Timber wolf Vs. Skeleton Sentry

[Klaxas]

Timber Wolf Vs. Skeletal Sentry

maybe the community can help me out here.  my friend and i have been debating the merits of these two creatures.  which does everyone prefer and why.  i believe both cards can be found on thier facebook page.

[Shad0w]

I do not have then in front of me currently but from the preprint versions the Timber Wolf was one of the top 3 most efficient creature in the base set. The trick with the skeleton is it is nonliving so it avoids pestilence idol  Malcoda's effect and poison gas. But because of this it can not be healed.

[Klaxas]

true.  but under generic non spicific circumstances and in general combat with average rolls, the timber wolf will beat the skeleton.

[theduke850]

I think 2 armor gives the Timber Wolf the advantage in a general head to head with no other factors.

[Shad0w]

I think 2 armor gives the Timber Wolf the advantage in a general head to head with no other factors.

Look at 2 things the armor and the fact the wolf can be healed normally. Crit damage would only apply 1/3 of the time on average.

[theduke850]

when you talk about the efficiency of a creature, what are you referring too exactly?  I assume it is something along the lines of Mana cost to attack strength + life & armor.  but are there other traits to consider?  In this current comparison, do nonliving and psychic immunity go towards efficiency?

[stadi]

This is a good question, I was also thinking about this. What are these top3 efficient cards?

[Shad0w]

A few weeks back I responded to something in another thread. Check it out here Most of the info from the spread sheet has been carried over into the main game. I do not currently have access to the sheet its on another PC.

for those too lazy to follow the link this is a quote from that thread.

Like HeatStryke said the most important thing is if the creature has armor or not.
BTW Heat is part of my play-test team and he came up with a spread sheet that can crunch the numbers. I think currently it does from 0-10 armor 1-12 dice at 25k rolls.

[stadi]

This doesn't really tell  what you mean by efficient. This thread is about attack vs armor.

By efficient I would think of the following combined somehow: how much it costs, how much life it has, how much armor, armor piercing,  attack, etc. so this way an efficient creature would be a cheap one with a lot of attack and armor.

[Shad0w]

It is an entire spread sheet but you did guess correctly what we looked at when it was built.

Health
Casting Cost
Armor
Attack Dice

Fast, normal, Slow, Aegis rating are all things we looked at. From this we got an average damage over life of the creature rating.

[Klaxas]

as far as the traits go, i think they tailor the creature to your playstyle.  for example, nonliving, generally doesnt mean a whole lot (cant be healed) but if you are trying to play a pestilance build, then you want to go out of your way to pick the non living creatures.  so in that build the skeleton becomes more effecient.  but in general terms i believe the timber wolf is.

as for psychic immunity.  i dont really factor in immunities into effiency and here is why.  you dont know who you will be playing against.  if your playing against a fire mage, fire immunity is great.  if your playing against an air mage, its worthless.

[Shad0w]

as far as the traits go, i think they tailor the creature to your playstyle.  for example, nonliving, generally doesnt mean a whole lot (cant be healed) but if you are trying to play a pestilance build, then you want to go out of your way to pick the non living creatures.  so in that build the skeleton becomes more effecient.  but in general terms i believe the timber wolf is.

as for psychic immunity.  i dont really factor in immunities into effiency and here is why.  you dont know who you will be playing against.  if your playing against a fire mage, fire immunity is great.  if your playing against an air mage, its worthless.

I see you understand clearly why we did not factor immunity in. Your spot on again.

[stadi]

It is an entire spread sheet but you did guess correctly what we looked at when it was built.

Health
Casting Cost
Armor
Attack Dice

Fast, normal, Slow, Aegis rating are all things we looked at. From this we got an average damage over life of the creature rating.

If you are allowed to make it available, please do so!

[Shad0w]

I do not believe so because we use it for play-testing. Plus the person who made it will be out of the state till next week.

[piousflea]

(Pulls out "target dummy DPS" spreadsheet)

The Wolf's 2 armor gives it an amazing advantage in any 1v1 combat. Let's look at the numbers:

Wolf (4 dice, 0 piercing) vs Skeleton (11 HP, 0 Armor):
[ul]
  [li]Average 4.00 damage/round[/li]
  [li]Average 2.75 rounds to kill[/li]
  [li]14.1% chance to kill within 2 rounds[/li]
  [li]70.0% chance to kill within 3 rounds[/li]
  [li]95.4% chance to kill within 4 rounds[/li]
  [li]99.6% chance to kill within 5 rounds[/li]
[/ul]

Skeleton (4 dice, 0 piercing) vs Wolf (10 HP, 2 Armor):
[ul]
  [li]Average 2.59 damage/round[/li]
  [li]Average 3.86 rounds to kill[/li]
  [li]2.3% chance to kill within 2 rounds[/li]
  [li]25.0% chance to kill within 3 rounds[/li]
  [li]60.7% chance to kill within 4 rounds[/li]
  [li]85.0% chance to kill within 5 rounds[/li]
[/ul]

For obvious reasons, 2 armor is really good against a non-piercing attack. However, it is really bad against a Piercing +2 attack (ie Dark Pact Slayer). There are also plenty of curses, poison, Burn damage, and other things that don't respect Armor. Against those attacks, the Wolf has 1 less health and costs 1 more mana than a Skeleton. The Skeleton is also Nonliving and Psychic Immune which protects it from various bad effects and spells.

Basically, the skeleton is an inferior toe-to-toe combatant but has various immunities. It's what you'd generally expect from a Skeleton.

On another spreadsheet-related note:
A Hydra's triplestrike (3 dice x 3) is equivalent to:
9 dice (9 avg damage) vs. 0 Armor
7.85 dice (6.89 damage) vs. 1 Armor
7.24 dice (5.44 damage) vs. 2 Armor
7.32 dice (4.83 damage) vs. 3 Armor
7.63 dice (4.57 damage) vs. 4 Armor

Oddly enough, only the first Armor point really has a strong disproportionate effect on soaking Triplestrike. Adding more than 1 Armor decreases damage taken by a far more modest amount.