Auras/Bonuses (Creature Boost, Skill Drain, Vitality Drain, Freeze & Antifreeze) & Tokens: Availability, Order & Opportunity Value

[Azthor]

 

Rephrase?

 

If Freeze's targeting is random, and a Frozen creature may lose a chance to activate its aura even if is unfrozen, then the defender is unable to predict which of his creatures are likely to have their auras go into effect, at all.

[Rophs]

Yes DD. Skill drain is based around a fairly reasonable concept, but does it work as effectively as it should? Does it work too effectively? Does it work not effectively enough? Should skill drain only drain influence (not the creature's base stats)? Should skill drain apply before/after boosting auras? There are many factors affecting how skill drain could potentially work and also many theories on how it should work.

 

How should skill drain work and what should it do?

 

How I envision skillvampire working:

Player A has very high stats. Player B has very low stats.

 

If player A and player B fight at 100% with no skillvampire then player A will win.

 

If player A and player B fight at 100% and player B properly utilizes skillvampire (ideally, there being many proper ways to utilize skillvampire) then player B will win.

 

During the "auras" phase of combat the following would be done:

1. Freeze/antifreeze
2. The player with the most stats's boosting auras
3. both player's skillvampires
4. The player with the least stats's boosting auras

But then why not always use 0% and skillvampire?

• With no extra vitality your creatures will still die very quickly
• You will need to use popes so that your creatures don't die
• You will have less room for boosting auras and raw damage because you need to use skillvampire and popes
• If somebody attacks you at 0% with grasans or other basic damage then they will win

Advanced rock paper scissors!

FRAC

 

• Freeze will always target a slot containing a creature and will target slots containing frozen creatures with a lower priority than slots that contain frozen creatures
  1. A random slot containing a nonfrozen creature
  2. If there are no more slots containing a nonfrozen creature then the aura will stop searching for targets

 

• Antifreeze will always target a slot containing a creature and will target slots containing frozen creatures with a higher priority than slots that do not contain frozen creatures, if a creature with antifreeze is frozen it will unfreeze itself before unfreezing other creatures. A creature's antifreeze aura will always trigger, even if that creature is not frozen.
  1. A slot containing a frozen creature with the antifreeze aura
  2. A random slot containing frozen creature
  3. A random slot containing a creature
  4. If there are no more slots containing creatures then the aura will stop searching for targets

 

• Auras will be applied in following order:
  1. All freeze auras
  2. All antifreeze auras
  3. All of the auras from whichever player has more stats invested in the fight except for freeze, antifreeze, skillvampire, and vampiricaura
  4. All skillvampire and vampiricaura auras
  5. All of the auras from whichever player has the least stats invested in the fight
  • A player's invested stats would be the sum of all stats on their player profile related to combat multiplied by the percent of influence they have in the fight.

 

• A creature's auras will still be applied if it is frozen.

[Ary Endleg]

No DD, Skilldrain won't help you, I tested the drain with 3 maxed SW, if any of them doesn't get frozen, your creatures will have like 55%(if I remember correctly) of sum of all stats from both sides. Giving you slight advantage. SWs do have target all and that helps a bit. But you spent 3 slots to get slight edge only on stat difference. Drachs will still eat you out because of freezes, they also can use weaken def and if player has high stats in first place he also has high ve. Meaning you only got edge on terms of stats, while he still has more important advantage in all other fields, you probably won't be able to counter his second advantage, and if you do he still has 2 or 3 advantages that will make him win, it's ultimate ritual you are dealing against, SWs won't help you win. Now... one of your SWs gets frozen and you didn't gained any advantage you were expecting because freeze stopped your aura. Also in process of skill draining some stats will go poof :)) meaning opponent losses more than you gain from him, but final difference in stats is that you don't get too much of an edge.

 

I - Mostly so. I think you can learn how auras are applied in order and thus try to put your more important ones last, so if that creature gets frozen, earlier antifreeze might help it. However, all this is speculation. Would need to test it all with DD :p

II - as for vitalitydrain... urm... it's working quite fine I guess, but really there isn't much purpose in draining it with aura for annihilation combat, I guess it could work nicely with angiens when fighting high ve foe, assuming there are no freezes and that you hit first :)) vitalitydrain has however wide arsenal of other purposes in combat.

 

Erm Rophs... now I'm no longer sure if creatboost/skilldrain respect aura order or does the skilldrain really go after all creatboosts, I was doing extensive tests on that with SWs but hell, I no longer remember. Somebody (re)test :))

 

It would be nice if it worked that way, but still freezes will ruin your day.

 

I think that for starters freezes shouldn't affect auras :p

[Rophs]

FRAC does not refer to how it does work. FRAC refers to how I think it SHOULD work.

[DARK DEMON]

"No DD, Skilldrain won't help you, I tested the drain with 3 maxed SW, if any of them doesn't get frozen, your creatures will have like 55%(if I remember correctly) of sum of all stats from both sides. Giving you slight advantage."

 

I attacked Eon with a TS. I got 50% of EON'S stat (aka 1M+ damage) and could beat him :P . That is a major advantage, no?

 

"Would need to test it all with DD :P"

 

Sure! Though I'm sure you do know right that there's nothing wrong with auras not applying if frozen, eg: if the attacker freezes your priest, but the priest gets unfrozen after the auras are applied, its own aura will not be applied. There is nothing wrong with this; its logical.

 

"It would be nice if it worked that way, but still freezes will ruin your day."

 

YES ALWAYS YES

 

"I think that for starters freezes shouldn't affect auras :P"

 

Ok, I agree with this. It would certainly remove a bit of that luck component from freeze that allows it to win against a good def or lose against a bad def.

[Rophs]

If a creature's auras are unaffected by freezes then the existence of "aurawhores" creatures that don't do much except provide auras would would make freeze less appealing.

 

If you are offended by the term "aurawhores" please send me a PM and we will find a new word:P

[Ary Endleg]

I'm not sure if it would be case Rophs. The more auragivers you put in ritual the fewer aura beneficiaries you have, in a ritual where 5 creatures are there just to provide auras, easier for me to get rid of you since freeze needs to land only on that one creature. Still this is debatable

 

 

I attacked Eon with a TS. I got 50% of EON'S stat (aka 1M+ damage) and could beat him :P . That is a major advantage, no?

 

So... single ts? really? after creatboost or before? I want to know more about this, because it took me 3 SWs to drain that much stats. Does TS have higher aura values than SW? :huh:

[Rophs]

I'm not sure if it would be case Rophs. The more auragivers you put in ritual the fewer aura beneficiaries you have, in a ritual where 5 creatures are there just to provide auras, easier for me to get rid of you since freeze needs to land only on that one creature. Still this is debatable

If you have five aurawhores feeding a fatbaby then you'd be stupid to not include antifreeze

[lashtal]

Does TS have higher aura values than SW? :huh:

 

I noticed that too...

[Rophs]

FRAC Version 0 (First version where I start counting :P)

[spoiler]

 

• Freeze will always target a slot containing a creature and will target slots containing frozen creatures with a lower priority than slots that contain frozen creatures
  1. A random slot containing a nonfrozen creature set to damage, weaken, or lifesteal
  2. A random slot containing a nonfrozen creature
  3. If there are no more slots containing a nonfrozen creature then the aura will stop searching for targets

 

• Antifreeze will always target a slot containing a creature and will target slots containing frozen creatures with a higher priority than slots that do not contain frozen creatures, if a creature with antifreeze is frozen it will unfreeze itself before unfreezing other creatures. A creature's antifreeze aura will always trigger, even if that creature is not frozen.
  1. A random slot containing a frozen creature set to damage, weaken, or lifesteal
  2. A random slot containing frozen creature
  3. A random slot containing a creature
  4. If there are no more slots containing creatures then the aura will stop searching for targets

 

• Auras will be applied in following order:
  1. All freeze auras
  2. All antifreeze auras
  3. All of the auras from whichever player has more stats invested in the fight except for freeze, antifreeze, skillvampire, and vampiricaura
  4. All skillvampire and vampiricaura auras
  5. All of the auras from whichever player has the least stats invested in the fight
  • A player's invested stats would be the sum of all stats on their player profile related to combat multiplied by the percent of influence they have in the fight.

 

• A creature's auras will still be applied if it is frozen.
•  

[/spoiler]

SW should not have a stronger skillvampire aura than a TS.

SW should have higher base stats than TS but should affect influence in the same manner.

[Ary Endleg]

Basically SW does drain and does low boost, TS doesn't do drain at all, only boost and that boost is much higher than SW boost, also since stats aren't drained from enemy, every subsequent TS aura will boost by same amount of stats, meaning stacking is additive, where in SW case stacking is multiplicative. With 3 TS you can get ridiculous amount of stats and get advantage over enemy by like 50% more stats than him, while the enemy will still keep his original stats. With TS you actually can win.

[DARK DEMON]

Which means that the description of TS will have to be changed:

 

[skillvampire] Calculates the difference for each creature to its coresponding enemy lot and gives a percentage of that difference to your creature. Creatures in different slot won't influence eachother. Takes away skill difference from enemy units.

 

Unlike SW, it does not drain/take away skill difference from enemy units.

[Ary Endleg]

I don't remember if we already proved it wrong or not, but just in case I'll say/repeat it. For all those of you who say/think that SW/TS can't lower your own stats if you use him, that's wrong. If you have more stats than opponent, due to difference it will lower your stats.

 

Now something quite constructive question. Why does tree's regenaura work strangely, as in not boosting regen if creature has 0 regen while bird regen aura boosts regen of all creatures even itself even if bird has 0 regen?

Basically tree regenaura (regardless of level) won't boost tree of origin nor any other creature with 0 regen.

I'm not sure what causes this, as far as I know, when I was testing it, regenauras everywhere had flat boost, not percentage (speculation that it's because 0 regen times boost multiplicator(%) equals zero is false because it's flat addition). Regenauras on bird and tree are called the same way. Probably have same description (can't check bird). Probably this is similar situation like it is with TS/SW aura.

 

Edit1: one of uncertainties confirmed after testing and post edited accordingly

Edit2: final edit after all tests

Edited September 25, 2014 by Ary Endleg

[Azthor]

Basically SW does drain and does low boost, TS doesn't do drain at all, only boost and that boost is much higher than SW boost, also since stats aren't drained from enemy, every subsequent TS aura will boost by same amount of stats, meaning stacking is additive, where in SW case stacking is multiplicative. With 3 TS you can get ridiculous amount of stats and get advantage over enemy by like 50% more stats than him, while the enemy will still keep his original stats. With TS you actually can win.

 

If the TS' boost is solely based on the absolute difference between the relevant stats in the appropriate slots, the effect should decrease with each boost, as the gap diminishes, making it so that TS cannot ever bring your stats above your opponent's. As they are irreconcilable, which of the aforementioned and the quoted are true?

Edited September 25, 2014 by Azthor

[Ary Endleg]

Take 2/3 TS and test. In fact I was rushing to conclusion up there, mainly based of DD's testimony where he says that he got 50% of Eon's stats with single TS. Your explanation makes more sense and should be true. That means with 2 TS you should get 75% of stats and with 3 it's 87,5%.

[DARK DEMON]

I checked Eon's stats and his attack stat is 2795632

 

Now I don't know how this is possible, but one time I had got 1.44M attack (which is greater than 50%... ) from Eon with a single maxed TS in a 6-creature ritual and 0% influence with Eon's 100% influence

 

And another time I got only 1.16M attack stat from Eon in a different 6-creature ritual with 0% influence and Eon's 100% influence, but same maxed TS.

 

I -assume- that its probably a range of percentages in which a random value is chosen?   <---just a guess

Edited September 25, 2014 by DARK DEMON

[Ary Endleg]

I don't know the value of boost for TS aura. Secondly if you say different rituals I could have to do with creatureboosts.

[Rophs]

How I think TS aura should work:

Assume FRAC is used.

Take the sum of all influence.

The player with more influence would get 60% of the total influence

The player with less influence would get 40% of the total influence.

[Burns]

I checked Eon's stats and his attack stat is 2795632

 

Now I don't know how this is possible, but one time I had got 1.44M attack (which is greater than 50%... ) from Eon with a single maxed TS in a 6-creature ritual and 0% influence with Eon's 100% influence

 

And another time I got only 1.16M attack stat from Eon in a different 6-creature ritual with 0% influence and Eon's 100% influence, but same maxed TS.

 

I -assume- that its probably a range of percentages in which a random value is chosen?   <---just a guess

 

insufficient data, you're just guessing around.

First thing, you need to divide his raw stat by 6, skillvamp goes slot by slot, not spread over all. It's just summarized in the report for sake of simpleness.

Then, you need to add in tokens and boost auras, if present (which i assume, otherwise you'd never get that much attack), then you need to figure out exactly how much your guys have at start.

A useful way to check would start with using nothing but the TS for your rit, and then see what happens in various slots, because his stats per slot will differ greatly.

[DARK DEMON]

Oh no, I just quoted the total attack boost under the "Influences" tab... I guess that would be the sum of the differences of each slot, then :P

Edited September 26, 2014 by DARK DEMON

[No one]

[spoiler]

 

I checked Eon's stats and his attack stat is 2795632

 

Now I don't know how this is possible, but one time I had got 1.44M attack (which is greater than 50%... ) from Eon with a single maxed TS in a 6-creature ritual and 0% influence with Eon's 100% influence

 

And another time I got only 1.16M attack stat from Eon in a different 6-creature ritual with 0% influence and Eon's 100% influence, but same maxed TS.

 

I -assume- that its probably a range of percentages in which a random value is chosen?   <---just a guess

 

insufficient data, you're just guessing around.

First thing, you need to divide his raw stat by 6, skillvamp goes slot by slot, not spread over all. It's just summarized in the report for sake of simpleness.

Then, you need to add in tokens and boost auras, if present (which i assume, otherwise you'd never get that much attack), then you need to figure out exactly how much your guys have at start.

A useful way to check would start with using nothing but the TS for your rit, and then see what happens in various slots, because his stats per slot will differ greatly.

[/spoiler]

As I remember, the TS uses the creature in front of it to get the stats. Meaning that the stats will be different from one creature to another depending on boots and tokens.

 

----

At moments like this, with questions like these, Liberty and his army is certainly missed.

[DARK DEMON]

The tests must go on! :P

[Azthor]

If none of the tests prove our expectations concerning Skill Drain untrue, we could assume securing as many of a given stat, as spread through a six creatures ritual, as a superior opponent should be impossible. If that is the case, then it is not possible to gain initiative advantage through Skill Drain and, strictly speaking, Skill Drain should be powerless to stop a first hit reliant opponent; that, of course, putting aside the freeze roulette, through which Skill Drain might enable a few circumstantial victories.

 

It might also prove determinant in a number of close calls, such as the inferior party having far more VE in play.

 

However, should that prove undesirable, that is, nevertheless, fundamentally difficult to balance otherwise, as high stats/a good set of tokens must have an advantage, as is currently the case. Though there is room for discussion on how significant an advantage it should entail and what manner thereof - first and foremost on which of ritual choice and ritual performance it should impact - it is not a discussion that can ignore the impact on the desirability of stats and tokens.

 

Furthermore, it must be noted that, even if Skill Drain could match your creatures with a superior opponent's, a superior opponent would still have an advantage in employing Freeze or Antifreeze in those slots, which already holds true, even if Skill Drain cannot fully cover the gap.

 

Any thoughts or new evidence to work upon or against those lines of thought?

[Ary Endleg]

It indeed falls down to ve and/or freezes that will help you win with skillvamps. Testing will probably be done, but no ETA as of yet.

 

Nothing more to add for now. Things stand as you said them.

[Burns]

http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/15763-reducing-the-power-of-freezes

 

See this thread for complete freeze-rework ideas.