Dark Monolith - Spell issue?

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This isn’t necessarily a bug, but it seems like it’s one.

When you cast the Dark Monolith spell, it’s supposed to “deal X damage to weakest two troops”.
If there’s only one troop left, that one troop takes X damage.
Now, maybe that’s by design, but if so, then the design seems wrong.

As a counterexample, Druid’s spell targets two random enemies, and if there’s only one target it’s hit twice. Knight Coronet targets the first and last, and again, if there’s only one target it’s hit twice.

Maybe there are more examples, I can’t think of any at the moment, but with Druid and Knight Coronet attacking the same target twice it’s quite a letdown to have the Dark Monolith NOT attack the same target twice. If it’s not a bug, then it’s a subtle nerf to what you’d expect to be a better effect.

Anyone else know of other troops that do (or don’t do) the two attack thing? Is this as much of a disappointment to anyone else?

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While I understand the frustration, I believe this is intended, and does actually fall in line with how the other spells work.

TL;DR
Druid and Knight Coronet’s spells have targeting criteria that can potentially fall on the same troop twice, but since Dark Monolith’s is ordered, this is not possible, so with only one troop left will only hit it once.

The issue here is how the spells are calculated.

Druid’s targets two random enemies, which in practice means the spell resolves twice, picking a random target each time. In theory it’s possible for it to hit the same troop twice even when there are 4 troops on the board. So when there is only 1 troop left, it picks a random troop twice as normal, but since a random number in the range of 1 to 1 is always going to be 1, the same troop is chosen both times.

With Knight Coronet it mentions the first and last troop. And from observing how this (and other spells that target first or last troops) works when there are three or two troops we can see that as the top or bottom troop dies, the game “shifts” it’s perception of which troop is the top or bottom accordingly. So if troop 1 dies, troop 2 becomes the new “first troop”. And if troop 4 dies, troop 3 becomes the new “last troop”. If we have say troops 2 and 3 alive, 2 is the first, and 3 is the last troop. Now say troop 3 dies, so the “last troop” title moves up the line to the next “last troop” which just so happens to be troop 2, which is also the “first troop”. So when Knight Coronet casts, it fires twice, once at the first troop, and once at the last troop, it’s just when there is only one troop left to hit, that troop counts as both the first and the last troop at the same time.

Now with Dark Monolith it’s a bit different. He targets the weakest and second weakest troops. The reason it can’t hit the same troop twice, is because it’s impossible to have a troop be the weakest AND the second weakest at the same time. The weakest troop can’t be the second weakest as well, since being second weakest implies that there is something weaker than you. You could technically argue that the troop should have all the “titles”, including weakest and second weakest, and ones like strongest etc, but then you get into a logic issue where if the troop is the strongest, then it can’t be the weakest, and there for the spell shouldn’t be hitting it.

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Beautiful! This is the type of explanation I like to see! Had you not, Oz, I would have said something pretty much identical to that. You get a medal!

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Kruarg the Dread, Emperor Khorvash, Kraken, Lion Prince, Reaver - all of these do damage to the first or last two enemies, but only hit once when there’s on troop left.

Hobgoblin, Satyr Musician and supposedly Ship cannon - these choose the second target randomly, thus hitting twice the last troop.

(The mechanics were already explaind by ozball, I assume there’s no need to explain them twice.)

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Oh, I understand the mechanics perfectly, no issue there.

I was more wondering if any other troop worked this way, or if all the rest worked in the “double tap” manner. And there’s a list of 5 troops that I don’t really use, so no wonder I couldn’t think of any!

So there’s a strict division, some work in a “one or two targets” way, and some work in the “always two targets” way.

Thanks!

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