Who says ball of lightning isn't the best dragon ability?

[Metathron]

Wasn't aware that peacefulness could be cast on an enemy stack. I think most other non-direct damage spells cannot?

[DGDobrev]

Lightning does not do damage. It simply kills a part of the enemy stack just like Reaper's soul draining ability in KBTL. As such, it is affected only by spells or abilities that may improve the damage a target takes (of any kind). Still, like Reaper's ability, it shows the damage amount based on the total health of the units in the troop it killed.

Well, ok, I'll tell you what I did. The Lightning would have killed about 44-45% of the stack anyway. That's a pretty high percentage. But since I was aware that this stack is extremely dangerous, I had to make it kill more of it. So I added mark of blood to make it kill 90% of it. The damage was about 85k, which was great, but it wasn't tremendous. So I started looking for ways to increase it through other spells. Peacefulness seemed to be the best one available, so I tried it and that was the result. Doom doesn't work, as it only affects weapon-based attacks. Helplessness also doesn't help, since the lightning isn't affected by it.

So I confess That was a simple trick to "improve" the "damage" by improving the enemy stack's HP. If I had lvl 3 peacefulness, the damage probably would have gone even higher. That was simply fooling around with the game mechanics.

I think peacefulness is the only buff spell that can be cast on an enemy squad. I may be wrong though.

And it does. I loaded back the save game, got lvl 3 order (which I wasn't going for at all, this is why I had only lvl 2) With level 3 peacefulness, I managed to nudge it like 13k higher. Here's the screen. Maybe if I fool around with the game a little I may even make it go over 150k.

The general rule of thumb is: total health of the troop is what matters. If the total health is 200k for example, and you put peacefulness lvl 3, the health will become 300k (+50%). So if you put seal of blood, ball of lightning will kill twice as much units. If you luck out with a percentage of 48% of the units, this means 48%x2=96%. 300 000x96% = 288000 points of health destroyed = 288000 damage. This is what the game will show.

EDIT:
I can go in-depth here.
There are 1552 Gorguls, 70 HP each. That is 1552x70=108640 total troop health.
I put on peacefulness, which improves the stack's HP by 50% and reduces damage by 30%. The latter is irrelevant.
108640+50% health (1.5)=162960 total troop health.
I put on mark of blood. That forces any damage the troop takes to double.
Ball of lightning kills up to 48% of a troop MAX. With Mark of Blood, that goes up to 96% MAX.
162960x96%=156442
With Peacefulness lvl 3, 1 gorgul's health becomes 105.
156442/105= 1489.92 => I can kill 1489 gorguls at most from this troop.

156442 - that is the highest damage this troop can take from Ball of Lightning in the best case scenario.

[Granamyr]

Does lightning ball always attack the stack with the most total HP? Otherwise, how do you direct it to attack the enemy you want?

[DGDobrev]

I have the dragon create it as close as possible to the stack I want it to hit. However, if nearby has a stack of similar health, which in AI's opinion can pose more threat, the lightning will attack it and not the stack you want. but, provided you have mana, you can spawn another ball of lightning and the second one in this case usually hits the stack you want.

It is a bit dodgy, but once you get to know the ability, it is very easy to control it. You should be aware of some restrictions:
The lightning has speed of 5 (I think)
After the lightning has attacked or moved, a charge is lost
A lightning can do only 2 actions (in the beginning) or 3 (at higher level)
Damage is really low against small stacks
If you have 2 or more balls of lightning, 2 cannot hit the same target in one turn

Once you get to know the ability, you're going to love it. I, personally, use it all the time, sometimes even twice (or even three times as a mage) in a round, especially if the enemy army comprises of severa stacks with 200+ units.

[Misery]

Ermm I understand that Peacefulness does improved the damage from lightning ball, but in the term of effectiveness isn't it the same as casting the lightning ball without it?(and perhaps it can be worse since the left over troops have overall more health than without Peacefulness being cast on)

Mark of Blood is the powerful tool indeed, too bad I can't find any of those lizards recruits yet and I was planning on dragon armies.

[DGDobrev]

Absolutely It was just a tool to up the damage - and to check out some of the game mechanics I was wondering about. In essence it was a simple test - I wasn't aware that the damage will jump that high, although I admit I was in total awe when it did.

However, even if the troop is left with more hp, it's also left with 30% less damage. That is serious as well.

[Zechnophobe]

A sorta funny combo, the mark + Ball Lightning. I guess the BL is a direct damage ability, but the damage is based on a percentage of total health, which is why it works.

[Aster]

So, the peacefulness doesn't help killing, just for the record of the highest damage?

[DGDobrev]

Precisely. Ball of lightning will kill a % of the units - regardless of the fact if there are 1000 gorguls or 1000 dragons, and no matter the Health they got.

As I said before, Peacefulness is for posterity

[Goekhan]

I use Ball of Lightning when there are many stacks with over 300-400. And when I face fast enemies, shock is really nice (especially when multiple balls are flying around together)