Hard skin E6 or Fortitude E7?

[applenta]

I'm playing Marignon and on the fence between Hard skin and Fortitude blessing. I heard that there's W3 spell Wave warrior that can substitute for Fortitude but i think i wouldn't rely on the chance of getting Water mage. On the other hand, if i do get Water mage, Hard skin would come out on top because there's no substitute for Hardskin, it would simply stack with other protection bonus, would it?

[wilson.max]

Is this for MA or LA Marignon? MA Marignon can't really cast Wave Warriors, so that's out of the picture.

Hard Skin does not stack with other sources of protection, like Protection/Wooden Warriors, but again, MA Marignon has trouble casting those buffs anyway. (Indy shamans with Thistle Maces and two gems for Mass Protection is still possible--it's just not easy to achieve, gem-wise, and you're somewhat unlikely to have Alt-7 researched for it anyway.)

So if you're talking MA Marignon, it's a choice between two effects, neither of which can really be achieved in anyway other than through blessings. When I've tested these blessings in the past I've found they are pretty comparable on Knights of the Chalice; but Fortitude is better at keeping flagellants alive, and it also works better on angels, so if you're planning on using either flagellants or angels I'd go for Fortitude (if you are determined to buy an Earth blessing in the first place).

The same thing would apply to LA actually: you have no knights, so you might as well pick the blessing that works better on flagellants and angels.

[applenta]

So, Hard Skin does not stack with other sources of protection like Iron Warriors? Because if i get a Grand Master with Earth, that will be a waste of 6 E blessing points, guess i'll go for Fortitude then.

Getting Mage to cast Mass Protection is not too difficult, because shaman is everywhere + boost + Cornucopia for free casting. Same with Water mage, but of course research, logistic and opportunity cost matters.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by applenta:

So, Hard Skin does not stack with other sources of protection like Iron Warriors?

Correct. I double-checked it just now and they definitely don't stack. It's too bad, because it would be very unique and attractive if it did.

Hard Skin raises your natural Protection. Other spells like Ironskin set your natural Protection to a specific value (or, in Ironskin's case, give it a bonus if it's already over 20). There's no synergy there.

Natural Protection + Armor Protection - (Natural Protection * Armor Protection / 40, rounded down) equals total protection. So the higher your armor protection, the less bonus you get out of +5 to natural protection. But, the higher your armor value is already, the more it is worth against most units due to the shape of the bell curve--a Damage 17 sword will hurt a guy with 16 Prot almost every time, but it will hurt a guy with 19 Prot from Hard Skin much, much less. This is why protection buffs (including Hard Skin) are still pretty good on heavily-armored units, unless they are fighting giants or barbarians or similar high-damage foes.

[Salien]

What if I take a unit with really high natural protection (more than the 20 iron skin would give)?
Lets say I take a MA Agartha statue with a natutal protection of 22. With the hard skin bless that would be 27, would they than get the +3 bonus from iron skin?

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by Salien:

What if I take a unit with really high natural protection (more than the 20 iron skin would give)?
Lets say I take a MA Agartha statue with a natutal protection of 22. With the hard skin bless that would be 27, would they than get the +3 bonus from iron skin?

Yes they would. A Sentinel (natural Prot 22) with Hard Skin and Ironskin both (via Iron Warriors or Army of Lead/Gold) has Prot 30.

[applenta]

The bless cost both 6 E points and Incarcerate, and only one E point away from Fortitude, it placed that way really disincentize people like me from getting it. Maybe some adjustment to make it more desirable, able to compete with Fortitude, like costing less E points, or not require Incarcerate, or let it stack with other protection boost.

[Alias]

Originally posted by applenta:

The bless cost both 6 E points and Incarcerate, and only one E point away from Fortitude, it placed that way really disincentize people like me from getting it. Maybe some adjustment to make it more desirable, able to compete with Fortitude, like costing less E points, or not require Incarcerate, or let it stack with other protection boost.

Don't use it if you don't understand it.

[applenta]

Yes, i don't, but would you like to share your understanding?

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by applenta:

Yes, i don't, but would you like to share your understanding?

I'm not sure what Alias was trying to say--I know quite a lot about Dominions, but I don't see Hard Skin as particularly attractive either. I agree that it would be more interesting if it stacked with +Protection spells.

Let's just assume that Alias was saying that he/she is fine with it and likes it the way it is. For the rest of us, we can just ignore it and take some other blessing. (I'm not a fan of Fortitude either, but other people are.)

[franktrollman]

Hard Skin and Fortitude are both good when you have sacreds whose primary selling point is that they are hard to kill and you want to make them harder to kill. As such they are at their best for Giant nations that are also taking Regeneration or nations like Agartha that have sacred statues with high protection and hp. Hard Skin shines when the natural protection is a large percentage of the total protection, as is the case with all the sacred statues of MA Agartha and all the Giants who refuse to wear helmets. It's also importantly very good for the pretender themselves, assuming they are something like an Erf Snek or Big Pig, since having a high natural protection and little or no armor is pretty much exactly what you get with any kind of Incarnate Earth Monster Pretender.

Fortitude is a bit more generally useful. If you have troops that generally die in one hit and you'd like them to die in two hits, or you have high protection sacreds where the protection comes from Armor, Fortitude does some real work. If you happen to have sacreds that meet both criteria like MA Marignon, then obviously Fortitude looks much better than Hard Skin.

Which you should use depends on what your sacreds do and how you want to keep them alive. For a lot of factions, neither bless makes sense. I'd never take either one on Man or Caelum, for example.

[Alias]

Last 48 hours in MP alone: crushed three guys who thought Blood Surge is good, and one guy who thought Fortitude is better than Hard Skin. That I beat Impossible AIs with Independents at 9 goes without saying.

The inexperienced player train of thought: "I will play Earth...now I have to pick Earth blesses so let's compare them...this isn't working very well, they are so different from each other...I don't understand."

The experienced player train of thought: "What effects best complement my sacreds? What blesses in which schools offer such effects? Which Pretender chassis fits best?"

Before comparing Hard Skin and Fortitude, you have to start with the basics and compare them to the blesses closest to them in effect, regardless of school.

That's fairly easy to do for Hard Skin, it compares to Barkskin and Stygian Flesh:
- Stygian Flesh is cheaper, easy to find a good chassis for, but magic defeats it
- Barkskin is a solid 10 natural protection, but opens a weakness 5 to fire, which is actually a big deal if you, say, play MP against a competent opponent
- Hard Skin is just +5, but it stacks, meaning for various sacreds it matches or surpasses Barkskin without a downside too.

It's far harder to understand what Fortitude's direct competitor is: Regeneration. It's best to think of Fortitude as starting a battle with 10 turns of 10% Regeneration pre-loaded; but a somewhat weaker Regeneration because it protects only against three types of damage, while Regeneration against all, and does less for staving off afflictions. As a downside they both share, they are more expensive than the former trio, and no, 1 more point isn't 1/6th more investment, but more like a positive Scale and change for most chassis.

So before mentioning Fortitude and Hard Skin in one sentence at all, you have to be aware why you are selecting them in comparison to their direct competitors. When you do that for Fortitude v Regeneration, you'll pick some things, for example Fortitude isn't great against many spells because they lack its damage tags altogether. Same goes for a number of weapons found on summons and occasionally national troops, and likely trample.

Meanwhile, you'll be picking Hard Skin for natural protection totals of 10+ and coupled with heavy armor they can be effective deterrent against normal damage or even weaker varieties of armor-piercing damage.

Keep in mind getting damaged, even a little, is an affliction risk, potentially a morale check cause, and also a trigger for many nasty "on damage" chain-triggered effects.


Finally, there are era consideration. In early era heavy protection means enemy archers not only fail to damage your troops, but can be used as patsies who kill their own melee. I've used that to devastating effect in MP.

Mid era and later, you have to consider the impact of crossbows.

[applenta]

Well, Fortitude isn't really direct competitor with Regeneration, you can get both if you want to. But Hardskin and Fortitude are obviously direct competitor, there's no way you can get both, and the design point difference isn't that steep, it just means one more or less scale, at least in my instance. As for Regeneration, it's obviously good for someone who doesn't get one shotted but i prefer Recuperation in my instance, which is the direct competitor with Regeneration, although i can only pray with my High Inquisitor that their "Luck" and "Protection" will save them, but really, my practical problem during gameplay was affliction, not the lack of Regeneration and i think i have to take Recuperation if i don't have confident in seizing either the exclusive Gift of Health or Chalice.

Barkskin might be vulnerable against fire, but sometimes, your opponent's competence might not be enough to earn him a source of fire damage, perhaps luck too is needed, any way, you can rest easy with Barkskin if you don't anticipate any incoming fire attack, and you can fix it with fire resistance too. And did you just say Hardskin STACK? That's what i really want to hear but unfortunately i also heard to the contrary before that.

By the way, the only instance i did pick Hardskin over Fortitude is with LA Pythum because Hydra benefit the least from Fortitude, but if Hardskin doesn't stack with Barkskin, i might as well forfeit it too.

Thank you for sharing your insight anyway, really.

[wilson.max]

The direct competitor to Fortitude is actually Resilience/Strong Vitae. For a 10 HP unit facing only melee attacks, there is no difference between Resilience 10 and Fortitude. The more magical attacks you face, the more Fortitude falls behind Resilience 10. But Fortitude is a lot cheaper than Resilience 10; and most sacreds have more than 10 HP.

(But Undying-10 + Regen tends to be cheaper than Resilience 10.)

[dyslexicfaser]

I wonder, is Hard Skin even that good for Agarthan statues? Yes, you get that bonus to earth blesses as Agartha, but Statues aren't very good at actually killing their enemies... I think there's a good argument to be made for giving them some kind of aura (heat, chill, fire shield) instead of piling 5 Prot on top of something that can already hit 25 with a buff.

[applenta]

I think the 7/7/7 super HP would make interesting reference 7 x (Resilence+Strong Vitae+ Undying), might not be the most survivable but we can optimize from there.