Disclaimer: I just started playing this game.
It seems like clubs are far more useful than spears.
From a pure attack point of view: it takes 30 points of defense before spears do more damage than armor (factoring the 33% decrease)
Spears are faster, however I have never seen initiative factor a huge role in battle unless it's something drastic, like an air elemental's 36
Clubs give you shields as an off-hand equip.
Impale requires you to position your spears correctly and for the enemy to be lined up, crushing blow you can just walk up and bonk someone on the head, and it's great when facing a big enemy that you can isolate and bonk repeatedly.
When looking further out: boar spear (atk 9) vs mace (atk 14) is even worse. There is no trade-off point, (it's actually -12.7) so clubs will always hit harder.
I haven't gotten far enough where I have played with swords and axes as much but both have lower damage output than clubs. Swords main thing is high initiative, but I don't see a point to boosting initiative unless it's a dramatic boost (like you getting 3 turns for every 2 of theirs). Axes, 2-handed. Cleave is kind of interesting when the rest of your army takes the "do extra damage to damaged enemies" boost.
Am I just completely off-base here? I'd like to be, but it seems that bashing weapons are the best go-to weapons. Can someone disabuse me of this notion?
OK, armchair analysis of the club versus spear's special abilities, based on the initial values comment.
Att 6*6=36. Double 72. Versus spearman Def 5 (0 armor + 5 att); Max damage 12
Att 5*5=25. Ignores some defense. Clubber def 6 (0 armor =6 att). 66% of 6 is 4, so 25/4 is about 6 damage.
Tripling the above values means around 36 max damage for the clubber, versus about 18 max damage for the spearman.
If the Spearman strikes first, good chance he will reduce the clubber by 1 figure, which still counters with 24 damage, enough to degrade the spearman by 2. Spearman might kill the clubber again, but will die if the clubber hits again. Assuming hits, of course.
Sure, the Spearman can impale as well, which can mean an attack at range or hitting two targets, but no matter how you cut it, at 72 clubber attack is just massive.
Since players can usually outsmart the AI a bit in tactical, arranging for the clubber to strike first is possible, as long as units are separated by more than 2-3 squares. A first strike by a clubber has a good chance of instakilling the spearman.
So, the question is, if it is overpowering, how to reduce the club?
Reducing attack strength to 5 is possible, but after the first round I think spear has a significant advantage at that point. Sure a double strength attack 10 max damage is significant (possible instakill), but the followup rounds have both weapons about equal.
Reducing the double damage by some amount is easier to tweak. Don't like 80%? Make it 85%. You get my point. Dialing in a number that isn't double is certainly something that can be arranged.
My favorite idea is to give spears shields, but wooden shields aren't usually available at the game start (must research them). This increases Spearman defense from 0 to 2, for a total of Def 7. This reduces max damage from 12 to 10, which increases the probability that the spearman will survive the first crushing blow attack.
Giving wooden shields to clubbers increases their defense as well. From 6 to 8, Spearman will still be looking at a 5-6 defense, so a 15 (25/5, *3) attack should still be enough to reduce the clubber by 1.
The spear could be adjusted slightly, by increasing penetration from 1/3 to 1/2 or something. a 50% penetration would reduce the clubber's effective defense from 4 to 3, (or from 8 to 4 if shields were available from the start), hence increasing spear damage to 8 max damage. 24 damage could just possibly mean an instakill although more likely a 2 figure redection is likely... I'd recommend this 'bonus penetration' be a special ability, though, with a cooldown.
Lots of options here, should a change be needed!
I'm with Sweaty... It doesn't seem that long ago that there was a post about how spears were OP'ed! Now clubs are OP'ed. Derek will nerf them. Thanks a lot OP! Idiot. Then axes will be OP'ed. Can't everybody just keep their fat lips shushed. By the way, I'm just kidding and hope no one is offended. If so, I'm deeply sorry.
Anyway, I'd like to see a new post started that requests that we restore spear's attack values and swords 100% counterattack. Then we can delete this post.
I would say that it is not the actual weapon that is overpowered it is the special ability that seems overpowered (x2 crushing blow, that is a powerful ability and cannot be ignored). I don't think it is that overpowered and there is a situation for both weapons throughout the game. If there were a nerf things, increase the production / training cost of the weapons or reduce that of the spears. Then you are paying for the "powerful" abilities.
I would like to see an increased armor penetration included with impale, to make it a good non-magic anti-armor weapon. I would also like to see an active ability added to the swords. All weapons appear to have a passive ability and an active ability except the sword, which only has a passive ability.
Of all the weapon abilities the one that I feel I must not ignore is the crushing blow, then I cannot ignore the counter strike that can be rather painful if you do ignore it. I'd be happy if the sword active ability is a defensive one, where you do less damage for increased number of counterstrikes. say do 75% damage for +2 more counterstrikes. Puts you into a decent position to fend off more foes at once.
This I wouldn't mind.
If I were to balance out the weapons to my tastes, I would start by switching the attack values of clubs and axes, since the clubs have the advantage of allowing the use of shields while axes don't, yet clubs have higher attack (and yes, I realize that I'd have to play around with the initiative bonuses a bit, too). Then I'd boost two-handed spears up to around the current value for axes, though I'd leave the one-handed spears from Defensive where they currently are, and bring counterattacks back up to full strength. Assuming, anyways, that I was going to balance the weapons mostly by messing with attack ratings.
I'd sooner say that spears and swords are slightly too weak than that clubs are too strong, personally. But whichever way floats your boat.
(And yes, I understand that what you wrote means that you'd agree more with "swords and spears are too weak" than with "clubs are too strong", so please don't complain about my reading comprehension.)
I think that as basic weapons for cheap damage melee troops, clubs are clearly superior to swords and spears, and slightly superior to axes, because they give the highest damage numbers and don't cost special resources. For more specialized purposes, though? Depends on what I want them to do - a defensive infantry line would probably get swords, but heavy infantry usually gets clubs or axes, and I like having some spears on the flanks if I haven't dedicated half of my army to archers. Plus, if I actually want to be able to maneuver my troops around, clubs are about the worst weapon I could pick, especially with how much closer the starting positions of FE:LH battles are when compared to those of FE battlefields.
Now that I figured out you can target a blank square with cleave, I have been having great success with axes and will use them more in the future. I went with axes because I hadn't researched the next level sword yet. Despite all the great evidence presented, clubs are my least favorite weapon with their low initiative.
While some will swear by one weapon type, others will disagree. Each weapon has something that makes it "fun."
This is what makes a great game.
If we can be arguing about it this long and there's no clear winner, then I'd suggest the balance is fine. I'll continue to use spears and clubs, spears for the higher initiative and impale ability, clubs for the damage, probably building twice as many spears as clubs before I can get metal shields, and after that I'll probably build about half of each.
I tend to stick to clubs and spears because I upgrade my early units which I've got to higher levels. I will train sword troops if I am playing one of the factions that get special swords (although you need to avoid troops with counterattack). I've yet to be convinced that axes are a good choice, except perhaps if you get special axes, but if you think axes are a good choice and like to include them in your army, good for you.
Would it work to allow shields with the underpowered spears and disallow them with the much-stronger blunts? It's much more consistent with how the weapons were historically employed.
It would make sense for spears to have shields, but it wouldn't make sense for maces and club to lose their own. two-handed weapons were more often swords an axes.
The weapon mechanics in LH are laughable. Its like they rolled a dice to see where to put abilities.
Personally I can't tolerate the notion of a spear being an armor piercing weapon. Its got a clear history of being very much not armor piercing. Also, two handed weapons have no advantage to compensate the loss of shields. Any argument on the spears behalf would have to be made assuming your krax. Axes are useless. I made a post in the LH modding section though I didn't nerf club damage enough there...
Spears get range two, are one handed, get +2,4,6 damage, and lose armor piercing. Pikes have range 3 and are two handed for everyone but krax. (other krax spears are better quality)
Clubs do -3,6,9 damage, get 33% armor piercing, get -1 init.
Axes get +2,4,6 damage, get 20% armor piercing, -1 init
Swords get +1 init.
The idea is to make it harder to overcome the init differences on weapons, and give the weapons some realism. Still working on the balance though.
I agree the two handed spear is more like a pike, but the mechanics don't really attempt realism. Regularly "impaling" two units with the same attack is frankly bizarre. However the game designers have been aiming at tactical options and fun (not realism), and I think they've largely achieved their goals.
Question, for what you want to use your weapon... on cheap units, clubs are weapon of choice. They should do damage as fast as possible, because next round they can be death.
On dodge assasine hero, i like swords with starts like, +2 counterattack, +100% crit damage. They get there -armor over the tree ... and shild.
Blunt weapons were usually 1 handed. They had wide swinging arcs and left the user vulnerable after an attack, so a shield helped keep him protected. Two handed hammers were limited to swiss-style polearm formations, or for extremely strong and well-armored knights who could shrug off counter attacks with their armor alone. Maces, hammers and axes were the preferred anti-armor weapons of the era, not spears.
Spears were used commonly both 1 and 2 handed, however, so if any weapon is going to be two-handed it would be them, but as someone already said they should have a reach advantage or something aside from the invulnerable to counter-attack (yay).
So far giving spears range two, no armor piercing, and a damage buff has worked well. They even continue to benefit from swarm. Good times to be had when you web, but the damage is a bit weak. The modded pike does 20 damage without armor piercing. I think that should turn the tide.
Maces were changed to have the same damage as swords with a big init penalty and armor piercing. So far it seems to do the trick. I'm no longer 1 hitting all the time with its special ability, but the damage is very dependable. Great militia weapon, and dependable if you fall behind in the tech race.
I'm not trying to change a fantasy game into a realistic game, but the mechanics were too goofy, their were too few differences between weapons, and frankly I don't see fun tactical options built into the weapons either. I find it more fun for weapons to feel different and have different tactical uses.
I wish I could think of a way to give spears a bonus against certain creatures in a balanced manner. At the least a boar spear should have a bonus vs beasts.
Anyway to stay on topic. I like swords over maces in vanilla mechanics. quick plus finesse equals a fast death. Your getting bonus attacks from the init, and the +3 attack is multiplied by the members of the unit, so its at least 9 more damage. Cheaper units favor maces since they aren't likely to live past the first attack if the opponent lives.
Also, if you want to give your spears range 2 yourself its pretty easy. Copy the /date/english/coreweapons.xml, CTRL-F and search for spear, and add <TacticalRange>2</TacticalRange> to the spear right below rarity level. paste the file into documents/My games/legendary heros/data. There's like 50 spears so its a little tedious though. Its off topic but I thought maybe some of you might be interested.
@sophontteks Not off-topic, IMHO
the fact is that practically every change discussed in this thread can be implemented with a few tweaks of the core xml files (aka, modding). Right before the last update, I'd changed crushing blow to have a casting time of 1 (to simulate the windup for the strike). So you still get the burst damage but you have to expose yourself to an attack. It seemed to work, but I didn't really test it much because the update came out.
Clubs are not much use if they don't attack and that's what happens due to their low initiative. They just stand there waiting to be clobbered by a high initiative opponent with a sword.
Spears not only attack first but can attack 2 units using Impale. You usually need Rush to make that happen.
Actually if you consider all the variables, they are fairly well balanced.
The initiative advantage doesn't make up for the damage loss compared to clubs. If you lined up 4 spear units vs 4 club units, sure 3-4 spear units would get the jump and knock off one of the club units before they could retaliate, but then the 3 remaining club units would crushing blow 3 of the spear units and by the time the spear unit went again they'd be at around 1/3 strength and have lost the fight. They're not balanced at all. It's also bad with swords.
In terms of realism, I sort of understand where they were going with making spears armor piercing. Sure, it doesn't make sense that spears would be effective at penetrating plate (that was what hammers and axes were for), but it also wouldn't really make a ton of sense for the historically armor-piercing hammers be the go-to weapon for fighting thick hided demons or dragons either. Spears, on the other hand, would be ideal for these circumstances, and were highly effective against hide, leather, chain and scale armor historically as well. There's a reason that swords in Europe have almost always been straight and pointed weapons rather than curved like most other places in the world. Slicing weapons just aren't effective against metal armor. Being able to focus a blow to a single point however, like a spear or a longsword could, allowed you to punch through a lot of armor.
It would make a lot more sense to me to spears to just get armor piercing bonuses for attacking beasts, trolls, ogres, dragons etc, and then for clubs to be for elementals and armored soldiers.
I don't buy it. Crushing blow really screws you if you miss, and it doesn't get the swarm bonus in accuracy.
Blunts have very significant initiative penalties. In a more combined-arms scenario, blunt weapon init penalty lets ranged units soften them up, in addition to spears getting first attack. That's a significant disadvantage. Crushing blow lets the damaged group hit hard,by by their next turn they are dead. I'd feel much more comfortable facing the unknown with spears than blunts.
But on the other hand, no one mentioned that blunts do not require metal, another advantage for them.
Miss % doesn't change the debate much at all. Sure, missing a Crushing Blow sucks, but it doesn't happen often so the accuracy bonus from a swarm of spears doesn't make up for much.
Also, people vastly overstate the initiative advantage of spears. Being able to move and attack first is nice, but when it's for crappy damage it doesn't matter that much. In a combined arms scenario, where an archer and club unit face off against a spear and archer unit, the club side wins out easily. Spears don't have shields and the spear unit will die to ranged attack faster, forcing them to make the first move and break out of defensive stance earlier and open themselves up to an ideal Crushing Blow.
Personally if I was going to face a dragon, or an ogre I would much rather have a polearm. Not even a pike would satisfy. Maybe a halberd or a guisarme so that I could try to keep the thing back and control the battle.
In the debate of spears vs maces. Because the spear doesn't grant you a shield, your gonna lose. Shields are very effective in the game, and spears have no advantage that compensates for this loss. The only real debate is maces vs swords.
I agree with ya skystone, but I think spears were the go to weapon because they were cheap, provided reach advantage, and gave you a chance against a mounted soldier. They were quite rubbish against boiled leather and chainmail. People often underestimate how strong leather was. check out this link for more information http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=1510
Slashing swords were no good against armor, but short swords were better against armor then spears simply because you could shove your sword into any weakpoint into the armor. A task much more difficult to do with a spear. Your are right about spears focusing on a point. I just think most armor, even leather, were designed to reflect blows away rather then absorb the full impact. Of course most evidense is lost to history so its anyone's guess.
There is no greater example of a spears inability to pierce armor then the greek-persian war. in the Battle of Plataea 10,000 spartans, 1500 tegeans, and 35,000 helots (slaves who supported the spartan army) defeated 120,000-250,000 persians. While that alone is amazing. The real surprise is the death toll. 43,000 persians survived, while the greeks only lost 200-1500 men. (counts are an estimate between historic sources). There were actually around 100,000 greeks in the battle, but they had a logistical problem and ultimately only the spartans and tegeans fought the persians.
That battle will most likely be showcased in the upcoming 300 sequel at the end of the movie.
In my current game, my champion with a 15-attack-mace is the last one to move. By that time the battlefield is cluttered and he cannot get into position to attack. Nothing can compare with the swords obtainable from elementals in the wildlands or from the arena (Heartseeker).
Piercing weapons like spears (or arrow or sword points) were highly effective vs leather and chain armor. With proper leverage, focusing a blow (or your opponents momentum) into the point of a spear caused more than enough force to split the links of the chainmail apart and go right through. Certain versions of scale or heavy chain were developed to more effectively deal with this, but generally speaking chain/scale provided only partial protection against them.
As far as evidence goes, Plataea doesn't really prove anything in terms of the effectiveness of armor. Phalanx shock tactics, perfected by the Greeks, routed the Persian army. Aside from a metal helm and greaves, they wore a little bit of protection on their torsos (usually tightly woven linen or leather) and relied on their shields to protect them. The linen armor they wore was surprisingly effective against the weak bows being used at the time and offered some protection, but it wasn't going to do much against a spear thrust into the stomach.
Does magic damage also get reduced on counterattack?
There is a damage multiplier in the UnitStats that is the multiplier to the damage. So I suspect that it is a flat multiplication to all damage.
Curgen's hammer from the Master Quest, paired with Rabisu's Horn (from the quest DLC).
Extremely high damage damage weapon, with Overpower (so it basically kills trained units extremely quickly), with Bash (so that it knocks down champions)... and with Maul from the horn. It's kind of ridiculous. Oh, and Crushing Blow is an option, although it's kind of pointless when you have Maul.
When you have decent accuracy buffs from a commander, you can expect to score enough consecutive hits to pretty reliably kill a dragon from full health in one action even if you don't take it further and add, say, Delin's +12 fire attack drop. Elemental lords have some chance to survive if you haven't first debuffed them with Curse, Break or the like.
Individual weapon initiative matters a lot less when you can have a commander with high initiative ordering the slow unit to act immediately, or accelerating things with Battle Cry, or when you have a fast mage who can cast a many-air-shard haste.
Spears at the time were bronze, and the greeks had bronze chestplates. More then capable of deflecting a bronze spear even at full thrust. The battle of platea consisted of 10,000 spartan tanks in full armor. While it looks good in a movie to have all the greeks shirtless its by far the least accurate part of the film.
Greek citizens were the minority in greece, and they fought all the time. So armor was a very big deal to them. They could skirmish against other greek city-states without fear of losing all of their citizens in one battle.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Hoplite_armour_exhibit_at_the_Corfu_Museum_closeup.jpg
The helots wore the linin and leather, but they were insignificant in the sway of the battle despite their numbers over the citizen soldiers.
I should have mentioned. I wasn't really considering a two-handed spear at all. Just a one-handed spear. That's probably a big difference in effectiveness. Talking about two-handed spears. With glaives, halberds and pikes. Its a whole different story for sure.
Its amazing how effective shields are. You are right that they were a big factor for the greeks too.
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