Sweeping, Battle fury and melee +X

[Darsul]

I read some where in the forms that Sweeping gets penalized by the Melee +X rule but, the battle fury affect doesn't. They both start a new combat.

I'm having a hard time with this Melee +/-X ruling. I have a hard time comprehend how I enchanted my creature with say bear strength but, if it attack more then once some how my enchantment loses it power for addition attack then regain it some how... what.  I mean I get how incantation loses it for other attacks but, how do enchantments loses their power.

[tarkin84]

I read some where in the forms that Sweeping gets penalized by the Melee +X rule but, the battle fury affect doesn't. They both start a new combat.

I'm having a hard time with this Melee +/-X ruling. I have a hard time comprehend how I enchanted my creature with say bear strength but, if it attack more then once some how my enchantment loses it power for addition attack then regain it some how... what.  I mean I get how incantation loses it for other attacks but, how do enchantments loses their power.

Battle fury was errata'd to avoid melee +X applying to the second attack. With the new text the second strike takes place in the same sequence that the first one, as if the creature had doublestrike.

I guess the loss of the melee +X bonus for doublestrike/sweeping is due to balance issue. Bear strength on a Darkfenne Hydra would be sick if the creature kept the bonus

However, don't forget that melee -X penalties stay for every attack, even if the creature strikes twice due to doublestrike/sweeping/battle fury. An agonizing Hydra is not so threatening...

[sdougla2]

Regardless of how many attacks you make as part of the same action, you only get the Melee +X bonus on the first strike. If you somehow have multiple attack actions in the same round, the first strike of each action would get the bonus.

Battle Fury used to give you an extra attack action immediately after you finished your regular attack action, which allowed it to take advantage of the Melee +X trait again in the same game round. It has since been changed to give an additional strike within the same action as your other attack sequence, so it does not benefit from the Melee +X trait anymore.

I'm pretty sure that Melee -X would only apply to the first strike as well, but Agony applies to all strikes because the wording is specifically that you get 2 fewer attack dice on all attacks. It does not give the Melee -X trait.

[Darsul]

Thank you for the response. So the key wording is it need to be a new action?

(**warring personal rant**) Sweeping is just as bad as Double, Triple ext. strike. I was thinking this rule is probably in place for "balance issue" [I think it's to give Defense roll trait higher value] I find it any thing but, intuitive. One may look at "Bear strength on a Darkfenne Hydra would be sick if the creature kept the bonus" I look at that the Hydra is weak with out it. Slow, take a full turn to triple swing and your only tossing 3 dice at a time. If I c a hydra I just put on 3 armor and and go about my merry way.(**ok, rant over**)

-X melee currently doesn't exist in the game but, I would hope that it would fall under the same ruling because, if it didn't I would stop playing the this game because, of bad rulings. Their are a 100 other ways to improve the balancing of the game then to make it less intuitive. (Agony is not -X trait).

At the end of the day Melee +X ruling makes me a sad panda.

[Darsul]

BTY read the errata to Battle fury... more sad then, a sad panda.. Forget this topic. I'll never need to look forward to extra attack being something I would want to work off of. *"Before Mage Wars released, we intended that bonus melee and ranged would not apply multiple times." said it all.

*[quoted from] http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=12796.0

[baronzaltor]

I still find Battle Fury useful, and tend to keep at least one copy in most builds if spellpoints allow. 

Its useful for trying to stack or guarentee secondary effects (since you get to roll the effect die on each attack), so it can bolster laying Burns, Rots or Bleeds and increase the odds of landing a daze/stun.  Taint is especially nasty to land multiples of in one series of attacks (2 Taints will give a 6 life loss on top of the damage of those attacks.) 
Adramelch gets really good mileage out of Battle Fury too, 6 dice base and a 5+ fire chance on each swing with potential to land 2 per.  Dire Wolf is pretty solid too, he gets blood thirsty on the first attack and two bleed rolls.  Even more on on his first attack if he is a BM pet.

I also use it with a high pierce creature like Brogan or a Dark Pact Slayer, (or something bolstered by a Sacrificial Altar) to cut through a high armor conjuration or creature more quickly.  Pierce applies to every attack, so if you find yourself needing to get something like a Battleforge, Enchanters Wardstones, Iron Golem, Wizard Tower or whatnot removed ASAP, using Battle Fury with a creature who has high natural pierce can be a time saver to get it off the table faster.

So, Battle Fury isn't the Auto Include x2 that it used to be but I still find it to have uses.

[tarkin84]

I'm pretty sure that Melee -X would only apply to the first strike as well, but Agony applies to all strikes because the wording is specifically that you get 2 fewer attack dice on all attacks. It does not give the Melee -X trait.

My bad. I wrote Melee -X from memory, instead of looking at the actual card, as that's the way I think about Agony. You're completely right, though. Should the Melee -X trait exist, it would apply only to the first strike. Sorry for my really bad wording.

Regarding the Hydra and Battle fury, I don't think they're as bad as Darsul is saying.

The Hydra does, on average, 9 damage against no armor, 6 damage against 1 armor and 4.5 damage against 2+ armor. I really think that those are quite good numbers taking into account that armor is heavily played nowadays (waiting for corrode!). Sure, it is slow, but Wizard has innate access to teleport (plus wand) to maximize its attack. Battle fury is still quite useful as baronzaltor sayed. It's nice to make the effect roll going and to give high damage/piercing creatures (Grizzly, Adramelech, Brogan or Slayer) another strike.

[jacksmack]

I'm pretty sure that Melee -X would only apply to the first strike as well, but Agony applies to all strikes because the wording is specifically that you get 2 fewer attack dice on all attacks. It does not give the Melee -X trait.

My bad. I wrote Melee -X from memory, instead of looking at the actual card, as that's the way I think about Agony. You're completely right, though. Should the Melee -X trait exist, it would apply only to the first strike. Sorry for my really bad wording.

Regarding the Hydra and Battle fury, I don't think they're as bad as Darsul is saying.

The Hydra does, on average, 9 damage against no armor, 6 damage against 1 armor and 4.5 damage against 2+ armor. I really think that those are quite good numbers taking into account that armor is heavily played nowadays (waiting for corrode!). Sure, it is slow, but Wizard has innate access to teleport (plus wand) to maximize its attack. Battle fury is still quite useful as baronzaltor sayed. It's nice to make the effect roll going and to give high damage/piercing creatures (Grizzly, Adramelech, Brogan or Slayer) another strike.

I agree that hydra is overlooked but your numbers are wrong.

Its actually even higher.
it does not do 6 damage on average vs 1 armor it does more. I would estimate it to be 7 or maybe even higher.

Vs 6 armor it does 4.5 on average. And EXCATELY 4.5 on average.

Vs 4 and 5 armor (5 especially) its very close to 4.5.

However... vs 3 armor we start seeing changes. I could imagine that it was almost 1 point higer average - so 5.0~5.5 average.

And vs 2 armor it might be as high as 6.5 but im sure its around 6.0 atleast.

[tarkin84]

Sorry, didn't understand your point.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Given an attack die, it will deal, on average, 0.5 normal damage and 0.5 critical damage (0*2/6 + 1*1/6 + 2*1/6 + {1}*1/6 + {2}*1/6 = 1/2 + {1}/2). So Hydra's each individual strike will do 1.5 normal damage and 1.5 critical damage on average.

Against 1 armor, you are dealing 1.5 critical damage plus 1.5 - 1 = 0.5 damage per strike, for a total of 2 damage per strike. Triplestrike results in 6 damage. Against 2+ armor, you are dealing 1.5 critical damage plus 0 normal damage (everything is absorbed by armor) per strike. Triplestrike results in 4.5 damage. Always on average.

Is there anything incorrect in my reasoning?

[jacksmack]

Lets do with with a double strike instead for the sake of it.
Creature has 1 armor, and dummy test hydra has 3 dice double strike.

Each roll is 3 damage average.

First hit does 3 critical. First hit nets 3 damage. (dice: blank - 1crit -2crit)

Second hit does 3 normal damage. Second hit nets 2 damage. (dice: blank - 1 normal - 2 normal)

Total damage = 5

With your logic it would be (1.5 normal -1 + 1.5 crit) * 2 = 4 damage


Neither of the rolls exceeded average total damage.

[jacksmack]

Lets look at ONE of the hits in the tripple strike series.

its 3 dice.

Each dice has 2/3 chance of NOT rolling normal damage.

If you roll with 1 dice 66.666% of the time you will not see any normal damage.

If you roll 3 dice its:

2/3 * 2/3 * 2/3 = 0,29629 = 29,629% of not seeing any normal damage.
I will round this up to 30%.

30% of the time armor will not help vs a SINGLE hit in a tripplestrike.

[Shad0w]

So any other questions about this?

[Darsul]

So any other questions about this?

LOL just one, How did this thread get so out of control? I started this tread trying to find out why sweeping [second attack] didn't get the melee +X like battle fury to now a discussion about how much damage a dice can yield?

BTY read the errata to Battle fury... more sad then, a sad panda.. Forget this topic. I'll never need to look forward to extra attack being something I would want to work off of. *"Before Mage Wars released, we intended that bonus melee and ranged would not apply multiple times." said it all.

*[quoted from] http://forum.arcanewonders.com/index.php?topic=12796.0

This topic needs no more reply or please move it to new form. This has gotten off topic and I have gotten my answer [sorry my rant mostly started this]. I do thank you all for your replies and taking the time to read the topic here.

~I still find Battle Fury useful, and tend to keep at least one copy in most builds if spellpoints allow.~

I miss wrote " I'll never need to look forward to extra attack being something I would want to work off of."
should be more like I'll never need to look forward to MELEE +X and extra attacks being something I would work off of.

Battle fury is still "good" pox. it's target creature gains Double strike till end of turn(or till use). I might do more on this on another post.

To all this discussion about dice I think your missing my rant point which please DO NOT reply to was more about trying to highlight how the weakness of multi attacks. To put it more simply if a hydra rolled 9 dice in one attack you can get so much more mileage then 3 attack of 3 dice. Yes I realize this is balancing thing but, doesn't mean I have to like it. That's why it was a rant I didn't want to go any where more then it did (get some one to read my frustration).

[Shad0w]

@Darsul too many cooks 

[diceman]

Sorry guys, still confused.
In fact I find this whole "double-strike/Battle Fury/Melee+/Counter-Strike"-affair a very clunky, hard to grasp concept and not intuitive at all. And, yes, I'm well aware of the errata'd text of BATTLE FURY, well, seems I haven't understood it clearly yet. In the official FAQ on this page I found this text:

A creature with Melee +2 has Battle Fury cast on him, then the creature makes an attack. The free Battle Fury attack counts as a separate action because the spell says to make an additional quick action attack, so the player would get to apply Melee +2 extra Battle Fury attack as well.

I was under the impression that (since the errata) Melee+ Traits don't apply to BATTLE FURY-actions anymore. Has the quoted passage perhaps been written BEFORE the nerf? And if so, why hasn't it been updated yet?
Thanks a lot!