Whiplash - OUTDATED

[Alexander82]

Cost 8 at tcs

You know how to get the best from your goblins by using your whip.

Activating this ability deal 10% damage every to the goblin unit that uses that skill and it gains +1 speed and +1 action as long as the effect is active.

[Puss_in_Boots]

Sounds overpowered, maybe it should just increase their mending and building rate by 5%. They are not very likely to appear at battle there for making the damage given almost pointless.

[LordOfAles]

Maybe double action for 2 turns?

[Alexander82]

5%?

how much is 5% of 7?

The downside is that you slowly kill your workers by using their ability even if they don't fight. Also in small maps is really easy for a worker to fall in the range of an upgrade archer (particularly if you are building towers and walls) so there is no need to have them in battlefields

[Puss_in_Boots]

I forgot their mend rate and thought it was represented in percentages.

What I ment to say was +3 mend rate.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Maybe kill a worker to give an extra action to all workers nearby (say range 4) for this turn?

[Puss_in_Boots]

I don't like the idea of an extra action for workers at all.

[LordOfAles]

I dont like the idea to kill worker by a whip

[Alexander82]

Goblin workers are slaves so it is perfectly in line with the fantasy background they are in.

My idea was the double action since it gives the feeling of them rushing their work.

Considering that the human workers upgrade gives +5 to their mend rate (for a total of 15) with no downside and they also have a tech that increases the effect of mending from building i think this tech isn't imbalanced at all.

Humans are still better workers and to improve goblins you still need to damage one.

Another option might be a simpler version where every single goblin receive one damage every turn when using the whiplash ability (that should be a free action), so they just continue getting whipped until they die or you deactivate the ability.

It is just more annoying to use since you need to activate it everytime for every unit and need to check their health every turn.

[Puss_in_Boots]

How about it sets them up for doom without a shaman nearby to heal it? That way nobody gets to wuss out of death at 1hp.

[Alexander82]

It is just damage over time, if every slave is damaged you will really need many dedicated healers to use with them.

Anyway, as i said before, the skill is not imbalanced, so, having to put a dedicated strategy to have the most from it is just natural and is part of the game itself (that's what healers are for).

[Sunrise Samurai]

Hmm. Maybe a double edged tech, that activates it as a permanent effect where they take 1 damage each turn, but get +1 action too. This pretty much forced you to choose whether you want the extra build speed, but need to keep shamans around, or keep your production off shamans​ but don't build as fast.

[Alexander82]

I think it should be able to choose if activating or not. Honestly I'm contrary to techs that give a permanent downside to a unit since you can't "unresearch" them.

On the other hand might be understandable a permanent effect on a specific goblin (it keeps to loose life until it dies).

[Sunrise Samurai]

That could work. Quite well, in fact. I'm actually thinking this could be applied to all goblins if you so chose. Say 10% of their health per turn, minimum 1, for an extra action. It fits the absurdly temporary nature of goblins at least.

[Alexander82]

I was thinking about that too, i only fear that future goblin units that are stronger might become too powerful.

However 10% damage seems reasonable.

[Sunrise Samurai]

That's why I gave a percentage. Stronger units take more damage for it.

[Alexander82]

Ok, then we can extend to all goblins

[LordOfAles]

A whiplash could also increase Goblin slave speed by 1.Makes more sense

[Sunrise Samurai]

That could also work. Higher speed is a little more workable than extra actions.

[Alexander82]

That's completely another thing. The proposal was meant to make workers work faster. Extra speed for workers is almost useless.

[LordOfAles]

Sorry.what i meant is both speed and mend rate

[Alexander82]

I think that the extra action will cover perfectly any possible unit that might be influenced by that tech. For a goblin spearman wouldn't make sanse to gain mend rate.

The extra speed, however, might be useful for combat units. +1 speed and +1 action make sense together.

Then we should increase cost a bit (since it was for workers only at first).

[LordOfAles]

It should be up to 9,thats a pretty strong tech

[Puss_in_Boots]

Not really, you don't see goblins in an army very often.

[LordOfAles]

I very often use master goblin archers

[Puss_in_Boots]

I'm wondering if it should effect the pyromancer, it would be weird giving a magical unit some sort of lash to affect it's productivity. Just saying.

[LordOfAles]

Good one man

[Alexander82]

8 seems fair since you won't benefit from it until late game. This tech will help goblin becoming more useful (uruk archers and troll headhunters are way better ranged units at the moment, and uruk pikemen and raptor riders are better anti cavalry).

[Sunrise Samurai]

We can probably put it in and tweak the cost/percentage of degeneration to balance it. As it stands, we have a good way to make goblins fast, vicious, and still seem very weak at +1 speed, +1 action, and -10% life per turn.

[Alexander82]

Daniel is it ok for you?