I didn't mean in a bad way



I agree with you, a passive and/or AoE effect to their buff would make them a lot more useful.

I agree that the accelerated healing is a useful ability, especially for conquest, as you can stay on the move rather than camping near your watchtowers. And it pairs nicely with "Weapons of the enemy," as that trait basically always leaves you far from your own territory when out on your crusade.



As already pointed out, the units aren't anything to write home about. Maybe not entirely useless, but not great, either. I remember that back in the beta, there was a brief period in which they had one advantage to other support units: Not being saddled with lousy attack and damage stats, because they did not use the support weapons (wand, staff, scepter), so they were decently competent fighters with a situational buff ability.



As I see it, there are two ways to buff Sisters of Mercy as a unit:

1. Increase the usefulness of their buff by giving it an area of effect or a secondary bonus like minor healing.

2. Make them competent fighters that just happen to have a buff spell.



I briefly considered if simply making debuff effects more common would increase their usefulness, but in the end I realized that they would likely still be discarded in favor of the "just bring another actual combat unit" solution.

alternatively you could make the debuff immunity castable similar to bark skin and linger 2-3 turns. You would have to improve the SoM unit's base initiation so it could be cast on your front-line/cavalry before any debuff is placed. As for regeneration global, If you are prepared to use an assimilation slot just for the passive I would prefer something like haunts or eyeless ones. Maybe that's just me.



edited for clarity

Do they actually heal in combat? I haven't bothered using them because the unit looked horribly weak (if a bit decent against Necros earlier). I saw it in their description, but not in their actual abilities. Their assimiliation bonus is decent enough, especially for a more warmongering group (go figure).



As it is, I'd just use a Caecator over one any day. They really either need the heal skill, or an area effect buff to make them comparable to other minor factions.

I think it would be logical that Sisters of Mercy units give a morale buff to units in surrounding tiles. It is sort of like a "bard" skill

Though honestly, I'm not sure how morale works in EL (does it even exist?)

KrimsonVagus wrote:
I think it would be logical that Sisters of Mercy units give a morale buff to units in surrounding tiles. It is sort of like a "bard" skill

Though honestly, I'm not sure how morale works in EL (does it even exist?)

This. I have over 300 hours in EL but still haven`t figured out the moral system :P



Anyhow, what about just giving the SoM a buff from 5% to 10% healing when assimilated then (maybe) they should be worth our time.

Morale is +/- 10% to your attack and defense stats for each point, with a max of 6 either way. You gain a point by having friendly units next to you, ranged units lose points for enemy units next to them, along with a few other abilities that can affect it, and it's checked at the start of every round.



Drakken Ancients already have this ability, and it's quite nice.

Arqane wrote:
Morale is +/- 10% to your attack and defense stats for each point, with a max of 6 either way. You gain a point by having friendly units next to you, ranged units lose points for enemy units next to them, along with a few other abilities that can affect it, and it's checked at the start of every round.



Drakken Ancients already have this ability, and it's quite nice.

Aahh so thats how it works! Thx

If you absorb the sisters into your faction do you get a free hero every 30 turns? Or is that just some lore text?

Arqane wrote:
Do they actually heal in combat? I haven't bothered using them because the unit looked horribly weak (if a bit decent against Necros earlier). I saw it in their description, but not in their actual abilities. Their assimiliation bonus is decent enough, especially for a more warmongering group (go figure).



As it is, I'd just use a Caecator over one any day. They really either need the heal skill, or an area effect buff to make them comparable to other minor factions.

It doesn't look like they do heal. I build a couple and not only did they not seem to heal but in a spectate battle where I selected "offensive" they seemed to avoid fighting the orcs by constantly backing up. Even when I reloaded and did manual combat I needed to tell them where to move and then attack for them to reliably attack. Given all their flavor text about healing this seems kinda sad.