Units that you hate/love, but are forced to use?

[ckdamascus]

The love/hate relationship! Just casual comments, not to be taken mega seriously. :)

Inquisitors

- ah yes. Fragile, annoying, but sometimes necessary for some parties due to their ability to resurrect. But such crappy damage, slow moving, and relatively fragile.

Paladins

- slow as balls, but seems to be the ONLY option for mass resurrection.

Engineers

- argh. They are soo useful yet soo worthless at the same time. Their AoE blind disable and ability to make tanks, plus no-retaliation. If only they could hit from a much larger distance without hurting your own allies....

Repair Droids

- How could I forget these guys? I had a bad experience with using them the first time I played the game. They clearly are verrry handy to help someone achieve no-loss early on

Shaman

- if you use black dragons, odds are, you might have thrown these guys in to heal them. Very handy to have when you got a lot of level 5 units running around.

Some Kind of Dragon? OR the Royal Griffin

- Who can say no to the ability to hit two squares or the ridiculous royal griffin and its heavenly guard? Begging to be phantomed...

Rune Mage

- So good, yet I wish I had another slot. Only way to roll with all level 5s with no-losses semi-easily. Disabler, resurrector, no-retaliation astral attack. They are pretty darn good, but I wish I didn't have to bring them along with black dragons.

Black Knight

- Frenzy + Black Shard + EvilN. Nuff Said.

Assassins

- with that new modification, I feel like I have to use these guys. You can't even let them sit in the castle without all of your precious work begin reset. Either in the reserve, or in the army, you can't seem to get rid of these guys once you go down the path of "bonus damage." If only I could stoneskin them.... :(

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

I agree with every unit you mentioned. The thing is that once you use the units on regular basis...they become boring.
The assassins though are not worth the prize or the leadership. They die easily.

[BB Shockwave]

So far, the only unit I had to use in pretty much all my walkthroughs from this was the Inquistor, and only early on. Since I always due no-loss walkthrough, they are a must, until you get the Resurrection spell.

I'd also add "Units I'd like to use but don't..." - due to no-loss play, a lot of otherwise usefull Level 1-2 units are instant "NO" for me, like Dragonflies or Robbers, or Devilfish, even if they seem pretty powerfull in large numbers, you just cannot avoid losses with them.

[ckdamascus]

So far, the only unit I had to use in pretty much all my walkthroughs from this was the Inquistor, and only early on. Since I always due no-loss walkthrough, they are a must, until you get the Resurrection spell.

I'd also add "Units I'd like to use but don't..." - due to no-loss play, a lot of otherwise usefull Level 1-2 units are instant "NO" for me, like Dragonflies or Robbers, or Devilfish, even if they seem pretty powerfull in large numbers, you just cannot avoid losses with them.

Yeah, definitely.

In my ever going trend to buck the consensus, I did use some low levels.

Ah... Elves, Bowmen, and Hunters were part of my crew (along with paladins and royal griffins, puke). The most unlikely army and somehow these other two dudes, impy, and me ended up no-lossing with it. Actually I failed to beat baal with it, because I was too lazy to keep retrying, but hey, no-lossing all the way past Ktahu with 3 archer stacks has to count for something. And every boss was taken in less than 10 rounds, it was only the resurrecting (2-3 rounds) that brought me over 10.

Turn Back Time is the usual weapon of choice if you got a weak stack. In my archer build, it was mostly paladin surround resurrecting (using turn back time to rejuice the paladin's prayer/resurrection).

But admittedly it is annoyingly tedious unless you have a deadly combo / strategy with it.

[atlatea]

Well, if you're paladin, your inquisitor can deal serious dmg, especially with inquisitor sword equiped, they easily outdamage hunter.

This seems odd, but ancient ent as a shooter does way more damage than hunter.

[ckdamascus]

Well, if you're paladin, your inquisitor can deal serious dmg, especially with inquisitor sword equiped, they easily outdamage hunter.

This seems odd, but ancient ent as a shooter does way more damage than hunter.

Precisely my point. If you go Paladin Class, you almost have to go inquistor and paladin to make use of the damage bonus. That is less flexible than a Warrior class, and a warrior class can still come close to outdamaging the Paladin class using paladins anyway.

Hunters have a pretty bad damage / leadership bonus, and require quite a few buffs to make it work and need 100% critical.

It is because they have no range penalty, so they are penalized by having a relatively bad damage ratio.

Ancient Ent surprisingly has a decent damage / leadership ratio.

If you just take them as is without buffs, the results aren't too surprising. You need to have telescopic scope to overcome the Attack/Defense Ratio gap, increase base damage to increase your Damage/Leadership ratio, and buff your criticals since the Ancient ent cannot raise criticals easily to 100%.

I tried doing a 'ranged unit' build using a Mage Class, thinking my double cast and super buffs would give me the flexibility needed, but alas, it failed in the later stages as I didn't have enough leadership.

Without the raw base damage, the buffs did not amount to enough.

Would you rather multiply 10 dollars by 2 or 20 dollars by 1.5? :)

[atlatea]

Err, even with telescopic sight hunter still lose to paladin class's inquisitor + inquisitor sword. Inquisitors does slightly higher dmg (not counting the dmg bonus from his bless thing). And to easily have 100% crit chance, you need to have 2 artifact slot.

Well, in my last game, i have several items that increase crit, so my inquisitor have about 80% crit chance too (the weird thing is they always crit at that rate), hunter always crit too but coz i have inq sword, hunter still lose in dmg output/turn.

Though if you have elven set + telescope (especially elven bow), hunter easily outdmg paladin's inq+inq sword, problem is i never got that bow even once since KB AP. Though elves is always my favourite race. Hunter and elf always my irreplacable team back in the KB the legend.

To my experience, inq sword always spawn, though from elven set, it's the crown that always spawn (why not the bow?:mad:), i often have 2 to 3 crowns.

[shqiponja_hayabusa]

I have the hunters with the elven set + astral bow inflicting some serious damage, especially to animals. They outdamage the normal elfs, but they get beaten in damage by my other plant units of Royal Thorns and thorn hunters making use of the plant set of thorn crown +botanic diploma. So my army looks like this:
Royal Thorn + thorn hunters + Hunters + Dryads + Paladins = enemies don't make it to the 2 round ;)

[ckdamascus]

I have the hunters with the elven set + astral bow inflicting some serious damage, especially to animals. They outdamage the normal elfs, but they get beaten in damage by my other plant units of Royal Thorns and thorn hunters making use of the plant set of thorn crown +botanic diploma. So my army looks like this:
Royal Thorn + thorn hunters + Hunters + Dryads + Paladins = enemies don't make it to the 2 round ;)

Oh wow, that's one hell of a team.

Yeah, the thorn crown is an amazing buff

Are you playing Impossible Mode, No loss? How do you revive the plants safely? Or do you just teleport the paladins in to draw aggro?

[Saiko Kila]

Of units mentioned in the first post I use but three ;)
On regular basis, that is. Plus EGD, but you haven't specifically mentioned them.

Inquisitors - for my mage their rage-building ability is quite important, so I use them for 50-66% of game. They can be cloned with phantom, and I found that I more often used their Rage ability three times, instead of using Rage twice and Resurrection once. But after certain level they are not needed. If there were seven base slots...

Paladins - they are quintessential and it's easiest to fight some bosses with them. I don't like fighting bosses at all. I take them when I can. Oh, and they abide by the laws of coexistence when it comes to undead, I like it. I feel forced to use them sometimes though, that's why they may fit the hate-love relationship role.

Rune Mage - They Are Awesome. Archmage Skill For The Win. Zap Mooks To Death. And Clone, He He He.

I like to use Black Knights occasionally, but they are costly to heal. Their redeeming feature is their cool appearance.

Engineers I liked first, and used, but I prefer Alchemists, because they possess similar sturdiness but better effect-to-leadership ratio.

[hotfix666]

I like Paladins,,,them are hard :)
I like Demoness,,, them transport some army behind my enemy line :)
(maybe paladins)

Red and Black Dragons I like too...

I hate Orcs and Dwarf army....

[grjohnson]

Verteran Orcs are the best. Counter-Attack every time. Love it.

[bucazaurus]

I hate using those 5 Archmages (splitted in 5 stacks) , early in the game , to get Guardian Angel medal to lvl 3 in 16 battles.

or

Those 5 inquisitors (Splitted in 3 stacks ) to Exp the Pet Dragon , by abusing
Mana accelerator - Holy Anger - Phantom Spell .

[Infiltrator]

Assassins useful? Has anyone actually put them to good use on no-loss scenarios?

[ckdamascus]

Assassins useful? Has anyone actually put them to good use on no-loss scenarios?

I should probably take them off that list. I was hoping with the new buff, it would make them good, but... their "Servant of Death" "buff" is really the worst debuff / penalty in the world.

I can't haste them, I can't stone skin them. The only thing I can do is use Phantom on them and teleport. They are too darn slow to be really useful even for a Phantom run too!

[Minecontrol]

Has anyone used ancient ents as a tank unit?

Would be interesting, to teleport them to the frontlines every battle, they have phys resistance, a huge amount of HP, can root enemies and poison resistance from being plants.

Only problem is of course fire (and resurrection).

[ckdamascus]

Has anyone used ancient ents as a tank unit?

Would be interesting, to teleport them to the frontlines every battle, they have phys resistance, a huge amount of HP, can root enemies and poison resistance from being plants.

Only problem is of course fire (and resurrection).

Of the new units, I have not really played and experimented with the Faun. The Faun can actually resurrect the plant units, and supposedly very efficiently.

It isn't clear if the faun himself can resurrect himself. If not, it would be a very weird combo requiring paladins and/or rune mages.

Someone here posted a very nifty combo where they used Demonesses, fairies, and ancient ents to good effect. Basically the demoness would infernal swap the ancient ent and some enemy.

Let the fun begin :)

I think of all the big units, they did end up having a VERY good damage per leadership score. Although, being a big unit, that isn't saying much since almost no level 5 can match the lower levels in terms of pure damage per leadership.

Lack of the shoot-through ability hurts too, as it is nearly impossible to fully tank out the stronger units in the late game without taking some losses.

That said, there might be something there, I just haven't found it yet.

[atlatea]

I think of all the big units, they did end up having a VERY good damage per leadership score. Although, being a big unit, that isn't saying much since almost no level 5 can match the lower levels in terms of pure damage per leadership.

Lack of the shoot-through ability hurts too, as it is nearly impossible to fully tank out the stronger units in the late game without taking some losses.

That said, there might be something there, I just haven't found it yet.

Well, you're unfortunately wrong.

Ancient Ent can easily match dmg/ldr of lower levels, few can compare with them, especially againts high lv unit (lv 3-5).

No, you don't use ent for shooting, its main use is rooting so your army can laugh at your enemy.

Well, the fact is it can tank better than all lv 5 except perhaps troll, though if you consider faun, it tank better than troll.


My statement is purely based on gameplay experience, i have tried them myself and surprisingly they seems the best lv 5 to me after those 3 dragon type, my 2 last no loss play through was with all elves unit + paladin , first is paladin class then 2nd is mage.

And surprisingly all elves is the best for caster, either mage or paladin that is inclined towards mage build. To be specific, crowd control caster.

I guess that reflect their race (elves) as the usual master of magic in most games.

And ancient ent is one of the most damaging if not the most damaging lv 5 unit, i can assure you that. It is also one of the best disabler lv 5 unit.

Its only weakness is vulnerable to fire and irresurectible.

But now we have faun, so the irresurectible weakness is easily overcome.

Its greatest weakness is vulnerable to fire which is easily overcome by divine armor, have divine armor and a couple of fire resist items and it will destroy dragons with utter ease, even archdemon is no match for ancient ent. Divine armor instantly flip the negative fire resistance to possitive fire resistance and then boosted by fire resistance item, ancient ent can have 90% fire resistance.

As for faun, combo it with dryad, and lv 1-3 creatures are utter joke. Dryad sleep means enemy spent their turn which means they're vulnerable to faun sleep.

Faun magic damage also very high. It also induce the target with fear, well, free fear if i must say. Mage have 3 fear, while paladin and warrior have 2. Ofc it will goes to faun if not managed properly, but spells and other units can overcome this drawback and if their initiative and speed is less than the faun they can play hit and run with faun.

And Ancient ent will disable those who survive and manage to get close to your druid/hunter/elf by rooting them. Just cast stone skin (you can add divine armor and peacefulness if you want) and this ent is instantly the best tank in the game because it can also root.

You can cast target/teleport or both if you're mage which make enemies goes to ent, and this means they'll will be all rooted and locked to the ent, you can combine this with fearing/sleeping/blinding them and this cause your ent and all of your army will be unattacked (by lv 1-4 creatures) till the battle is over. And in case you manage to score some losses in your ent, remember that you have faun, their plant resurrection capability is insanely high, most of the time you don't need to phantom them to bring your ent to its full number.

Ancient ent can also intercept lv 5 units and root them in place. My favourite target is ogre which is the most annoying lv 5 unit for me, and of course dragons (they screw any army), another target is orc chieftain. In case you forgot, it can instantly root magic immune creatures like black dragon and phoenix.

This make elves the master crowd control race in the game. And also the most magical.

The Key in playing elves is crowd control or disabler, and if the battle goes to long, it will easily favor the elves, they have dryads and druids which can summon summon and summon until they're too numberless for their enemies, not even undead could hope to match elves numbers (which is funny).

Well, you can choose to have quick or long battle, both situations favor you, dryad has no retaliation and very high damage, insanely high if you count her thorns army, hunter/elf are best archers, druids is a combination of dryads and hunter/elf, ancient ent ranged dmg surprisingly far surpass that of your hunter/elf, unicorn is very fast and has very high damage, faun is support unit and has very high magic damage via its talent.

And only a fool that want to have a long battle with the elves.

Cheap trick for faun is with thorn army + thorn set. But i don't really like its playstyle. So i use all elves + paladin for playing with faun.

The most beautiful thing about elves is their unit synergy, they work in tandem with each other performing perfect symphony and harmony (though it is tricky), no other race can achieve this.

[onepiece]

As you say atlatea, elfs are now quite powerful an ridiculous versatile. Orcs may be a bit more powerful with all the adrenalin but the lack the crowd abilities of them. Well, that happens when you give a particular race more creatures than the others.

Seriously, we need more creatures in other races (demons anyone?) and there are quite a lot of them in the misc "race" that could be in other races (robbers and marauders in humans) and maybe a race for spiders and snakes (okay this one is a personal favourite of mine XD)

[ckdamascus]

Sorry, I should have rephrased. Although I am a little bothered how you took my comments completely out of context.

Shoot-through as in no retaliation like dragons and gorguls. Not the shooting ability, even though it does do a lot of damage.

I usually do this to get no retaliation hits on very strong stacks. I'm pretty sure your ancient ent is going to take some losses, and yes the faun can recover this. I said the fauns are supposedly REALLY efficient at resurrecting. I said this all in the same post.

I said there might be something there, I haven't found it yet, yet suddenly I am completely wrong? You realize by proving me right or wrong, you are automatically incorrect in that assertion, since I said there might be something there, but I haven't found it yet. :)

That said, the debated comments are


I think of all the big units, they did end up having a VERY good damage per leadership score. Although, being a big unit, that isn't saying much since almost no level 5 can match the lower levels in terms of pure damage per leadership.


All I said was ents' do not have as much damage per leadership as lower level units, but it had one of the best for a Level 5 unit. I never said anything about using them in combinations.

Ancient Ents have about 0.10 damage per leadership on average, and no real item synergy (besides the diploma, which doesn't really raise damage) to raise this much higher.

That is easily trumped by the lower levels like super fairy power (Girl Power Build), Porc Goblin Delight (Goblins!), Black Knight Barrage, etc, but admittedly, the Goblins and Fairies need the right items to do so. 100% criticals, whip of fire, assassin dagger, the fairy set, etc.

Again, I didn't say ANYTHING about spell combinations or team synergy or survability, in which case, your are correct in that you have a good combination.

However, you still have not proven that Ancient Ents have higher damage per leadership than a lower level unit like a Demon, Fairy, Hunter, etc... I don't think they ever can, except naked. e.g. key factors being the attack rating of ents is very high relative to the lower level units, so if you can't get it to at least 60 in the ranged units, you will never achieve the maximum values of the lower level units.

Funny thing is, I didn't even say more damage, I said damage per leadership. Period. Although, I should have prefaced it with, the proper items if that wasn't obvious.

[BB Shockwave]

Of the new units, I have not really played and experimented with the Faun. The Faun can actually resurrect the plant units, and supposedly very efficiently.

It isn't clear if the faun himself can resurrect himself. If not, it would be a very weird combo requiring paladins and/or rune mages.


Not really - Fauns are only Level 2, you can easily resurrect them with the Resurrection spell.

Their ability is nice - I paired them up with Royal Thorns - only downside is, you have to keep the plants near them. Not that hard with Thorns, just watch out for enemy area attackers like Imps or Heroes with Fireball. (They love to target your Thorns).

The spawned Thorns - and their usual death also helps in increasing the Faun's initiative, which is their biggest flaw - they are very slow to act in underground/night battles. Also, the description doesn't say, but they can only put enemy units to sleep who have already acted that turn - this makes it somewhat limiting. You can pair them up with Dryads, or Evil Beholders for best effect, Nightmare does quite a lot of damage. They are moderate shooters themselves.

Haven't used them long, so cannot comment about Ent synergies. Guess you need to run after the Ents, which is fine since they have no melee penalty.

[atlatea]

@ckdamascus
I agree faun is easy to resurrect (as said by BB Shockwave above)

And you will require paladin for no loss game (especially for impossible difficulty) no matter which units you choose as your army.

Thorn army with thorn set is the most damaging army in the game, and as BB Shockwave said above, it has excellent synergy with faun.

As for faun + ent, it have good synergy, however it doesn't have the excellent synergy of thorn + faun. The use of faun for ent is only to resurect them, but both ent or ancient ent can root, this makes excellent synergy if you love ranged/shooter army.

And faun + dryad is for crowd control and increasing faun initiative which cover his weakness in night or underground. I'm not sure whether faun get the buff if dryad's thorns died.

Faun + dryad + paladin = dryad sleep/elven song, paladin second wind dryad, faun sleep, dryad sleep/elven song, next turn dryad summon thorn, and watch the slaughter. Nice combo, crowd control, opening moves, and your faun initiative is increased by 3. You can add ancient ent as your tank, main source of damage (their dmg/ldr is insanely high) and another crowd control (rooting), druids for more summon or hunter for ranged damage.

If you can delay the enemy via that crowd control, dryad + druid will summon too many summons that will hit very very hard by turn 6 or 7.

Perhaps you hate long round battle, but elves is the most untouchable of all races because of their crowd control, and watching the enemy never touch you at all while they helplessly fight the numberless thorns (and bears if you add druids) is fun. Yes, elves are wickedly cruel.