Poison Arrows

[Methodius]

I hope not. Poison Archers are extremely powerful, but they can be just as dangerous for your own men as for your enemy. Don't forget that the Antes also completely lack melee cavalry - they need something decisive to keep the Huns off of them...poison arrows are pretty much their only military advantage.

But it should count damage on arrow to arrow basis just like fire dmg for example and not that one arroe wastes whole cohort.

[jan_boruta]

After playing for a bit more as the Sclavenians, I can say that poison arrows ARE overpowered - but not as much as the popular opinion seems to be. Considerably, but not totally. The main issue is that even one arrow causes the whole targeted unit to be Exhausted, and it cannot recover its stamina at all. This makes units that were barely scratched very weak in melee and easy to mop up (especially by Slavic Ambushers or other swift axe units). The other problem is that poison completely bypasses armour, missile block chance and health on a targeted unit - which is, safe to speak, a pretty dumb design. Shooting one volley into a unit, then changing the target, rinse and repeat - and entire enemy army dies of fatigue and heart attacks. This pretty much upsets the whole multiplayer scene, and in single player makes defensive siege battles a walk in the park.

If those two issues are cleared, poison arrows will still be strong (because of death delayed in time), but a bit more reasonable when it comes to the number of casualties, especially on units with good shields and thick armour. It should be a weapon that is rightfully fearsome, but not because it magically kills people off by merely touching them. I hope a hotfix will address that, if CA doesn't want to make another patch in the future.

[Neoton]

I can say that poison arrows ARE overpowered - but not as much as the popular opinion seems to be.

No. They really are overpowered as ****.
Advancing with even the heaviest, most armored infantry against a Slav army is like that last scene from The Last Samurai where Tom Cruise charged the Gatling guns.
Armor is useless, testudo is useless, health is useless, these archers just don't care, they exhaust and kill everybody. And God help you if you are attacking a city garrisoned with them. I am not ever playing against a Slav faction in MP again until they resolve this. Just unbelievable...

[Charerg]

Frankly the implementation of the poison arrows (in this way) is utterly retarded. Even Elephants drop down dead with their tonnes of mass in a few volleys, and of course there's the fact that a naked man has the same survivability against them as a fully armoured cataphract.

I have no idea what CA were thinking, surely they must have realized that implementing poison in this completely nonsensical way is simply...retarded. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And I doubt we'll see a patch about this any time soon.

The "ability effect" needs to be temporary and toned down seriously (since I guess engine limitations prevent actual poison effects that would target individual soldiers instead of units), since no effect that gets applied to a unit if just a single arrow hits anywhere close should be this powerful. To compensate, the poison arrows should have good base damage (maybe high bonuses vs cav to give the Slavs some cav counters) so that actual "hits" and "shield block" actually matter against them. Also, the Slav archers should have the other ammo types as well.

[KAM 2150]

Ok, poison arrows are the most OP thing I ever saw in a TW game.

Just look at this, I haven't even tried. Just set up my archers on walls, block one entrance with barricade and block other with two slavic spearmen in shield wall. Only order that was given during battle was charge of my axemen just for lolz.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Neoton]

3 archer units killed 1848 guys. Nice balance.

[dickwang]

In b4 nerf.

[KAM 2150]

Forgot to add that all of my archers had still around 1/3 of their ammo left at worse.

[emcdunna]

They're rediculous. Practically like giving the unit rapid fire bazookas.

[Darios]

They're rediculous. Practically like giving the unit rapid fire bazookas.

I disagree. The archers take a toll on enemies sure, and are really useful against generals with the hunter ability, but they're basically the ONLY strength of the Slavic military. You nerf them and they'd easily become the weakest and worst MP factions in the game - worse than the Celts. (At least the Celts get crossbows and melee cavalry) The Slavs would also stand no chance against other factions in campaign because the rest of their units are subpar.

[KAM 2150]

And now nobody has a chamce against slavs... So you see no problem with screenshot I uploaded?

[Darios]

And now nobody has a chamce against slavs... So you see no problem with screenshot I uploaded?

No problem at all, your screenshot is deceptive. You were only outnumbered approximately 3 to 1. People have been winning insane victories with only town garrisons since Attila was released. Most of your kills came from poison arrows and it doesn't show up in the stats - sure; with the Romans most of your kills would have come from Palatina spears in a defensive testudo. That's the thing, it's simply a different style of playing. The strength of poison archers in sieges becomes their bane in field battles as you are likely to hit your own troops and kill them unless you do some serious micromanagement. Also, the Roman and Germanic factions are vastly superior to the Slavs in melee so if the fighting becomes hand to hand then you're pretty much screwed. I found that out the hard way fighting against the Geats last night.

[Wheem]

I disagree. The archers take a toll on enemies sure, and are really useful against generals with the hunter ability, but they're basically the ONLY strength of the Slavic military. You nerf them and they'd easily become the weakest and worst MP factions in the game - worse than the Celts. (At least the Celts get crossbows and melee cavalry) The Slavs would also stand no chance against other factions in campaign because the rest of their units are subpar.

There's no reason that adjustments cannot be made to other units at the same time the poison is nerfed.

No problem at all, your screenshot is deceptive. You were only outnumbered approximately 3 to 1. People have been winning insane victories with only town garrisons since Attila was released. Most of your kills came from poison arrows and it doesn't show up in the stats - sure; with the Romans most of your kills would have come from Palatina spears in a defensive testudo. That's the thing, it's simply a different style of playing. The strength of poison archers in sieges becomes their bane in field battles as you are likely to hit your own troops and kill them unless you do some serious micromanagement. Also, the Roman and Germanic factions are vastly superior to the Slavs in melee so if the fighting becomes hand to hand then you're pretty much screwed. I found that out the hard way fighting against the Geats last night.

I'm sure the Romans would only have last 19 men as well, right? And his screenshot is indicative of what can happen against much larger and better armies, too, as the poison doesn't care about hit points, armor, or missile block. They're basically an auto-win for siege defense.

When it comes to field battles, you don't even need to micro-manage them very much, unless the odds are really stacked against you. Just stick them out front and let them fire off a volley or two, so that you're fighting an exhausted enemy army that can't recover for the entirety of the battle. Plus you'll probably cause more casualties in those one or two volleys than the enemy's archers are likely to get over the full duration of the battle.

These archers are completely broken, plain and simple. Some of the other units could probably do with some improvement, and they could definitely use some lowering of upkeep costs in quite a few cases, but none of that changes the fact that the archers are utterly ridiculous right now. I'd really like to play a good Slavic campaign, but I just can't bring myself to do it right now; it really feels like cheating.

[Charerg]

Frankly I think Slavs should be more of a "flavour faction" similar to the Celts rather than a power faction with extremely powerful units in one category. Historically the Slavs weren't a major power at this point. That doesn't mean they shouldn't get some buffs (if needed) to make some underperforming units viable or that they shouldn't have good archers, but at the moment the Slavs are too centered around the poison. It simply dominates gameplay.

Not to mention the failed implementation that the poison doesn't even rely on hits. I think the Slav archers should receive good base attack, other ammo types besides poison, and the effects of the poison should be reduced to more of a temporary debuff (similar to the debuff the Slingers cause) rather than a ridiculous "exhausted for the entire battle" and the casualties from the poison should be toned down to very minor (the intent being that the majority of the kills comes from regular hits). Poison arrows shouldn't be "magic arrows" that affect piles of troops without even hitting them/piercing the skin, but I think engine limitations mean the effect has to apply to the entire unit, so I don't see much choice except toning the "ability effect" down and the missile damage up for the Slav archers.

[Fanest]

And now nobody has a chamce against slavs... So you see no problem with screenshot I uploaded?

Personally i think all they need to do to balance poison arrows is counting in missile block chance - which would reduce casualties by same percent as their missile block chance is.

[Lucem Mundum]

Personally i think all they need to do to balance poison arrows is counting in missile block chance - which would reduce casualties by same percent as their missile block chance is.

or just remove the poison arrows completely, and give the Slavs another generic roster that has multiple units of every type.

[Charerg]

Personally i think all they need to do to balance poison arrows is counting in missile block chance - which would reduce casualties by same percent as their missile block chance is.

It's not really a matter of "Slavs unbeatable" (although the poison archers are very overpowered for their cheap price) but rather the nonsensical idea that they're equally effective against armoured elephants and naked peasants. And I don't think it's possible to code in missile block (at least not easily) given the way the poison was implemented. And armour should be equally important anyway, if the arrow doesn't even penetrate the skin, the poison is useless. So I think the best we can hope for is something along the lines of what I suggested, given that the way the poison was implemented is not likely to fundamentally change.

[emcdunna]

Cut the % of guys who die by a factor of 10, but increase base damage. So sure 1 arrow will cause the effect, but instead of losing 15% of a unit with every single volley (automatically, even if you only fire at a unit with 1 archer), then you'd lose 1-2 % of your unit per volley, plus the normal damage.

Then, instead of insta-exhaust, just increase tiredness by amount X. so instead of increasing it by 5000 points (lets say) which leaves units exhausted forever, no matter what, increase it by something like 50, so that a few volleys CAN tire a unit, but not insta-exhaust for the rest of the match.

If a faction relies on a single unit to win, to this degree, then enjoy playing against full stacks of levy poison archers. Lol

[Charerg]

In case someone still doubts that the Poison Archers need to be reworked (badly), I recommend this video.

[AK47]

I agree. Medieval 3 is the time the Slavs become major powers.
The Celts are weak factions in the game because they were weaker at the time, same thing with germanic factions being weak in Rome2 cause it wasn't their era yet.

Frankly I think Slavs should be more of a "flavour faction" similar to the Celts rather than a power faction with extremely powerful units in one category. Historically the Slavs weren't a major power at this point. That doesn't mean they shouldn't get some buffs (if needed) to make some underperforming units viable or that they shouldn't have good archers, but at the moment the Slavs are too centered around the poison. It simply dominates gameplay.

Not to mention the failed implementation that the poison doesn't even rely on hits. I think the Slav archers should receive good base attack, other ammo types besides poison, and the effects of the poison should be reduced to more of a temporary debuff (similar to the debuff the Slingers cause) rather than a ridiculous "exhausted for the entire battle" and the casualties from the poison should be toned down to very minor (the intent being that the majority of the kills comes from regular hits). Poison arrows shouldn't be "magic arrows" that affect piles of troops without even hitting them/piercing the skin, but I think engine limitations mean the effect has to apply to the entire unit, so I don't see much choice except toning the "ability effect" down and the missile damage up for the Slav archers.