Are Lvl 5 Units viable anymore?

[tiberiu]

Regarding this discussion about damage, my take is that what lvl 5 units can offer you is more important. Purely damage-wise, I am sure Thorn Hunters have higher potential then Black Dragons. With emphasis on "potential". For example with crown and with some items and spells. But the fights rarely are about pure damage. Battles are more about abilities and talents then they are about damage. For example, and this is just to prove a point now, a shooter with low damage and high speed (such as droid) can easily kill a much larger force of slow moving high-damagin unit like Polar Bear for example. Or even snakes (not royal) can be better then simple bears because they have the lounge ability, while being lower in everything else besides initiative.

When all is said and done, damage is just one of the stats and it's not sure that it is the most important.

[marc]

Originally Posted by namad

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.

I use lvl 1 sacrifice all the time to make new green dragons and archdemons, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. In fact, with a lvl 3 sacrifice, I can easily get 5 dragons a pop (at 60 int) as a mage.

[Razorflame]

ofc level 5 army is viable lol

they have most hp do alot of damage and have high and def rates

you don't have to use heal/stone skinn all the time (unlike level 4 units who need em)

and if we are speaking about enemy having high numbers well who gives a deal? a smart player will always find a way to beat it


and as a side note for people who be wanting to use dragons or any level 5 units



USE orc shaman( their TOTEM heals every round but most importantly THEY HEAL BLACK dragons) (on side note at least they did in KB:ap )


i gotta go i will go into further details when i'm back home

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by Dragnipurake

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.

Hmm, well, even with 27% physical resist, a black dragon should survive one hit from those. But you don't have to do it that way. You can stoneskin the reds, throw them in, follow up with the blacks at the end of turn 1, and then use their fire-for-all skill to put the hurt on many other stacks. A little fear or blind on any stacks you can't completely demolish, and you are good to go.

I've pretty easily no-lossed all the way through AP on impossible with a similar setup, and it's all about knowing how to use your spells and where to make attacks.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by 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.

Really? I've not seen that happen, but I maybe am not paying enough attention. You should actually use Lord of the North instead of Gudrida's Rage. 75% chance to chill is higher than the chance to burn until you get Gudrida's Rage pretty high up there.

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.

I'm not sure if this is meant to be a pro or a con for level 5's. Many level 5 units have pretty high crit chances, especially with a bit of morale. And since their activated abilities can crit, it makes them even stronger compared to auto-attackers.

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.

Well, but that's partially because the fairy army could get +2 or +3 damage from items, giving them absurdly high damage per leadership. That alone is a pretty big multiplier on their damage.

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.

Later on the Black Dragons attack second. This isn't really a big problem.

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.

I think a lot of the arguments that black dragons are weak seems to ignore, or be unaware of, their incredibly high resistances. Ice Dragons too. Slippery Cuirass, twinkling boots, and Guardian Angel give Black Dragons 52% physical resist, helping them remain tanky later on. (And allows stone skinned red dragons to have almost 95% physical resist, which is even easier with Creation now). Their resistences to magic and fire make them generally unkillable by damage dealers of those types. As usual, choose your targets well.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Dragnipurake

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.

Ok, good point, my first playthrough was on Normal. I used this tactics in AP on Hard as well. A bit tougher but still eminently doable. I don't dispute though that on Impossible it could be...well, impossible.

[dudex]

dragons are great except maybe against demons. their multiple hitting skills are very powerful and can decimate the enemy on the first turn so much that when its their turn to go they barely do any damage.

[namad]

Originally Posted by marc

I use lvl 1 sacrifice all the time to make new green dragons and archdemons, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. In fact, with a lvl 3 sacrifice, I can easily get 5 dragons a pop (at 60 int) as a mage.

hmmm maybe my intelligence is just too low! I didn't think to consider that!


however... are royal thorns, black dragons, ice dragons sacrifice increase able?

my lack of intelligence might explain why I can't create an ogre, it might explain why I can't create an ice dragon, but it doesn't explain why I can't create a royal thorn? are plants just unable to be raised this way?



edit: looks like magic immunity is shared by black and ice dragons and prevents sacrifice so the fact there aren't very many of either in my game means i won't be able to use them much longer than now

[Dragnipurake]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

Hmm, well, even with 27% physical resist, a black dragon should survive one hit from those. But you don't have to do it that way. You can stoneskin the reds, throw them in, follow up with the blacks at the end of turn 1, and then use their fire-for-all skill to put the hurt on many other stacks. A little fear or blind on any stacks you can't completely demolish, and you are good to go.

I've pretty easily no-lossed all the way through AP on impossible with a similar setup, and it's all about knowing how to use your spells and where to make attacks.

I'm not saying it's impossible on Impossible, but well ... Personally I'm a big fan of Dragons (and Lvl 5 Units in general) because they feel so 'cool' to use. But using Black Dragons just doesn't seem 'imperious' enough because I'm constantly worried about taking damage. With Red Dragons I can send them to the front lines without fear - which feels more 'Dragon-ish' - since I can buff/heal/use sacrifice to restore them.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by Dragnipurake

I'm not saying it's impossible on Impossible, but well ... Personally I'm a big fan of Dragons (and Lvl 5 Units in general) because they feel so 'cool' to use. But using Black Dragons just doesn't seem 'imperious' enough because I'm constantly worried about taking damage. With Red Dragons I can send them to the front lines without fear - which feels more 'Dragon-ish' - since I can buff/heal/use sacrifice to restore them.

Well, I've done no loss impossible with them, and recall it being one of the fastest (real time wise) ways of doing it. This was in KBAP where my army was RGBB dragons, and Archdemons. Except for the final two fights (Ktahu and Bhaal) where I used just Bone dragons + eviln.