Are Lvl 5 Units viable anymore?

[Bhruic]

When you return items to the Prince Consort, he increases the variety of hires. I'm pretty sure it's static in what he offers too. First return you get reds? Second you get greens? It could be backwards, but you get them in one of the two directions.

[Karlos]

In all KB games I always use black dragons - one of the best units ever. Of course you gotta be careful not to lose a single one since they're rare, especially in WoTN, but their fly'n'fire ability is absolutely hilarious, especially when combined with top level greasy mist.

But truth be told I never found any use for any other 5lvl unit in WoTN. Trolls, jotuns and chieftains are great in early stages, if you can find some, but then just meh. I dropped ice dragons after few fights as well and other dragons aren't nearly as good as blackies. Archdemons never really clicked with me, they do only average damage and their "Halve" ability is useful only in the first two rounds, where the enemy ranks are still numerous. But for that they have to teleport right in the middle of huge enemy crowds and get quickly massacred without any hope of ressurection. Cyclops are fantastic all around, only they were always the rarest unit in all my KB games and they could never keep up with my leadership. Did I forget anything?

By the way, fair warning - if Prince Consort is selling black dragons, buy all of them from him while you can and store them in a safe castle, which means basically anywhere but the main continent (and that goes basically for all human units you like to use; some of them you can buy in limited amount later but better safe than sorry). Do not store anything in Greenwort or Arlania castles while you work for the Prince. I REALLY could have used that advice myself

[marc]

As a mage, I absolutely love green dragons. They have two abilities that do damage without retaliation (and one of them gives you mana!), all spells work on them, so you can buff/heal them if needed and they can be resurrected by Demonologists easily. The best unit to cast phantom on, since they usually give back more mana than what the phantom cost to cast.

They are the best lvl 5 units imo. The new Archdevils aren't bad at all either, since you can now fully heal them by picking up a rage ball. If you plan carefully you can keep them alive. They can also be rezzed by the demonologists.

[namad]

I'd say below level 40 (or even more) that level 5 units are just fine, and that they can often take quite a few hits without needing to be revived, ice dragons are particularly good road blocks, and if you use them to deal a bunch of finishing blows you can keep endlessly recreating ice blocks and really gum up the works while other units apply the offense...


the real problem isn't that level 5 units are too hard to revive, it's that you can't sacrifice to gain more (at least you can't for dragons) and the game stocks so few, wotn has a TON of non-random troop recruitment options and they're all VERY small and it's quite annoying crossworlds was way more random but usually whatever you did get was quite generous, so maybe you couldn't get the exact unit you wanted, but there were plenty of diverse options with deep purchase stocks!

[Xargon]

Originally Posted by Bhruic

When you return items to the Prince Consort, he increases the variety of hires. I'm pretty sure it's static in what he offers too. First return you get reds? Second you get greens? It could be backwards, but you get them in one of the two directions.

First return, I get blacks.
Regarding the dragon discussion: in previous KB games, I liked green dragons a lot, especially for a mage. Their second ability gives a ton of mana, and attacking without retaliation (maybe pulling enemies into traps) is nice as well. Fire attack would be better for greasy mist, but black dragons are impossible to resurrect (I guess?) and you can't cast stoneskin etc on them, so I never used them much as a mage. I think I had red dragons for a while and quite a bit of fun with them (and greasy mist, of course).

[redfuryau]

Dragons:

Blacks .. eh they're ok but their magic resistance hurts more than it helps imo. Give me a slightly weaker version that I can stoneskin/heal any day (see below..)

Greens. they're ok. Survivable enough with stoneskin/heal and the mana is nice but a little low on the damage.

Blues.. haven't tried 'em yet.

Reds .. are where it's at .. at least in previous games. I did quite a lot of impossible no-loss mage in AP with a single stack of red dragons.

Chuck a stoneskin on them, greasy mist a bunch of enemies and fly in and destroy .. works particularly well with fire-rains mixed in Seriously with high-crit, two-hex hit and greasy mist their damage output over 2-3 rounds can be just insane! At the end of a couple of rounds when your health has been whittled down .. 1 mana heal back to full health.

Sure you can't rez them but, with proper planning (particularly as a mage) you will never need to.

[camelotcrusade]

How many hit points are we talking? Would a max level sacrifice plus maidens to restore the sacrificial stack work? I've been growing my own level 4s for a while... all I need is one starter troop and my trusty sacrificial dagger (courtesy of the spell). There are so many weak fights I look forward to them because it's safe to grow more troops.

Hmm. Are royal thorns level 5? If they are then it works on them just fine. I get two a pop, and that's with level 2 sacrifice (haven't blown the crystals yet to upgrade it to 3... ouch). I'm a skald, too, so I'm not really the ubermage.

[tiberiu]

are lvl 5 units viable?

Yes, because Trolls are lvl 5 units.

[gamihai]

Lvl 5 are good for mage . Dragons are very good if you play with Armageddon . Usually if you have a powerfull mage as hero , you want lvl 5 as they die much less and you do not care about the damage done by the stack. You usually use spells to kill off all enemies

[Zechnophobe]

I feel like there is this misunderstanding that dragons do low damage. Red, green, and blue dragons all do very high damage, due to their high burn/chill chance, and being able to readily hit multiple stacks at once.