a regeneration bless, like the flat HP, is also rather situation. This is because units that benefit from undying have low max HP, but units that benefit the most from regeneration usually have at least 21 HP. It's not worth it to even bother getting regeneration for standard human sacreds and grabbing it for thugs alone isn't that attractive either, at least in my opinion.

Originally posted by Alias:

Resilience doesn't stack favorably, if at all, with Large; which makes me think it won't stack with Regen either.

It doesn't stack with large but it does "stack" with regeneration because it modifies your maximum HP, whereas undying does not. If you test it yourself you can see.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by Phyvo:

If you take N7 and you have 19 hp, it seems like a no brainer to do something like B5 to grab +2 hp and +2 strength, or grab an extra S3D3B3 to grab some undying + 3 HP. I agree that undying is actually a pretty dang strong minor bless, but combining it with a regeneration bless, like the flat HP, is also rather situation. This is because units that benefit from undying have low max HP, but units that benefit the most from regeneration usually have at least 21 HP. It's not worth it to even bother getting regeneration for standard human sacreds and grabbing it for thugs alone isn't that attractive either, at least in my opinion.

It mostly depends on your units' durability, which is roughly the product of defense + protection + HP. It's not about HP alone. E.g. if it were possible to put Regeneration + Undying on MA Ulmish infantry, it would be very valuable because they take damage rarely, so even 1 or 2 HP per round would go a long way. Of course that's a hypothetical; the real-world corollary is MA Eriu and Sidhe Lord thugs with Mistborn, where it is again valuable primarily because damage is slow enough that Regeneration can keep up. It also helps you leverage Foul Vapors and fight underwater troops without dying after combat (stupid poison spears, grrrr) and survive getting lit on fire as well as a number of other BEs, and help your old commanders survive disease, and can make your supercombatants tougher if you Prophetize them.

The fact that it helps you cast big globals and gives you access to two of the best magic diversity paths (D + N) is just icing on the cake.

I wouldn't recommend Regeneration unless you're getting three or four synergies from it, but it's not all that rare to get that many synergies. Shooting from the hip I'd guesstimate that about 35% of the nations in the game can make good use of Undying + Regeneration if they have a suitable pretender; and it might be roughly competitive with the theoretically optimal build for something like 5-10% of them. It's something to consider when you're thinking about how to spend your design points, anyway.

[Oh for Fox Sake]

Question: Is it worth to take 7 undying or reforming flesh for undead army? And I do mean with Lemur Consul's

[Uncle Al]

As far as luck+undying goes, it was recently patched so they stopped synergising, because the effect was ridiculous. The patch note wasn't clear whether the change is only the blow that takes you below 0 hp can trigger luck, or only a blow that would actually kill you (i.e. take you below 0+any undying you have) but the net effect is pretty similar. Previously a unit below 0 hp with undying triggered luck on every hit, so effectively had 75% damage resistance.

Morcaster, I've been wondering the same thing, having been mucking around with ermor recently. Even if I take D7+ on a pretender, a massive stack of undying seems more useful than reforming flesh. I suppose reforming flesh is nice on tartarians, but that's a bit of a niche bonus.

I also notice that undead units with undying return to full hp after a battle. That means it gets around the 'inanimate' trait preventing after battle healing, which is a nice extra bonus.

[Oh for Fox Sake]

Uncle AI - "Morcaster, I've been wondering the same thing, having been mucking around with ermor recently. Even if I take D7+ on a pretender, a massive stack of undying seems more useful than reforming flesh. I suppose reforming flesh is nice on tartarians, but that's a bit of a niche bonus."

Find a key unit, weigh it's stats and determine what would be most helpful. Obviously a unit with a large hp pool would benefit more from the regeneration, however if it had weak protection or defenses then I'd go with undying. units with small hp pools should undying no matter how much defense they have.

Then magic comes into play and you may as well bash your head in because they're so many variables, but don't pay to much attention to that as it's not as important because it's simply unavoidable. 4 to astral with both magic resistance is good enough to help quite a bit.

[xchrisx88]

quick question, does Strong Vitae blood bless actually affect undead at all?