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    Your Elvenar Team

The Case for the Elf Sorcerer and a few other maligned troops

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
I'm not sure refraining from making some troops is wise. Take the Sword Acrobat. To me it's mostly cannon fodder. I get a few from events and have an AW or two that make some. But I use them and sometimes I run out if I don't make them. I could, of course, make more of something else, but the Sword Dancer is good against Light Ranged and Mages. What else is? The answer the other two light melee -- but they are a little weak against either Light Ranged or Mages while the Sword Dancer is, if not 5 stars, at least 4 against both of them. Thus, if I'm faced with a 2-3 split of Light Ranged and Mages, and don't have the Sword Acrobat, I'm going to have to use something more costly. So I make some to keep them on hand when my small automatic production isn't enough.

In addition, sometimes I have plenty of the things in the barracks and rather than make more of the things of which I have plenty, I make a round or two of Sword Dancers for the reasons just noted.

All of which means, of course, that if you need them as fodder or in the proper place the automatic supply from events/AW's might not be enough and you might need to make some. At least for me that's true.

AJ
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
I keep seeing people bashing the Bud Sorcerers and others as fodder
I defend Bud Sorceress AND I use her as fodder (if needed). I deploy her with other "attack" units in mostly high heavy range scenarios because she has a 50% defense bonus against them. If she enchants one, then she can practically set up shop and have afternoon tea with them all day. She is cannon fodder not for being weak, but because that's one of her strengths! If that heavy range reaches my light range or light melee instead, it's Bloody Marys we're all drinking.

The 3 units that can nerf for a good part of early to mid-game are Sword Dancers, Treants, and Buds for elves. Sword Dancers and Treants are melee units, which means it might take them awhile to get to the fight scene, especially if there are obstacles. That makes them pretty ineffective since they can't nerf the enemies in time. It leaves Buds as the best unit for nerfing, esp since she has a decent movement too. We know difficulty (ratio of your stack to enemy stack) is same for every level, but the size of the stacks increases as you progress. Therefore, a lot of being able to fight deep in tourney or Spire is a matter of making back enough troops each week. Understanding nerfing situations is a big part of troop loss mitigation for all levels. It's basically what allows me to hang out with the big boys and girls in tourney while being a medium sized city.
 

Gkyr

Chef
As everyone agrees, but for the record: usefulness of an individual troop depends on what chapter one is in because of the upgrades to the troop in question and the presence or absence of more useful alternate troops.
Secondly, as everyone also agrees, there is a world of difference between auto-fight and manual fighting (also for the record).
The third issue that surfaces parenthetically is the difference between easy battles and challenging battles. I submit that these are best discussed each in a separate thread to diminish confusion (and disagreement over the value of an example troop). For the newest among us, easy battles are found as province-clearing battles and the first rounds of the first province battles during the Tournament, but only after one is developed enough to be considered 'in the middle game' (the definition of which: allow it to be a matter of opinion).
And fourthly, evo buildings and AWs and temp buff buildings all modify the supply or strength of a unit - we all recognize this.

For my contributions, such as they are, I usually address manual fighting because I play to fight. Also, I limit my discussions to the middle game (I consider chapters 8-12) because that is where I am, having passed through most of it, and my assumption being that is where most players will spend a large amount of their time and so the dynamics have a general relevance.

Having said all of this, I would like to offer an example of the usefulness of the three-star Sorceress in the screenshots tucked away in the spoiler below. Their salient grace is that they are the only troop that casts both an attack and a defense debuff in the middle game. Because of this, I actively train them; for me they are not 'surplus troops'.

As a preamble, I wish to address the difference between the Blossom mage (currently 2-star for me) and the Sorceress. The main problem with the Blossom, which I have not seen specifically compared to the Sorceress, is that my 2* Blossom health is only 70% of my 3* Sorceress health (despite what elvenarchitect.com says). This is a problem for the Blossom because at least half of our battles involve a first-strike Mist Walker, who has an 80-90% attack buff against our mages. Operationally, this means that one squad of Mist Walkers will completely eliminate one squad of Blossoms in battle round 1. In comparison, the same squad of Mist Walkers eliminates only a (large) proportion of Sorceresses, and, as @crackie and others have mentioned, it only takes one Sorceress to cast both the attack and defense debuff spells on the enemy, which is the reason that they are there, in the first place.

My typical tactic for the inclusion of Sorceress is to retreat them from the initial line into the corners to let the Golems pare down the onrushing light melee and light range troops before they can damage the Sorcs. Strategic retreats are, of course, impossible in auto-fights. Then the Sorcs are brought out to do what they do best, which is to debuff the fellow Mage opponents, and heavy squads. This gives the Golems a tactical 2:1 advantage over the rest of the field. Plus, the Sorcs are inherently strong against heavy troops, in addition to spells.

Screenshot (78)cropWL.png

This screen shows the battle plan against an opponent 180% of my strength.
Screenshot (79)CWL.png

Here the 3 Sorcs have been moved to relative safety.
Screenshot (82)CWL.png

This shows two of the ranged opponents debuffed.
Screenshot (89)crop.png

The outcome benefitted the retention of my Golems at the expected expense of the Sorcs. It is not my primary intent to 'use' Sorcs as 'cannon fodder' but, their range limitation puts them in harm's way, unavoidably.
The battle example I had on hand does not include light troops in it, which is a more interesting battle.
 
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SoggyShorts

Mathematician par Excellence
@crackie
Excellent points re:buds, but I believe you mean to use the word debuff rather than nerf.

A Buff has 2 meanings.
1. when an aspect of the game is made stronger by the game developer through a balancing update.
2. any enhancement cast upon a unit/character/building/entity that increases its statistics

The opposite of #1 is a Nerf
The opposite of #2 is a Debuff

E.G.
If the developer reduces the defense of all Mistwalkers by 20% that's a Nerf
If you hit a mistwalker with a skill that reduces its defensive bonus by 20% that's a debuff

I think that the major difference is that when a developer Nerfs something it is both global and permanent.
When the devs nerf the defenses of [orc warriors] by 20% then all [orc warriors] defenses in every situation forever will be 20% lower.​
When you hit an [orc warrior] with your [bud sorcs] [leaden arms] ability that one stack has a -20% defense debuff for 2 rounds.​
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
I absolutely agree that players shouldn't bother with training
bud sorcs if they have access to blossoms.
mortars if they have access to frogs
sword dancers/barbs if they have access to dogs

There are some short exceptions where you have access to advanced level buds/morts/barbs and low-level blossom/frog/dog but for the most part, the deciding factor in fights is who hits first, and range/initiative decides that.
Since I am human in 2 of my 3 cities I totally agree Mortars are a substandard heavy ranged unit. But the 3 star promotion for Frogs does not happen until near the end of chapter 15. And a 2 star Frog is only marginally better than a 3 star Mortar. What I have done so far is to continue to train Mortars and use them in easy heavy ranged fights. For hard heavy ranged fights I use Senior Orc Strategists. I have let the Frogs I get from Brown Bear and Witch Hut just build up. I now have over 300 squads of them and I am in chapter 15, working towards that final Frog promotion. I just hope they live up to the MASSIVE hype...
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
As usual Soggy gets to the meat of it. When any of us "Well-Known Member's" make definitive statements declaring an absolute fact, the players in the low chapters has no way to know that said statements are only applicable to players at the same high level. Much the way the recent ToS thread completely ignored the OP's chapter. Others in lower chapters read these posts and may get the wrong directions from them.

I'm not sure reinterpreting what somebody else said as if it's known what that person actually meant, is "getting to the meat of it," so much as trying to make what was said more acceptable and align with what he thinks others should have gotten out of the original post. Still, Soggy is certainly right about the use of canon fodder, even if we may question his attempt to reinterpret what somebody else actually said, perhaps to make it support his own ideas.

AJ
 

Vigali

Active Member
I train them some but I "use" them, I didn't buy into the idea that they were useless troops and not everyone is at the level to get free Buds, so training would be applicable there. I keep a supply of them but I don't have to train them very much because they are a niche troop, therefore I don't use them much but often enough.

I'll preface this by saying that of course, play your game however you want to play it. But I wanted to point out the reason why people would say "don't bother training bud sorceress" -- because you're right, they can be great to use as fodder when you don't want to waste your blossoms.

The reason they say "don't bother training bud sorceress" is because there's an opportunity cost involved in training any unit. The opportunity cost is that when you're training a bud sorceress, you're not training another Barracks unit. Specifically, every single bud sorceress unit you train is 1 Archer unit you can't train (or Treant, or Golem, or whatever).

If you were to rank the relative value of bud sorceress against all of the other barracks units, it's likely the worst. That means that all of the time your barracks spends producing bud sorceress units, it's producing less value overall for your army.

To illustrate that point, imagine that you could calculate exactly how many enemy units your unit would be able to kill before it was wiped out. Let's say that looked something like this:

Your UnitsEnemy Units Killed
Bud Sorceress2.5
Sword Dancer2.75
Archer3.5
Treant2.75
Golem3

Obviously, those numbers are completely made up -- they're just there to illustrate the point. But if they were accurate, what you would find is that every time you choose to train a bud sorceress unit over an archer unit, your army is now able to kill 1 fewer enemy unit.

I'm not sure that anyone has really fleshed out any analytics for what the real numbers would be (there are so many different variables to account for, especially considering military buildings), but the point remains: it's generally accepted that the value of the bud sorceress comparative to its other Barracks counterparts is quite low. And that's the primary driver behind the 'don't train the bud sorceress' advice.
 

CrazyWizard

Oh Wise One
Elf Sorcerers are weaker than their Human counterparts, I get that but in the reality of the game that does not really matter.
Blossom Mages are Fantastic and is my go-to Mage in Tournaments and Spire but not for clearing Provinces. I would rather lose 100 Bud Sorcerers than 10 Blossom Mages.

So I use my Sorcerers, Sword Acrobats, Dogs, and Golems to clear provinces. Just finishing Constructs on Elcy and province clearing is all I am doing, I could use any troops but why waste even a few Blossom Mages, Frogs, or Drone Riders when I have lots of other troops I get for free from the Bulwark, Flying Academy, and SoSS.

I keep seeing people bashing the Bud Sorcerers and others as fodder, but for low cost or free and for clearing out provinces where for the most part the Squad size is 2:1 in favor or better, where you may only be facing 3 or fewer troops in total or only 3 types of troops, and with the Fire Chicken they are an easy victory on Auto. Maligned as they are in the forums there is a place and usefulness for most all the troops and by utilizing alternates you can make your primary troops last longer.

Now some may disagree but that is your opinion, I just think the players that are here and sound like "experts" need to be careful on how they tell new players what to do or not.

Ed
Bus sorceress sucks, but a free unit is always better than none at all,
I use my free units all the time in battles they can win, off course the limit of when they can still win is lower than for blossoms.

Sworddancers are my most frequently used cannon fodder unit. they are on page one so quickly assasible and when you can win the battle why not use them? more losses? who cares. whats the point of having a kazillion sword dancers if you never use them where you possibly can.
It doesn't make them great tho, and I would never produce them myself, but as a freebee, why not?

btw, each of the races has there pro's and cons. priest is better than bud sorceres but golem is a million times better than mortar.
So with each eace there are good and bad units, and where the good or bad ones are depends on your race. overall they ar epretty similar.
 

Dew Spinner

Well-Known Member
I'll preface this by saying that of course, play your game however you want to play it. But I wanted to point out the reason why people would say "don't bother training bud sorceress" -- because you're right, they can be great to use as fodder when you don't want to waste your blossoms.

The reason they say "don't bother training bud sorceress" is because there's an opportunity cost involved in training any unit. The opportunity cost is that when you're training a bud sorceress, you're not training another Barracks unit. Specifically, every single bud sorceress unit you train is 1 Archer unit you can't train (or Treant, or Golem, or whatever).

If you were to rank the relative value of bud sorceress against all of the other barracks units, it's likely the worst. That means that all of the time your barracks spends producing bud sorceress units, it's producing less value overall for your army.

To illustrate that point, imagine that you could calculate exactly how many enemy units your unit would be able to kill before it was wiped out. Let's say that looked something like this:

Your UnitsEnemy Units Killed
Bud Sorceress2.5
Sword Dancer2.75
Archer3.5
Treant2.75
Golem3

Obviously, those numbers are completely made up -- they're just there to illustrate the point. But if they were accurate, what you would find is that every time you choose to train a bud sorceress unit over an archer unit, your army is now able to kill 1 fewer enemy unit.

I'm not sure that anyone has really fleshed out any analytics for what the real numbers would be (there are so many different variables to account for, especially considering military buildings), but the point remains: it's generally accepted that the value of the bud sorceress comparative to its other Barracks counterparts is quite low. And that's the primary driver behind the 'don't train the bud sorceress' advice.
And when you are always training Blossoms because you are not training Buds, you are not training many Rangers. The game is based on balance, when you throw the balance off in one area you hurt another area. So I understand your point but either way something valuable is being trained in a lesser amount. Maybe when I get into higher chapters I can be more selective but right now I need all of my troop types.
.
 
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Vigali

Active Member
And when you are always training Blossoms because you are not training Buds, you are not training many Rangers. The game is based on balance, when you throw the balance off in one area you hurt another area. So I understand your point but either way something valuable is being trained in a lesser amount. Maybe when I get into higher chapters I can be more selective but right now I need all of my troop types.
.

I have to disagree; the game isn't based on balance. This game is extremely unbalanced, and because of that, one of the very best ways to be successful is to identify those imbalances and exploit them. That's what we're really talking about here.

The gap between Buds vs Blossoms and between Archers vs Rangers is not identical. If it were identical, then the game would be balanced, and you'd be right -- I'd want to stop training Blossoms sometimes and train Rangers, and I'd likely want to train some Buds while I do that. But because the game isn't balanced -- because the effectiveness gap between Buds vs Blossoms greater than Archers vs Rangers -- we maximize value by producing Blossoms and Archers.

Obviously, there aren't just two unit types, so this isn't a binary decision, but the point about value remains the same: train the troops that provide the highest relative value. If you have a decision between training A) 50 Blossoms and 50 Archers, or training B) 25 Blossoms/25 Rangers/25 Buds/25 Archers, the highest-value answer is A.
 

StarLoad

Well-Known Member
...

Obviously, there aren't just two unit types, so this isn't a binary decision, but the point about value remains the same: train the troops that provide the highest relative value. If you have a decision between training A) 50 Blossoms and 50 Archers, or training B) 25 Blossoms/25 Rangers/25 Buds/25 Archers, the highest-value answer is A.
Actually, that's not quite accurate as it does not account for the number of Squads you have in each. Your assumption that "A" is the answer might be different if you already have 800x of Blossom Mages but only 100x of Rangers. In that case, producing Rangers makes more sense.
 

Dew Spinner

Well-Known Member
I have to disagree; the game isn't based on balance. This game is extremely unbalanced, and because of that, one of the very best ways to be successful is to identify those imbalances and exploit them. That's what we're really talking about here.

The gap between Buds vs Blossoms and between Archers vs Rangers is not identical. If it were identical, then the game would be balanced, and you'd be right -- I'd want to stop training Blossoms sometimes and train Rangers, and I'd likely want to train some Buds while I do that. But because the game isn't balanced -- because the effectiveness gap between Buds vs Blossoms greater than Archers vs Rangers -- we maximize value by producing Blossoms and Archers.

Obviously, there aren't just two unit types, so this isn't a binary decision, but the point about value remains the same: train the troops that provide the highest relative value. If you have a decision between training A) 50 Blossoms and 50 Archers, or training B) 25 Blossoms/25 Rangers/25 Buds/25 Archers, the highest-value answer is A.
I believe this differes a little when you don't have all your troops unlocked and not all the unlocked ones are 3 stars. It's easier to be choosy about what you train when you have 15 troop types to pick from that are all 3 stars. Until I get to that point, at least all tropps unlocked, I will have to make use of my buds to conserve my Blossoms and until I get free buds I will have to train them to a certain extent.
 

StarLoad

Well-Known Member
However, the end result I would like to see is that we take care in how we profess our expertise to newer and lower chapter players with the knowledge that we have obtained.
3 things stand out from the discussions

Some troops are best used as "Fodder" either as replacements of higher quality troops or as direct use as fodder and losses dont matter.
"Free Troops" are always better and useful in some battles.
No single troop is the best and many, many factors come into play so a diversity of troops is needed.
 

Gkyr

Chef
There are too many opinions in this thread.
"What is a forum if not opinions?" you may ask.
"We have every right to express our opinions!" you may declare.
Yes, but...
I have every right not to take some posters seriously. I find there is as much grease as there is gear in this thread.
As a minimum, look at the Tournament averages of the posters. Even some players with high game scores, higher than mine, have abysmally low Tourney scores.
Perhaps they are using their troop smarts to top the spire without breathing hard, and I can never know this.
But if a poster does not demonstrate in the performance record - that follows them around - that they are actually developing and using their squads actively, I choose not to give their posts too much credibility.
It is merely my way of keeping the discussion relevant.
Just sayin'.
 

mucksterme

Oh Wise One
There are too many opinions in this thread.
"What is a forum if not opinions?" you may ask.
"We have every right to express our opinions!" you may declare.
Yes, but...
I have every right not to take some posters seriously. I find there is as much grease as there is gear in this thread.
As a minimum, look at the Tournament averages of the posters. Even some players with high game scores, higher than mine, have abysmally low Tourney scores.
Perhaps they are using their troop smarts to top the spire without breathing hard, and I can never know this.
But if a poster does not demonstrate in the performance record - that follows them around - that they are actually developing and using their squads actively, I choose not to give their posts too much credibility.
It is merely my way of keeping the discussion relevant.
Just sayin'.

You are absolutely right
We need to judge everyone by achievement.
My high tourny score is just over 20K
So by your way of thinking, I guess you and anyone else here who has never matched that should just shut up and do whatever I recommend.
 

The Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
I believe this differes a little when you don't have all your troops unlocked and not all the unlocked ones are 3 stars. It's easier to be choosy about what you train when you have 15 troop types to pick from that are all 3 stars. Until I get to that point, at least all tropps unlocked, I will have to make use of my buds to conserve my Blossoms and until I get free buds I will have to train them to a certain extent.
Yes and no. It depends entirely on where (or if) you're lacking in other areas...

Sure, always training Blossoms means you can't train Rangers, but if you're an Elf, this is hardly much of a loss, since your basic Archers (who are already at 3* before you even unlock Blossoms), are already very good units.
Yes, Rangers are technically better because they get that all-important counter-attack in, (and even chip damage is highly valuable), but overall, they do not so vastly out preform Archers in the way that Blossoms nuke from orbit the useless Sorceress.

On the other hand, the situation is reversed for Humans, since Xbows are generally put to shame even by 1* Rangers, while Priests are widely viewed as god-tier unit.
(...and luckily for Human players who were around for it, the Witch's Hut will give 'oodles of 'free' frogs, thus leaving the Merc Camp open for exclusive Ranger production;))
 

crackie

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, Buddy's #1 Fan
Sure, always training Blossoms means you can't train Rangers, but if you're an Elf, this is hardly much of a loss, since your basic Archers (who are already at 3* before you even unlock Blossoms), are already very good units.
Yes, Rangers are technically better because they get that all-important counter-attack in, (and even chip damage is highly valuable), but overall, they do not so vastly out preform Archers in the way that Blossoms nuke from orbit the useless Sorceress.
From my observation, my 1* Rangers do not do the same damage as my 3* Archers. It happens a lot where the Ranger will decide a flesh wound will be more entertaining and leave an enemy mage with a little health left over to be a pain to the battle plans, despite them getting an 80% attack bonus on mages. My Archers will get down to business and just kill the darn mage in one go. That could be the 10% difference Archers get over Rangers on mages.
a-princess-bride-quotes-2.jpg


The Ranger's Strike Back isn't a full strike and doesn't do that much damage either. It's as if that's what's held back to prevent them from one-shot killing things to begin with, so it kinda evens out in the end, I feel. I will sometimes line a Ranger up against a Myst Walker to use the Strike Back on her as I don't have any units with a higher initiative, so she always gets a free potshot on me. The Strike Back is my way of leveling it a little. Also, my Archers can take more beating than Rangers to survive longer. Rangers are made out of paper mache. Even a lvl 3 Ranger is only 2 health pts higher than a lvl 1 Archer (eep!).

Howeverrrr, with obstacles in place, that extra movement a Ranger gets will allow them to still strike the mage on the opening round, whereas an archer will run out of movement trying to walk around. That is a very very very important bonus anytime you have the potential to one-shot kill an enemy unit on opening round and turn the odds to your favor. Double howeverrrrr, it's more useful manual fighting. During autofights, sometimes the AI uses it correctly, but sometimes it uses that extra movement to then park the Ranger in front of another light unit's lane to block him from otherwise being perfectly aligned to walk over and shoot down a mage. Your mileage on this advantage may vary.
 

CrazyWizard

Oh Wise One
From my observation, my 1* Rangers do not do the same damage as my 3* Archers. It happens a lot where the Ranger will decide a flesh wound will be more entertaining and leave an enemy mage with a little health left over to be a pain to the battle plans, despite them getting an 80% attack bonus on mages. My Archers will get down to business and just kill the darn mage in one go. That could be the 10% difference Archers get over Rangers on mages.



The Ranger's Strike Back isn't a full strike and doesn't do that much damage either. It's as if that's what's held back to prevent them from one-shot killing things to begin with, so it kinda evens out in the end, I feel. I will sometimes line a Ranger up against a Myst Walker to use the Strike Back on her as I don't have any units with a higher initiative, so she always gets a free potshot on me. The Strike Back is my way of leveling it a little. Also, my Archers can take more beating than Rangers to survive longer. Rangers are made out of paper mache. Even a lvl 3 Ranger is only 2 health pts higher than a lvl 1 Archer (eep!).

Howeverrrr, with obstacles in place, that extra movement a Ranger gets will allow them to still strike the mage on the opening round, whereas an archer will run out of movement trying to walk around. That is a very very very important bonus anytime you have the potential to one-shot kill an enemy unit on opening round and turn the odds to your favor. Double howeverrrrr, it's more useful manual fighting. During autofights, sometimes the AI uses it correctly, but sometimes it uses that extra movement to then park the Ranger in front of another light unit's lane to block him from otherwise being perfectly aligned to walk over and shoot down a mage. Your mileage on this advantage may vary.
When you unlock those new units except for cerberus, your barracks units are 3* and the other just 1*.
Non barracks units (again except cerberus), are only viable at 2* or 3* depending on the unit because you mist compare them with 3* units.

Special powers of 3* units are very powerfull, even after the recent nerf (they finally work as we suggested many years ago).
This makes it very difficult for a unit without special powers (read non 3*) to be on par with your barracks units:

some well known examples:
Rangers at 2*; they are awesome for humans, they are very powerfull vs mages but agains all other units elven archer outperform them.
Blossom mages at 2*; Decent alternative for humans, a bit on flimsy side, but vital for elves as range is often key, unless you meet anti mages, blossom 2* outperforms bud sorceres 3* 80% of the time.

Supersuck unit:
Human Mortars; these units suck so much that pretty much anything is better in game than these units.
The exception is when you combine frog princes 3* with mortars. mortars have the worst special power, but when you fieldfrog princes, add at least 1 squad of mortars. they have a lower initiative, so the forg prince uses the special power, then the mortars can also do a decent job.

If not mistaken 2 frogs + 3 mortars should work well, but I am not certain, I know that the last power that hits stays (example you use a unit with -30% defence, then hit the same unit with your -10% defence golem, and now the unit has lost the 30% debuff in favor of hte 10% debuff :(

But since mortar and frog prince have difference special powers they should both stick on the units, but I cannot confirm that for 100% as I cannot test right now.
 
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