Hey. Enjoying this game a good bit so far, but there are some pretty significant balance factors that annoy me. The top 5 on my list are: how it's practically impossible to get a decently leveled hero if you ever use more than 1 in a stack, the extreme disparity between damage spell mana cost and usefulness, the Arcane Monolith spell, the way Defense and spells like Heart of Fire work, and lastly, spears. Fortunately, most of those things can be modded, but I feel that the spear thing in particular merits some thought.
Almost every post I have seen on the matter says unilaterally that spears are the best weapons. I agree, for several reasons, and I would go so far as to say the rest aren't even in the same ballpark. Most obvious is the armor penetration, which is quite strong alone. Then, there is the Impale ability, which seems silly, misplaced, and poorly conceived to me - I can make sense out of Cleave, but literally spearing straight through an entire army into a second one behind is a bit hard to believe. Add to those the fact that spear base damage is relatively high, and the fact that spears are the 2nd-highest initiative weapon, with only swords being higher, and there is a pretty obvious disparity.
Personally, I never use anything but spears anymore, unless I have to; I either rush Enchanting for the ice spear if I have decent crystal or blacksmithing for the boar spear if I don't, and, with a few staff-mage units, that's my army for the most of the game. I've gotten rather bored of this, frankly, since it's pretty much the same for every faction I play - almost all the faction weapons are meaningless to me. Heck, I don't even build archers with Tarth. The only weakness spears seem to have is that they are 2-handed, but even so, the Defensive trait (described by someone else on this forum as the best in the game) lets you onehand them, so.. so much for that.
So, it would seem clear that something should be done. What exactly is another question; I have a few suggestions, of course (why make a thread like this otherwise!) but I just hope that something is done one way or the other, to make weapon choices feel a bit more impactful on how the game plays. Axes and hammers both have their interesting points, but the lack of armor pen and the initiative penalties make them rather undesirable, and, frankly, swords are just boring.
Anyways, my suggestions for possible changes - the first 3 sort of go together, so I'm grouping them apart:
-Remove the current Impale from spears, rename it Piercing Blow or something, and make it a champion ability in the Assassin tree, leading off max-level Precise Strike. Or wherever else it may fit - Defender, Warrior, artifact ability, whatever... no point wasting a coded ability!
-Severely nerf the base armor pen on spears, starting from 20% for low tech and maxing at somewhere around 30-35% for high level spears. Add an initiative penalty.
-Make a new Impale ability, that doubles the armor pen on the spear for an attack and possibly adds a bit of damage based on tech level. 2-5 turn cooldown. This would make a heck of a lot more sense than spearing straight through (non-fatally, I might add) two crowds of people.
In my mind, those 3 changes would bring spears more inline with other weapons, fit the archetype better, and feel better overall. Possibly add some sort of Set Spears ability to increase damage/defense vs mounted units.. and hooray!
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Other possibilites if the above isn't appealing (most of these would be easy to mod in manually, but hey):
-switch Axes and Spears in the initiative-tree: spears/pikes are big weapons, and should be slower, really. A straight penalty to spears would work as well as a switch.
-Lower base damage to compensate for armor pen - currently, spear damage is barely below other weapons, and ends up much higher thanks to the armor pen... plus the other benefits.
-As has been suggested before, add a bonus vs cavalry to counter mount spam. This is an interesting idea, but spears are already the best weapons in the game, so making them a must for fighting horsemen would be counterproductive imo
-Add new traits (or mod some of the current useless ones) to add damage bonuses when using certain classes of weapons, to encourage using other types. Or, change certain races to get small bonuses with certain weapon archtypes - ie. Men could get a small bonus from swords, Gilden-folk from hammers, and so on. This is something I feel should be done regardless of how devs view the current weapon balance, but again, hopefully it can be modded.
-consider adding more initiate and a bit of armor pen to daggers
Well, that's all I got.. Feel free to rage at me, give other suggestions, or whatever!
I actually like spears mechanically. Spears are too strong, but a simple reduction to attack would deal with that.
Of course, there is a second problem with spears- they're more available technologically, such that I generally end up being forced to use spear men whether I want to or not.
When you start, you only have three weapon choices. Except, you can't build shields, so the mace isn't viable. War Colleges and Blacksmithing are both highly desire-able, and give updated spears, making the technologies that you're likely to pause on and run off to magic or civ, leave you with a spear. These both also give swords, but swords are currently too weak, or perhaps just, only useful to a select few units.
I would give swords the ability to counter special abilities.
I would move the command post from blacksmithing to weaponsmithing, and move rations from craftsmanship to siege weapons, first aid from war colleges to craftsmanship and +1 army size from siege weapons to warg riding. I would add a sword or dagger to enchantment.
They just nerfed the later spears by a point. I love the Impale mechanic personally, hate to see it go. Maybe nerf them another point but I don't know. Sword's counter attack is still really good and best for any kind of tank/defender.
1 point doesn't mean much. The later spears should be 2-3 behind, imo. At least.
You forgot one of the advantages of spears... immunity to counter. Not overpowering in of it self, but added to everything else... ya spears are just too good. But please don't nerf spears to the point of pointlessness.
I have relatively limited experience with FE:LH (brought it very recently and played it something like 7-8 hours) but I like the spears special - impale - like a tactical mechanic (this is a game - not a simulation so for combat abilities IMHO it is best to be fun and interesting - and balanced within a tactical combat system). Maybe the ignore % of enemy defense should be lowered to 20-30% or maybe go out completely to mace-weapons class and instead spear-class to have anti-cavalry/anti-charge ability - activated ability with cooldown of 3 or 4 (or something similar) "set to the ground" or "receive charge", which give the unit "first strike" ability (so even when attacked unit strikes first its attacker) combined with 50% more damage to cavalry-attackers. This ability should remnain active until the unit moves to other tactical square.
And definitely sword-class weapons need some interesting activated ability of their own - something like "parry" or "reposte" - activated ability (with cooldown 3) - if it is attacked when this ability is activated (it remain active until next turn of the unit) the attackers attack is halved and attack of the sword-unit is increased with that amount (so counterattack is at 100% of sword-unit attack + 50% of its attackers attack).
To help the usability of swords it will be good to have another activated ability or even abilities like "trust" - 75% armor-piercing for one attack, with cooldown of 5 and only for tho-handed swords - "round strike" - unit strikes all 8 squares for 50% of its attack (or 5 or 6 squares in an arc) and strikes all who sthads there - friend or foe. Activated with great cooldown (maybe 5 or even 6).
I don't think spears are as good as you make them out to be.
Sure you can get a victory using only mages and spears, same as I can only using archers and maces or axes or swords. That does not prove one is better than the other.
I always try to mix as much as I can, having some Axe's for cleavage, some Mace / Hammers for blunt dmg (great vs golems / skeletons), etc. I can't imagine going with spears against skeletons. Painful!
Regarding mages they are fine, but don't underestimate archers / xbows. What do you do if you have to fight fire immune monsters and your mages have fire staves? Or ice / lightning etc.
You don't need all your troops to ignore defense, when you can cast spells that do that for you, or use skills from your sovereign / champions to acomplish same.
Immunity to counter is nice, but counterattacks are not the real killer in a fight. Staves need some love that's for sure, makes no sense to go in melee range as a spell caster to deal pathetic damage, when you should be in the back row doing stuff
spears were just nerfed a bit, so obviously the devs already noticed that they are a bit too strong compared to the other items.
i think the direction they are going with swords is "tank weapon". i mean, they just upped the defense trait from 5 to 10, so if you use defender units, you don't want to attack with them (i use them to soak the initial attack and get the enemy units out of their defense stance, otherwise my damage units (axes/spears with damage traits) deal way too little damage to kill them off without fear of retaliation)
so i think the ironeer special attack (can attack at 50% strength, and puts the attack in def stance) would be just perfect as a special move for swords. give the ironeers something else instead (probably something related to blunt weapons - like a weaker crushing blow that doesn't daze the attacker or something)
I think spears and especially the impale ability are very good, but spears should double the swarm bonus instead of reducing the defense, because it is easier to attack with many spears at the same time.
That is a great idea.
Spears are the best weapon, period. But axes and maces definitely have use now.
I don't think impale should go. Right now, the biggest problem with spears, to me, is that you get the boar spear at blacksmithing, before battle axes and maces. Boar spears are so good, why spend the time on an extra tech when spears will do well against everything?
If Battle axes and maces came with blacksmithing (or if boar spears came later), I might choose axes/maces over boar spears. But as it is now, I get to blacksmithing, then jump back into civilization technology. Trained units in 5-6 formation size with boar spears can win the game.
how about changing armor penetration from a percentage to a fixed value?
right now, armor piercing spears break the combat system. with other weapon types, it's not necessarily a good idea to have the first strike, since the enemy is still in def stance and takes a lot less damage, and you expose yourself by attacking, allowing them to hit you hard. spears don't have that problem because they ignore half of the defense value anyway, so a high powered spear unit (horse+boar spear+finesse) can still roflpwn defending armies.
changing the value from a percentage to a fixed number could reduce that problem significantly. say basic spears have 3 armor penetration, boar spears 5 and pikes 8 (or whatever). that value means that the damage calculation reduces that value from the defenders armor, i.e. you attack some weakly armored unit (5 defense) and your spear deals damage as if the armor value was actually 2 (since the spear has 3 "armor penetration"). if the defending unit is actually in defense stance (i.e. you have the first strike), you still only ignore 3 points of defense instead, leaving them with 7.
imo, that would solve the issue. spear would still have their armor penetration flavor, but you get rid of the silly situation where a 60 defense defender hero or a 40 defense obisidian golem gets stomped by a stack ok pikemen.
The part of Spears that bothers me the most is the Immune to Counter factor. Spear-wielders are the only late-game units which duly threaten a high-level Warrior champion. Anything else will get countered for its trouble - up to 3 times, depending on the warrior's weapon choice. Spears completely negate this (making an otherwise powerful Warrior trait worthless, might I note), AND have high AP and damage. Add in the Defensive trait so you can wield lightning pikes and tower shields, and you're just not surviving against that without getting AoE spells involved.
I don't mind the Spear Piercing attack, but you shouldn't be able to attack through your unit to the one behind it.
Spears? Easy to counter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV1fLwbVGZQ
Um....broken.
Was watching Mancers Ridiculous Let's Play, and he used the Impale ability from the spear on an empty tile to REACH the unit a tile farther.
20:36 on the second vid.
Impale should require the first tile to be filled with a unit.
That's the only use that makes logical sense to me- spears have long reach, right?
That said,don't think the AI knows how to do it, so players have an advantage (especially mancer players with that +1 move)
That's a great point. I would definately like to see those positions switched.
Mages will ALWAYS outdamage archers, by a huge margin, if the enemy has any defense whatsoever. They are clearly better in almost any situation. The only downside is they take crystal to build. IMO, the only way to really balance them would be to limit mage group size to 3 (are they that common that you can just spew them out like foot soldiers?) and make higher group sizes for them a racial trait for the likes of Pariden and Resoln - to both nerf the mages and add a bit of differentiation, which this game sorely needs. It would also be nice if the AI actually used them.
There are several points in regards to the case you mentioned. For one thing, mages still do damage vs creatures that should be immune to their attacks. This might be a bug, or a strange interaction from Heart of Fire, or something else, but it happens. Also, if I decide I'm going for the fire boss, and all I have is fire mages, I just spend 2 turns building a mage with an ice staff in my mega fortress... but that's more for the extra damage from vulnerability (and let's face it, staff mages make every single one of the "boss" enemies a joke) than because of immunity, and it's hardly a big deal. The AI never bothers with resist gear or enchants, and everything else that might be a problem, you can see coming from way off.
No idea what you mean there, as, in 60 hours of beta playtime, I've never had any trouble killing skeletons with spears
All of that is a great arguement for why Defense is pretty meaningless in this game, a situation which isn't helped by spears negating it from the get-go. You should have added "you can just build mages" to the list
I think it is great that there is a counter to counterattacks, but the damage of counterattacks should be 75 %, because the damage was reduced to 50 % during a time where the other weapons had no special abilities.
You can win the game with any type of unit / weapon / armor you like, you can't really say spears are better than axes or hammers or swords. You need to look at the big picture and all the spells / abilities at your disposal not just spear 1 square extra range with impale or 50% armor ignore.
I love to summon an air lord to knock down groups of enemies then rush in with my axes and chop chop cleave em all with no fear of retaliation.
Human players are too good. Please nerf or remove them.
^What all the cries for nerfing boil down to, in my mind.
Regarding skeletons: if you get the event early in game that spawns skeletons in your kingdom / empire, my spearmen deal 1-3x3 damage to skeletons, while milita with clubs does full damage (not bash, their normal attack).
Mages are fine, they are expensive range units with low hp and light armor, which will easy die to archers or melee units with spell resist. Playing as Pariden I discovered a unit named Mage Killer, which was a 1h + shield pedestral unit with traits and magic equipment to buff their spell resists. Also mages damage is affected by enemy resists. Going with top upgraded mages both fire and ice (not lightning) against the boss of the swamp, my ice mages were dealing full damage (with bonus since he was weak to cold), while fire mages were doing 1-5 damage (speaking about company of mages, groups of 5) - as a full group, not as single mage. With damage spells (including mages ranged attacks) you never get full resist, a resist or enemy resistance just diminishes the damage (for example 50% fire resist will reduce fire damage by 50%).
In my last game 2 AI's were using mages (even mounted ones, but on horses not on wargs for some reason, despite they had access to both resources). As well as mounted archery.
Defense is not meaningless at all, not sure why you think that. It adds a lot to survival of troops / heroes, same as resists of all sorts.
And lastly, all magic branch units are supposed to be more powerful than their pure military counterparts due to all the magic empowered equipment Now take a unit type from warfare tree and start adding enchanted gear and they will at least double up in effectiveness.
Your spearmen are likely attacking while the skeletons are in defensive stance. The militia have probably struck after skeletons have left defensive stance, and have lower defense.
defense is basically the most important statistic in the tactical game. however, you can cheese the system when you turtle long enough to get tons of crystals for mage units, or abuse the overpowered armor piercing attribute of boar spears/pikes. that armor penetration problem has to be fixed, that's for sure. it bypasses the whole tactical element by letting you roflstomp defending units without using tactics or maneuvering to outplay the other force. the tactical game will be much more interesting with armor piercing removed or reduced to a fixed number.
don't care about the turtle strategy of collecting tons of crystal for mage troops or melee units stacked with fire+frost trinkets. if people want to play like that, it's their game. not my idea of fun, though.
No the skellies weren't defending, it was an attack with a full health pikes group after the skeletons attacked them and missed. Then same thing with the group of militia (they were on different sides of the battlefield so each draws some attention and don't get swarmed).
I don't think the 50% armor pen is overpowered. Yes is extra damage, but is not full damage. Is at best 50% of the damage you would have normally dealt. There are spells and abilities that completely remove enemy defenses.
Mages are fine. They deal crappy dmg against targets immune or resistant to their element, and are very weak hp, defense, dodge wise. You can't make only mage groups, you will get stomped really hard and fast. Once in mid game their damage isn't enough (they are not high damage dealers no matter how much you pimp them out with trinkets, the ranged staves have poorest dmg in all arsenal) to 1 shot hit things. Yes they are good expensive ranged units, but archers will outdamage them on debuffed targets (which you should always have in your party once in mid game, either as a skill or spell).
@Azunai_ Am not sure I understand how pikes remove tactical aspect of the game? They only counter the counterattack from swords, and that's about it. The armor ignore is there to make their overall damage on par with that of axes and maces. Impale really fades compared to cleave and Bash. I'd be more scared to see 3-4 mounted double axe enchanted units charging my lines with 90+ atk cleaving everything to pieces than 3-4 mounted pikes doing some damage here and there due to unit positions. Is easier to get enemies stacked for a cleave than for impales (everyone loves to swarm for the bonus). And bash delivers most 1 hit KO with no counterattack and does better dmg on units in defense than what a pike will do with 50% dmg ignore. I've seen plenty of 100-180 bashes going off, have yet to see a pike reaching those numbers.
the point is, defense is key in this game. the counter immunity is irrelevant really. those axe units deal no damage at all when your guys are in defense stance (assuming the equipment of your units isn't much lower then theirs). after that initial rush, they are dead meat, because now they are exposed (no defense stance) and take full damage from your attacks. pikes will kill your defenders. if both sides play full offense units, it's just a matter of who has the higher initiative. the other side won't survive the alpha strike anyway (or is so crippled by it that they can't fight back). if you have a sensible setup, though (high init defender units that shrug off their initial assault and expose them, combined with some high powered assault units hidden behind the defenders ZOC that strike hard after the other side lost their defense bonus), pikes are far more dangerous than axes.
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