Talk:Death Ripple

Discussion

Although the damage dealt by Death Ripple may seem very low at first glance, it can be very effective early on in the game if used properly. This applies not only to Necropolis, but to any faction that can obtain some undead troops or the Pedant of Life.

Using Death Ripple

Death Ripple deals damage to all enemy stacks on the battlefield. As a result, it becomes stronger the more enemy stacks are present. In order to maximize the effectiveness of Death Ripple, it is therefore advised to use it when attacking a neutral army stack that has a significant army advantage. When doing this, the AI will split the units in that group to 7 stacks and therefore multiplying Death Ripple's damage by 7. This works best on low-leveled units, as they are easily killed by the damage from Death Ripple. Higher level units will survive because of their higher health.

Wights and Walking Dead are useful for this strategy for several reasons. They are both undead and easy to acquire early on in the game, walking dead can take high amounts of damage before dying and wights can regenerate health. Aside from clearing enemy stacks, another use of Death Ripple is to remove Blind from your own units by dealing damage to them. It can also be used to kill enemy scouts (as they often have 7 weak creature stacks).

Example - Level 2 Septienna (3 Spell power, 2 Knowledge) with 4 Wights versus 100 Pixies

Because 100 Pixies has a much higher army strength than 4 wights, the pixies will split up into 7 stacks with 14 pixies in each stack when the battle starts. On hard difficulty and above, all pixies will wait on their first turn. This opens up the opportunity to use Death Ripple before the Wights die. On the first turn, Septienna uses Death Ripple and uses the Defend command on the wights. In each stack, 5 pixies die from the death ripple (65 pixies remain). The pixies fly across the battlefield on the following round and attacks the wights, but since they are on the edge of the battlefield, only 3 pixies can attack the wights. 1 or 2 wights die, but now it is Septienna's turn. She uses Death Ripple again, killing 35 more pixies. At this point there are only 4 pixies left in each stack, and the wights can finish them off alone because of their ability to regenerate health every turn.

After the battle, Septienna can use a nearby Magic Well if present, and repeat this strategy with the Skeletons she has risen.

Example - Level 3 Septienna (4 Spell Power, 2 Knowledge) with 4 Wights and 10 Walking Dead versus 50 Marksmen

In this case the same strategy as above is used. This time Septienna will lose the battle, but will have time to retreat. As a result of this fight, the Marksman count is now reduced by 28, which makes it much easier for the main hero to clear out the Marksmen stack and take whatever they were guarding.