How does Berserk realy work?

[Artas1984]

Main battle between 2 Heroes in my newest map. Human VS PC. Difficulty - chess tower. It's a testing, already several months.

Usualy on a meet, i am on 40/40 (with minor artifacts)+ expert fire magic and he is on 50/50 (having the dragon father power artifact) + expert resistance.

Levels are almost equal.

My army is always alot "thiner" than his:
~1200 elves
~1200 dwarfs
~800 elf-horses
~600 unicorns
All upgraded.

His would be like:
~200 - 300 red dragons
~1000 - 1200 minotaurs
~1000 - 1500 eyes
~800 - 1000 medusas
~4000 - 10000 troglodytes
All upgraded except dragons.

The way i win is by delivering the berserk - usualy casting works when i apply it on his several hundret red dragons and a legion of minotaur kings or similar, but of course i always hit the dragons first, because i start the battle first and if other creatures get in the berserk range, that's good.

The problem is that the berserk does not always work...

Sometimes it hits only one unit when it can hit like 4, sometimes it hits all, sometimes it shows, THAT IT CAN NOT BERSERK ANYTHING...

Where is the key for this?

If berserk is mostly succesful all of the times, i usualy win by loosing everything except unicorns, if berserk does not work, of course i get owned.

[parcaleste]

Guess he's having Resistance, no

[Artas1984]

If it is resistance, in that case how is it that everytime berserk works differently too? Look - for example other fire magic charms work fine - unfortune works when berserk does not work.. See what i mean? And also, does a hero with resistance resist spells like "slow", "weak" or damage spells at random chance only? So much time spent with Heroes 3, but never realy noticed that...

[parcaleste]

Resistance is always random
But, he may have some artifacts too + the creatures special abilities

[Artas1984]

I know resistance is random on spells when you cast it, but when a Hero has resistance and when he actualy resists the spell to a chance of 15 % + 5 % on +1 level up, you see an aniamtion of shield if you know what i mean, and the hero resists bererk without any shield animation!!!

The spell simply does not work randomly, can it be the same?

[Muszka]

There is no animation on mass and area effect spells. Try it with an Armor of the Damned, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

[Corbon]

From my understanding :

If a creature has zero resistance (inherently + no artifacts/talents), it should not be able to resist a single target spell, whether it's a debuff or damaging spell.

As for mass spells like Slow, each creature has a default chance to resist the spell, which is not indicated graphically. This chance might or might not be affected by the number of creature stacks (try a mass spell against a single target).

[BoardGuest808888]

Blablabla....

The problem is that the berserk does not always work...

Sometimes it hits only one unit when it can hit like 4, sometimes it hits all, sometimes it shows, THAT IT CAN NOT BERSERK ANYTHING...

Where is the key for this?

If berserk is mostly succesful all of the times, i usualy win by loosing everything except unicorns, if berserk does not work, of course i get owned.

Well, IIRC Berserk works like any other spells I know.

Regarding your problem, there's hint about how it's working:
1. If you got no/basic Fire Magic, Berserk is a single-target spell.

2. If you got more than advanced Fire Magic, Berserk will become an AoE spell. You got to determine first, in which area the target would be. You should took notice carefully on the possible highlighted creatures being targeted.

3. The Berserk AoE on advance is about 3X3 hexes, thus with standard loose formation you got chance to cast it on 2 stacks if you target in the middle of the 2 (like what you do with Fireball), or just 1 if you directly target a stack.

4. The Berserk AoE on expert is about 5X5 hexes (about same size of Inferno). Thus to get the maximum effect of it, you should target it as if you target Inferno. Otherwise, you'd waste it on 1 stack only. This might need practice, but eventually you'll know what I mean.

-I guess you rarely use AoE spells in H3 (Fireball, Ice Ring, Meteor Shower) because they're so lame...eh ? -

5. Berserk can be resisted in any one of this condition:
5.1.The target resist it. Either a target stack has inherent magic resistance (i.e dwarf) or the hero can resist magic will cause this.
5.2. No valid target for Berserk. Berserk is a mind spell. Creatures with inherent immunity to mind spell (giant, titan, undead, elemental) won't affected.
5.3. Creatures with immunity to magic (at least upto lvl 4) will not be affected by Berserk (azure dragon, black dragon, gold dragon). This includes stack with Magic Immunity cast on them.
5.4.Enemy hero carries artifact that can somehow prevent casting of Berserk (Recanter's Cloak, Orb of Inhibition).
5.5. Enemy hero carries artifact that prevents Berserk to take any effect (Pendant of Freedom).

-If you got message like 'no one can be affected with the spell' or something else more in that line, while there are actually stacks which can be Berserked, chance is condition 5.5 applied.

[Pol]

First is not the resistance. This is applied after you would cast Bersekr.
(And here's no animation afterward.)

If Berserk cannot be applied the unit is keeping immunity or artifact preventing it - typically Badge of Courage.

[Salamandre]

he is on 50/50 (having the dragon father power artifact)

Nobody had the answer?!

Anyway, it is fine that your berserk does not work. Learn to play differently, berserk is the most lame spell.

[Pol]

Well, let put things bit in line.

The Resistence is calculated after the spell is casted it doesn't prevent its casting - it will just make it vain after that.

So that apply here:

THAT IT CAN NOT BERSERK ANYTHING...

Thus he's either having minor thing called Pendant of Dispassion (unlikely) or Badge or Courage (highly likely).

That's all.

He's probably not having "Power of the Dragon Father" suite everytime, because that would contradict with

..it sometimes work...

Because it's AI it may be putting suite down.

A battle of such proportions, or more fittingly disproportions, is best ruled by mind spells. Orb or Vulnerability would put an end to this neatly. (I think - not tested.)

[Muszka]

A battle of such proportions, or more fittingly disproportions, is best ruled by mind spells. Orb or Vulnerability would put an end to this neatly. (I think - not tested.)

I wouldn't take poison over this. I mean Orb of Vulnerability doesn't help against Badge of Courage and such artifacts. I'm more than sure it is so in WoG, but only 70% in SoD. Anyhow, I'm looking forward to test this exactly.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

-I guess you rarely use AoE spells in H3 (Fireball, Ice Ring, Meteor Shower) because they're so lame...eh ? -

In my patch, Fireball, Frost Ring, and Destroy Undead have had their power multiplier boosted from 10 to 13. Inferno boosted from 10 to 15. Death Ripple boosted from 5 to 8. MUCH better.

I disagree about Meteor Shower being lame. I didn't change it because it already kicks ass. It's basically a AOE lightning bolt in terms of damage.

[Muszka]

Tested it.
Orb of Vulnerability doesn't help against the Pendant of Dispassion with Berserk (I guess it's so with all the other mind affecting spells and their immunity artifacts), but it helps against Badge of Courage. These are both in WoG and Complete. One thing I'm uncertain of is whether Badge of Courage has mind immunity because I have WoG or it gave Mind immunity in the plain Complete too.

[Pol]

The Badge of Courage provides complete mind spells immunity in every H3 version.
(Here's no need to test - Pol said that :p )

[Muszka]

If you say so.... I have a strong feeling that in h3 RoE didn't gave anything beside the +1 moral, but it would require too much of an effort to check so I drop it for now.

[Artas1984]

If you want to find out what i was talking about from the begining, download this map and test it:

http://tombraider.central-game.net/sys/ ... /RTDFP.ZIP

[Artas1984]

Maby that was an error...
I finally have beaten my main enemy like it should be done.
Berserk worked fine - sometimes the foe would resist it, but all in all it passed. I also noticed that when red dragons are berserked, they often don't go insane as others - they don't attack others instantly like all the rest would do, they somehow would resist the spell and stand their ground when berserked if not hex to hex near their "comrades".

I finnaly finished this torturing map with victory for the first time - left with about 400 war unicors - all the rest has been slain...
Now it's tested and waits till Angel will post a download link.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

410 red dragons..... ouch.... that's a LOT.

[Corbon]

Good thing they weren't upgraded...