I was watching some Heroes of Might and Magic III and seeing a player using loads of Vampire Lords to win a battle with no losses. Those things are almost broken when you get a critical mass of them, as they both have lifesteal and no retaliation.
This made me wonder if it’d be possible to add a UU to AoE2 that has a lifesteal mechanic.
The idea of it would be that each time the UU lands an attack, it heals a little bit (i.e. 5 HP). This would only be workable on a melee UU, and it would not work when attacking buildings. It’d also have to be a low enough amount of healing that it doesn’t fully cancel out most attacks it takes, except from super-weak units such as Villagers or Skirmishers. This would ensure that the mechanic, while good in a large pitched battle, would not help much against enemies that deal bonus damage, nor against focus-firing.
I’d have the mechanic on a cavalry UU so that anti-cavalry units can still beat them easily. It’d also have to be at most a “medium cavalry” unit in the same vein as Keshiks, and I’d have the damage output of the UU be mediocre-at-best so it’s better at long fights rather than short ones.
But what do you think? Is there a place in AoE2 for a unit with a lifesteal mechanic?
I’d say them to go get a life.
But seriously it works well in a fantasy game however it’s hard to find historical ground for it.
I’d be glad to be proven wrong with an example anyway.
Isn’t this justification basically the Berserker unique unit anyway?
I feel like overall this is sort of overlapping with that unit too much to begin with, where too little and it’ll be a worse Berserker, and too much will make the unit obnoxious.
It could be for a cavalry unit instead of an infantry unit. I’d actually prefer it that way so Halbs and Camels can still dominate a lifesteal UU cavalry, just like fighting Halbs and Camels with Keshiks is definitely not cost-effective.
Weird to have a UT with this name, but if you were, just getting food from kills would make a lot more sense.
Anyway, “lifesteal” is just one of many things that I don’t think is a good fit for AoE2, unless you’re making an “Age of Vampires” mod. And IMO we have a lot more grounded features/bonuses that could be added before we get desperate enough to borrow stuff like this from other games.
Seriously though, though it’s hard to justify with realism it could be an neat mechanics. Good for if the devs insist on introducing yet another new mechanic. (I think they shouldn’t, but they will.)
I think @runtygrunty is too worried about units becoming unkillable. With 5hp lifesteal per attack, perhaps champions couldn’t get killed by halbs, but outside of such niche situation damage would overwhelm lifesteal.
Just so long as you don’t give lifesteal to cavalry archers.
You know what. If Huns are indeed Xiongnu, Chinese do engage in cannibalism with Huns. They just eat each other during the war.
There is a poem in 1133 stating that they do drink their blood and ### ##### #############
I guess it would be nice for a non historical/realistic AoE like game, but in AoE2 it would feel quite weird, and many people may not be comfortable with cannibalism… Tho if it’s a cavalry unit, I would find it hilarious to justify as the horse being the one to eat his ennemies.
That being said, maybe instead of a unit with heal on attack, we can have monks getting regaining hp when healing other units or successfully converting them, or villagers when they are performing a certain task.
I also wonder if it couldn’t work for a ship rather than a land unit.
i just dont get what lifesteal contributes to the gameplay. Like I guess it makes them better vs melee and worst vs ranged (ie. so u can hit them to heal and so focus fire doesn’t insta kill unit). Better vs. enemies that don’t oneshot u. I guess it does punish players that just stream in units endlessly (cough me cough) since it’ll just heal the opp.
I guess I could see it being fun to micro around these units a bit maybe?
It just kinda feels like the tatar uu gold gen unit, in that it sounds cool but the effect is rather minor and pointless. Not saying u cant have a unit with it, but its just not that amazing imo.
God, don’t you realize that’s just an exaggeration for artistic expression? They actually did not eat the Huns at all. This artistic technique is common not only in Chinese poetry, but also in art all over the world, including Western literature.
The Mongol Keshik from AoE4 already has that feature so it’s not entirely new to the AoE franchise.
The regenerate 3HP per attack independent of how much damage they deal.
I think a life steal mechanic as reward for killing a unit is more interesting.
In this case the unit would be naturally better against Trash units while not really getting an advantage against stronger units.
I also think this ability should be given to an Infantry unit, ranged units would obviously be overpowered and cavalry units have a lot of mobility and flexibility so they can easily change their targets and.
Some people including me have suggested this feature for the Jaguar Warrior.
It makes some sense historically. Aztec Warriors were promoted for capturing enemies so giving them a reward for killing an enemy unit makes some sense. Buffing Jaguar Warriors with +1 damage per kill
An Infantry units healing 10HP for each kill wouldn’t be very impactfull against other strong units but would turn them into true trash killers.
A similar idea would be a charged attack that only reloads when the unit does a kill.
This charged attack could then also include a life steal.
A +10 attack with +10 heal would be a relatively powerful charged attack that is a worthy reward for killing a unit.
If animal units such as Hunting Wolves, Alaunts, War Dogs, Tamed Lions, Tamed Jaguars, etc. could be trained, the concept of eating enemies might be applicable. But I don’t think it’s going to be a popular concept.
If it is a melee unit that can recover X% HP of the damage when it causes damage to an enemy unit, like recover 5 HP when causing 20 damage and X = 25, or can simply recover X HP or X% HP when it takes down an enemy unit, then it can be interpreted simply as the inspiration after defeating the enemy, not have to be eating human or something.
