as I've been thinking about it, evasion does make some things interesting. Like, for example, if you have 10 units vs 10 units that deal 10 damage and have 10 HP. The first group has 10% evasion, the other side has 10% damage reduction. I think the damage reduction side wins

it largely depends on how the attacks line up

but assuming each person attacks a random other person, I think I'm right

And I think you can change some of the numbers to make evasion better

@NathanMerrill Actually no, I've thought of a good case for evasion. In a game like DOS2 (which also has shields and evasion chances) all attacks have a damage range rather than an exact number. You could have something like enemy accuracy is the likelihood of getting a higher number in that range, and your own evasion is the likelihood of getting a lower number

That way, evasion and accuracy are still worthwhile stats, but you no longer have to worry about attacks missing

that's a totally different mechanic

I was defining evasion as % chance that you don't get hit (0 damage)

Yeah, I was just saying you could redefine it to make it less janky

oh, for sure. There are lots of different damage reduction mechanics :)

like, you can do fixed damage reduction, percentage, whatever DOS is doing, etc :)

Think about all of the gazillion armor formulas there are in different games

Although that would be really hard to quantify. Like, if I'm getting hit with an attack that does 5-10 damage, what can I expect if I have 10% evasion? What about 50 or 90?

Maybe enemy accuracy raises the minimum damage, and evasion lowers the maximum?

@NathanMerrill If you have something like StS's Runic Dodecahedron, you'd probably also pick evasion over damage reduction while you're on full health.

(And the same would be true for any other kinds of positive HP thresholds that give you buffs, if the damage reduction would reliably put you below the threshold but evasion gives you a chance to stay above.)

...I'd still pick damage reduction in StS

I'd have a greater chance of building up enough block. Otherwise, I'd be leaving it up to chance whether or not I was getting hit

unless the evasion roll happened before I made any moves?

which is pretty equivalent to Incense Burner, which yeah, I'd take over damage reduction.

Like an evasion target number? Would be an interesting take on evasion for sure

no. Like, if the roll for whether evasion would happen automatically got calculated in the attack that shows above each enemy

aka, if I was fighting gremlin nob, occasionally, it'd show 0 attack above his head

Hmm, could be made to work. Another tip in evasion's favor would be dodging debuffs as well

oooh, debuffs is interesting.

Heh, a thought about a game where that didn't do that was Star Wars minis. If an attack with disintegrate hit you, regardless of if you dodged, lightsaber deflected it, bodyguarded it or whatever, you were instantly dusted

The few times that came up really chaffed my ass

Also, Blands 3 looks pretty good. Framerate is a bit ass on a stock ps4 and I don't want to give Tencent money :/

@NathanMerrill I mean, it depends on how important the buff is, and I was imagining the same comparison you made above where you can either reliably prevent 90% of the damage, or have a 90% chance of taking no damage.

If it's possible to prevent all 100% of damage with damage reduction then there's obviously no reason to pick a chance at evasion.

But the equivalent comparison of 100% DR would be 100% evasion, would it not?

Right, which is why considering that situation doesn't make much sense for evaluating the two possibilities.

Granted, this whole conversation is giving me /v/ flashbacks of "Pick a weapon/shield" threads

However, the merit of evade is in the fact of rolling the dice to survive vs being guaranteed dead, as had been already touched upon. But StS is too grindy without a massive rework or the mechanic being rolled as a simple relic of "x% chance to negate an attack".

You'll get punked way more often than not on those failed 90% rolls because shit hurts in StS

(It still might be fun as all hell)

@MartinEnder In slay the spire, if there was two relics I had to pick between, one was 50% damage reduction, the other was 50% evasion, the damage reduction is better. It also is totally independent of the percentage too

Ehhh, don't focus on StS so much. Your original question about a general strategy game and about choosing between DR and evasion for a specific situation. :D I just used the Dodecahedron as an example of a buff at full HP.

That's true :)

Obviously, in StS and making a permanent choice, DR is better, because you stack on top of it and there are only a few situations where evasion would be better.

I think that debuffs is the best argument for evasion

yeah that's probably also the situation that would come up most often

Btw, has anyone here played Wargroove? It seems like the kind of game a lot of you guys would enjoy.

I played what I think is about half the campaign before realising that I'm just not great at these games. :D

I've never gotten into the tactics games. I don't know why I struggle with them so much

The only one I've played a good amount is Battle for Wesnoth

I enjoy the puzzle mode a lot more, but it contained some mechanics spoilers for later in the campaign so I wanted to complete that first.

And I think I'd probably also really enjoy the regular mode if I were just better at it :D

I'm also crap at it but I want Advanced Wars to live on in any form