GFireflyE

Join Date 05/2011

+63

Mirror Elemental

Good Morning all

So, one thing that has been troubling me about the Mirror Elemental is that is essencially sucks as a summoned unit or as a unit through the binding atribute.

It's reflect damage ability is a nifty trick, but the fact that it only reflects up to it's remaining hitpoints back in damage makes this ability useless because....well...it has dismal hitpoints.

I propose a change. I don't know if it can actually be done, but I'll propose it anyways:

Is it possible to mod the reflect damage ability or Mirror Elemental unit (I don't know where to mod) such that the damage reflecting is equal to the damage being dealt by the attacking unit, regardless of how much hitpoints the Water Elemental has?

Net result. Sure...the Mirror Elemetnal still dies, but you had better watch out what you club him with.

Comments? Thoughts? How should I proceed?

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I believe I have found the code that applies the DamageReflectionAbility of the Mirror Elemental. I do not think any other unit utilizes this code.

Found in CoreAbilities.xml

<AbilityBonus InternalName="DamageReflectionAbility">
        <AbilityBonusOption InternalName="DamageReflection">
            <DisplayName>Damage Reflection</DisplayName>
            <Description>100% of damage done to this unit is reflected to the attacker</Description>
            <Icon>Ability_DamageReflection_Icon.png</Icon>
            <GameModifier>
                <ModType>Unit</ModType>
                <Attribute>AdjustUnitStat</Attribute>
                <StrVal>UnitStat_DamageReflect</StrVal>
                <Value>1</Value>
            </GameModifier>
            <IsCombatAbility>1</IsCombatAbility>
            <Type>Defensive</Type>
            <AIData AIPersonality="AI_General">
                <AIPriority>5</AIPriority>
            </AIData>
        </AbilityBonusOption>
    </AbilityBonus>

Is this more on this in the UnitStat_DamageReflect in another file?

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Another update:

I have found the UnitStat_DamageReflect in CoreUnitStats.xml

<UnitStatType InternalName="UnitStat_DamageReflect">
        <DisplayName>Damage Reflect</DisplayName>
        <DisplayNameShort>REFLECT</DisplayNameShort>
        <Description>When this unit takes damage, he will damage the attacker by this percent.</Description>
        
        <Hidden>1</Hidden>
        <DefaultValue>0.0</DefaultValue>
        <UnitStatGrouping>CombatStat</UnitStatGrouping>
    </UnitStatType>

It appears that the only thing I can do with this is multiply the damage reflected by changing the default value...?

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I definitely agree about the mirror elemental being rather subpar.

I don't think 100% damage reflection would be good though. Some units hit very very hard and it would be bad for the AI if it wasn't taught to use scouts to kill mirror elementals.

I wouldn't mind boosting the damage reflected by some multiple though. You can keep it still based upon HPs, but maybe boost the damage b a factor of 2 or so.

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Quoting SBFMadDjinn,

reply 3

I definitely agree about the mirror elemental being rather subpar.

I don't think 100% damage reflection would be good though. Some units hit very very hard and it would be bad for the AI if it wasn't taught to use scouts to kill mirror elementals.

I wouldn't mind boosting the damage reflected by some multiple though. You can keep it still based upon HPs, but maybe boost the damage b a factor of 2 or so.

Problem is a mirror elemental starts off with...what.... 8 HP ?

Someone swings in for 50 damage and only 8 is reflected back. That's not worth a spot in your army.

However, you do make a good point. The AI won't know the difference and could become easily abusable.

Maybe, in addition to the damage of a mirror elemental's attack, the spell Chaos should be cast for free? That's a water spell, right?

Would make things interesting on the offense, and yet will still give that reflection on the defense.

Thoughts?

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yeah, chaos could work. Even 'slow' could work.

Keep in mind that the later versions of the mirror elementals have higher HPs. A booster to the base HP or HP/level would work to make them not quite so useless.

The early mirror elementals are just fine for early armies or city defense spots. You usually don't have decent units by then, so anything helps. But, I'd take pretty much any unit over this one.

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I think they could use a small HP boost. The triggers chaos spell when hit is not a bad idea either, or else +1 counter-attack might work.

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edit: looking at some of the other monsters, I have the feeling that the change I did the the hp isn't going to work...

I'm still looking to increase the percent damage the Mirror Elemental does:

Don't know how to do it though.....suggestions?

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I do not know if it helps, but the spell cloak of thorns reflects the damage to the attacker, too.

To increase the hit points of units add endurance to their ability bonus options.

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Quoting GFireflyE,

reply 7

I'm looking in the CoreMonsterUnitTypes.xml file and there it shows the Mirror Elemental having only 8HP, no matter what level it is.....from L1 to L20. I have now adjusted the value to increase by 2 per level.

edit: looking at some of the other monsters, I have the feeling that the change I did the the hp isn't going to work...

Turns out it did work.

So now every level up, the Mirror Elemental's HP will increase by 2. Thus, if you take care who hits him over the coarse of several battles, you can perhaps get a 20HP reflection creature that is good for...somethings...

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