Are Lvl 5 Units viable anymore?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.