Heroes and abilities

[Arnuz]

We're missing the larger picture. Changing the resistance modifier won't change the big problem.

Drain and syphon life work because they're the only source of damage. With melee, however, the way the system works is that there's the melee damage, and THEN a lifesteal mechanic on-top. As a result, it basically works only with low resistance, high defence targets, which doesn't really happen that often. Even if we change the resistance modifier, this isn't going to change: high resistance will give little life and become undead very rarely.

On top of that, the same mechanic is used to recover hit-points and to create undead. Why?

For me, creating undead is not really meaningful - no one expects the knights to create a lot of undead, and even wraiths come too late for it to matter that much now that ghouls are in the game. So, I would completely detach this ability from undead creation, and rather than work like life drain, work on a basis of the damage done. Example: life-stealing +1 = 10% of the damage done becomes hit points, life-steal+2 = 20%, and so on. (numbers can be changed ofc)

This doesn't sound complicated, but as usual I don't have any insight on the coding part.

[Nelphine]

Except any percentage based on damage based thing will allow the hero to recover a lot of HP from low armor targets. Which means you'd have to set it at like 5% (or lower!) or the hero could still just smash a weak target to heal to full.

You'll note my entire previous post has nothing to do with undead creation. I already assume this ability will never create undead, and based my healing numbers on that assumption.

[Arnuz]

The same can be said of a low resistance target.

And, why should a high resistance target not allow to recover HP while a low one does? I disagree with the concept. If it's sucking blood, a lot of blood is a lot of blood... Linking it to the damage done is more intuitive. I've actually spent a lot of time before understanding how it worked.

[Arnuz]

Ah, it just occurred to me that there's a variant of both: making it both damage and resistance based. Every point of damage dealt rolls vs resistance (at x modifier) to become a drained life point. I don't like it, but it's a possibility.

[Seravy]

Undead creation is not a relevant part of the ability on heroes - it's meant to be used for dealing damage and healing the hero, mainly the latter. If you want undead, there are much stronger sources of Life Steal around. Wraiths and Death Knights can create a fairly good amount of undead if you bother to cast Black Prayer to lower enemy resistance.

Life Steal is a magic ability like Instant Death or Petrification. It has nothing to do with sucking blood (how does that help a ghost? It's not even a physical body?) although "Vampiric" is a bit misleading for the item power name.

Heroes can deal near infinite damage so any sort of recovery based on damage dealt would break the game.
We just made sure very rare creatures can deal 5 damage per hit, before going down to the 50 damage the hero deals. If Vampiric allowed the hero to recover 5 (or any) hit points from those creatures, we'd be back where we started.

[Nelphine]

Yes, I agree it needs to be set low even if resistance based. But resistance is not a wide range. If we make it resistance based we know the hero will always find targets, because the AI uses halberdiers in droves.

If we make it damage based, then it only works for heroes who are strong in melee. We'll have to balance it around a hero with 30 attack and +7 to hit (or higher) because that's not terribly difficult to achieve for a hero. But many heroes in a random game won't reach that, and so the item will be useless to them.

Making it resistance based allows us to balance it around predictable qualities - enrmy resistance, rather than highly variable ones - the heroes attack power.

[Arnuz]

Right, I forgot that there's the issue of damage done being greater of the hit points the target has. Couldn't it work based on hit points actually removed?

Yes, I agree it needs to be set low even if resistance based. But resistance is not a wide range. If we make it resistance based we know the hero will always find targets, because the AI uses halberdiers in droves.

If we make it damage based, then it only works for heroes who are strong in melee. We'll have to balance it around a hero with 30 attack and +7 to hit (or higher) because that's not terribly difficult to achieve for a hero. But many heroes in a random game won't reach that, and so the item will be useless to them.

Well, it sounds like an ability that should work well with strong melee heroes. I dislike the fact that right now it work exactly the same for big hitters or mages. Actually better on mages, because then it also creates the undead. Right. I just found a new strategy for undead creation. Giving the item to a recruit mage and going around bashing things...

... And as long as it's resistance based, this will keep happening, so it'll never be not underwhelming because if we make it satisfying, then it'll break the game by being used by all kinds of heroes.

The combination damage actually dealt (so not over the target's HPs) AND resistance check on each HP might be a solution, as it makes it work better for melee heroes, and reduce its effect the longer the game. That would give it a ceiling, the actual number is a matter of balance.

[Seravy]

I'm not changing what the ability does, as that would change Wraiths and Death Knights which are good as they are. I'm only willing to change the save modifier.

[Arnuz]

Maybe then to make it useful it should be for the starting heroes. How about simply making it cheaper to build and common to find on cheap melee weapons?

[Seravy]

It's already one of the cheapest item powers...200 mana...