Nerf Cunobelin Range
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Authored by elexis on Apr 29 2017, 3:52 PM.

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Grugnas
borg-
Hannibal_Barca
fatherbushido
scythetwirler

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rP19478: Nerf briton hero Cunobelin.

Summary

One of the most prominent 'OP' units is the briton hero cunobelin which heals units at 1 health per second in 60m range.
As we can see from the screenshots, it is easily possible to pack more than 150 units even in 20 meters range.

A temple heals at 3HP/second for 20 units, but has the cost that the units have to be idle and garrisoned in a building in player owned territory.
Cunobelin heals all units in range even if they are attacking!

If the range of the hero is reduced so that only 50 units can be healed realistically, then it is about as good as half a temple while fighting.
Also notice that we should never nerf to the point that we think seems fine but also try to make a nerf that goes relatively into that direction,
so that the change isn't too big.

60 meters (currently):

15 meters:

12 meters:

10 meter2:

Slingers more spread out:

20 meters:

25 meters:

30 meters:

Champions:

20 meters:

25 meters:

Indeed if you attack a building this way, the aura will be useless (20 meters):

But it's still possible to attack this way (20 meters):

And when moving the units will automatically gather around that hero (20 meters):

Test Plan

Look at the screenshots (or apply the visual aura patch from D238 if it's not committed yet) and see how many units are affected realistically.
Compute the healrate for that amount of units.

Diff Detail

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rP 0 A.D. Public Repository

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Event Timeline

elexis created this revision.Apr 29 2017, 3:52 PM

elexis edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)Apr 29 2017, 3:57 PM

elexis edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)Apr 29 2017, 4:04 PM

10 is way too drastic, 15 is passable. If we make it 10m we run the unwelcome risk of making this hero useless. Since slingers spread out in a half-circle when attacking at max range, 10m will cover too few units. This would make it necessary for units to move much nearer to attack properly under aura influence, giving enemy the time to shoot them down or close the gap with counter units fast.
While I agree that Cunobelin is a bit OP at the moment, I do not see the need for us to go back to a wholly Boudicca based brit late-game gameplay.

This revision now requires changes to proceed.Apr 29 2017, 4:14 PM

In D395#16233, @Hannibal_Barca wrote:

10 is way too drastic, 15 is passable. If we make it 10m we run the unwelcome risk of making this hero useless. Since slingers spread out in a half-circle when attacking at max range, 10m will cover too few units. This would make it necessary for units to move much nearer to attack properly under aura influence, giving enemy the time to shoot them down or close the gap with counter units fast.
While I agree that Cunobelin is a bit OP at the moment, I do not see the need for us to go back to a wholly Boudicca based brit late-game gameplay.

It's questionable whether units that are attacking should heal to begin with.
The battlefield mecidine tech also only heals idle units: rP17590 (whereas the temple doesn't)

15m seems to much to me though, if you can still heal 100 units at 1HP/s it's better than a walking temple. Also one can put slingers to standground, then they won't leave the hero aura while attacking everything in range.

12 meters.

elexis edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)Apr 29 2017, 4:36 PM

12 meters

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Harbormaster completed remote builds in B1333: Diff 1534.Apr 29 2017, 4:38 PM

Probably Cunobelin is not as good as appears ( an army leaded by Cunobelin against an army leaded by another hero).
A theorical way would be to calculate the amout of damage a slingers can receive before die and subtract 1 to the damage suffered per second.

I'd say to decrease the range from 60 to 40, in that way, when the hero is in melee range, slingers won't be healed and in any case the aura won't affect the total amount of deployed slingers.

The current issue with Cunobelin is that an army of 70 slingers circa can take down even a fortress with an average lose of 10 units because buildings randomly hit targets, letting injured units regen hp very easly. ( i did not test this in svn but i suppose that if slingers can absorb a fortress damage, they could even destroy it despite the crush damage nerf).

Alternativly reduce the aura effect from 1 hp / sec to 0,5 hp /sec with 60 aura range in order to reduce the amount of damage slingers can absorb.

This revision now requires changes to proceed.Apr 29 2017, 4:47 PM

As you can see from the screenshots, even with 15 meters range its not in the range of melee units. I'm not convinced to go beyond 15 meters.
If it affects 100 slingers, you will get 100/sec, those are 2 slingers per second, which are 60 slingers in 30 seconds in case of receiving that much damage.

Since the tactic of destroying buildings with slingers doesn't work anymore, probably there is no point to touch Cunobelin at all. (60 slingers can't take down a fortress even with all technologies researched.)

In D395#16262, @Grugnas wrote:

Since the tactic of destroying buildings with slingers doesn't work anymore, probably there is no point to touch Cunobelin at all. (60 slingers can't take down a fortress even with all technologies researched.)

So lets consider swordchampions or chariots instead of slingers

So who/what is OP? I thought there was no point to train someone else than Boadicea.
Any value between 10 and 60 is ok for me. You can also instead change the IdleRegenRate.
For the string perhaps standardized it like Iberian monument (until we did the automatic range string): "Effect range: 12 meters".

elexis added a reviewer: scythetwirler.Apr 29 2017, 5:33 PM

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Harbormaster completed remote builds in B1335: Diff 1536.Apr 29 2017, 6:09 PM

I think... that maybe 25m or 30m would be fine. For comparison, a temple aura is 40m. Points:

Slingers in a battle are almost never going to be all clumped up to that amount. They tend to arrange in a single file semicircle, or perhaps about two concentric semicircles, or some other loose configuration.
Maneuvering your slingers into a tight clump is a big tactical cost, as they will get shot at or otherwise killed while they walk, and imo typically you would rather let them stand and shoot.
If the aura is too small, you won't be able to actually fight with Cunobelin while getting the aura benefit; you'll have to put him on hold position exactly where you want him. That's not desirable from an aesthetics standpoint.

If you have an army of champs, you probably want Boudicca over Cunobelin. Cunobelin is popular now only because he buffs citizen soldiers, and champs were nerfed.

There are two further benefits of Cunobelin I think should get mention, that make him more powerful than the 100-200 damage/second figure you might get if you looked only at his healing during combat compared to damage dealt:

A big benefit of Cunobelin is that he will heal between combat as well as during combat, so your army is always full HP after some time when the enemy is not attacking.
The other benefit of Cunobelin is that your units get promotions. A promoted unit typically has low health because he's been in combat for a while so he often dies soon after promotion (without Cunobelin). But with Cunobelin your promoted units will return to full health so your army is largely veterans.

elexis edited the summary of this revision. (Show Details)Apr 30 2017, 1:50 AM

Increase to 20 meters so that it's more useful in messy battles and thus still more useful than a temple aura outside of the players territory

I am not sure with this change since there are other heroes with much more relevant buffs and wider aura range.
Seems that 20%+ attack damage is more effective than a +1 hp / sec regen, and in a direct fight armies with heroes like Cunobelin or Brennus aren't that great advantage considering that some heroes boost the whole citizen soldier army while a Cunobelin with 20 meters range aura would affect melee units only (units who most of the times absorb the damage anyway).
Imo current Cunobelin aura is ok

In D395#16309, @causative wrote:

I think... that maybe 25m or 30m would be fine. For comparison, a temple aura is 40m. Points:

...

...

...

...

Agree with the points, increasing from 12m to 20m

In D395#16349, @Grugnas wrote:

I am not sure with this change since there are other heroes with much more relevant buffs and wider aura range.
Seems that 20%+ attack damage is more effective than a +1 hp / sec regen, and in a direct fight armies with heroes like Cunobelin or Brennus aren't that great advantage considering that some heroes boost the whole citizen soldier army while a Cunobelin with 20 meters range aura would affect melee units only (units who most of the times absorb the damage anyway).
Imo current Cunobelin aura is ok

Those +20% or former +5 absolute damage heroes might be too strong in comparison to other heroes as well.
Agree that there are many heroes out there which don't have useful auras at all and thus are never trained.
We should fix them one by one when we want to truly review them as we did now.
With this proposal, Cunobelin should reach the state of usefulness we envision our heroes to have.

The point is that with the current 60m range, the range is so huge that its's basically irrelevant, it only excludes units in the home base.
25 and 30 meters should be sufficient for all intents and purposes, the only difference really would be that you can't park the hero out of attack range anymore (if we continue the paradigm to heal the entire army simultaneously)

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Harbormaster completed remote builds in B1346: Diff 1546.Apr 30 2017, 3:08 AM

60 really is much. I think he needs a little nerf in range, just because he also serves as a tank, so he can stay in the front line taking damage and still healing all units.

If we had formations working, values like 12 - 15 would be great, but as we do not have, anything less than 15 would be useful. Values between 15 - 25 would be interesting to me.

Any value between 10 and 60 is ok for me. You can also instead change the IdleRegenRate.
For the string perhaps standardized it like Iberian monument (until we did the automatic range string): "Effect range: 12 meters".

So the propose ranges are:

causative: 30-40m
fatherbushido: 10-60m
current elexis: 20-30m
Grugnas: 40-60m
borg-: 15-25m
Hannibal_Barca: not below 15m, later "30m looks ideal"

So looks like we have to go with 30m.

Removing the incorrect "for all units" not only corrects that string but also allows using Effect Range without making that sentence look awkward.

Closed by commit rP19478: Nerf briton hero Cunobelin. (authored by elexis). · Explain WhyApr 30 2017, 6:18 PM

This revision was automatically updated to reflect the committed changes.

elexis mentioned this in D238: Visual Aura Range.May 4 2017, 11:16 PM

elexis mentioned this in D397: Iberian heroes auras.May 8 2017, 6:32 AM

elexis mentioned this in D565: Mauryan Healer Hero Aura and nerf Cunobelin v2.May 28 2017, 5:08 AM

elexis retitled this revision from Nerf Cunobelin to Nerf Cunobelin Range.May 28 2017, 3:27 PM

elexis mentioned this in D737: Scipio aura radius.Oct 23 2017, 4:06 PM