Best upgrades for Sylvan

[rjl1202]

Well, I saw one of these for Inferno, and I couldn't resist.

I'll explain my general Sylvan strategy. It's built around imbue arrow/ballista triple ballista and destructive magic. Basically, my strategy is to never let the enemy make a move to the largest extent possible. Master of storms/ice/warding arrow works wonders to stop any specific enemy stack from moving any time soon. Wyngall's ATB bonus almost always ensures that my guys shoot first.

So anyway, with a basic understanding of my strategy, here's my upgrade choice, please make any suggestions you like.

Dryad vs Sprite: I prefer Sprite solely because of it's limited archerial (yes I made that up) abilities in the form of casting, since I archer turtle, but both are pretty worthless.

War Dancer vs Wind Dancer: Wind Dancer - If it happens that I'm facing a large army and I can't kill all of their troops before their melee reach my front lines, I still like to have the first strike, so I'll send these guys out and they can usually kill a stack by themselves because of agility. The AOE with War Dancers usually is worthless because only 1-3 stacks will make it to the point where I will need to engage in melee combat.

Master Hunter vs Arcane Archer: Arcane Archers are poor in comparison and I've always gone with them. Force Arrow is better than Warding, but double shot gives a better chance of triggering, plus, it simply does more damage. Thinking about it, I'd actually like a lot of imput on this. Statistically, the probabilites are a lot closer when you consider Soldiers Luck and Elven Luck, and I'm not sure in regards to double shot. The damage is listed as 5-8 for Master Hunters, but is that 5-8 per shot or 5-8 damage divided by two shots. I had thought that it was 5-8 each shot, but I read somewhere that it was not. So thoughts on this specifically would be greatly appreciated, as I'm becoming more and more undecided as I write this.

Druid Elder vs High Druid: High Druids do more damage than Elders and in addition, channeling is vastly superior to Mana Feed, since Rangers have a wealth of knowledge and relatively little spell power. No brainer for me.

Silver Unicorn vs Pristine Unicorn: Silver Unicorn - higher Attack/Defense, slightly less damage, but Aura of Magic Resistance is vastly superior to Child of the light for Archer turtling because it gives your archers a chance to resist magic attacks.

Ancient Treant vs Savage Treant: Ancient Treant - Its simply more of a tank for damage. I don't use my melee creatures to fight unless it's a last resort, I use them to protect my archers/ballista, but no one ever goes after the ballista anyway, because they are mentally impaired, which allows me to imbue implosion/chain lighting/frost bolt and cast it 3-4 times per round on one stack.

Emerald Dragon vs Crystal Dragon: Dragons are the one unit I use offensively, since only so many dudes can be protecting your archers. Dragons are a perfect choice, due to the high initiative, damage, and speed. Emeralds are better for this - same average damage and more attack. Immune to Earth, as Age of Heroes states, is a narrow, but nonetheless useful ability, just making it that much better. Acid Breath vs Prismatic Breath is quasi debatable, but I prefer Acid just so you know you will hit something, and you rarely need to hit more than two tiles behind your target.

So... that's my strategy, what're yalls thoughts?

[Asheera]

Master Hunter vs Arcane Archer: Arcane Archers are poor in comparison

I can't believe you said that!

Arcane Archers are clearly superior than Master Hunters. They have higher damage, higher initiative, higher att&def and also have No Range Penalty. Furthermore, the 50% defense reduction is simply a killer to high level units.

Check this thread on HC for the mathematics and see why Arcane Archers are just better than Master Hunters in all aspects.

And Warding Arrow is not a good ability either...

[John.Galt]

So, in clarification, is the 5-8 damage distributed amongst two shots, or is it total damage of the two shots? I was also confused on that... Because if that's the per shot damage, than there is a case to be made for Master Hunters, as they would deal more damage. (But obviously once you look at all the modifiers they would get pwned.)

[Lord Lakely]

Hullo? Double shot + Warding Arrow < No Range Penalty + Force Arrow.

Please (re)read the discriptions of the creatures in www.heroesofmightandmagic.com.

Sprites are good in the Early Game to clear that map of those annoying creatures like Imps and Archers. And Sorry, but that one extra damage can mean a lot in a group of 100+ Dryads. Dryads should be your end-choice.

War and Wind Dancers both have different uses. War Dancers are great agains turtling packs like Fortress or Haven (especially with Teleport), while Wind Dancers take care of every other kind of battle. Wind Dancers are better (and a serious danger of your opponent), but Wars are good too.

Druid Elders should, like Sprites be recruited in the Early-mid stages of your game. The time when you must upgrade your druids is rather clear. The least after their average Damage is higher that the one of thier lightning bolt. Evenso, Wild Druids are better for Magical Oriented Heroes (like Vinrael and Dirael), and should be picked immedeately in these cases.

Though Statistically superior, the Pristine Unicorns should only be taken when your Hero is a great Light Magic Caster. Silver Unicorns should be taken in most cases (I really hate to say this, as I like Pristines very much) because their Magic Resistance can greatly disrupt the plan of any Harmfull caster. Pristines are better versus Fortress, Haven, Stronghold and Sylvan. Take Silvers versus Necro, Inferno, Academy and Dungeon. If your Hero is Ylthin, ignore the opponent (except when he's Dungeon) and go for Pristines

I don't need to Explain the Treants. One offencive, the latter Defencive. I don't know which to prefer, but both are good. Mostly depends on your playing style

And finally the Dragons: Emeralds have immunity to Earth, which can (note: can =/= is) Be and Advantage versus Dungeon. Chrystals are far better IF (and only if) you have the Luck skill. Without Luck, the Chrystals ar fairly inferior to the Statistically better Emeralds. That's about it I suppose...

[konfeta]

For AA vs. MH, look at it this way:

Master Hunters will do an average of 6.5 damage per shot, so 13 total. However, since targets worth shooting are most of spend in the ranged penalty area, their damage per Hunter stays at 6.5

Arcane Archers will do an average of 8.5 damage per shot, at no range penalty. Which means, immediately, without taking any other stats into consideration, their damage output is superior to Master Hunters. However, you have to also consider -50% defense penalty. Naturally, the scope of the effect will depend on how much defense the target has, but basically this will provide a tremendous boost of damage.

Let's assume you have a stack of AA and their total attack stat (items, boosts, whatever) is 20. They target the nasty Magma Dragons with 40 defense. If there was no -50% defense reduction, the Dragons would reduce the attack damage by half. However, due to the AA special, the Magma Dragons defense is treated as if it was 20, thus allow the AA to do their full damage.

Essentially, the higher average damage with -50% Defense Reduction allows the AA to do more than double the damage that MH would do in this scenario. And that's ignoring their other benefits.

Even if you got the no-ranged penalty bow, Master Hunters would only pull ahead when fighting Neutrals with very low defense score. Arcane Archers would still do more damage against high defense opponents, and would free up an artifact slot for something to further boost their damage or benefit the entire army as opposed to only Druids and Master Hunters.

[KiOwA]

Early on in the game though, 1-unit stacks of master hunters are great at killing the initiative of your enemies, while your main stack wipes the floor with them.

[Metathron]

Yes, the Arcane Archers are stronger, but that does not make the master hunters a bad unit, not by a long shot. In fact, I daresay they are among the best units overall, relative to their cost/level. The arcanes are indeed overpowered and would require some kind of decrease.

Honestly, I don't see how you can say Warding Arrow is a bad ability. It's an outstanding ability, especially with Soldier's Luck: The enemy's turn will often be delayed for huge chunks of time, and on occasion they won't even get to act, especially if you split your hunters into several stacks to give them more chance for the ability to trigger.

Also, check out this thread for more opinions: Sylvan creature choices

As you can see in that thread, I was much more in favour of the archers back then, nowadays it's much closer to my picks being 45/55 for hunters/archers respectively.

[Asheera]

Master Hunters are not bad at all, I mean, they were very powerful and respected before TotE... it's just that AA's are too overpowered and outshine the Master Hunters easily...

[Elvin]

To avoid reading all this I can only say that ALL the alternates are better most of the time and a no-brainer for lategame.

[blizzardboy]

To avoid reading all this I can only say that ALL the alternates are better most of the time and a no-brainer for lategame.

Except for master hunters, which are vastly superior to arcane archers in every way.

[Metathron]

Can we stop sticking the vastly superior tag on either of the 3rd level upgrades? Neither of them is vastly anything above the other.

[blizzardboy]

I was just knee-jerking Elvin.

[Elvin]

Master hunters are IMBAA

[danhvo]

Master hunters are IMBAA

I'm not very good with these acronyms. What's IMBAA?

[Elvin]

Imbalanced And of course I was joking.

[Lord Lakely]

Well, I usually use the Alternatives for Sylvan, but I sometimes DO pick War Dancers, as War Dancer Combo is very handy when facing Defending (Fortress) factions or factions with Large attackers (Haven). I wonder if they would be more balanced if they had bash as well, but a sad fact is that Wind Dancers are much better in 75% of the cases. Crystal Dragon and Emeralds are at least as good as eachother, and the Two Treants are two different units imo.

But yes, in case of Pixies, Druids and of course Hunters, the Alternative should always be picked before the Final Battle.