Breath attack

Breath attack is a special ability typical for living dragons, but also for   Firebirds and Phoenixs  (and   Mechanics and Engineers ). It enables them to attack two consecutive hexes at once, making individual damage to both hexes. However, creatures that are two hexes wide do not suffer double damage from the breath attack. Although creatures with breath attack specialty cannot directly attack allied creatures, they can - similar to   Liches and Power Liches' Death Cloud and  Magogs' Fireball Attack - cause damage to allied creatures located on the second hex. In other words, breath attack will also damage the hero's own troops if they are standing directly behind the attacked hex.

Damage for each attacked stack is calculated separately.  Black Dragons' hate against  Titans works even if the latter were not attacked directly and suffered from breath attack. If your Black Dragons by mistake attacked Titans who are part of your army, they will still deal 150% damage.

Creatures with breath attack:

•   Green and Gold Dragons
•   Red and Black Dragons
•   Firebirds and Phoenixes 
•  Rust Dragons 
•  Azure Dragons 
•   Mechanics and Engineers 

Dragons without breath attack:

•   Bone and Ghost Dragons
•  Crystal Dragons 
•  Faerie Dragons 

In-Depth Explanation

The following diagram shows majority of the relevant cases of using Fire-breath. The small red arrows show the direction of attack (i.e. the way that the in-game sword cursor is pointing).

To summarize the diagram:

• When attacking horizontally or diagonally, breath attack works by simply attacking the next hex behind the one attacked (in the direction of the attack).
• When attacking vertically, the breath attack only works if the enemy is on the left side of the point where three hexes meet. See Dragon Breath Exploit for more details on how to use this to your advantage.
• Dragons cannot use the burn attack in the direction of their hero (for neutral units, in the direction opposite to the defender). In other words, a breath attack cannot attack backwards.

Notes

• These general rules do not apply in all cases. If there is not a red arrow on the chart, the attack will not work from that direction.
• This diagram is only accurate for the attacking hero (whose creatures line up on the left at the beginning of the battle). It is not accurate for the defending hero (whose creatures line up on the right at the beginning of the battle).
• Mechanics and Engineers cannot attack vertically, as they are 1-hex creatures.

Dragon Breath Exploit

This exploit is a result of:

1. AI will always attempt to minimize the retaliation received.
2. AI will always use the Breath Attack to maximize damage, if possible.
3. Fire breath does not work when attacking vertically on the creatures on the right side of the attacked unit.

If a stack of units strong enough to survive a Dragon's single attack stands at the red hex, and another, weaker stack of units (that can die to a single attack by the Dragon) stands at either of the orange hexes, the Dragon will attack from either of the sets of green hexes, but will not burn the unit on the red hex. AI believes this attack will trigger the Breath attack reaction, but it does not.

Note, that either (but not both) of the orange and red hexes can have 2-hex units, as long as the back of the first unit is on one of the orange hexes or the front of the second unit is on the red hex.

Mechanic and Engineer's breath attack direction

Mechanic's and Engineer's Breath attack, when attacking a 2-hex creature from the middle hex directly above or below them, does not follow the direction of the sword-arrow, but rather the direction of Mechanic's or Engineer's movement. The following image shows the problem in detail:

If the Engineer (or a Mechanic) approaches the 2-hex enemy standing on the orange hexes and attacks it from the green hex, starting her movement from the left side (yellow path), she will burn whomever is occupying the yellow hex. If she approaches said 2-hex enemy from the right instead(teal path), she will burn whomever is standing on the teal hex. If she starts her movement from a hex on the exact same file as the green hex, the direction of the sword-arrow will determine whether she burns the yellow or the teal hex.

In the setup above, the Mechanic (or Engineer) cannot burn enemies located on the black hex.

User commentary

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HotA is most likely aware of the Dragon breath exploit, but decided not to fix it as a result of it being rather niche and mostly used for tactical advantage. The AI can play rather well around breath attack, so do not expect to bait enemy dragons into retaliation onto their own stack.