|
Buggy Feature |
| As of Master of Magic v1.31, Blur is known to be malfunctioning in at least one way. Please read the Known Bugs section below. The earliest game version that does away with (all of) these, thus in which Blur works fully as intended, is v1.50. |
| Blur | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Realm |
 Sorcery | |
| Spell Rarity | Uncommon | |
| Spell Type | Combat Enchantment | |
| Combat Cost |
 25 | |
| Research Cost |
 300 | |
| ||
| While active, inflicts a -10% damage penalty on every enemy unit. | ||
Blur is an Uncommon Combat Enchantment belonging to the Sorcery Magic realm. For 25 it may be cast during combat to give a lasting effect.
It blurs the outline of all friendly units making them more difficult to hit. There is a 10% chance that each point of combat damage done by enemy units will miss. This happens before shields are applied. Any Melee Attack, Ranged Attack and Counter Attack is affected by Blur.
This effect is weaker than inflicting a 
-10% To Hit penalty. For example consider a unit with a 50% hit chance ( +20% To Hit).
With -10% To Hit penalty, hit chance is reduced to 40% = 50% - 10%.
With Blur, hit chance is reduced to 45% = 0.9 * 50%.
Usage[]
Blur may be cast during combat for a rather high Casting Cost of 25. It will immediately affect all eligible enemy units.
After casting the spell, its icon will appear in the "Enchantments" window underneath the casting wizard's name. The spell will remain in effect until the end of battle, or until dispelled by the opponent. Since it does not carry on after the end of the battle, Blur has no Upkeep Cost.
Effect[]
Blur inserts an extra step into the resolution of any combat attack damage against friendly units. This may cause some of the raw 
damage to be averted (negated) before any 
Defense Rolls are actually made. This extra step is executed every time an enemy unit performs an Attack Roll to determine the unmitigated damage that its attack can cause to a friendly target. Blur's effect thus occurs between the Attack- and the Defense Rolls.
When Blur is triggered, the game generates a random number between 1 and 10 for each point of raw damage that the attack would inflict. Each "roll" that comes up as a "10" (10% chance) will negate that specific point of damage, reducing the total by one. The success chance of these rolls may unfortunately not be modified in any way, and is always 10% regardless of any other effects or circumstance.
This spell strictly only affects the damage of combat attacks performed by opposing units. It works against 
Melee Attacks (including Counter Attacks); Ranged Attacks (all types: 
, 
, and 
); and short range attacks (
Thrown Attacks, 
Fire- and 
Lightning Breath, and the hidden component of Gaze Attacks).
Blur does not work against 
Doom Gaze, Chaos-powered weapons, or any other source of Doom Damage, which means it will also not protect units under the effect of 
Black Sleep from any type of attack (even those listed above). It will also not negate any type of Spell Damage or Special Damage, even if that damage is caused by an ability possessed by an opposing unit (such as 
Immolation). Similarly, it has no effect on damage caused by direct damage spells even if they are cast by enemy units rather than a Wizard (e.g. Heroes).
On the other hand, Blur has no conflict with other "tandem damage" types (
Illusion and 
Armor Piercing), and will work against attacks using these components so long as they fall into the categories mentioned above.
Acquisition[]
As an Uncommon Sorcery spell, Blur may become available to any Wizard who possesses at least one Sorcery Spellbook. However, its availability during the game is almost never guaranteed.
Customized Wizards possessing 11 Spellbooks at game creation may choose Blur as one of their starting spells, in which case it will be available for casting immediately on the first turn.
Wizards who possess at least 8 Spellbooks, or Wizards with 11 Spellbooks who did not select Blur as a guaranteed spell, will be able to Research this spell at some point during their campaign. Wizards with fewer than 8 Spellbooks have a random chance of being able to Research it. The chance for this spell to appear increases with the number of Sorcery Spellbooks the Wizard possesses or obtains during gameplay.
Blur has a base Research Cost of 300.
With at least 1 Spellbook, the Blur spell may be acquired as a reward for winning encounters in creature Lairs, Towers, et cetera, or when conquering the Fortress of a rival wizard who has already researched this spell.
Strategy[]
Blur has a rather small effect for its cost. Prayer only costs 5 mana more, but typically provides at least twice the defense boost, plus offense and resistance boosts as well. However, Blur comes from a different realm and has less than half the research cost of Prayer. For that matter, the spell is accessible to Sorcerers with Death spellbooks in their profile (whereas they will not be able to use Prayer under any circumstances).
In an important battle, or with no other defensive spell options, Blur is still definitely better than nothing.
Known Bugs[]
In the official game (and also in Insecticide), Blur suffers from two different bugs. First, every time Blur successfully averts a point of damage, it will skip the roll for the next point. This means that it can, at most, block only 50% of the total, no matter how lucky the rolls actually are.
Second, Blur is (rightfully) supposed to be ignored by units with 
Illusions Immunity. However, when checking for this, the game looks for the immunity on the defending unit instead of the attacker, as it should. This essentially means that friendly units with Illusions Immunity do not gain any benefit from Blur at all, while the opponents' immunities are ignored completely.
The Unofficial Patch 1.50 corrects both of these bugs (W156FIX.TXT).