In Defense of Darkness (make chaotic/undead a bigger part of players' experience)

[white-haired-uncle]

Redirecting from #755

Celestial Messenger and Prophet are generally highly popular units that are probably OP by themselves. I wanted to make them slightly weaker, most likely just by reducing some numbers. Celestial Messenger was recently made even better by making conviction more important.

True, but we also scaled conviction back and moved it further into the AMLA tree. Still probably OP though,

I could revise the sources of illumination, there really may be many of them and giving stronger versions of illumination. Meanwhile, it's true that darkens usually makes enemies stronger (except for demons). Maybe they could be paired with despair?

I like it.

I am aware of the unpopularity of undead, I even have a concrete list of extra abilities they could get to be more attractive. Previously, I added a few new undead unit types one Halloween a few years ago, but it didn't do much.

If you mean the effect on players, that's hard to say. Whether the advancing soulless is a new thing or just something I never noticed, as soon as I found out about it I started playing with it. Unique unit types will always get my attention. And you never know what players are doing if they don't bring it up.

The item Chaos intentionally has a bunch of unrelated mods. I created it out of curiosity if it will be useful somewhere, but it seems that its +1 attacks is the main reason to use it. Or maybe skirmisher.

I'm beginning to find skirmisher to be a must have for at least one of E/L, usually L since he's tends to be pretty much invincible and she sometimes gets into trouble (he's a lot more powerful on defense the way I build them).

I don't think I've ever taken Purify from LoL or E's raising undead AMLA because they come way too late in the game, where either low level units are worthless or everything is mechanical. More stuff like this and more plague earlier might help. Could even make building an undead army rather important at some early point (or maybe it is an I just solo that part?). An Army is Born, etc, is kind of a let down as I pretty much sacrifice them all in Invasion since they are pretty much useless after that. An Army is such a cool concept, it's a shame to see it go to waste (though letting the skeletal dragons join the army might be a bit much, perhaps that's the downside of the deal in Invasion, you get dragons but only for a short time).

Also, the shadow prince (Pirates), shadowwalker (Prison) and undead army (Amp4) join you so late that you already have enough powerful units you don't really need them.

P.S. I don't know if I ever mentioned this before, but undead leadership/healing/cantor/etc could be a motivator. For example, undead leadership is leadership, but 50% more powerful and only works on adjacent undead.

[Dugy]

I have given a strong new ability to Deathlord - now he drains 4 life from all adjacent units at the start of his turn, and applies it to itself as wrath (undead don't take this damage but boost his wrath too).

[Dugy]

I have given a group of abilities to Arch Necromancer that make him give undead-like weaknesses to adjacent non-undead enemies and undead-like resistances to adjacent undead allies. Inspired by the warlock from the Warcraft film.

[Dugy]

I have given a strong improvement to Abomination. Previously, its access to the original murderlust was made almost exclusive, now it also can get a weapon special to deal double damage to poisoned enemies, and it can gain a new ability to poison and damage all adjacent enemies when hit.

It seems totally overpowered at first sight, but it can't use weapons and is quite hard to get, so let's see how will it work out.

[white-haired-uncle]

If you have to level into it from soulless, overpowered is not as terrible as it is for regular units.

Perhaps I'm wrong, I was thinking Monstrosity was the more or less worthless of the two and Abomination was pretty decent.

Personally, I like Abomination because I can rename the unit "The <US political side I don't like> Administration". Then in the autorecall gui it shows up as The <US political side I don't like> Administration (Abomination). And the great thing is, whoever wins our next Presidential election I'll be able to use that for the next 5 years or so.

[Dugy]

I have improved Grim Knight now, I am not certain if it is enough, though.

[Dugy]

Perhaps I'm wrong, I was thinking Monstrosity was the more or less worthless of the two and Abomination was pretty decent.

My notes from the forums said that Abomination was not particularly popular. I know that Monstrosity is extremely unpopular, but I haven't come up with an idea what to do with it.

[white-haired-uncle]

I have given a strong new ability to Deathlord - now he drains 4 life from all adjacent units at the start of his turn, and applies it to itself as wrath (undead don't take this damage but boost his wrath too).

I took over the undead in Amp4, and immediately started getting these every turn. I get one message for each Deathlord that is on the recall list (if I recall one, I get one less error, if I kill them all I get none).

20240417 18:31:57 error wml: [unstore_unit]: variable 'unit' doesn't exist

Adding this to the [filter] makes the errors go away:

[not]
     x,y=recall,recall
[/not]

Makes me wonder how many other things are working on units on the recall list when they shouldn't be.

P.S. Maybe filter that event so it doesn't happen on turn1? I have no control where autorecall places my deathlord.

[Dugy]

Makes me wonder how many other things are working on units on the recall list when they shouldn't be.

There may be some problems, but they usually don't manifest if there are no adjacent enemies and such.

The worst thing I have seen was in one campaign had a scenario where the number of enemies depended on the number of players' units, and was impossible to win if the player overrecruited in any previous scenario because units on recall list counted.

Adding this to the [filter] makes the errors go away:

Makes sense. I've done that.

[Dugy]

I have improved Monstrosity, both numerically and by adding a new ability that allows it to consume an adjacent allied Walking Corpse to get an extremely powerful attack for 1 turn. This should also add some utility to weak plague units.

[white-haired-uncle]

I don't know how powerful you were looking to make that Deathlord, but I just took a brand new one (from Amp4) and surrounded him with L1 undead (finally a use for E/L's undead summoning greater spells). He's walking around with 23 lethargy bonus. Eventually the undead start to fall off (let's see what happens when I use higher level units, get him warlord's rule, etc), and now I just have a couple of them standing behind me (where no one can get to them), and his lethargy is dropping by just one point per turn.

I move E/L to either side of him, now he's holding at +19. Combined with L's warlord's rule and Wretched Defiler, he's levelling up pretty quickly.

The drain 4 thing is kind of weird. I think I get why it doesn't work on undrainable (though perhaps just undead would be preferable), but because fueled runs from side turn, any effected units will immediately be healed if they regen, next to healer (you know I'm going to find a way to make my deathlord a healer), etc. Perhaps move this so that it happens after healing (turn refresh?), and add poison.

[white-haired-uncle]

I wonder if legacies would make undead more popular.

But then, they'll all get LoL of course.

[Dugy]

I don't know how powerful you were looking to make that Deathlord, [...]

As powerful as it takes to make him a viable option despite not benefiting from illumination and having undead-like weaknesses. If I find he's overused, I can simply make his signature ability weaker.

Also, he's not overpowered if you need a team of undead to stay strong.

now I just have a couple of them standing behind me (where no one can get to them), and his lethargy is dropping by just one point per turn.

What do you mean by that? It should half every turn. Or do you mean 2 supporting undead are enough to keep it high?

I think I get why it doesn't work on undrainable (though perhaps just undead would be preferable),

The idea is that he drains something from them to empower himself. There are some custom units that are meant to be unliving but not undead, so it's not strictly the same as undead (and the not_living status was deprecated, so undrainable makes more sense).

Perhaps move this so that it happens after healing (turn refresh?), and add poison.

I didn't think of the healing part, it still won't change much if the unit is already injured, but will make the difference less significant. I moved it to turn refresh. I don't want to add poison because it's already used as a way give some advantage to your undead units.

I wonder if legacies would make undead more popular.

I don't think so. My records say that Champion Bowman, Chaos Rider or Blackguard are very unpopular, yet they have legacies. The undead usually had little interesting abilities, which was often combined with inconvenient weaknesses. Many of them were designed around plague, which isn't a very popular mechanic (which I also tried to boost now by giving additional utility to having weak undead around).

[white-haired-uncle]

I don't know how powerful you were looking to make that Deathlord, [...]

As powerful as it takes to make him a viable option despite not benefiting from illumination and having undead-like weaknesses. If I find he's overused, I can simply make his signature ability weaker.

Also, he's not overpowered if you need a team of undead to stay strong.

I don't know if he's overpowered or not, but before any advancements with his +23 lethargy he kills pretty much anything that moves and sometimes even goes more than one turn without gaining a level.

now I just have a couple of them standing behind me (where no one can get to them), and his lethargy is dropping by just one point per turn.

What do you mean by that? It should half every turn. Or do you mean 2 supporting undead are enough to keep it high?

I think I get why it doesn't work on undrainable (though perhaps just undead would be preferable),

Yeah, it probably does drop by half, but then goes right back up.

I didn't think of the healing part, it still won't change much if the unit is already injured

What I noticed was none of the units next to him were taking any damage. They were, but it was healed so quickly I never saw it. So the big difference is (was) if the victims were uninjured they stayed uninjured. This was why I mentioned poison, it would negate the healing for a turn. turn refresh should help, at least they'll be down 4HP for one turn (of course, they're standing behind a unit that is very, very, hard to kill so they'll just heal next turn).

I wonder if legacies would make undead more popular.

I don't think so. My records say that Champion Bowman, Chaos Rider or Blackguard are very unpopular, yet they have legacies. The undead usually had little interesting abilities, which was often combined with inconvenient weaknesses. Many of them were designed around plague, which isn't a very popular mechanic (which I also tried to boost now by giving additional utility to having weak undead around).

I've probably mentioned this, but I find plague (and purify) largely useless. By the time I get it, most of the enemies aren't effected by it. If there was a time early in the part where you had to rely on undead, possibly acquired with plague it might encourage building undead troops up, though I have no idea how that would fit into the story.

In addition to no legacies, most undead have boring AMLAs. I don't really care where the AMLA options come from, but taking "better with melee" a dozen times doesn't do much for me, I'll give the XP to someone interesting. I guess it's an outlet for books, since I rarely use those maybe applying them to undead kills two birds.

[Dugy]

I don't know if he's overpowered or not, but before any advancements with his +23 lethargy he kills pretty much anything that moves and sometimes even goes more than one turn without gaining a level.

Hm, that sounds a little overpowered. Maybe I could half the amount of stacks he gains. Not sure if the original ability could be available as some hard to reach AMLA or not.

By the time I get it, most of the enemies aren't effected by it.

The level 1 units can be used as cannon fodder to screen your units, as far as I know. Some may happen to survive for long enough to advance. But I suppose that wasn't an interesting option because undead had just more plague which you already had to have to get into the situation.

Anyway, I haven't added any plague with these changes, and also Monstrosity has an ability to consume Walking Corpses.

In addition to no legacies, most undead have boring AMLAs. I don't really care where the AMLA options come from, but taking "better with melee" a dozen times doesn't do much for me, I'll give the XP to someone interesting.

That is why I am trying to add interesting abilities to them now, mostly by AMLA, rather than just increase the numbers. Though, with Deathlord, it seems like I overdid it a little.

[Dugy]

I have added an ability to teleport to necromancers and liches to Phantom, as well as AMLAs allowing him to teleport to leaders. This should allow it to escape from danger, or possibly to allow some units to summon a Phantoms anywhere when threatened.

[Dugy]

I have added an ability to hide near units to Dark Shade. I also gave it better backstab options.

[white-haired-uncle]

I like the changes, but will players see them? If I already know undead suck I may never advance any units and discover what you've added.

The crack dealer doesn't hand out free samples to people who are already junkies.

[Dugy]

I like the changes, but will players see them? If I already know undead suck I may never advance any units and discover what you've added.

That is why many of those new abilities are not added only as AMLAs, some are just starting abilities that enemies will also have. Though I'll need to check how often do level 4 undead appear on easy.

The crack dealer doesn't hand out free samples to people who are already junkies.

This is a hilarious quip.

[Dugy]

I have improved Goblin Warbanner, now he can gain a leadership that makes units gain level difference times 25% increased damage, but applying to stronger units instead of weaker units. He will boost your high level units... if you can keep him alive.

[Dugy]

I have improved Goblin Ravager with advancements granting him a 90% chance to hit against enemies in villages.

[Dugy]

I have added a fiery aura to Chaos Rider and replaced his plague upgrade with area of effect. He can now also unlock firecast after some investiment. I hope he'll be a more popular ending of a less popular unit line.

(I know he's not chaotic, but he was very underused anyway)

[white-haired-uncle]

An unfortunate name for a lawful unit.

He looks pretty good. No faster with stomp is unfortunate for the times when you don't want to use a fire attack. The AMLAs still look a little boring, but I'm probably comparing them to prophet (or my memory of prophet before recent changes). Not boring, but just a little shy of interesting enough to make me really want to try this "new" unit.

I suspect he's underused because he advances from cavalier. If I'm going to advance a mounted unit (which seem to be rather limited in availability) I'm going to focus on horseman/prophet. So if you want to make CR more popular, I would consider "giving" the player a few cavaliers at some point and/or making cavalier available for recruit when horseman is not (both of which should be more effective the earlier in the campaign they occur). Perhaps {QUANTITY 3 2 1} loyal cavaliers join you as a bonus for completing an optional objective like defeat all enemy leaders vs get to the end of the road, or "you can now recruit cavaliers" -- either one makes them seem like they are something special and worth investigating.

[Dugy]

I gave him a fiery aura and a relatively difficult to obtain firecast.

Maybe I could add Cavalier to join the player in some scenario, any idea where it could be suitable?

[Dugy]

I have created a new ability named shadowalk, if the wearer is in darkness, he can teleport next to any adjacent enemy. I also buffed Shadowalker's backstab spell (it was weaker than intended) and made shadowalk unlockable to him, so that he could teleport behind an enemy to backstab.

I have also added the ability to Orcish Nightblade, he seemed very underused too.

[white-haired-uncle]

I've noticed that Horsemen become available at Battle for Ogira. Though they're about useless there, I try to remember to recruit a couple just to get them on my recall list for later. If Delly recruited cavaliers, you could have her give a loyal one or two as a reward for saving the town. However, chapter 2 isn't great for advancing units, and chapter 3 is chapter 3.

Perhaps when you visit the town in Thirst for Adventures, with a comment about "I know he's not much against undead, but he's all I can spare" or something. Or as a reward/incentive for accepting the bandit mission.

[Dugy]

I've noticed that Horsemen become available at Battle for Ogira.

If I remember correctly, they are the only way to get a Dragon Rider while also getting Mario to advance into a Duke. And Dragon Rider is a rather strong type, and it feels kinda fine to make the way of getting him a little secret for the player to discover.

Perhaps when you visit the town in Thirst for Adventures, with a comment about "I know he's not much against undead, but he's all I can spare" or something. Or as a reward/incentive for accepting the bandit mission.

That could work. The comment could better be We are not able to equip him to fight the undead, maybe you have some resources to make him more useful. The player can give him a fiery sword or something. Or advance him into a Chaos Rider who eats undead for breakfast.

[Dugy]

I have added weapon specials for hunting undead, imps and demons to Predator, based on feedback that he was becoming useless by the end of the game.

[Dugy]

I have added an option for Soul Shooter to get a cold-based arrow attack. Also, I increased the damage of the arcane arrows and added options for reducing enemy resistances to these damage types.

[white-haired-uncle]

Just standing around like this, his wrath finally stopped increasing and holds steady at +47.

[Dugy]

His damage is definitely massive under these circumstances, but being supported like this isn't a very realistic situation.

[white-haired-uncle]

Elsewhere in the game (where everything isn't mechanical), craft Wretched Defiler for his axe and xbow. He'll be surrounded by undead constantly, particularly where he can use terrain such that enemies can only attack from one or two tiles so his supporting units can hide behind him.

Be fun to give him wrath, then hide E/L behind him which would hopefully cause the enemies to go after him like crazy. In the right scenario, I might be able to break +100 wrath (maybe, at some point you're one-hitting every enemy).

[Dugy]

So it's entirely possible he would be strong enough even if he gained half of the wrath bonus, supposing he is properly equipped?

[white-haired-uncle]

Maybe, I can try it.

Noticed something while I was in there. What if the unit's wrath is initially negative? It looks like that is just treated as effectively zero, so it is completely "healed" and he gets the full wrath on top of that.

[Dugy]

Yes, but that wasn't intentional. I was thinking about consolidating the wrath code, replace it with a bunch of WML tags to avoid lots of complicated code scattered over weapon specials.

Basically, when you finish the hard difficulty rebalance and I finish the unit rebalance, I will release it as a new version and it will be time for refactoring.

[white-haired-uncle]

I saw a comment the other day where someone was asking about a 1.18 release / ETA. Not the first one I've seen.

I was thinking about the fact that in ch10 you start with a deathlord. I suspect him being so powerful is going to have a rather large effect on early ch10 (he's already one of the most powerful units in the early part of that chapter, I rely heavily on him and the prophet to dispatch powerful demons to keep the rest of the army alive). Since you get two of them free in Amp4, and one free in ch10, maybe fueled by death should come as an AMLA, and perhaps not the first.

[white-haired-uncle]

BTW, on the subject of unit balance, I find it hard to choose amongst the initial AMLAs for the Elf Overlord, and I often delay taking legacy awareness for a while because the other ones are so good. Faster at melee is one that probably shouldn't come first.

And I while looking at this I discovered a new exploit. Take aware of legacy, then alter advancement. You can then take the first legacy advancement instead. Aware is still an option, but unnecessary since you've just "skipped" it.

LotI1-Armoury-Auto-Save40.gz

[Dugy]

I saw a comment the other day where someone was asking about a 1.18 release / ETA. Not the first one I've seen.

I would like to finish rebalancing units. You might want to finish the hard difficulty made harder.

I was thinking about the fact that in ch10 you start with a deathlord. I suspect him being so powerful is going to have a rather large effect on early ch10 (he's already one of the most powerful units in the early part of that chapter, I rely heavily on him and the prophet to dispatch powerful demons to keep the rest of the army alive).

I don't think you'll be able to support him effectively enough to make him a gamechanger.

maybe fueled by death should come as an AMLA, and perhaps not the first.

I wanted to keep it this way so that enemy Deathlords would benefit from that too.

I find it hard to choose amongst the initial AMLAs for the Elf Overlord, and I often delay taking legacy awareness for a while because the other ones are so good.

He was quite underused previously, so this shows I've made a step in the right direction. Legacy awareness was never intended to be the preferable first AMLA.

And I while looking at this I discovered a new exploit. Take aware of legacy, then alter advancement. You can then take the first legacy advancement instead.

Ouch. Yeah, I didn't take care of this.

[white-haired-uncle]

I generally like to take the awareness pretty early. In theory, it lets you throw away units with bad legacies. It also helps when selecting AMLAs if you know there's going to be overlap (Elder Mage with Dragon Legacy, no sense advancing his fireblast, and of course LoLight for anything that illuminates) and allocate gear/sets.

I don't think you'll be able to support him effectively enough to make him a gamechanger.

Goblins.

[Dugy]

I generally like to take the awareness pretty early.

But I don't see it as a problem if learning the legacy is not the first go to option. It was just an emergent rule of thumb.

Goblins.

Well, it will give them more purpose, and maybe some of them will actually advance into something. But I guess it won't be so overpowered if I half his wrath bonus?

[white-haired-uncle]

I generally like to take the awareness pretty early.

But I don't see it as a problem if learning the legacy is not the first go to option. It was just an emergent rule of thumb.

Just to be clear, the point I was trying to make is that he has so many really good early AMLAs that I tend to wait a long time before taking the legacy. This is very different than other units (except prophet).

Goblins.

Well, it will give them more purpose, and maybe some of them will actually advance into something. But I guess it won't be so overpowered if I half his wrath bonus?

Half turned out better, but he was still getting a wrath bonus that doubled his attack damage most of the time.

Of course, I go heavy on healers and regeneration so I can afford to keep him pretty much surrounded all the time. Since units with undrainable/regenerate/next-to-healer basically take no penalty at all, I wonder if it would make sense to give them lethargy instead at like 2x (he gets +2, they lose 4, since it'll half almost immediately). I'd slow them on hard as well.

[Dugy]

Just to be clear, the point I was trying to make is that he has so many really good early AMLAs that I tend to wait a long time before taking the legacy. This is very different than other units (except prophet).

I understand what you mean, but I don't see that as a problem.

Half turned out better, but he was still getting a wrath bonus that doubled his attack damage most of the time.

But this bonus isn't increased by weapons's multiplicative bonuses.

Of course, I go heavy on healers and regeneration so I can afford to keep him pretty much surrounded all the time.

Needing that much support to deal more (but not extremely much) damage than a usual unit seems fine to me.

[white-haired-uncle]

Half turned out better, but he was still getting a wrath bonus that doubled his attack damage most of the time.

But this bonus isn't increased by weapons's multiplicative bonuses.

It's nothing to do with multiplicative bonuses, I'm just saying that the wrath bonus was as much or more than the base damage, which for a weapon with nearly 20 base damage is pretty massive.

Of course, I go heavy on healers and regeneration so I can afford to keep him pretty much surrounded all the time.

Needing that much support to deal more (but not extremely much) damage than a usual unit seems fine to me.

Perhaps it's partly because I didn't get the deathlord until late in part 1 and my units were well advanced, but I see it the other way around. It's minimal support since over half of my units heal or regen anyway (I don't have to carefully position them when pretty much anyone will heal anyone else), and the extra damage seems pretty extreme to me. It's not a big deal really, but I suspect that sooner or later you'll find that this unit is rather OP. Again, part of that feeling may be that I got him as a deathlord -- had I advanced him from a skeleton (I find undead quite challenging to advance from low level) I'd probably feel somewhat differently.

But it's not like it's going to throw the balance off much anyway. Maybe early ch10, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing anyway.

[nerffrog]

I saw the topic of purify and plague mentioned here so I would like to give my two cents on it. With the last changes to undead plague seems to be much better now, plus it's always been usable to generate cannon fodder. As for purify, I've only really used it once, and that was when I played the multiplayer gladiators scenario and used purify to expand my group of heroes into an army. Other than that, it is completely trash. This actually makes me think, how about you let purify work on undead demons? Lore-wise we know that not everyone in the demon faction is evil, and even those who are occasionally align themselves with you to achieve a common goal. This is similar to Akula's sister and the other mechanical prisoner you encounter in chapter 5. Also, it's not as if a demon decided to join you on their own, you literally brought them back from being undead. The idea of possessing a demon is not that farfetched either. Balance-wise there's several points to consider: -demons have no AMLAs, any strength they gain will be solely through items (not like leadership would affect them) -there's a very good chance you end chapter 9 without even unlocking purify -even if you do, you won't be walking around with an army of demons because each of them needs to be equipped heavily -if you're still worried that they'd end up too strong, there's two options available: You either make the demons on your side weaker because they do not receive any of Uria's power Or you make purify work on demon souls only I'm more interested in the second option, considering just how difficult it is to kill a demon soul, especially when you can only do so in retaliation.

All in all, I would like to see purify affect more magical units. Black souls being converted into regular level 1 or level 2 humans does not sound broken at all, considering how powerful your army already is by the time you face them.

[white-haired-uncle]

All in all, I would like to see purify affect more magical units. Black souls being converted into regular level 1 or level 2 humans does not sound broken at all, considering how powerful your army already is by the time you face them.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, though I'm not sure what "possessing" demons would look like.

I've always thought Black Souls needed something. Purify (currently worthless) is an interesting idea. However, there already is a "race" of units you can "release" to get L1/L2 humans/dwarves in more or less the same part of the game. And at that part of the game L1/L2 humans/dwarves are worthless to me as I already have plenty of advanced troops (of course, if I was playing w/o items that would probably be different).

[Dugy]

Restoring black souls with purify seems okay. With undead demons, I will have to think about it, getting some demon with powerful traits that will advance to a some really nasty monster that doesn't even need AMLA is a scenario none of us wants to see. Black soul demons are also a dangerous edge case.

[Dugy]

I have added a new ability to Blackguard that allows him to teleport to a nearby ally that is adjacent to an enemy. It should allow him to swiftly traverse a battlefield to strike where he's needed the most.

[nerffrog]

Sorry I can't share saves for the following. All of this occured on the latest version. Whirlwind and cone are bugged once more, they're leaving enemies at 0 hp. I suspect all AoE attacks are affected. The shadowstalk with radius 2 or 3 seems to be bugged (at least on dark shades, a shade would hide on 2nd or 3rd hex but not immediately adjacent to a unit). I couldn't get shadowalk to work, meanwhile the new blackguard ability works just fine. Evisceration is healing nearby units but is not ridding them of poison, idk about slow. Soul hunter's new cold attack is instead giving an arcane attack. The monstrosity advancement typo was fixed earlier but that was only the increased damage advancement. The more attacks one is still applied to melee.

Looking at dark shade, shadowstalk is a step in the right direction, but definitely is not enough. The unit is severely weakened by its inability to equip most pieces of armor, and its terrible advancements aren't helping at all. There's only one way you could make me use it, and that is if you add a difficult to reach advancement to it that makes enemy units unable to attack it. Something similar to a petrified unit, except the dark shade can move and attack on its own. I believe it is unique enough for a unit that is a "shade" and might actually make me want to use it. Not sure how difficult it would be to implement such an ability, but I think the petrification code might be a good start.

[Dugy]

Whirlwind and cone are bugged once more, they're leaving enemies at 0 hp.

Fixed.

The shadowstalk with radius 2 or 3 seems to be bugged (at least on dark shades, a shade would hide on 2nd or 3rd hex but not immediately adjacent to a unit).

No unit can be hidden when adjacent to an enemy. The unit is hidden as expected when adjacent to an ally.

I couldn't get shadowalk to work

It works as expected. If it's dark, the unit can teleport to hexes adjacent to adjacent enemies.

Evisceration is healing nearby units but is not ridding them of poison, idk about slow.

Intended. Fixed the description.

Soul hunter's new cold attack is instead giving an arcane attack.

It's Soul Shooter, not Soul Hunter. It was originally the name of the level 3 unit, but it got renamed to Bone Shooter. Anyway, I fixed the damage type.

The more attacks one is still applied to melee.

Fixed.

There's only one way you could make me use it, and that is if you add a difficult to reach advancement to it that makes enemy units unable to attack it.

It's easy. Just disable all attacks, apply to opponent. But a unit with an ability like this would be almost immortal, which seems too good.

[white-haired-uncle]

What about a combination of distant attack and hit and run, probably with a tweak to shadowstalk (which is new to me).

The idea is that the shade could come out of the "darkness", attack without retribution, and then return back to the shadows (kind of like Black Souls, except the enemy could still attack if they discovered the unit during their turn or it it couldn't make it back to a place to hide). Kind of like the scenario Investigations (from the users' perspective).

I think the problem with this is that for most units that "hide", once discovered they remain discovered for the rest of the turn. For example, if I come out of hiding and kill a lone enemy, I can still be seen even though I'm no longer next to an enemy unit (because it's now dead). I'm pretty sure this also applies to things like hit and run, so even if I hit(kill) and run to a place I'd be invisible I can still be seen.

[Dugy]

It's possible to create an ability that would hide the unit back after successfully killing something.