And a Higher Trinket Chance when Guarding

We’ve made some changes to the elf’s dodge, evade, and leap attack. It now works like this:

Dodge: 20% chance to dodge any hit, or 40% if it’s a missile or breath attack.

Evade I: When guarding: counterattack with bow/sword; become blurred with +20% to dodge chance (40%/60%)
Evade II: Blur remains in effect for an additional round (does not stack if you evade twice)
Evade III: After evading two rounds in a row, go into stealth

Leap Attack I: Attack what you leap over. 50% chance targets become panicked.
Leap Attack II: Feats are triggered by leap attacks with a roll of 10 (or 9 vs. dragons)
Leap Attack III: Chance of panic also applies to any monster adjacent to elf’s landing.

Also, we changed the elf’s xp requirements to match the dwarf, so she can progress faster.

And now, when guarding, trinkets may activate when rolling a 1 or 2 (unlike normally, where a 1 is required.)

Evade III: After evading two rounds in a row, go into stealth

Sounds OP. Guess I need to lock it up and try it

Hi,

So, as I mentioned in the March thread, my high-level Elf can shoot arrows across the room, potentially hitting a target that is 4 spaces away.

The issue that I brought up is that, once the enemy’s air attack misses, there is an automatic counter-attack against enemies located 2 and 3 spaces away, but not enemies located 4 spaces away. I wondered whether this omission was intentional.

I am currently playing today’s release of the game, and I just verified that the “omission” (if that is what it is) is still true. I was just attacked simultaneously by two dragon fireballs, one delivered from 3 spaces away and one delivered from four spaces away. Fortunatelly, both fireballs missed. The elf fired back at the closer dragon, but not at the further dragon.

Physically, it seems plausible that the Elf SHOULD be able to counterattack from the longer distance, with a distance penalty applying. But, admittedly, the laws of 3-D physics do not always apply in Flatland.

At the risk of making the Elf even stronger, should long-counterattacks be an ability that she gets along with long attacks?

Hi, weirlooking

Evade III: After evading two rounds in a row, go into stealth.

I just played a long game where this going-into-stealth happened twice. It made a big difference only once, where it prevented a 3-potion loss from turning into something much worse.

The key is that this “disappearance” does not kick in until the dragons have already had several opportunities to do a lot of damage.

My suspicion is that, rather than making the Elf OP (and allowing the Elf to DO lots of damage), it keeps bad situations from becoming worse. This damage limitation could salvage the game, and keep the game from being lost, provided that it doesn’t happen too often. But it won’t WIN the game.

Thank you for pointing out that oversight, beetletoe. We put it on the bug list.

Hey, Dungeoneer-Maker-People, so far I am diggin’ the Elf updates after some skirmishing in The Hunt. Will keep you posted!

I want to make clear for everybody, that an elfs leap does not panic anyone, but only a leap ATTACK (III).

Just had the strangest thing happen in the hunt. Wormy pops up w/ elf and 2 giants by his hole. Elf uses vanish scroll, jumps to other side of hole, but out of Wormy’s reach. Elf fires arrow at giant; everyone - wormy included - turns toward elf as Feat ding-ding-dings. Elf fires again at giant with +7 target on it; hits; giants move toward her… AND WORMY RETRACTS! Retracts w/ 2 giants stomping around his hole. I specifically did that so wormy would keep said giants distracted. Guess he got scared….. It’s so hard to find dependable Wormies these days.

Worm got panicked :D
I have also a minor bug: Blur persits on room changes.

A funny screenshot from my lucky 9,9,9 tournament against 40 dragons. Literally in the middle https://paste.pics/C2KI0
As you can see I had a lot of fun with that new elf and best possible equip.

That way leap attack III can cause a lot of panic (I hasted in over two and back over some that did not get panicked, yet). This elvish frency is creepy, but how else would you handle such a room?

Rellik, though I’m not as accomplished as you, I would have handled it the same way. No, she’s not good at melee, but red dragon breath is more deadly the the bite, so play to the best odds. Haste scrolls give no bonus to bow-shots (they should, but… whatever…), meaning sword-play will probably give Elf the best chance. And, by Jupiter, she IS fun to play at 9,9,9, isn’t she! Huzzah!!

hasted bow-shot: If you’re moving twice as fast, that means you can take twice as long to aim, increasing your odds of hitting the target; that’s my logic for why a bonus should apply. Peel ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew!

Chad Icon: Probably that haste bonus is because the strike is so quick and there is no chance to react/parry. You don’t have more time to aim, because the “normal move” is still to be done.

Something about the overall strength: The elf is now up with the dwarf. Maybe slightly ahead at max lvl. As proof of concept I killed 60 with elf and now as much as I can with dwarf on top of that.

…which I see is 70 dragons undefeated with the dwarf in the Tournament :-)

Masterleep / Rowdius - in addition to beetletoe’s elf not counterattacking fireballs from 4 away, no-one counterattacks fireballs with sword. I never understood why not.

I had the same question raand9999 and was now thinking carefully about it. This is my answer:
First of all, it is not an attack, but a cast. Attacking back would raise question: Why not attack when there is another cast, but only fireball? The answer is: Because it is not your turn. The guarding is something special: If a melee aproaches, it does “an attack while defending”. This is possible, because the melee monster needs to create “close contact” (closer than one tile).

That said, we have to conclude, that bow defense of our elf is something very unique. I think of it as a feature of dodge: While dodging (anything): She attacks back. That could explain the shooting. But if there is no “close contact”, she cannot strike in the enemies turn. I hope this somehow makes sense raand9999.

Unfortunately for the elf, Rowdius has decreed that fireballs may not be countered.

Sorry.

So, by “decreed”, you mean that the rules of the game have changed, without warning, in the middle of the Tournament?

And here, I was thinking that the Dungeon was simply malfunctioning, when my Elf did not return fire on a fireball. I came here to report the bug.

My bad. I should have done a news item for it. Just did.

News aside, there is a problem with running a contest in which the early-week players and late-week players have different skills available to them. Introducing such changes Sunday at midnight would clearly be better and fairer.

How much weaker the Elf will become with these changes has yet to be determined. And how much the Elf-play tactics need to change is unclear. Until now, counterattacking in place has been one of the best ways that I found to conserve scrolls and limit damage.

Right now, the concern that comes to mind is the crowded rooms with multiple Mages. A counterattacking strategy (that does not consume scrolls) will no longer work, except in rare cases.

Today’s change limits the counterattacking distance to 2. Only 1 hexagon (the one in the exact center) is guaranteed to reach all Mages. And that single spot is usually unavailable.

Prior to this change, it seemed as if the Elf had finally achieved parity with the Dwarf. I wonder whether, post-Nerf, that will still be the case.

I must say, that in may 60-run I had DENSE packs of mages (rooms with up to 4 mages). I killed them by defending like beetletoe suggestet with defense in center. Luckily this was available in all these rooms. The elf is pretty bad against many mages, because she has no “multiple” attack like the human or the dwarf (WORMY!) and no “missle-dodge” against fireballs. I remember one roomfrom this 60-game where 3 of 4 mages have been sleeping at one edge. I wasn’t even able to leap over them! Never! No way to push them apart or move them. There was only one way: The center field to counter them. Long story short: Making the elf even weaker against many mages is tough. In non-tournament I would swap the character even without this change. I understand the background and hope it is not such a big deal. I definitely increases my fear of mage-packs with the elf. If they create an enourmous sized-mage the elf can hardly handle this.

My hunt view:
I always go against the mages first if somehow possible. Even small ones can be dangerous, because they do not come closer (like archers). If archers are not too many, it is often possible to avoid them by clever moves (human), worm-protection (dwarf), defense (elf). Against mages one often is stucked in a fight, cannot reach them, cannot “push” them, can only defend and pray.

Long story short: Mages are too difficult compared to other monsters (e.g. compare kobold melee and mages. Why do they have higher attack value and “all range”?). So maybe we should focus on solutions to reduce the mage-difficulty. Then this fireball-counter thing will not be so important:
Some solutions:
The fizzle could happen on the skill and not just use one round (and more often).
The attack strength in principle could be reduced (e.g. by two).
The fireball could be less dangerous when defending to have a fair chance.
Mages might behave different (e.g. like archers but on range 3).
Number of mages per room is at max 2.
…
Do you have stats how many damage is served by mages, archers, melees per monster?

With the swordsman I go after the archers first so I can position carefully for “clever moves” (stand next to one, shoot the one behind, for example). An incoming fireball will likely take out an archer I’m standing next to :-)

With the dwarf I go for mages first; he can charge down the archers. The swordsman has to run them around the room into a corner, likely taking hits from a second one in the process.

Mages are certainly dangerous. But are they really too dangerous? No-one said that for the human or the dwarf. Indeed no-one said they were too dangerous for the elf either until her counterattack was removed.

I go for the mages first with the human in the hunt, because there is no second point of entrance. This is how you would kill them in most rooms of the dungeon. But what if you cannot sneak to them?
I just killed 5 archers with one damage and one leap scroll with the human in my bare hand campaign (so with 1,1,1 equip). With 5 mages you would just have me seen running away. The difference is, that you can often do an avoiding+killing bull-rush step to get rid of them one by one.
You agreed that you attack them first with dwarf (and probably this is intended gameplay: Always kill the mages first - so they HAVE to be dangerous).

This might be fine. All I said is that there should be a reasonable strategy that does not need a health point per mage. If you have 3-5 mages I typically try to “let them move”. But if this is not possible and there is no second entrance I skip the room.

So this might be also a fine “strategy”. Even in hunt it is possible to leap to the exit. In the dragon lair “massive scroll consumption” is a solution (or dwarf).

Of course we can say all this is fine and not “too difficult”.

But if you get 4 dragon mages and 2 dragons in tournament in a room with the elf, cannot leap the mages (because 3 are at a single wall) and the center field is blocked, you may see that your options are very limited and this room will be costly.

We can say “bad luck”. This is also fine. All I want to point out is, that the reason for all these “avoidance strategies” (kill them first, use entrances, keep them moving, skip room) is that they are “difficult” in some sense and this difficulty grows non-linear with the number of mages in the room. Especially 4+ mages is pretty tough. If they are meant to be “dangerous” and to be “attacked first” then they could appear in lesser numbers in one room. OR we have skills to handle it. And this is the point here. Human has cleave, dwarf has worms and elf had counter against fireballs.

Another rule option as way out could be:
Mages cannot cast when this cast is already performed in the room. This way we don’t suffer a “rain of fireballs”, “confusing amount of summenings” or “titanic enemies in one turn”.

Sounds like you’re better at getting rid of the archers than me! I always seem to end up where I am getting shot at by one or other of them while I’m trying to get close enough or far enough away to avoid getting hit.

Nevertheless from 5 archers I went two times in this siutation. 1 kill first. 2 kill with risky shot. Then a leap to kill 3 and a high hit-risk (damage) for 4. Last one is easy. This is I would say “above average” for 5 archers and can be worse with bad pit-layout. But this time it was fine.
I also often end up in a mess with two archers when thinking “hey it is just two archers, I can for sure somehow drive one into the corner and shoot the other…”