Endurance and Holy Armor

[Seravy]

We've talked about this in the Life thread but I think it is worth having its own discussion.

The idea is to swap the "+1 To defend" on Endurance with the +2 armor on Holy Armor.
This means the following consequences (without trying to judge which is an improvement) :

-Holy Armor becomes a symmetric pair to Holy Weapon (+1 To Def vs +1 To Hit) which makes it more flavorful
-Endurance will likely need a cost reduction, and Holy Armor a cost increase.
-Summoned creatures will lose access to +1 To Def and instead gain access to +2 armor. This means the buff becomes more powerful on lower tier summons, but weaker in higher tier ones.
-As a consequence to the above, late game fortress garrisons controlled by partially life AI will be easier to defeat, but as the human player playing the same, the endurance very rare creature doomstack will be weaker too. Both of these will likely be minor differences.
-The change in spell cost likely increases the "damage" in lost MP value against dispelling, by 20.7%.
-Players will lose access to "+2 defense" as a combat spell and instead will have "+1 To Def" at a higher cost. This means early game combat spell options will be less diverse and overall worse (no units yet that have enough defense to benefit from To Def better, and cost matters), while mid and late game options will be more powerful (+ To Def is stronger and cost no longer relevant)
-Existing defense on units will be more relevant due to the above - it'll be harder to turn a low defense unit strong enough to win your battle using combat spells, but easier for a high defense unit.
-The ability to replace dispelled "+1 To Def" instantly in combat is a relevant buff to hero strategies.
-The AI's new strategy to use more endurance in the late game for high end summons will be slightly weaker.
-It will no longer be possible to get both the movement and the "+1 To Def" in a single starting spell pick, making low book counts in Life weaker, and high life book starts relying on buffing slightly more difficult for the same reason.
-The Teleportation item power includes Endurance, so it'll also change from +1 To def to +2 armor.

dispel calculation :
Current, assuming strength 50 dispel, 50/85 * 35 + 50/120 *70 = 41.42 MP lost
New, assuming new spell costs will be 50 and 50, 50/100*50 + 50/100*50 = 50 MP lost.
Overall, this is a 20.7% increase in lost enchantment value.

Do let me know if there are other consequences I missed and I'll add them.

[zitro1987]

Why would a swapped holy armor need a cost increase (or at least more than a minor increase to about 9/45 or 10/50 ?)

The limitation of being applied to normal units generally means relatively modest armor points for them, in most cases about 6-9 (equivalent effect to a +2 or +3 armor)

Of course, it pairs very well with the endurance of +2 armor / +1 movement, but the cost per buff combo start is comparable to casting an extra fire giant.

Many of your points seem to point to gameplay improvements (as my interpretation), for example life with higher books benefiting when life may work best combined with another realm (or the specialist strategy) and unicorns have +2 armor is great.

the main concern being the cost of holy armor. Reason why it should cost more than 10/50 (heroes aside)?

My thought on costs:
New Holy Armor: 9/45 or 10/50
New Endurance: 65-70
Combined: about the same sum of costs

[Seravy]

New Holy Armor: 9/45 or 10/50
New Endurance: 65-70
Combined: about the same sum of costs

I was thinking about 50 for both, or if we want the exact sum to remain the same then 50+55.
All the above entries on the list assumed the cost will be 50/50 or 50/55.
A cost increase from 7 to 10 in combat is significant for the first 30-40 turns of the game. You can afford heroism and the 7 cost holy armor once each using your starting skill, but not the cost 10 version (unless you have high books, specialist, etc)

[Nelphine]

If we consider city units, not heroes, I would make that version of holy armor 8/40. Even with adamantium and war college, very few city units get above 8 armor, which is the breakpoint where the two bonuses are equal. I'd equally leave endurance at 60 or 65, as the +2 armor is the lesser benefit, and up to 8 armor, it's better than +1 to defend anyway.

Heroes obviously can get much higher easier, but usually get both benefits anyway. So total cost is only thing that matters to heroes. Except dispelling! And for dispelling +1 to defend on heroes, I WANT it to be easier.

So my suggestion is 8/40 for that holy armor and 12/60 for that endurance. If you want total cost to be the same, increase the new endurance to 13/65. (Honestly, in early game, that move is usually the most important of all 3 effects)

[Seravy]

They are equal at 6 armor. (6*0.4 = 8*0.3 = 2.4) So +1 To Def is stronger on 7 or higher armor, and weaker on 5 or below.

I'd say pretty much any unit you'd ever consider to buff has at least 6 armor so it's always equal or better, usually better.

Also, +1 To Def is better than +1 To Hit, so it can't cost lower than Holy Weapon which is currently 50.

[Nelphine]

Right, I was assuming prayer and forgot about that. My bad, wrong baseline numbers.

[zitro1987]

Actually, I don't think the armor breakeven number is 6 … life wizards have 'prayer' so having higher armor with +1 to defend beats slightly lower armor with +2 to defend.

[Sapher]

Do let me know if there are other consequences I missed and I'll add them.

Teleportation nerf? It has built in endurance

[Nelphine]

Incidentally, I think holy weapon is overcosted, and currently never cast it until I have no targets left for holy armor. (Unless building a ranged stack that knows it won't fight any ranged opponents such as the very first fighters guild stack (slingers or javelineers) when I've already done a fair bit of lair exploration, say with earth lore).

Even with my prayer assumption mistake (although as pointed out, basing it on prayer does make some sense since that's a keystone spell for life), I'd still make holy armor no more than 9/45, and endurance no less than 10/60.

If you're worried about holy weapon then I'd rather reduce that to 8/40.

And if you want the total to be the same, I'd do:

Holy weapon 45, holy armor 45, endurance 65.

[Seravy]

Reducing both weapon and armor to 8/40 sounds reasonable. 60 for a nerfed Endurance, idk. Maybe? Land Linking is 50, and has the same 2 armor but you get pathfinding instead of move, and also +2 attack, so it's overall somewhat better - but it's also limited to summons and uncommon.