Quote:
Originally posted by Guest@Mar 26 2005, 01:23 AM
i think there might be a glitch or error with the invulnerability spell though it says the first two attacks to a unit with it are completely disregarded. but the drakes attacks still killled my hero.... any1 know whats up with that?
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My understanding of the invulnerabilty spell (a "rare" life spell) is that it subtracts 2 damage from ANY attack. So if a hero with 10 health and invulnerabilty spell on him got hit by a doom bolt spell (a "rare" chaos spell) it would (in theory) only do 8 damage instead of 10. This would also apply to melee attacks (as I said it supposedly affects all attacks).
As for why your hero got smashed by a great drake... that isn't that surprising. Great Drakes normally have a fire breath attack of 30 and a melee attack of 30. (when at a chaos node, as they often are, the node's aura will boost their attacks by 2). You may also notice (if you happen to right-mouse-click on a great drake in combat) that they are +3 (plus three) to hit. The default "to hit" for all creatures in the game is 30%. A +3 to hit creature is 60% "to hit" (yeah each +1 is actually 10 percent. and yes, I know it is a bit of a silly combat system). So......
The short version is that a great drake (not at a chaos node) would do (on average) :
Fire breath: 30 * 0.6 = 18 damage.
Melee damage: 30 * 0.6 = 18 damage.
For a total of 36 health in damage. (this is why you normally don't want to thumb-wrestle great drakes. Shoot them from far away. And unless your name is Torin, don't fight them in melee).
So invulnerabilty would subtract 2 points from each attack. Making the total (on average) damage done by a great drake 32. This is enough to crush almost every hero easily.
As an aside, (yeah I can ramble forever) defense works in the same way that attack does. If your hero has a defense of 10, he/she will on average block about 3 health from every attack. (10 * 0.3 = 3.33...). The default "to hit" for DEFENSE is the same as the default "to hit" for ATTACK. Very few things modify this defensive "to hit" (essentially how effective each of those little shield icons are). The "lucky" ability (that halflings and some heroes have) is one. The prayer spell (an "uncommon" life spell) is another. [/b][/quote]
Doh. I read the sky drakes as great drakes. Still the math is similar. Only they have a 20 melee attack (also at +3) and a 20 lightning breath (only the lightning breath is armor piercing unlike the great drakes).
not at a sorcery node:
breath 20 * 0.6 = 12
melee 20 * 0.6 = 12
subtract 2 from each attack (from your heroes invulnerability)
leaves 20 damage (on average). Still a lot, and half that is armor piercing (meaning your hero can only "defend" with half of the number of shields that he/she has)
If the drake didn't have to move more than one move (of its 4 total) to attack you, it would be able to attack twice in one round. (for about 40 damage minus your heroes defense).
Depending on which hero it was at demigod level and which artifacts they were carrying... and the random rolls... it could have gone either way. But I think the crux of it is that invulnerabilty does not work quite how you thought it did (by completely removing attacks).