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| Thread: Artillery and Ballista |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Kruel
Adventuring Hero
Gropabo
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posted October 05, 2001 10:51 PM |
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Edited By: Hexa on 26 Jan 2002
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Artillery and Ballista
Just to say that so many people consider artillery as a bad skill, but i think it's not.
If you consider playing Stronghold with a level 20 Crag, your hero will look like 16/6/3/3 (no bonuses).
Now You're fighting against a level 20 knight, around 9/8/4/4.
Let's see what happens if you're expert artillery (ballista shots twice for double damage each) :
Opponent's archangel defense is 38.
Your ballista's attack is 26.
Ballista deals 2-3 * 17 damage -> 34/51dam.
The difference attack/defense reduces it to a mean of 33, with crag's offense skill it becomes around 50 dam.
2 shots + double damage means 200hp less for archangel !
This is every turn, on the toughest enemy unit, and versus a might hero !
Let's say now you're fighting alamar level 20. He looks like 2/2/12/9. So his minotaurs have a 17 defense.
you're still dealing 34/51 damage, attack/defense difference makes them 40/60, let's say 50, crag makes them about 80, which means (!) 320 damage, which means more than 6 minotaurs a turn !
Just compare this to another much more appreciated skill, armorer.
A town averagely recruits 2200hp a week.
So for a multiplayer game, usually ending by week 4, you'll likely have around 6600hps in your army, taking into account average losses plus non-complete recruiting for first and maybe second week.
We can consider armorer as an equivalent for adding 15% hps to your army on a whole combat. Of course this equivalence is bad as armorer is much more interesting than that, but just to have an idea we can do it.
This means armorer is worth around 1000hp on week 4.
Then, artillery + ballista becomes more interesting after only 4 rounds of fight, which happens most of the time.
Ok armorer might be useful to get less losses against AI, but that's just to say artillery is not as bad as many people consider it.
And i didn't talk about sieges...
Kruel
Edit: revived!@
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Preserver
Promising
Famous Hero
Elemental Druid
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posted October 05, 2001 11:15 PM |
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In the beginning I considered the ballista as a worthless piece of toy, which didn't handle more than one or two damage. Playing Rampart, I never really found out the use of it. But then once an opponent of mine had a ballista dealing 300+ damage, and I realized the strength of this warmachine. Sometimes it's like having an extra creature in your army. But I still don't use it so much...
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- The only alert the invaders had was the rustling of leaves on a day without wind -
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DVZ
Known Hero
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posted October 06, 2001 03:45 AM |
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Artillery skill can be useful and ballista can be really powerful if your hero's a Ballista-specialty, otherwise it's really not worth learning. There's just not enough damage to justify a skill slot for it if your hero's not a ballista-specialty.
Not only the Ballista is an easy target for multi-hex attack it's also easily destroyed.
For weaker towns like Fortress or Inferno, ballista can be great early in the game. Also it's great for resource-poor map or when you play on Impossible. But otherwise, it's really not that great of a skill.
Armorer skill is a complete waste in SoD because you suffer double damage in castle siege due to a bug.
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StormWarning
Promising
Famous Hero
Archmage of Thunder
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posted October 06, 2001 04:11 PM |
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Quote:
Artillery skill can be useful and ballista can be really powerful if your hero's a Ballista-specialty, otherwise it's really not worth learning. There's just not enough damage to justify a skill slot for it if your hero's not a ballista-specialty.
Not only the Ballista is an easy target for multi-hex attack it's also easily destroyed.
For weaker towns like Fortress or Inferno, ballista can be great early in the game. Also it's great for resource-poor map or when you play on Impossible. But otherwise, it's really not that great of a skill.
Armorer skill is a complete waste in SoD because you suffer double damage in castle siege due to a bug.
Artillery is insane with Barbarians (dropping a Black Dragon a round is commonplace in the end of the game), specialty or no. But for magic heroes it's definitely not worth the skill because it does so little damage in the first place.
About the SoD bug, I've never encountered that. With SoD I haven't noticed a significant increase or decrease in damage during sieges. Is it a bug introduced in a later patch? That would explain it since I've never updated SoD.
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The calm before the storm is about to end.
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rychenroller
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted October 08, 2001 01:30 PM |
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Dont worry about Crag, Gurnisson is the man with a ballista. I like Pyre more though, Ballista special with Logistics thrown in.
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Myctteakyshd
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Zud
Promising
Famous Hero
box worshipper
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posted October 08, 2001 04:43 PM |
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Ballista, great against AI, but not against Humans
I like the Ballista skill (especially Gurnisson, the Attack skill of Barbarians makes It even stronger) and it is great in the early game, not only does It help kill, many creatures go to attack it instead of your precious troops. With that said, when it gets to final battles with human opponents, a good player is going to take your ballista out ASAP, so it doesnt help nearly as much. I'll target it and your troops with a meteor shower or something and there goes all that damage out the window and you havew wasted the skill slot. Another problem is when those dragons/behemoths/whatever Took it out when you were coming to attack me and hit them on the way, You can't waste the time to go get another and you cant carry a spare one around, so many times you have the skill and attack, but no ballista (At least it saved you some troops on the way tho) Another problem with the ballista (If you carry one and not the skill) Is the fun tactic of blinding your opponent and killing them off, the stupid ballista shoots your opponents blinded stack waking them up and your screwed.
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unkahaakon
Responsible
Famous Hero
happily tilting at windmills
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posted October 08, 2001 05:30 PM |
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An overlooked aspect of the Artillery skill is its use in defense in seiges. Being able to direct the fire of your arrow towers instead of relying on whatever choice the AI makes can be useful at times.
Having said that, I usually never bother hauling a ballista around with a hero unless said hero has a high attack value (knight or barbarian) AND the skill to use it when and where I want, not at the AI's whim. Ammo carts are just as good for drawing AI attacks, and a whole lot cheaper
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Some people say the glass is half full..Some people say it's half empty... I say "What're you asking me to drink?"
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Kruel
Adventuring Hero
Gropabo
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posted October 08, 2001 06:06 PM |
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wondering...
i was thinking of this again, and btw it's more likely that ballista profits of archery skill and not offense (which is for hand-to-hand damage normally).
In that case crag is not that useful, but any hero with archery skill gets 50% bonus which is the same, and archery appears quite often for a barbarian as well.
Anyone sure about which of the two skills benefits to ballista ?
Kruel
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Zud
Promising
Famous Hero
box worshipper
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posted October 08, 2001 06:18 PM |
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Both Actually
Offense (Skill and Power) and archery help, so with the artillery skill included, actually 3 skills help the ballista.
(I just wish it had about 1000 hit points too, 250 it dies easily)
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DVZ
Known Hero
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posted October 08, 2001 07:55 PM |
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Quote:
i was thinking of this again, and btw it's more likely that ballista profits of archery skill and not offense (which is for hand-to-hand damage normally).
In that case crag is not that useful, but any hero with archery skill gets 50% bonus which is the same, and archery appears quite often for a barbarian as well.
Anyone sure about which of the two skills benefits to ballista ?
Kruel
Archery will benefit the Ballista's shots but not Offense. Armorer is also applied to the Ballista's defense.
I like Archery skill more than Offense because it can be incredily useful in castle siege where shooters do pathetic damage. Titans look like loser compared to the Archmages in castle siege in term of damage.
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Zud
Promising
Famous Hero
box worshipper
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posted October 08, 2001 07:58 PM |
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Offense does help ballista
Test it sometime, It definitly increases damage by quite a bit
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DVZ
Known Hero
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posted October 09, 2001 12:20 AM |
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Quote:
Test it sometime, It definitly increases damage by quite a bit
No, Offense is only for HTH damage. Test it yourself if you don't believe me. It doesn't increase damage at all for the Ballista's shot. Archery does, however. Maybe because you're playing Barbarian with hight attack power and offense that the damage seems higher.
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thunderknight
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 09, 2001 04:17 AM |
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My view:
Artillery is an "average" skill to me. I would pick it if offered either artillery or eagle eye/myst/navi/...... 
The pros:
- good in early game (250 hp is very difficult to kill at that time)
- good if using barbarian or other high att skill heroes
(I find it very enjoyable to see my Yog with att 40+ with this skill in the SoD campaign "Birth of Barbarian"  )
- good "cannon fodder" for AI dragons
- very good during castle defense
- can be helped by 2 or 3 skills(sorry, I am too lazy to test it )
But it does have some cons
- not very useful in later game (250 hp is a joke at mid and end game stages)
- target for area effect attack including spells and dragon's breath
From the above pros and cons, you can see that there is some form of fallacy i.e. the ballister can survive in early battles but cannot benefit from high attack value of heroes while it will got destroyed easily in late game when its true damage potential has been developed.
So, I personally come up with the conclusion:
- pick it in small/medium map in which your heroes may not have all 8 skill slots filled so that later more useful skills come to you and you can't learn
- best be used in carry over heroes in campaign and so can use its full potential right from the beginning in later senarios
- for garrison heroes (I guess everybody knows it..... )
And artillery will be more desirable IF
- you can resurrect ballister
- you can have more than one ballister i.e. say you can recruit a new ballister once per week to the heroes so in late game you can have "a horde of" ballisters...
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Choose what you love
and love what you choose.
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Gimmickless
Promising
Known Hero
Cannon Maker
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posted November 01, 2001 11:21 PM |
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Bringing back to top...
Yep, it's at the top now.
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rogue
Promising
Famous Hero
Prosecutors Will Be Shoplifted
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posted November 02, 2001 04:14 AM |
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The problem with Artillery is that it's only useful for one creature that you can only have one of in your army. Seems pretty limited in that way.
I mean, at least archery can work for several of the creature stacks in your army and you can have as many creatures as you want in each stack.
But just one ballista.
Still, I find it useful at times.
Defending a castle, (especially a stronghold with the grail structure) makes the arrow towers much more useful if you can aim them.
It seems really useful in the early game, especially when fighting slow stacks like zombies or dwarves because it whittles away at them before they move into range.
I just hate when my ballista gets destroyed because it's like your skill suddenly becomes useless until you get another ballista.
I mean at least if you lose all your thunderbirds, your offense skill will still benefit the Hobgoblins and Wolf Raiders...
I usually take it with a barbarian kind of hero though. someone who's very strong on attack.
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Answers to Everything
http://help.paulinetown.com
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David_Ryan
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 02, 2001 05:19 PM |
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Hm... who told you it was a bad skill?!
Imagine a siege. Christian behind his ballista. What happens to the towers? They shoot the bad, bad Archangels, not the slimmy pikemen the enemy has. And they inflict more damage! Ballistics is not a bad skill for a might hero. I take it when I play Barbarians.
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rogue
Promising
Famous Hero
Prosecutors Will Be Shoplifted
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posted November 02, 2001 06:36 PM |
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You mean Artillery I think...
Ballistics is the one for the Catapult...
I think...
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Answers to Everything
http://help.paulinetown.com
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted December 27, 2004 10:47 AM |
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Revived.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Dingo
Responsible
Legendary Hero
God of Dark SPAM
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posted January 14, 2005 06:09 AM |
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The Ballista would be much more useful if you could use it in special buildings (crypt, Utopia, Stockpiles)
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The Above Post/Thread/Idea Is CopyRighted by, The Dingo Corp.
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted January 14, 2005 10:03 AM |
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What's also junk is that you can't use your Ballista when you're defending a castle. I'm not so sure about a town w/o a Fort, but what I'm sure of is that the attacker gets to use the Ballista anyway. How the ballista bolts get over the castle walls...that's another matter entirely.
-guitarguy
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