Legend of the Invincibles

[Dugi]

Yes. I wonder how could I have failed to notice it for so long

Also, mattsc has found what was missing in the AI to avoid issues like this. Thanks to him, the issue will never happen again even if another unit with no attacks set appears.

I have retried playing The End of the World with a proper army and I was able to hold the keeps till the end despite not being familiar with the units. It's indeed too easy. The enemies were lacking the new lethargy weapon special for some reasons I have to find.

[woseshaman]

I never noticed that difficulty influenced the strength of the demon traits. I'll be paying Attention to that next time.
Aside from that: Lilith does have traits but those aren't the usual demon traits and are much weaker
Also i noticed something in Ch. 9 Tunnels of cruelty: You only get the other lethalia as ally if you enter her castle, but since she is able to move out and attack it is well possible to just kill her without ever triggering the event (since attacking her doesnt do so). I'm pretty sure this is not intended since when she dies without being your ally it still triggers the conversation which only makes sense if she is your ally.

[Dugi]

What difficulty where you playing on when you came to those results?

I have fixed that no alliance issue you mentioned, it will be working from the next version.

[woseshaman]

It's on easy

[Dugi]

Thanks. That fits my expectations, because for example the poison trait also adds quite a lot of damage on higher difficulties.

[woseshaman]

Are you sure that the damage for chilling and cold is correct on lower difficulties? it seems rather exaggerated compared to all other demon traits (the 5 attacks one gets 3dmg/lvl per hit; the 3 attacks one gets 4dmg/lvl per hit)

[Dugi]

Chilling does not depend on difficulty. Cold does, but only a bit.

[Whiskeyjack]

I´m playing on medium difficulty. Here is what I think (for this difficulty):

Defense traits: They can be felt but are most times circumvented by just using another attack type. Most times the unit is rather tanky but not very dangerous.

Furious: Given the rare case that its combined with a strong meele trait and used on full health against a unit weak on meely, its ok. Otherwise its actually a drawback.

Craving/Bewitched: Nice on paper, but mostly useless because it just misses. I think it would be more of a challenge with a little less damage and marksman/magical.

Regrowing: useless. As woseshaman says, they normally don´t even get to regen any health. Perhaps with something like regenerates(+16/+32/+40 depending on difficulty) or even more it might do some work.

Brutal: Similar to Furious. If not combined with strong traits against weak units it is actually bad for the demon. But on the other hand, if said case happens it already is close to oneshotpotential with some luck.

Cold/Chilling: Strong but fine.

Vengeful: This gives thorns? If that is all, it´s way to weak. Perhaps reflect would be fine, but that might be a bit to strong for medium. Not sure.

Cruel: See furious.

Scary: Not very strong, but ok. Could perhaps use a little raise in the bonus damage.

Powerfull/Devastative: Do these affect every spell? The tooltip only shows bonus for fireball. If they work on all attacks, I think the amplifiers are actually fine. The biggest problem IMO is that the base fireball attack needs a decent buff and perhaps the meele attack as well. The fireball attack with two amplifiers is still weaker than a single ice trait without any bonuses (not even considering that the latter slows). It also has to be taken into account that (at least in my experience) a good fire resistance for my units is the easiest to reach of the three magic types (ofc not on any unit, but on average).

Ghostly: It´s ok I guess, but it also means that one slot is lost that could result in an awesome (or more like: terrifying) combo.

Blackened: Weak. Poison and plague play almost no roll and drain is so rare... My suggestion would be, to combine it with strong fire resistance/some resistance against all magical damage traits.

Spectral: Ok when paired with meele trait, almost useless otherwise.

Wicked, Putrid: woseshaman said it all.

Horrid: Strong but fine.

Conclusion: The meely traits in combination are ok, single most of them are useless. Most ranged traits are ok, the icy ones in combination can get dangerous (the only combo there really is). The fireball attack is weak regardless of traits.
I would propose a considerable raise in fireball base damage (not so much on the lowest level demons - otherwise they could get to strong on the first encounters) and a slight one on the meele attacks. I think mostly the traits that would not be affected by this but are considered weak might need some tweaking. (like putrid/blackened)

[woseshaman]

that would explain why they seem stronger than the others on easy. I should really play part 2 on medium and hard as well.
However I'm glad to see that someone else came to similar results on medium difficulty.

[Delicius169]

I just want to say, that on the first encouter with demon. They are really dangerous, I do agree with making demons stronger, but on the first encouter they are as strong as they should be. Also, I would suggest giving them explosive on their fireballs.

[Whiskeyjack]

I just want to say, that on the first encouter with demon. They are really dangerous, I do agree with making demons stronger, but on the first encouter they are as strong as they should be. Also, I would suggest giving them explosive on their fireballs.

Good that someone else supports this point, as I thought it important as well.
I don´t think explosive is a good option, as it would mean a whole lot of explosive. It would be very hard to play any unit without strong fire resistance as there is no backline any more. And on the other hand, if the spell is not buffed, it would be utterly useless, because the demons would attack with cold/meele anyway, since the AI (to the best of my knowledge) does not compute explosive.

[Dugi]

Okay, I am considering these fixes:
Defense traits: slightly stronger
Furious: complete removal (it had also some technical problems), replacement by crushing: has melee shockwave to disrupt your positions
Bewitched: magical
Craving: magical, less damage on lower difficulties
Regrowing: healing 16 hp before attacking or being attacked
Chilling: less damage on easier difficulties
Vengeful: replacing thorns with weak reflect
Cruel: more damage, weaker charge
Scary: more damage
Fiery: stronger, adding a new trait that adds explosive to fireball
Blackened: adding pierce, blade and cold resistance
Ghostly: adding leech
Spectral: more damage
Wicked: backstab
Putrid: more damage

Their melee and fireball attack are intentionally weak so that traits would decide what they are good at. One with good ranged traits is dangerous in ranged and his melee attacks suck, one with good melee traits is dangerous in melee and his ranged attacks suck, one with defensive ones can stand a lot of punishment but aren't very dangerous. If they have a combination that isn't good at anything, it's just a mediocre demon.

Powerful and devastating affect fireball and any ranged attacks added by traits that are left from them - the effect of traits thus slightly depends on order.

What do you say? I'll do the changes if you don't comment.

[woseshaman]

I like it. Maybe now demons will actually be able to do serious fire damage.
Also charging backstab doesn't seem to be working as it's description says (i think it's supposed to be slightly worse than backstab); the defenders damage is not doubled, in other words: it does exactly the same as backstab with the only differnce being it not stacking with warlords rule

[Whiskeyjack]

I like them! Especially crushing (you will have to look out for those guys!) and the change on regrowing (imagine regrowing + two defensive traits. It will be interesting to see, how much damage is needed for this).

Hopefully this will reduce the number of weak demons and get more of the formidable ones into the fray.

[dffou]

well, improving defense traits will not change the fact that they are tanky but not dangerous, how about adding weak penetration/conviction or damage/resistance aura to these traits? that will make them more dangerous.

others are good, especially those which improve demon's fire attack.