Princess Amazon acting like an Armoured Unit

[astral basin]

I have noticed during the last dungeon and this dungeon that the Princess Amazon paths, priorities and is targeted as an armoured unit. The other 2 Amazon specs remain as melee units (as much as I can tell). Is this by design or a bug? Is it fair for the Princess Amazon, that doesn't have the natural ranged protection that a tank/cent/pally have to be targeted this way? Or am i just imagining this and it's not really happening?

[quaint falcon]

The huntress amazon has ranged abilities. The princess has armored abilities. The oracle has healing support abilities.

[astral basin]

yeah, i'm not talking about abilities i'm talking about the pathing of the class. All amazons should path, priorities enemies and be targeted the same. We are not seeing this when we have tested it. The princess amazon should be a melee unit with armoured abilities but it's acting as an armoured unit in it's pathing, targeting and being targeted

[fickle turtle]

Sometimes pathfinding and targeting does weird things. But in the game's code they are not Armored nor gain any Armored quality. They are counted as Tanks, so maybe some kind of enemy is looking for Tanks and that's why it looks like that? (but enemies shouldn't look for specific units, they usualy look for roles).

[astral basin]

If this is the case why would an Oracle and Princess that are placed together move in different directions? We were trying to help give the Princess Amazon some extra survivability. When we placed it with other armoured units it moved exactly with them whilst the melee units went in different directions. We tried the Oracle with it and they split up - both amazons and should in theory have the exact same pathing?

Could it have been a specific boon causing it rather than the unit itself?

[empty siren]

Are you saying that in practice that Princess are designed to only take on Tank boons? Based on the Milestone abilities, they should gain armoured qualities.

What Locke is saying is what I've been seeing in the battles. Even when we stack all the Amazons together we see the range "stay behind", and Oracle and Princess pathing towards different enemies. Oracle paths and targets like a melee and behaves like a monk with the support aspects, but only to allies within range receive the benefits of this and Princess paths like an armoured unit, prioritizing ranged when non-epic.

And yeah. Survivability is so low and when they want to be the hero of the battle and run ahead like a rogue to get murderlated immediately, it kind of sucks. My uspec'd tank will easily outlast a Princess.

[fickle turtle]

That shouldn't happen. But pathing is extremely difficult to predict and control. When we test things in vacuum it's still pretty difficult to get the units to do what we want so we can measure these types of things.

[fickle turtle]

I meant that they count as specific units but they do not become a different Role. They are considered Tanks, Centurions, etc. but not Armored. They are always considered Melee. And they don't gain special behaviour (except for the Huntress that can target Flying units, and that can alter their pathing)

[empty siren]

Okay. This makes sense. Thank you for your feedback and responses. I appreciate your time.

Could we maybe look at improving the defense for the Princess (and perhaps the Oracle as well) since we're having issues with survivability, especially since it's pathing puts it right in the heart of the fighting?