Nerfing Darvish Lord range attack?

[tekelili]

Proposal: Nerf Darvish Lord range attack from 10-2 to 10-1

Disclaim: I will argue about human vs AI. In human vs human enveiroment is difficult see a Darvish Lord unit. It would be very difficult for me probe that is unbalanced, but I really think would be as difficult than probe that nerf its range attack would be imbalanced in human vs human.

Reason for nerf: AI behavior is stupidly aggressive and its inefficiency in combat is usually balanced for scenario creators giving AI more units than human players. In scenarios were fight is long enougth to allow players advance some units to level 3, it is usually provided some kind of reliable heal to players, as factions without healers (orcs, ud and darves) would struggle otherwise. In this enverioment of defensive behavior from players in order to succed, prioritizing low loses over fast kills, it is not possible imho offer a balanced scenario for all default factions.
Darvish Lord is so ridicolous powerfull for this task that even becomes game more boring, I my self avoid use guards or thunderers knowing that darvish fighters will greatly surpass them in utility at level 3.
It is just too much mixed reliable retaliation, with low xp to level, incredible resistances and able to get the max defense (70). I bet almost any player used to multiplayer survivals would agree with me that Darvish Lords are just too hard to handle for AI. The amount of stuff AI needs to kill these monters would have anhilitaed any other faction turns ago, imho.

[Velensk]

I'm not opposed to the idea though I'd prefer 6-2 or something similar to 10-1.

It's always kind of bothered me that the fighter line is of comparable toughness to the guardsman line at higher levels. Sure guardsman are tougher in the open and on villages but it's much harder to get a sentinal than a lord and a lord is much scarier.

[Wintermute]

Seems a good idea. We really don't pay much attention to the level 3 units as they don't get use use in regular competitive games. I'll ask around in #wesnoth-mp but I don't imagine any problem with a nerf. It is a mighty good unit.

[Eagle_11]

10-1 with 'Counter' slapped on it or removing it alltogether to add another try on axe melee or a few more dmg distributed across the axe and hammer could work too.

[Wintermute]

The hatchet has been changed to 10-1, so it will show up in the next development release.

[Lord-Knightmare]

The hatchet has been changed to 10-1, so it will show up in the next development release.

The Hammer of Thursagan, most other mainline campaigns and UMCs just got tougher

[Wintermute]

The hatchet has been changed to 10-1, so it will show up in the next development release.

The Hammer of Thursagan, most other mainline campaigns and UMCs just got tougher

I think you mean "hooray, more challenge!"

But seriously, the reason this was done is not that every change that gets asked for gets made willy-nilly. It's that the Lord has been overpowered forever and someone reminded us about that. I expect it's still overpowered, but this at least gives the AI units *some* way to attack it. Like all changes, if it proves to be a disaster we can always just change it back! But... let's see if people really think everything else is so hard now. Maybe they will just use more of the other units a bit more which is the goal of such a change.

[fabi]

Just a side note:

With the support for MP campaigns getting better and better during the last released versions,
we will see lvl3 units in MP games more often.