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    Your Elvenar Team

FIGHTING AWs

Henroo

Oh Wise One
As human, I use a lot of blossom mages. They have a higher initiative than the priest and a higher hit point count. Those 2 combined make them good for attacking the enemy mages. They are also boosted against HM, but it's not such a big deal with those lumbering thugs. However, the priests are better against HR and sometimes you don't want your mage to move 1st.
You might want to double check your hit points. In my chapter 19 human cities my Priests have more hit points than Blossoms. Also, the Priest special ability debuffs opponent defense by 40%. Blossoms only debuffs 30% I almost never use Blossoms in my human cities. Priests are great and not training Blossoms frees up the Mercenary Camp for Rangers and Frogs. But I do rely heavily on Blossoms in my elven city.
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
2. Crackie, I agree with everything you said - no issue. There is, however, one niche use for Drone Riders: in the high province fights such as we just had in planks, there is a hard-to-beat combo of 2 or 3 Mist Walkers, 1 or 2 Mages (not Thornrose), and 1 or two HR. (3MW, 1 Priest, 1 Steinling is a classic case). At high enough battle odds, the usually effective Orc Strats do not survive and the relatively untouched Mage(s) is(are) the reason why. These battles are lost using auto-fighting and manual fighting by a slim margin. At these levels the solution has to be a manual fight. The range of the Drone is only 1 less than the OS but the health is 25% higher, allowing 3 of them to match 3 MW. I usually send in 1 dog squad to cut the Priest squad in half. Then I retire the dog part-way while the Drones mop up the MW and Mage on the second round. The HR usually takes out 1 Drone squad before being whittled down to the point where one dog bite will finish them. When faced with this lineup at high odds this is the only strategy that wins after trying several other combos.
I'm glad someone found use for Drone Riders! I usually take them out for a test drive when they get a promotion or once in a blue moon to test out niche scenarios, only to eventually conclude...still useless! Occasionally, I'll throw them into map province encounters as cannon fodder similar to how Soggy is using them in the Spire too. Admittedly, I haven't dusted them off in awhile, but I recall them being special targeted out of initiative order. Off the top of my head now, I can't tell you specifically how they are out of order or against which units, but I have observed it enough times to conclude even if I actually find a niche scenario for them to be deployed, the special targeting makes them not worth my while because it will results in me needing to replace them in high numbers. That means taking a training slot away from Blossoms, Rangers, or Frogs, which is also a big NOPE! Then it goes back to what Yogi Dave said about melee units being yucky in general because so many die. As curious as I am now to be able to give a concrete answer about who's prioritizing them in targeting (I want to say it's the Heavy Range priortizing them over LR units), the idea of doing an in-depth case study to observe Drone Riders in autobattle has me breaking out in hives. :oops:

You might want to double check your hit points. In my chapter 19 human cities my Priests have more hit points than Blossoms. Also, the Priest special ability debuffs opponent defense by 40%. Blossoms only debuffs 30% I almost never use Blossoms in my human cities. Priests are great and not training Blossoms frees up the Mercenary Camp for Rangers and Frogs. But I do rely heavily on Blossoms in my elven city.
They're not quite 100% interchangeable though since Priests are for Heavy Range and Blossoms are for Heavy Melee. They're both highly effective against both HR and HM, but each have a slight advantage over one type of enemy. But I suppose if they're "good enough", then yeah, I guess not having to train them and freeing up Merc Camp for Rangers/Frogs would be preferable, esp since for Humans, their Barrack LR and HR are on the crappier side so Frogs/Rangers are more preferable. Also, *cheers*...here's to hoping debuffing is actually debuffing! :rolleyes:
 

Yogi Dave

Well-Known Member
You might want to double check your hit points.
Hit points for 3-star per stack
Priest: 172k-288k Wiki value: 48-80
Blossom: 218k-364k Wiki value: 55-91
So, Blossom mages have a harder kick and take out thornrose mages whereas the thornrose mage moves before the priest making his 1st attack much less effective. However, if there is a mist walker around, I try to put a dryad where the mist walker can hit it saving the mages for that round.

The special abilities of the priest are better, but don't stick as long as the blossom mage.
Priest special abilities are 40% defense and 30% attack each for 2 rounds
Blossom mages are 30% defense and 20% attack each for 3 rounds.
So, tradeoff with the special abilities. Sometimes the3rd round of attack debuff helps survival a lot.

Of course there are lots of exceptions. There are no fixed rules. It's just what I've found works for me. Many people are surprised as a human I use the blossom mages so much and wonder about training enough 4 merc camp units around. My level 35 SimSap gives a troop bonus of 46% with each collection and when I feed my 2 brown bears, I get another 100% troop bonus. This makes it easy-ish to replenish troops.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
@Yogi Dave Ok, now I understand. When you said hit points you meant the attack values. I grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons. In that game hit points refers to health. IE, how many hits your character can take. Based on this, I thought you meant that Blossom Mages had more health than Priests. Which is not true.
 

Yogi Dave

Well-Known Member
When you said hit points you meant the attack values.
Yeah, I'm using the wrong jargon. Thinking in terms of hitting someone, not in terms of being hit. Blossome mages die easier, but not if they hit you first. If the enemy has LR that aren't the mist walker (think dryad diversion), they attack your mages 1st and it's usually better to have the priests in play.
 

Nimitz69

Member
1. Yeah, what is the OP intending to say with BOOST?
"Best Against," the number of "Crossed Swords" on the Unit-Information screen. I thought they called that the unit boost against that type of enemy. Sorry for the confusion.
 
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Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
The Heart Attribute on the Unit-Information screen.

Yeah, people get the stats mixed up sometimes, but troops only have Hit Point and Damage numbers. They do not have Attack or Defense numbers in the same way, rather that is probably what the Crossed-Sword system is supposed to represent, as an advantage or disadvantage versus those troop types.

As for the original idea of the thread, while there are many fighting-related Wonders, they can be separated into two groups. The first group is what I call the Combat AWs, which are the five that boost the damage done by the five troop types and the hit point-boosting AW. Those are the ones that directly make a difference in a fight. Then there are all the rest that I just call Military AWs, which are all the ones that increase training speed or troop squad production size or the ones that provide free troops, but not also boost damage, etc. Those are all nice to have, but a fighter has to have the six Combat AWs, unless they really want to specialize on one or two troop types, like only using mage and light ranged because of the temp boost buildings for those two. I try to do that in my Beta city, but sometimes those boost buildings just don't want to show up in the crafting rotation often enough.
 

Fayeanne

Well-Known Member
They're not quite 100% interchangeable though since Priests are for Heavy Range and Blossoms are for Heavy Melee.
What do the unit bonuses (number of "stars") against Heavy Melee matter when Heavy Melee should never be hitting your Priests in the first place? :D

(For this reason I personally always thought they should have made the Banshee specialize in Heavy Melee and the Blossom Mage in Heavy Ranged...)
 

Yogi Dave

Well-Known Member
What do the unit bonuses (number of "stars") against Heavy Melee matter when Heavy Melee should never be hitting your Priests in the first place?
In the upper provs you sometimes can't avoid it even manual. Fighting auto, it can happen more often.
(For this reason I personally always thought they should have made the Banshee specialize in Heavy Melee and the Blossom Mage in Heavy Ranged...)
The pattern of specialist is the training grounds troops have a greater boost against the troops 2 to the right of them and the mercenary camp, 1 to the right of them. LM is considered 1 to the right of HR. Thus, Inno would have to introduce the Blossom Mage in the training grounds or changed the pattern of specialization when the blossom mage became available. Who knew how far ahead they were thinking way back then. LOL for that matter, who knows what they are thinking now.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
In the upper provs you sometimes can't avoid it even manual. Fighting auto, it can happen more often.
Dear god! EXACTLY how deep in the tournament are you going that heavy melee can overrun your Priests? Mine kill HM just fine out to province 40+. Dragon Abbey is in mid 20s and I usually have 1 MMM out for tournament. And of course Fire Phoenix.
 

Yogi Dave

Well-Known Member
Dear god! EXACTLY how deep in the tournament are you going that heavy melee can overrun your Priests? Mine kill HM just fine out to province 40+. Dragon Abbey is in mid 20s and I usually have 1 MMM out for tournament. And of course Fire Phoenix.
Well, this week I did all I had open which was 80. That's unusual, though, and I didn't use any HM. My current avg. is 11,532 but I've had a few slow weeks. 11K is 42 provs, but it's not unusual to get 16K. It's when there is a bad mix and bad arena that they can get to me. And it is rare.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
Well, this week I did all I had open which was 80. That's unusual, though, and I didn't use any HM. My current avg. is 11,532 but I've had a few slow weeks. 11K is 42 provs, but it's not unusual to get 16K. It's when there is a bad mix and bad arena that they can get to me. And it is rare.
Gotcha. My tournament average is around 8400 or so, so you are going deeper than I am. I do aspire to eventually have a 5 figure tournament average! If you don't mind me asking, what is your usual weekly drop of buff buildings? Also, you are a long term player. Were you able to win 2 Fire Phoenixes in the original event?
 

Yogi Dave

Well-Known Member
If you don't mind me asking, what is your usual weekly drop of buff buildings? Also, you are a long term player. Were you able to win 2 Fire Phoenixes in the original event?
I wish I had 2 fire chickens. My buildings last 2 weeks since I have a 0 cool down time. All my AWs that aid fighting, both offense and defense are maxed. I really work at getting the 5d buildings and tend to have around 40 in inventory even with using 2 or 3 of each of the 3 types (DA counts as 2 UUUs). Which and the total number does depend a bit on which troops the enemy will tend to bring more of. I also have the twilight phoenix to resurrect troops. Plue, I'm pretty good at manual fighting.
 

Nimitz69

Member
Question to the veteran players here - is it better to not start a new chapter if i want to spend some time building up AWs, etc.? Do FAs, spire runs, etc. get harder once you unlock & start a new chapter?
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
Do FAs, spire runs, etc. get harder once you unlock & start a new chapter?
Yes and no. "Harder" is a tricky word.

For FA, the coin and bracelet badges are tied to chapter. The threshold to make one goes up as you chapter up. That does make it "harder", so yes here.

For tournament/Spire, "difficulty" in general is determined by how far/deep you go. The deeper/higher you go, the wider the margin between the number of your troops you take to the field and the number of enemies you face. This ratio is the same for everyone for the same point in tournament and Spire regardless of what you build in your city. Therefore, this part never gets more "difficult" at the same encounter in the tournament/spire and it might even get easier as you get more toys, like wonders that buff your troops, unit promotions, etc. You determine the difficulty by how much you want to do. The more you do, the greater the enemy outnumbers you.

The second factor that affects "difficulty" is the troop combination. This is somewhat randomized but with a propensity of certain troops types to appear more predominantly at certain tournaments. For example, the marble tournament is always really easy because the dominant troop type is Heavy Melee and they're the easiest troop to handle. But when you get to Dust, it's pretty much an ugly combo of melees and range enemies and it will just hurt. Dead bodies will pile up. None of this is determined by your chapter though, and therefore, in this case, it's a no.

The third factor of "difficulty" is one's ability to replenish troops before the next week's Spire/tournament. This is the one that will be affected by what you build and how many mandatory techs you unlock. The "further along" in the game, which includes things like how big your city is plot wise and which chapter you're in (mandatory techs unlocked), the bigger the stack (yes, I said stacks @samidodamage!) of troops you bring to a battle. And in turn, bigger stacks lead to more dead troops that need replacing. This is also determined mostly by user player preference. If a player does minimal tournament and Spire, you don't have that big of a burden to create large armies so it can become negligible. If you are doing a lot of each or both, then you need to be able to make back all those dead troops in time by next week. If you are gung ho on tourney/Spire, then yes, it is recommended that you upgrade your military buildings and wonders to offset the increases so you can make back dead troops in time. I've witnessed a lot of players sprint through chapters and then can't handle the Spire anymore because their city lacked the foundation for bigger troop/catering requirements.
 

SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
Question to the veteran players here - is it better to not start a new chapter if i want to spend some time building up AWs, etc.? Do FAs, spire runs, etc. get harder once you unlock & start a new chapter?
If you unlocked something new in your current chapter, such as mana, then it becomes a resource used to cater in the spire and tournament once you enter the next chapter.
But
IMO it's worth doing one more tech (minimal impact on spire/tournament formula) in order to get better rewards from events.
 

Nimitz69

Member
Yes and no. "Harder" is a tricky word.

1st draft of rewriting:

. RE: Spire/Tournament (Tents)--Techs from New Chapter are an advantage.
. FA Coin and Bracelet Badges are tied to chapter.
. Troop Combos generally lead to bad Fight match ups.
Spire Convincing/Mastermind usually the best alternative.
Not Chapter based.
 

Nimitz69

Member
Drone Riders are pretty useles

I wish I had graphics for this:
Each unit belongs to one of five classes.
Every unit is good against the next two classes and neutral to its own.
Don't use this unit against the other two classes - they will win.

The stars indicate unit level.

"Best Against" shows the unit's level of upgrade. The more swords the better!
Mercenaries become 5 shields which is best.

THE EXTRA-STAR ADVANTAGE IS KEY!

Drone Riders, Cerberus, Dryad, Banshee, Blossom Princess, and finally Ranger all become the "important" 5-shied units; until, you can produce enough Orcs to keep training Sr. Orc Strategist and Gruff Orc Warrior.
 
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Yogi Dave

Well-Known Member
I wish I had graphics for this:
It this close?
1693667251116.png

It's from Mykan's Guide - Fighting guide

This shows the Light Melee's point of view. It is boosted against the Light Ranged and Mage. Heavy Melee and Heavy Ranged are boosted against it. It is considered neutral against Light Melee since there isn't a boost against its own class. Typically, the troop with the most stars is the best in its class, but as with most stuff, this is not always so.
 
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