Are Lvl 5 Units viable anymore?

[namad]

Originally Posted by 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.

royal thorns are level 4. you can't use level 1 sacrifice spell to create new ogres, nor new ice dragons, nor new royal thorns. just now tested it.


my theory is that sacrifice cannot create new plants NOR new level 5 units. (note you can create ice spiders via sacrifice so ice creation ability doesn't prevent sacrifice, this being an ability the ice dragon also has).


I've always loved thorns but the fact you can't using sacrifice or healing magic on them AND they're always rare in stores means it can be hard to use them all game long. or impossible.

[namad]

Originally Posted by 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.

nope, they do low damage. now it's true dragons do deal high damage FOR a level 5 unit, but compared to say... thorn hunters or berzerkers? or bears? they do pathetic damage. the flipside though is that those units are easy to kill and hard to get into a good position, also of course the damage of lower tier units raises as the hero's level raises and the hero's attack can raise the weak units attack to high levels.

now dragons can often hit many units at once, but sometimes you'd rather deal 3000 damage to one enemy stack, than 1000 damage to 3 enemy stacks. really it all just depends, I'd say dragons are really powerful and freaking cool and awesome, but also reasonably balanced in the game.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by namad

nope, they do low damage. now it's true dragons do deal high damage FOR a level 5 unit, but compared to say... thorn hunters or berzerkers? or bears? they do pathetic damage. the flipside though is that those units are easy to kill and hard to get into a good position, also of course the damage of lower tier units raises as the hero's level raises and the hero's attack can raise the weak units attack to high levels.

now dragons can often hit many units at once, but sometimes you'd rather deal 3000 damage to one enemy stack, than 1000 damage to 3 enemy stacks. really it all just depends, I'd say dragons are really powerful and freaking cool and awesome, but also reasonably balanced in the game.

I don't think that thorn hunters, berserkers, or bears light things on fire doing 10% of the stacks health in damage each turn for three turns. Nor do they hit 2 to 4 stacks in an attack. They also tend to not deal any damage, or half damage, on the first turn.

Further, dragons deal more damage over the course of a fight do to still being at full stack strength. And, being level 5, are immune to many negative effects like sheep. And by having an all level 5 army, you can leverage spells like Fear that make your troops unattackable.

[namad]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

I don't think that thorn hunters, berserkers, or bears light things on fire doing 10% of the stacks health in damage each turn for three turns. Nor do they hit 2 to 4 stacks in an attack. They also tend to not deal any damage, or half damage, on the first turn.

Further, dragons deal more damage over the course of a fight do to still being at full stack strength. And, being level 5, are immune to many negative effects like sheep. And by having an all level 5 army, you can leverage spells like Fear that make your troops unattackable.

what you describe here is what's known as defensive yes! the dragons are likely to deal more damage because of their resilient nature, however if you were to measure purely their offensive output over the burst of a single turn it would be low. or at very least this is why people tend to refer to high level units as being defensive in nature.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by namad

what you describe here is what's known as defensive yes! the dragons are likely to deal more damage because of their resilient nature, however if you were to measure purely their offensive output over the burst of a single turn it would be low. or at very least this is why people tend to refer to high level units as being defensive in nature.

Not dragons they aren't. At least not blackies. An example:

First turn, my blackies are first to go due to their high init. I press Wait, whittle down the mob on either edge with my shooters and prevent the enemy from advancing with Loki's touch, Ice Blades or various spawns. At the end of the first turn my blackies fly forward, hit the whittled down mob on the edge plus the one behind it. Right at the start of the second turn I cast greasy mist and my blackies do their fly'n'fire thing hitting often 4 or more stacks all at once due to them being still neatly lined up (the excellent Sabotage skill helps magnificently). Then it's just a matter of some planning to keep them out of harm's way for the rest of the fight while the other units easily mop up the thinned enemy ranks

That way the fight is decided at the beginning of the second turn, all thanks to black dragons. They're not front line shock troops but with the right tactics they're dps monsters. Throw in the crystal with decreased leadership requirement + higher morale, the 3rd level Oratory and the 3rd level Berserker skill and they're the highest dps dealing units in the game, easily.

True Red Dragons can be made tougher with Stone Skin and so on but they can burn only in a straight line which is much less usable than the blackies' zig-zag burning and frankly - you don't need dragons to be your front line tanks. There're much better units for that (Executioners, Demons, Griffins come to mind).

[Dragnipurake]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Not dragons they aren't. At least not blackies. An example:

First turn, my blackies are first to go due to their high init. I press Wait, whittle down the mob on either edge with my shooters and prevent the enemy from advancing with Loki's touch, Ice Blades or various spawns. At the end of the first turn my blackies fly forward, hit the whittled down mob on the edge plus the one behind it. Right at the start of the second turn I cast greasy mist and my blackies do their fly'n'fire thing hitting often 4 or more stacks all at once due to them being still neatly lined up (the excellent Sabotage skill helps magnificently). Then it's just a matter of some planning to keep them out of harm's way for the rest of the fight while the other units easily mop up the thinned enemy ranks

That way the fight is decided at the beginning of the second turn, all thanks to black dragons. They're not front line shock troops but with the right tactics they're dps monsters. Throw in the crystal with decreased leadership requirement + higher morale, the 3rd level Oratory and the 3rd level Berserker skill and they're the highest dps dealing units in the game, easily.

True Red Dragons can be made tougher with Stone Skin and so on but they can burn only in a straight line which is much less usable than the blackies' zig-zag burning and frankly - you don't need dragons to be your front line tanks. There're much better units for that (Executioners, Demons, Griffins come to mind).

But as you progress through the game and enemy stacks become larger, it becomes impossible for your Black Dragons to survive any retaliations without losses in battle. So unless you have lots of Black Dragons available for purchase you're forced to rely only on their ability (Reload 3?) for dps ... I'm not sure dealing damage every 3-4 turns is worth an entire slot in an army.

Red Dragons are at least still viable late-game because they can be healed/ressed/restored with sacrifice/etc.

[blacklegionary]

Red and Black dragon suck against demons, especially Archdemon.

Still, I like them though.

[ckdamascus]

A few subtle, but serious differences in this version of the game. Also, we aren't sure if they are still balancing...

a) Fire/Poison/Cold ticks can crit. Yes. Fire ticks can crit which is a HUGE advantage to dragons. However, as a Viking/Warrior, who cares? I use Gudrida's rage in round 2 very easily... so I don't need a paltry 50% chance to burn or 80% chance to burn in a small area.

b) Viking/Warrior has skills that RAISE critical hit damage. Yes, RAISE critical hit damage BEYOND 150% + max (bless) which is the old norm. AND I have a chance to inflict double damage. This means my "measily" Paladin stack was able to crit+berserker for 11K damage and I only had 40 of them. 40 of them! I didn't even have Pygmy/Defenselessness/Plague at all yet.

Viking/Warrior tends to be able to hit the 'breakpoint' more easily since they can have higher leadership and with the new buffs they gave him, he can do some serious serious damage.

Mages can't really do this (at least in Crossworlds). Max leadership too low, needs to blow both spells early on just to get the de-buffs needed to get close to warrior damage, etc.

There is a reason why a dragon army could never do 14-30K dmg per hit per unit like a 100% Crit All-Ranged or Fairy army can.

The Shrek army did about 12K+ per hit somewhat consistenly, but given that Rune Mages let me do a deadly swarm attack, I am better off with better damage to leadership ratio especially as the game goes on.

And because Rune Mages cannot resurrect level 5s (in Crossworlds they could also resurrect Black Dragons), it makes running a Level 5 army potentially annoying for No-Loss later on.

We will see though, because Crossworlds had a somewhat fixed path and limited battles in a closed system.

If this game is much easier, it might be possible to do well with a relatively low number of Level 5 units given all the new Viking damage buffs.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Dragnipurake

But as you progress through the game and enemy stacks become larger, it becomes impossible for your Black Dragons to survive any retaliations without losses in battle. So unless you have lots of Black Dragons available for purchase you're forced to rely only on their ability (Reload 3?) for dps ... I'm not sure dealing damage every 3-4 turns is worth an entire slot in an army.

That's why I wrote you have to whittle down the stack you're attacking in the first round, so it deals only some measly damage on the counter-attack. In the second round you use you AoE skill, and in the third round most stacks should be safe to attack.

My blackies get to attack almost every round. Only rarely I don't engage any stack in the first round if it's not whittled down to a safe level (btw you can attack even a very powerful stack by casting ice wall in front of it and hit it as an effectively second stack in a row).

And as the guy above me wrote, the fly'n'fire ability now crits as well and I always manage to crit at least 2 stacks. So a fight against huge all-plant army with high morale black dragons and greasy mist is hilarious beyond words

As I said, black dragons are not the typical bum-rush and bash unit like berserkers or demons. They need some finesse but with the right tactics and planning they can dps monster anything.

[Dragnipurake]

Originally Posted by Karlos

That's why I wrote you have to whittle down the stack you're attacking in the first round, so it deals only some measly damage on the counter-attack. In the second round you use you AoE skill, and in the third round most stacks should be safe to attack.

My blackies get to attack almost every round. Only rarely I don't engage any stack in the first round if it's not whittled down to a safe level (btw you can attack even a very powerful stack by casting ice wall in front of it and hit it as an effectively second stack in a row).

And as the guy above me wrote, the fly'n'fire ability now crits as well and I always manage to crit at least 2 stacks. So a fight against huge all-plant army with high morale black dragons and greasy mist is hilarious beyond words

As I said, black dragons are not the typical bum-rush and bash unit like berserkers or demons. They need some finesse but with the right tactics and planning they can dps monster anything.

What difficulty are we talking about, because as early as Greenwort on Impossible I'm seeing multiple stacks of 400-600 zombies and 1k+ skeletons.