Mid-game crisis :<

[Ryastar]

Two questions before i can help:

1. have you been using your dryads' abilities? Cause they certainly shouldn't be around for their damage-doing skills

2. are you completely dead-set on using target and timeback? The usual solution to a strategy not being as effective as it used to be is to switch tactics.

As for the sprites vs. lake fairies argument:

Lake fairies (known henceforth here as L) have 7 leadership, sprites (S) have 8. This means that if both stacks are equal, you will have 14.28% more L than S.

With 20000 leadership you would have 2500 S, 2857 L
Let's do some damage math. Assuming the ideal enemy, who has no defence and no resistances and a hero with no attack, S 5666 avg damage, L 4714 avg damage. This is based on the average damage for each creature (S is 2 (avg of 1-3), L is 1.5 (avg of 1-2)) and the fact than each point of attack over defence adds 3.33% damage (S has 4 att, L has 3).
No, assuming that the hero has equipped both +1 damage items: S 22666 avg damage, L 10999 avg damage. This is based on the new figures for average damage (S is 4 (avg of 3-5), L is 3.5 (avg of 3-4)).

Clearly, S does more damage despite the slightly higher leadership cost.

Other stats: S has 33.333% more health (S has 8, L has 6). So the 20000 leadership stack from above have this much health: S 20000, 17142.

Again, Sprites have the lead.

The only ways that L is better is init and speed, having one more of each compared to S ( L 6 init/5 speed, S 5 init/4 speed), in defence, having one more point (S has 2, L has 3) and is resistance, not having the -50% fire resistance that S has. But just keep S away from fire units (or use timeback to get all losses back) and S comes out ahead by a huge margin.

Yes, Sprites are my favourite unit, why do you ask?

[Vulture]

Originally Posted by Ryastar

Two questions before i can help:

1. have you been using your dryads' abilities? Cause they certainly shouldn't be around for their damage-doing skills

No, I used them mainly to sleep the 1-3s to keep incoming damage low and then after the field is safer went half-way to the frontline poppin' Thorns and let them do a little damage on their own. The init-song is useless with anga's ruby since sprites and fairies go first anyway. That Dryads - havin' a support, a summon and a CC spell - don't go as damage dealers is clear to me if that's what you intended to say by that question.

Originally Posted by Ryastar

2. are you completely dead-set on using target and timeback? The usual solution to a strategy not being as effective as it used to be is to switch tactics.

Yes, totally. I just can't keep tanking units alive with mere ressurrection spellpower if non-5ers, seriously, I take a hard beating all the time. As an example: when tanking with emeralds I lose 4 out of 8 until timeback in Turn 2 as for weak to match. Versus slow melee-based troops I usually can kite them for a round or two before I start to bring in the tank leaving me the option to snipe one or another dangerous stack and mass-bless my army or CC if possible like helplessness. Fact: I take too much damage and deal way too little. Smells like Paladin spirit :/

Can you roughly figure my problem out or what could be a bit of help ?

Having no zombie Rina, being too weak to get Xeona, having not even a chance to get to Dark Commander and/or Tolerance in the next 3-4 levels I only see the chance for She-fighters + neutral (morale-downer wise) units to make up for a striking army. But it all ends up melee-only :/

My choice of items is very limited, too. I have the sword of darkness (wanted it to be light, but fighting elves turns it around of course), the elven bow (which showed up being not much of a help even with 3 physical bow-using archers) and 2 sorts of dwarven hammers of which one is the quest reward of course and the other is the one with +3 atk and +3 atk for dwarves and several crap weapons providing lower values.

P.S: after collecting tons of units and traveling around for 5 game days I am willing to reroll a warrior or mage, the real classes that can work with only one aspect but therefore to the full extend in opposite to being a lowie mage stuck with 1 cast per turn and with no spellpower, put into plate armor, receiving no extra attack or leadership, therefore getting a little more rage which is by far not enough to draw enough power out of the rage spirits. Ok, whining doesn't help, it's me not the class, that fails atm, I am honest with myself ^^

[jwallstone]

Ryastar,

I think you've made a math error here. The Sprites definitely do not do 22666 damage with the two items. They do 11333 damage, half of what you calculated. They essentially do nearly the same damage with the two items. However, there are two things that stack the odds more in favor of Lake Fairies. First, LF's have a higher critical hit change, 15% versus 10% base chance. The % also depends on rage, and changes differently for the two units. With full rage, I was getting around 15% for Sprites versus around 25% or so for Lake Fairies. (if I remember correctly, I'll check when I get a chance). This alone translates to more average damage for the LF's.

Second, most unit's have some sort of resistance. Since having the two items gives you three types of damage (Magic, Poison, Fire), unless the enemy has equal resistance to all three types, the larger numbers of Lake Fairies means you're dealing more of the type of damage that bypasses the strongest resistances of the unit. So in practice, this leads to more damage output from the Lake Fairies too.

I've played with both unit types in the same battle, and just hovering over enemies has (in the battles where I tried this) shown that Lake Fairies do better damage. The extra initiative and speed help too. The extra health is great for Sprites, but these are not units I want to be soaking up damage at all anyway. I use them more like hit and run or fast strike troops. I only bring them in harm's way if I can kill off nearby stacks, bring in a tank that will absorb the damage, or use Timeback. In general, I think the health of this troop is not that important to its use, as opposed to say, Demons. The Dispel ability of sprites may be great, but I've never used it, as good old killing seems to be a better use.

Granted, to put all this in perspective, it's kind of like deciding between two troops that are almost identical in usefulness and power. It's up the user to decide on the minor differences between the two. I prefer the Lake Fairies actually for the higher initiative, speed, and not having to worry about fire damage as much, and not so much for minor differences in damage output, which for both are just enormous, which I think we can agree on.

[Zonc]

Originally Posted by Vulture

By the way how do you restore losses on your undead troops as they can't be resurrected if I'm not mistaken ? For me it would turn out into running castles to refill which is actually what I want to avoid.

I don't need to. Vamps never take losses (yes life drain rocks), skellys are protected by Demons target, if some are lost (ed. annoying Giants ability) then cast sacrifice on Demons (timeback) or Vamps (life drain). In fights against dragons put them in corner of battlefield and cast Lina's Ice Thorns ASAP.

3 stacks of 300-500 sprites or lake fairies each, 2 stacks of 10-23 ents, 3 stacks of 3-7 ancient ents, 2 stacks of 50 unicorns, 1 stack 8 Giants and one stack of 60 random lvl 3s.

These are the most annoying fights. You have to choose between Dragon Arrows (eliminate 5lvl tanks) or Target (keep all 1-4 units busy) or magic shackles (annoying Demonesses, Imps, Shamans). Some losses are unavoidable, but make full analysis of enemy first. Heavily archer based - cast Target. Few ranged but 3 stacks of Demoness - cast Magic Shackles. Few ranged but muliple 5 lvl stacks - cast Dragon Arrow and try to block archer with Demons. That's why I started my 4th game as mage (again), so I don't have to make tough choices when casting spells

As for availability I can't hire ancient vamps anywhere in my game having cleared all the sarcophagi and tombs so far. Castle Karmag provides ghosts and normal vamps only, same with the necromancers hut in Kordar whereas Demonis has Bone Dragons, Skelly Archs and Skells only.

Sacrifice is the key. Early on, there are some Vamps and Skelly in Marshan Swamp, so you can keep them in some other castle and wait for Sacrifice. It gets irritating when it's not avaible soon, but i'm pretty sure that i've found it in 4/4 games. Ancient Vamps are avaible for 75% by undead dwarf in Kordar, if they're not there then...

As for the lands of the dead I can't tell for there's a lvl 27 hero unit with 'impossible' tag blocking the first path -.-

There is a trick thanks to I managed to make my way from Tarons mine to Bogacho's castle in early levels (8-10), win the battle (heavy losses but it's not relevant), and then go to Elinia/Death Land without a SINGLE FIGHT. It's simple as it sounds: when enemy spottes you, find a passage little wider, wait until it gets close, and then simply manuever around him most units are slow so it's very easy, more problem with Beholder or Vamps but our hero is faster then any stack so it's achievable.

[Vulture]

As I stated before, I can't get zombie Rina anymore. Do undeads make sense without her ?
And as well stated before, there were no ancient vamps in Marshan Swamp. I mentioned Castle Kormag and I said I cleared every tomb and sacrophagus. And I said there were none with the Dwarven Necromancer in Ardent's Peaks.

As for the pull back and turn tactics I am used to it. If not so I wouldn't have explored and grabbed every item and shop in Demonis and Ellinia without a fight. The problem about lotd is that the hero guy is at the very start. Only like half a screen away from the portal on the slim path. With the Portal in my back I can't drag anything anywhere I suppose.

I drew his attention by mistake and escaped though the exit which animates slowly what gave him the chance to stand directly next to me and I'm afraid he is now directly in front of the Portal when I return. Bu I'll try, maybe he is reset now.