Beastmaster + Governor is OP

Nice build.  Not sure if it's really more OP than some other strategies, but a nice synergy. 

I think that such builds are the strentgh of Legendary Heroes and the AI should use them, too. Another nice combination is:

- Air Disciple and Fire Disciple

- Tarth

- General

- Commander with accuracy and initiative traits

- Cast the + (essence) initiative and + (essence) fire damage on your fortress city with 2 essence

- Watch how two archer units kill most enemies with double strike

I think the Maul ability is ridiculous and should be modified.  At minimum, it should be limited to a few extra strikes instead of the chance to deal huge damage over and over based on a percentage.  If not that, then the maximum damage of each successive landed strike should be reduced by a significant percentage.  When a Maul unit gets lucky and kills an important unit of mine, it feels cheap.  When I have a Maul unit of my own and kill something like the OP stated, it feels cheap.  This should be changed.

Maul has always been a problem.  

The maul mechanism is cool, but it's obviously impossible to balance.  As the case the OP makes, you can end up with three bears beating a dragon to death without the dragon getting a word in edgewise.  Kinda ridiculous.

I would suggest changing the mechanism to being:

Maul => after a successful attack, you get one extra strike which if it lands, debuffs the defender's initiative for one turn and has a chance to stun.  With such an attack, a bear would still be able (with luck) to successively maul a unit, but it wouldn't be able to do 60-100+ damage in a turn.

The added benefit is that this formulation is a lot easier to balance.

Right off the bat, Maul shouldn't work against units larger than the bear... think about it.  Pretty easy to do, make Maul ineffective against any unit larger than the bear, or that is immune to being knocked prone already.  That implies their size/strength is such that they can break out of it.

I rather think a bear ought to be able to Maul an archer to death if he closes the gap.

yeah, maul needs a bit of work.

the suggestions above are a decent way to get it back in balance.

Start with 'you can't maul anything bigger than you', then add 'can't maul anything that can't be knocked prone'. 

The above means getting to horses for units, but that should more than cover it for the early game.  After that, a damage reduction per maul strike (% damage lost/strike) can work. 

And continuing a maul from a backswing should be stopped.  Plus, swarm should not be triggered on a maul (first hit yes, but not the maul bonus hits).

i think the easiest solution would be to reduce the damage for each successive swing by some percentage (say, 25%). so the initial swing deals normal damage, the next swing 75%, then 50% and the 4th 25%. this way, you can still get ~250% of the listed base attack vs. an unarmored target if you have enough accuracy to actually hit 4 times in a row, which makes maul units +accuracy stacking a decent strategy vs. unarmored enemies (combine it with curse/mass curse to ensure that condition).

if the target has decent armor, this would then also protect against maul fairly well - damage calculation is based on the relative strength of the attack vs. defense, so weaker attacks deal exponentially less damage than strong attacks.

My level 8 cave bear almost never gets more than 4 hits and most frequently only 1 or 2 before a unit dodges.  Even my tamed Juggernaut (thank you Azure Collar Quest!)  rarely lands more than 3-4 in a row although his splash damage is zomg.  

I always try to use high dodge/high init units versus a mauling creature and hope for the best.  

There are counter-measures in the game mechanics already, use them to nerf a dangerous ability.

Procipinee's Crown is OP with a Summoner profession, or if you decide to build a tank sov and buff him/her.  

Just like MOM some builds are better than others, and we can try them out and see what fits our playstyle.

It's okay if there are really good strategies, like Commander + Bears.  The only problem would be if there weren't a dozen other good strategies too.  It's okay for something to be really good, as long as their are multiple really good things out there.  I don;t think this is the one, best strategy. 

Exactly!  Now Pony Cavalry Commander... that ability is totally OP!

Killing a dragon so easily is the very definition of OP. In this case, however, the strategy isn't OP so much as the move Maul is. Nerf maul.

So is shrink, so is stun or slow, so is 100% fire resistance. Stack all of these together and they are effective tactics against dragons and other fearsome beasts.  So is a critical strike from an Assassin with a Boreal blade.  Or Fracture and Web...

More choices and paths to an end = more fun and replayability. 

I'm still surprised this strategy would actually work as described.  The dragons in the game are far from weak and with fear, fire, and the dragon's attack, I just have a hard time with 3 bears and a commander killing a dragon.  Are those commander traits for accuracy stronger than I think?  Do they also have the accuracy faction trait, lucky I think it is?  I still have a hard time believing it can be done.  Not saying that I don't believe you, but I just have a hard time believing it was done easily.

Is it wrong, that now I want bears as mounts...

On fixing Maul, I like the above suggestion of it simply applying initiative damage to the defending unit on top of maybe a second attack. I kinda like the idea of Maul being an active ability, rather than a passive trait, that allows a unit to use it's counterattacks for additional strikes. Possibly with the perk that enemies that are immune to counterattack, like spearmen, are immune to maul as well.

EDIT: actually a major thing up front, probably, should be to remove swarm from Maul completely. So if a unit has maul, they can't benefit from swarming bonuses.

I think bears killing dragons is hilarious and therefore should be left in.

just tried it.

O.

P.

(now i wanna try with other mean animals)

Also, the Lucky faction trait.  +25% accuracy.  I've had Cave Bears doing basically 100 damage in one hit with just that.  I haven't tried it with the Commander bonuses, but I can see that combination getting ridiculous fast.

Tame Beast can be resisted, though.  On the higher difficulties, using it is like gambling.

I agree that Maul should have a hit limit.  I hate when I start combat and a bear just runs up to one of my guys who's at full health and hits him 8 times, killing him, before I even got a move in.

for this reason the ability that makes your units go first is mandatory and you better have a solution if you see a bear on the other end of the field.

This isn't OP as in guaranteed cheese that always works.

However, when it does... and even if you can't get a bear, get wolves, especially the pack leader wolf.

Mate, I'm pretty sure Impulsive doesn't exist anymore. It's not in Champion selection or any level-up table that I could see.

in my last game i had a level 3 fortress with "strike garrison" upgrade and the units built there still got free impulsive trait.

Oh, noes. My strategy is broken in latest patch. Now Cave Bears have HORNS and I just can't bear these ugly creatures in every combat!  :'(

Lol, I think they look cool.

Seems like a cool strategy, I had never considered it before.

And the ideas above are good......maybe the bears could have a chance of self damage for long strings of mauls?