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Olden Era / Competitive guide / Master Offense

Master Offense: +1 damage or armor penetration?

At the Master Offense tier you pick between two passives: Shadow Blades (+1 damage per creature) and Unstoppable Force (ignore 15% of the target's defense). Which one pays off more comes down to just two things, and the answer is often counter-intuitive.

The two options

Shadow Blades+1 damage

Allied creatures deal +1 damage. This bonus is added to base damage, before the attack and defense multiplier.

Unstoppable ForcePen. −15%

Allied creatures ignore 15% of the target's defense: the enemy defense used in the formula is multiplied by 0.85.

The math

Damage = base × (20 + Attack) / (20 + Defense)

Each option changes this result differently. When you compare the two gains, a shared factor cancels out, which leads to a surprising result.

Neither your Attack nor your stack size matters

Both bonuses are multiplied by the same attack factor, which cancels in the comparison; so does the number of creatures. The choice therefore depends on only two values: your unit's base damage per creature, and the target's defense.

  • +1 damage: the relative gain is 1 ÷ (base damage). It depends neither on attack nor on enemy defense.
  • 15% penetration: the relative gain is 0.15 × Def ÷ (20 + 0.85 × Def). It grows with the target's defense.

When penetration starts winning

For a given enemy defense, here is the base-damage-per-creature threshold above which armor penetration becomes more profitable than +1 damage.

Enemy defenseBreak-even (base damage / creature)
532
822
1019
1217
1515
2012
2511
3010

Below the threshold: take +1 damage. Above it: take armor penetration.

Safety net: if your unit deals about 6 base damage or less per creature, take +1 damage without a second thought. Below ~5.7 base, penetration can never catch up, even against infinite defense.

Simulator

Set your unit's base damage and the target's defense to see which of the two passives pays off more, and by how much.

Simulator: +1 damage or armor penetration?

per creature (average of the range)

Shadow Blades (+1 damage)+10.0 %
Unstoppable Force (pen. −15%)+6.9 %
Take +1 damage
+2.8 % more damage than the other option

At this defense, the break-even is at 15 base damage per creature.

In practice

  • Small units (less than ~12 base damage per creature, T1-T3 tiers): +1 damage, almost always the winner.
  • Big units (more than ~20 base damage, T6-T7): armor penetration, especially against defensive targets.
  • Between 12 and 20 base damage: it depends on your usual targets' defense, use the table or the simulator.
Reminder: both passives apply to your whole army. Penetration gives the same percentage bonus to all your units, whereas +1 mainly favors low-damage ones, so look at where most of your damage comes from. The math assumes +1 is added to base damage, before the multiplier.
Data extracted directly from the HoMM: Olden Era game files. Some mechanics may change with Early Access updates.