The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

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Eskon
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Eskon »

In a close match against an opponent near your skill level details like that are vital. Play around a bit with Maboul's Fight Simulator and you can see how huge the difference can be that the presence of the resilient, strong or dextrous trait can cause, not to mention how quick units can sometimes escape or reach an enemy unit just by that one movement point.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with "delay you a bit"? Units don't have to use up all their movement points every round anyway. In fact, oftentimes your units cannot advance safely, but have to position themselves to defend. And the benefit of putting your resilient units in front is significant.
manored
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by manored »

Eskon wrote:In a close match against an opponent near your skill level details like that are vital. Play around a bit with Maboul's Fight Simulator and you can see how huge the difference can be that the presence of the resilient, strong or dextrous trait can cause, not to mention how quick units can sometimes escape or reach an enemy unit just by that one movement point.
Wesnoth isnt about skill, its about strategy. If there is an enemy close to my skill level, I can push above him by planning harder. And I dont think I will ever reach the level of strategic prowness wich will allow me to see traits as a relevant detail.
Eskon wrote: I'm not sure what you're talking about with "delay you a bit"? Units don't have to use up all their movement points every round anyway. In fact, oftentimes your units cannot advance safely, but have to position themselves to defend. And the benefit of putting your resilient units in front is significant.
They do not, but its more efficient if they do, and with more movement points left you can position yourself better.
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Eskon »

manored wrote:Wesnoth isnt about skill, its about strategy.
And... Taking traits into account is somehow not strategy?
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by thespaceinvader »

More to the point, strategy's somehow not a skill?
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by The1exile »

Velensk wrote:Considering that the hp lose is 1 or 2 at most, and the potential benefit is being able to reach a critical location and make a kill or steal a village you might otherwise not, or to escape an engagement you might otherwise not be able to, I'd say that quick is still a very useful trait.
Yeah, but it's not just "1 or 2" hp always, it's "-5%", and when you level a unit that should have 80 hp and it has 76, that's seriously annoying (thus, quick is more of a hitch for units like drakes and maybe loyalists than rebels). Any accomplished player of undead should have enough training using untraited ghosts as village cappers to know how to use their scouts without having to rely on quick. In multiplayer, I agree it's less of a hitch as your leader won't have quick and your level one units will usually only lose 1 hp.
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Pentarctagon »

And I dont think I will ever reach the level of strategic prowness wich will allow me to see traits as a relevant detail.
maybe a better example would be, instead of just quick by itself, quick/intilleigent vs strong/resilient. if quick is -1 hp, strong is +1 hp, and resillient is +4, then that's a 6hp difference based on traits alone. a difference that would only increase if the units level up.
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manored
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by manored »

Eskon wrote:
manored wrote:Wesnoth isnt about skill, its about strategy.
And... Taking traits into account is somehow not strategy?
It is, its just not necessary. Its like ghosts: They arent necessary, but that doesnt means they arent usefull.
thespaceinvader wrote:More to the point, strategy's somehow not a skill?
Strategy is generated by skill, like a house is generated by the skill of building.

aka: Strategy can be polished and worked on by many people.
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The1exile
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by The1exile »

The1exile wrote:Yeah, but it's not just "1 or 2" hp always, it's "-5%", and when you level a unit that should have 80 hp and it has 76, that's seriously annoying (thus, quick is more of a hitch for units like drakes and maybe loyalists than rebels). Any accomplished player of undead should have enough training using untraited ghosts as village cappers to know how to use their scouts without having to rely on quick. In multiplayer, I agree it's less of a hitch as your leader won't have quick and your level one units will usually only lose 1 hp.
By the way, I found today an example to better illustrate my point: Evlsih archers. Usually, quick doesn't matter as being 29 hp base they actually save themselves losing the extra point, but if they lose that point of hp they are a one hit kill by a dwarvish thunderguard. Without quick, and with dextrous instead, they can counter for heavy damage (and of course, not die, always an advantage).
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Pentarctagon »

manored wrote:It is, its just not necessary. Its like ghosts: They arent necessary, but that doesnt means they arent usefull.
having traits at all is not 'necessary', but there are traits. they serve a purpose. to ignore them is to ignore an entire aspect of the game. a normal elvish fighter will do 5-4 to a saurian unit, but a strong fighter will do 7-4. the same is true with dextrous archers vs drakes. a better example is that troll whelps and HI can get the fearless trait. if you are defending against an enemy attack in unfavorable TOD, then you should put the unit that is best suited for the situation in the front lines and fearless vs not-fearless can become extremely significant in this situation.
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by scorchgeek »

Pentarctagon wrote:
manored wrote:Usually I dont pay attention to traits, except the "quick" one wich is the best in my opinion. Its not that they dont make enough difference to be accounted for, but because I dont like to complicate things much so I use units the same way indendependly of their traits
honestly, the quick trait is my least favorite trait. you lose some precious hp just so that you can move one more space than before and while movement is nice and all, when your in a direct conflict being able to deal/take more damage is usually much more useful than one more mp and a slight loss of health.
Quick doesn't matter so much on open terrain, but even then, until units get to L3, it's unlikely you're going to lose enough HP to matter from it. (However, there are exceptions, like the Elvish Archer vs. Thunderguard. Also, I usually hate getting quick on mages unless they're also resilient because they have so little HP to begin with.) However, on rough terrain (i.e. water and mountains for Elvish Fighters), quick can double your speed. Say you have an Elvish Fighter, which has 5 base MP. With quick, it gets 6. The cost to move over shallow water is 3. With quick, it can move 2 spaces. Without, it can only move 1. Thus, quick is best on units with 5 or 8 base MP (or 2, but there aren't any units like that.) Also, quick is useful on dwarves because it allows them to keep up with the faster speeds of other units much better.

I don't particularly like or dislike quick, I just make sure to take it into consideration when planning. The loss of HP doesn't seem to bother me much, but it could be that if I recorded which units, with which traits, end up dying during the course of the campaign, many of them would be quick. I honestly haven't thought about it as much as I should.
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Pentarctagon »

while there are no obvious times when 1 hp will matter, there have been many times in which one of my units has survived only by 1 hp. and everytime it happens i think 'if they were quick, they would be dead right now...'
i guess what i'm trying to say is that, while the quick trait can be useful, i would rather have any of the other traits instead in almost any circumstance.
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Caphriel »

And you've never had situations where a unit was one MP too slow to escape/grab a village/kill an enemy unit/get to good terrain/etc. and you said to yourself, "if only that unit was quick..."?
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Pentarctagon »

sometimes, but not as often. besides, if that is the case, it is often because of a feature of the map. so next time a could simply recruit an archer instead of a fighter (i mostly play as elves) if i desperately need that extra movement, or i could make a scout (which get quick at least half the time anyway). for village grabbing i can usually simply get it next turn. Movement is often not useful for escaping because your opponents will generally try to ZOC you. resilient can actually aid in escaping because your opponent might have to hit you two times to finish you off, whereas with quick they could instead have killed you in one hit.
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manored
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by manored »

Pentarctagon wrote:
manored wrote:It is, its just not necessary. Its like ghosts: They arent necessary, but that doesnt means they arent usefull.
having traits at all is not 'necessary', but there are traits. they serve a purpose. to ignore them is to ignore an entire aspect of the game.
Im aware of that. Doesnt necessarly means im going to lose, though =)
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Re: The "strong" and "dextrous" traits, and you.

Post by Pentarctagon »

while it doesn't mean that you will lose, taking a unit's traits into account would help you win.
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