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| Thread: Why you should use stone skin instead of shield | |
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Vampire_Rush
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 12:50 AM |
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Why you should use stone skin instead of shield
Everyone seems to say shield is the spell for reducing damage in earth magic. Im not saying expert shield is bad, but sometimes expert stone skin is better. Now if we look at mathematics shield gives 30% reduction while stone skin gives 6 defense. If attack-defense=6 this is the same rate since 1 reduced attack above defense=5% decreased damage. Also, if someone has 20-23 less attack than you have defense, stone skill will be equal or even the better choice to reduce hand-to-hand damage by some percent!
If we are somewhere near these numbers overall and there are archers present stone skin should be considered. Alas, expert stone skin will boost expert frenzy with 24 more attack points!
Of course these are somewhat rare cases, but when you get there..
While putting forth my arguments I realize how worthless they are. Stone skin specialist=Eagle eye specialist with learning. Mass shield ftw...
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fred79
Disgraceful
Undefeatable Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 04:36 AM |
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not sure about that. stone skin has consistently shown to reduce damage in the troops i use; moreso that using shield.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted March 21, 2015 10:01 AM |
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Shield reduces hand-to-hand damages while Stone skin boosts defense.
It depends on the situation which to use is better, IMO.
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Vampire_Rush
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 10:04 AM |
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Just look at the formula:
Case 1 Attack-Defense greater than 6, 1.xx is damage multiplier
Shield: 0.7*1.xx
Stone skin: 1.xx-0.3
For example if enemy have 10 more attack than your defense 1.5*dmg will be dealt with no spells. Stone skin will reduce this to 1.2*dmg while shield will reduce this to 1.05*dmg. This rate is rapidly increasing with more attack, which is especially important when battling lvl 7 creatures with low stats creatures.
Case 2 Defense-Attack less than 0, 0.xx is damage multiplier
Shield: 0.7*0.xx
Stone skin: 0.xx-0.15 if
Examples
If you have same defense as enemy attack stone skin will reduce this to 0.85 dmg while shield gets double the amount of decreased dmg, 0.7.
If you have 10 more defense than opponent 0.75*dmg will be dealt with no spells, with shield 0.525 damage will be dealt while stone skin reduces only to 0.6 damage
Only reason to use stone skin is if you are facing an army of archers you can't block and you dont have air shield or forgetfullness
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kicferk
Known Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 10:40 AM |
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There are many intermediate cases, like when you can't cast forgetfulness or air shield(or you don't have them), but in general, you can always cast stone skin after shield.
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Vampire_Rush
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 10:56 AM |
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kicferk said:
but in general, you can always cast stone skin after shield.
off-topic 
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted March 21, 2015 11:01 AM |
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Vampire_Rush said:
off-topic
Not so much.
Quote:
Stone skin is often compared to shield, which has similar effects. They both reduce the amount of damage creature stacks receives. The main difference between these two spells are, that stone skin also works against ranged creatures while shield only reduces hand-to-hand damage. A rule of thumb wheter to use shield or stone skin in hand-to-hand combat is, that if enemy's attack skill is greater than your defense skill, use stone skin. Of course, with both spells active, your troops will receive considerably less damage.
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Vampire_Rush
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 01:50 PM |
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Galaad said:
Not so much.
Yes it is look at topic title
Galaad said:
Quote:
Stone skin is often compared to shield, which has similar effects. They both reduce the amount of damage creature stacks receives. The main difference between these two spells are, that stone skin also works against ranged creatures while shield only reduces hand-to-hand damage. A rule of thumb wheter to use shield or stone skin in hand-to-hand combat is, that if enemy's attack skill is greater than your defense skill, use stone skin. Of course, with both spells active, your troops will receive considerably less damage.
This is really not true. just look at my example at 10 more attack than defense and you see that shield effect is always greater than stone skin effect (with equality only if attacker has 6 more attack than your defense)
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kicferk
Known Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 04:52 PM |
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Edited by kicferk at 16:54, 21 Mar 2015.
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I'm so glad you ignored the entire part of my post that was on-topic. I will restate it then.
In a perfect world we can use all the spells and our opponents have none of the immunities. We also have all magic schools on expert and tons of mana. In this perfect world stone skin is not likely to be used before shield, because of things you pointed out.
But since our world is not perfect we don't have those as often as we would like. We can get an opponent half of whose army are ranged creatures, perhaps even with bow of sharpshooter. We can get him on cursed ground, or when every drop of our mana is important. In such case I would probably use stone skin instead of shield.
Or we can get an opponent with mainly ranged units, and our hero has neither water nor air magic, but he has earth. Stone skin all the way.
There is a possible scenario to use any spell as a priority one. The fact that some spells have such situations less often speaks about their usefulness. Shield is for this reason better spell altogether, but that does not make stone skin useless, nor does it make shield the best in every case...
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Vampire_Rush
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 07:11 PM |
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In a perfect world we can get relevant replies in this topic which is also not the case
I think everyone can imagine that stone skin can be used for benefit, however, 99% of the time, shield seems better when there is reason to consider it, so thumbs rule seems to be to choose shield 
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husham123
Famous Hero
Yes
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posted March 21, 2015 09:30 PM |
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Sure,sure (sahrcasm)
I don't think so...
Both shield and Stone skin are good,and i DON'T CARE.
In the case,even if we might use magic,i am looking more for troops.
And sure,maybe the stone skin is better but both spells are for protection,and one consume much more than the other
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kicferk
Known Hero
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posted March 21, 2015 11:17 PM |
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Lol, you started topic with a question bashing a good spell and yet you are surprised that people go beyond your narrow situation(1 spell only) to defend it?
Rule of thumb is: think before casting spells. If your enemy can only reach you in 2 turns, and you have like 2-3 spellpower with, say, 10 mana, then you want to cast stone skin round 1 and shield round 2, so that shield will end later. Situation that does not seem to be too difficult to imagine...
Besides, saying "inferno rocks because demons are OP" in this thread would be irrelevant. Saying you can use both can be (with a lot of will to do so) interpreted as being irrelevant. But I don't see how my previous answer is irrelevant. It just points out that you completely missed huge range of possibilities, such as hero skills, mana available, battle circumstances. If you don't like this answer, well, then you should have stated the situation more precisely
Cheers
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted March 22, 2015 12:16 AM |
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hello,
I didn't read last 2 posts, pardon me. But what omg with archers stone skin. shield is useless. and if you say 99% whatever, depend if you play with human. if you play 99% with computer then 99% shield you're right. It's only when humans are around you need to come up with different strategies
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Vampire_Rush
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 24, 2015 11:31 AM |
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kicferk said:
Lol, you started topic with a question bashing a good spell and yet you are surprised that people go beyond your narrow situation(1 spell only) to defend it?
Rule of thumb is: think before casting spells. If your enemy can only reach you in 2 turns, and you have like 2-3 spellpower with, say, 10 mana, then you want to cast stone skin round 1 and shield round 2, so that shield will end later. Situation that does not seem to be too difficult to imagine...
Besides, saying "inferno rocks because demons are OP" in this thread would be irrelevant. Saying you can use both can be (with a lot of will to do so) interpreted as being irrelevant. But I don't see how my previous answer is irrelevant. It just points out that you completely missed huge range of possibilities, such as hero skills, mana available, battle circumstances. If you don't like this answer, well, then you should have stated the situation more precisely
Cheers
The topic title says why you should cast stone skin instead of shield, and I suppose that is what is on-topic.
Of course this discussion won't be fun if you don't have a sense of humour
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