Been using Sandrunner instead of Sunbird in explore this week. Found a weird thing about its spell. Its spell says
Deal 15 damage to the first and last Enemies. Then deal double damage to a random Enemy.
For one thing, ‘First and Last Enemies’ in this context seems to be distinct troops as a mandatory thing. Means if there’s only one enemy troop left, 15 damage won’t be effected twice to it.
And the next thing, Double damage to a random Enemy. The ‘random enemy’ seems to be decided right at the first step (15 damage to first and last enemies). Illustration: I had two enemy troops left : (i) Armor - 0 ; Life - 12 and (ii) Armor - 6 ; Life - 23. I thought Sandrunner’s spell should have been able to kill both. 15 to (i) kills it. 15 to (ii) destroys its armor and life becomes 14, then the double damage kills it. Nope, that didn’t happen. Double damage had been decided to hit the already killed troop (i). Weird.
I feel like it is unintuitive but that doesn’t mean it’s stupid. I think I see what they’re going for from a game design standpoint.
So like, my Sandrunner damage number is 16, various things might make it a little higher or lower for you but let’s sit on 16.
It’s a troop that gets more predictable as the match goes on. Its worst-case is when you kill BOTH the first and last troop. We can say:
With 4 troops, the worst-case is 50% likely to do only 50% total damage.
With 3 troops, the worst-case is 66% likely to do only 50% total damage.
With 2 troops, the worst-case changes because you win the game in the usual worst-case.
So here, the worst-case is you kill only ONE of the two troops, and you’re 50% likely to lose 50% damage.
With 1 troop, you lose 25% damage in all cases.
In the best cases you’re looking to do 64 damage spread across 2 troops in the amounts { 16, 48 }. The average case is 64 damage spread across 3 troops for an average of 21 damage but reality is { 16, 16, 32 }. You are more likely to hit between 1 and 2 troops than between 2 and 3, especially if the first hits kill the first or last troop.
It seems like they didn’t want to let an Ultra-Rare do a reliable 64 damage without some caveats. They were more comfortable with probability weighted towards 48 damage in situations where you’re already winning and some other “already winning” cases limited to < 32. It’s “worst” scenarios involve 3 troops on the board, when any other number is present the “worst-case” involves killing a troop which isn’t very “bad”.
I see the point, thanks to you. I was only exploring where the HP on enemy troops isn’t great. So, I never see Sandrunner causing such damage. Me calling it stupid was only of frustration more than anything else. Certainly not to underestimate the designer.
It may work similar to them, but its worded differently than them.
Infernus: Deal damage to 2 random enemies, and half of that damage to adjacent enemies.
Should trigger the entire effect on the same command line.
Ship Cannon: Deal damage to 3 random enemies.
Should trigger the entire effect on the same command line.
Sandrunner: Deal damage to the first and last enemies. Then deal double that damage to a random Enemy.
Deal damage to the first and last enemies should be a command line. Then should apply a second check after the first part of the effect is completed. Easiest example I could use is Ubastet deal damage to the 2 weakest enemies. If one dies, then kill the other. The then has its own trigger, which sometimes doesn’t happen because last second hero barrier to a random ally saves the troop.
This is pretty frustrating, because the text implies that the random target of the double damage is chosen after the damage to the first and last targets is done. It says:
“Deal 16 damage to the first and last Enemies.”
“Then deal double damage to a random Enemy.”
The targets for both of these events are chosen at the same time though, so the target of the double damage can sometimes be dead because they were one of the first or last enemies. In that case, it should read:
“Deal 16 damage to the first and last Enemies and double damage to a random Enemy.”
This lets you know that it all happens at the same time. As it is coded right now, it’s a pretty horrible unit, because if you know your first and last targets are going to die, and there is only one other target, there is a 66% chance that the one in the middle won’t take any damage (being there is a 33% chance to “choose” either the first or the last enemy, before they are killed).
I agree with this view. GoW is pretty inconsistent with how its text and its behaviors line up. The problem is it’s actually hard to describe how Sandrunner behaves concisely on a card, because in English the final damage target has to be “chosen” before the first/last damage targets are chosen. It’d have to read like:
Choose a random enemy. Deal {{some}} damage to the first and last enemies, then, if the random enemy still exists, deal twice that to the random enemy.
That’s confusing to people who aren’t used to keeping mental variables around. I’ve drafted it 2 or 3 different ways and each is as confusing as the last. It’s really hard to express the concept, “choose three targets, two of them non-random, then deal damage to the fixed targets, and if the random target is still valid do something to it”.
It’s not a terrible way for Sandrunner to work, it’s just really hard to describe in a clear manner.
I completely agree. I’m thinking they must have some kind of coding limitation that prevents them from being able to deal damage to more than 1 troop at a time, which you can see on a ‘damage to all’ spell (like a Mexican wave) - although the splash from a Splash attack seems to hit both of the adjacent targets simultaneously .
If you perform the steps you listed, you get something different than what Sandrunner does, but valiant effort despite the fact the thread even has pictures if the words are too hard to understand.
Sometimes, it will do damage to the first and last enemies, then NOT do 2x damage. Why? Because it chooses the random enemy first, and might choose the first or last enemy. If you kill that enemy with the first round of damage, you don’t do the damage.
That’s why it’s awkward and long to describe what it does.
Deal [Magic + 8] damage to the first and last Enemies. Then deal [2 * (Magic + 8)] damage to a random Enemy.
But I agree that the wording makes you believe that it deals damage to the first and last enemy. That resolves, then it will deal the “double damage” randomly.
You are convincing me the and in that sentence is significant, and would be a then if there were two distinct steps. Hmm. I think most people wouldn’t catch it but it’s the kind of thing that, if used consistently, is useful.
I am a fairly new player, and my troop selection for events isn’t that varied. One of my most used ones is Sandrunner. I’ve noticed that yes, should one enemy die the skill sometimes misses. That i understand. But it doesn’t just happen like that. Today in particular i noticed it because all enemy’s hp were full, and when i activated the skill, top enemy and bottom enemy received 10 damage, and while none died, the spell animation showed the bottom enemy receive the 3rd double damage hit, but no hp loss. After the spell was complete, top and bottom enemy still only had lost 10 hp.
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