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| Thread: Destructive Sylvan or Light Sylvan |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Lexxan
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Unimpressed by your logic
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posted March 02, 2009 01:58 PM |
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Edited by Lexxan at 13:58, 02 Mar 2009.
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Poll Question:
Destructive Sylvan or Light Sylvan ??
With all the commotion in the Duel Map thread, I think it's best to make a thread, where it really fits.
So, what do you prefer? Destructive or Light for Sylvan?
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Coincidence? I think not!!!!
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razor5
Famous Hero
Freezing...
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posted March 02, 2009 03:04 PM |
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Lex,here depends...but I find the Light Magic better for Sylvan
Well,I find Sylvan an defensive faction,so here better fits the Light Magic,which are only stats'-boosting,like having better morale&luck etc.Allright,but the defense is gained from the hero,as being his primary attribute.
Using the Destructive Magic is good for attacking factions (like Inferno or Stronghold),not for Sylvan
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Asheera
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
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posted March 02, 2009 03:33 PM |
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Edited by Asheera at 15:34, 02 Mar 2009.
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In a real game this is a lot different than in the Duel Map. For one you need good favored enemies for the Destructive Sylvan to be effective, but also you may not get Resurrection with the Light Sylvan, which would make the High Druids almost useless since other Light Magic spells aren't dependent on spellpower (well, let's consider Divine Imbalance banned, and Word of Light could be useless versus some enemies)
So both are harder to get effective in a real game. Also, strong destructive spells are easy to get and easily boosted by High Druids. So if you really plan on going with High Druids and insane spellpower I suggest Destructive (and possibly Ballista), if no Channeling and you want to cast a lot of blessings (which don't require that high spellpower) then go for Light.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted March 02, 2009 03:36 PM |
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Depends on your approach, so I vote Either. Sylvan is a quite versatile faction, which will allow you two approaches.
a) Might Sylvan: Luck + Logistics + Light Magic (aka. Nature Magic approach).
b) Magic Sylvan: Destructive Magic + Sorcery + High Druids +/- War Machines (aka. Imbue Arrow approach).
These two approaches are quite different and don't really work well together, so going for both is not really a viable option imo.
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What will happen now?
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 02, 2009 04:21 PM |
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Light is better most of the times. I explained why, in the other thread.
I will post a replay from russian arena tournament, which shows the limitations of destruction and druids. It is not a pure Sylvan destructive, as my opponent chose Jhora as his hero, instead of a Ranger, assuming he would be more "destructive" this way 
On the other side, I was Necro, and chose skeletons, zombies and vampires as my necromancy bonus. My first strategy was to build a huge HP army, and kill my opponent with CotN, but when I reached lvl 15 I noticed I didn't get too much spell power and knowledge, and since I already had Defense and Attack skills + Battle Frenzy and Vitality, decided to mix my Cotn with some mass Light spells, and maybe some Mass Dark also, but those refused to pop. Also skipped buying many troops due to some overspending
When i saw my opponent was Jhora, I knew Light&Charge would be my only chance, and it worked. I don't think a Ranger could've done better than huge SP Jhora with Destructive...
Powerfull destructive combo replay
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted March 02, 2009 09:18 PM |
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Responding to Towerlord's post from this thread:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=27384&pagenumber=105
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But to make it simple to understand for everybody... I'll use an example, and since we have the recently played game between Sylvan and Necro we'll use that.
The fact is Dragons hit, and took out 5 Spectral Dragons and many 13-15 Wraiths, I don't remember exactly. That is more than 2000 damage. Imagine those Dragons had Righteous Might cast on them, and assuming the defense of the Necromancer is pretty much equal to the attack of the Ranger(usually that's how it is, but again I don't remember), 12 attack means + at least 50% damage, which means another 1000 damage from just one stack. Add to that +40% potential damage from Mass Haste, and the picture becomes scary with ~1400 more damage dealt.
Assuming the necromancer and ranger have equal attack and defense? A necromancer has double the defense gain rate that a ranger has in attack gain. 15% vs 30%. Plus a necromancer is very likely to have taken defense.
And what premise is this based on? There’s no way 8 crystals dragons can kill 5 ghost dragons or 13-15 wraiths in a single hit without avenger or luck triggering or something. So this is in an optimal scenario where you still have a full stack of crystals dragons and something good is happening for them. And you wouldn't even have righteous might until your hero went, and your hero goes after the crystal dragons.
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But you have 7 stacks in your army(not as damaging as the dragons of course, but some, like the arcanes, are even more) , and also light spells are faster to cast because of cool masters compared to destuctive spells, so the effects are huge. 7 stacks not (all) as powerfull as Dragons, could potentially do at least 3000-4000-5000 damage(depending on luck and favoured) more than they would do normally, without the light spells per turn.
It takes 2 turns to cast righteous might+ haste (which is a lucky combination to have as it is). It’s not like you’re going to be running around with a full army by this point in time. This is a dream scenario that has no bearing in reality. Light magic is dependent upon an army, and the weaker your army gets, the weaker light magic gets. Destructive magic is just as powerful from beginning to end.
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Even with Rain of Arrows, and 25 spell power implosion, you will never do more than 3000-3500 damage/turn, when all your favoured are still around, with your hero casting destructive spells.
25 SP? That’s pretty crappy. You realize that the druids alone in this tournament (which it’s obvious you’ve never even played before yet still argue this as though you had authority) give you +21 spellpower? 30-35 SP is more realistic, although I could get higher.
And implosion usually sucks unless you have the elemental artifacts.
And this is just another proof that you are purposely ignoring major details in order to make your argument look better than it actually is. So you include the master of wrath for mass righteous might, but you completely ignore the destruction perks? A fireballed stack of troops has their armor massively reduced for the turn on top of the major damage their going to be dealt. Likewise, ice spells will be cutting down their ATB.
And a 31 spellpower deep freeze will make a target take 100% more damage. That’s pretty significant if you ask me. The only down side is that I often just end up killing the entire stacks so it doesn’t matter anyway 
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On top of that, with Destructive, you have to waste some skills on Sorcery to make it effective, skills that could go to attack skill, which means another 20% damage added to the Light damage pool. Also instead of buying Spell Power and knowledge artifacts, you buy attack/defense artifacts, which help your potential damage/turn even more.
Wow. You realize that sorcery doesn’t influence rain of arrows at all? And you also realize that it is completely unnecessary to take the sorcery perks for destructive sylvan? Enlightenment is all a ranger needs: the boosted stats + intelligence will give you more than an enough mana to last the entire fight (it’s not uncommon that I have 100 left at the end of a fight)
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So you see... it is simple math, and long term thinking. Of course, some of you will say that, some Sylvanic troops will die along the way, and the damage potential will decrease, but you have double Ressurection to help with some of the casualties. Of course you won't be dealing extra 5000 damage / turn always, but your damage potential won't decrease like in the case of destructive, from 3000-3500 to 1000-1200 when you have no more rain.
Resurrection is a weak spell without good spellpower. And if you res a completely dead stack, they come back without buffs. Light magic is directly dependent upon having an army. And btw, it’s not that hard to keep your high druids alive unless your playing somebody like dungeon or inferno. Just stick them behind your treants and they’ll survive long enough for your hero to unleash a rain of death on the enemy.
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I made pretty many aproximations here, but if you watch the big picture you will understand that Light is generally better. Also I actually chose a favourable scenario for destructive, with no resistance/protection or druid puppeting/sudden death from enemy shooter which could end in disaster for the Destructive Sylvan.
It’s simple math that you’re making up fantasies that don’t actually exist in reality. And no, you did not chose a favorable scenario for destruction, you chose a horrible scenario for destruction and you chose an optimal scenario for light magic, and you ignored several aspect of destructive magic.
-You completely ignored the benefits of destruction perks
-25 SP is below average.
-Sorcery for a destruction ranger is completely unneeded. I have no clue where that came from.
-Even in your dream scenario where all your stacks have haste righteous might, that takes 2 turns for your hero, and by then the enemy has taken turns as well and for all you know your crystal dragons and arcane archer’s might not even exist, or worse, your big damaging stack is frenzied/puppeted and that highly acclaimed boost in damage is turned against you.
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Destructive is actually nice to choose against orcs, cause they will most likely have Shatter Light .
No, they’re just as likely to take either, because anybody that’s played in this tournament with sylvan more than a few times realizes your argument is ridiculous and that destructive is extremely dangerous in the hands of sylvan.
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Lepastur
Known Hero
The Red Taskmaster
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posted March 02, 2009 09:24 PM |
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I'll sum up like the Rabbi Hymann Krustoffsky (Krusty's father on the Simpsons):
"Light can be countered with Dark, so all the bonuses you preach can go down the drain easily, while the Damage done with Destructive is done massively and at once. End of the story!"
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phoenixreborn
Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
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posted March 02, 2009 09:29 PM |
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BlizzardBoy and Towerlord should just play each other. But what will they play, Arena map or Duel map?
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted March 02, 2009 09:58 PM |
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Quote:
"Light can be countered with Dark, so all the bonuses you preach can go down the drain easily, while the Damage done with Destructive is done massively and at once. End of the story!"
This has gotta be the most accurate unrelated quote ever 
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 02, 2009 10:28 PM |
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BlizzardBoy, are you high man ?
If you are not aware... a typical lvl 21 Ranger, has about 3-6 spell power, and at most 12-16 knowledge. 35 Spell Power means you buy ~ 15 Spell Power(and maybe knowledge lool) from artifacts.
Oh, and the sweet Fireball, or any area spell is useless if your opponent charges, and your troops are mixed with his, since you will be hurting yourself. You are talking about a sitting duck that is waiting for your spells to come lol.
I agree, Deep Freeze is great damage booster, but most of the stack will be dead anyway, and the extra damage dealt by Implosion makes up for that.
Many other wrong statements you make, no need to comment futher, I think everyone understood what Light is all about, and all the extra bonuses you get by not using Destructive.
Even Lepastur's quote is wrong in this case, since Druids can be killed,frenzied or puppeted rather easily, making the damage un-impressive and useless.
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted March 02, 2009 10:40 PM |
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BlizzardBoy, are you high man ?
No, are you discussing strategy in maps you've never played before?
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If you are not aware... a typical lvl 21 Ranger, has about 3-6 spell power, and at most 12-16 knowledge. 35 Spell Power means you buy ~ 15 Spell Power(and maybe knowledge lool) from artifacts.
4 + 2 library + 21 druids = 27. Other factors can come from wizard's reward (+2) and then artifacts, which in this map, is quite a few artifacts. You only need an additional +3/4 spellpower from artifacts to get 32/33 SP, which is the average of my estimate.
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Oh, and the sweet Fireball, or any area spell is useless if your opponent charges, and your troops are mixed with his, since you will be hurting yourself. You are talking about a sitting duck that is waiting for your spells to come lol.
When your opponent charges that quickly, they're not going to have any of the buffs you're talking about. And you can aim your fireballs so that you only hit their troops and not yours. It becomes more and more difficult as your troops get mixed together, but that's when you can shift to the single-target level 5 spells. Or you can keep trying to hit with fireball.
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I agree, Deep Freeze is great damage booster, but most of the stack will be dead anyway, and the extra damage dealt by Implosion makes up for that.
So you acknowledge that a destructive ranger can make those light-buffed stacks disappear in a single shot? We're making progress.
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any other wrong statements you make, no need to comment futher, I think everyone understood what Light is all about, and all the extra bonuses you get by not using Destructive.
Why not? I want to know what I'm saying that is incorrect.
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Even Lepastur's quote is wrong in this case, since Druids can be killed,frenzied or puppeted rather easily, making the damage un-impressive and useless.
Lepastur's quote is an exaggeration, but it is true that frenzy/puppet can turn a light buffed stack into a liability. And it is also true that as your armies get smaller, light becomes weaker.
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 02, 2009 11:10 PM |
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I see you don't get it ... It's not 21 Sp from Druids, it is your hero's knowledge that adds to the Spell Power, which is 12-16.
You cannot aim your Fireball if you use rain of arrows. And if you don't use.... the build is pointless as damage is very low.
Of course they are not going to have the buffs from the first turn, but instead they are going to have attack skill and attack/defense oriented artifacts, and the buffs will come in for second turn.
I wasn't talking about a Sylvan vs. Sylvan encounter, Light vs. Destructive as that would be decided by atb, and not by light vs. destructive.
Not the whole stack, but a very big part of it, the remaining is small enough not to matter that it has or hasn't Deep Freeze effect on.
Well, it's not that Righteous Might and Haste are the best, they are just the easiest to explain in terms of damage. You have difficulties understanding those, so imagine explaining the hidden power and benefits of the others, since extra damage is not so obvious.
Also keep in mind, that non-sorceried hero, casts twice slower than Light Mass Hero, so by the time you cast your 2nd spell, The Light Hero is already at his 3rd.
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Kispagat
Famous Hero
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posted March 02, 2009 11:45 PM |
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At early stages of normal games a lot of times I was seriously considering this destructive question, and I dont remember to choose that path because of my experience in sylvan vs other factions.
Sylvan is a very quick (fastest) faction and/therefore attack oriented faction. Sylvan needs to achieve winning/overwhelming position untill 3-4 turns, otherwise they 99% to loose. If you accept this statement, you will understand that destuctive sylvan, who relies on new druids trick slow and accidental. If your hero comes before your druids, your first effective destrution spell comes after your whole sylvan army attacked 2-3 times. If u start with mass haste, as I think, mostly the best thing to do, then in 3 turns your army (except treants) moved 3-5 times.
Then comes the problems with rain of arrows, area spells, favoured enemies, druids are dead or alive...
All an all, in a real multiplayer game, I would advice to take attack instead of destructive.
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted March 02, 2009 11:53 PM |
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i prefer destructive sylvan as it is offensive rather than defensive...
I have learned over the years the best defense is a good offense.
Thus i would rather inflict casualties on a foe and force my opponent to be defensive rather than let them take the first strike.
Although buffing is powerful, anti-buff is stronger and as i said earlier, it is better to attack than retaliate.
but then again its just my preference and my strategies.
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Protection From Everything.
dota
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted March 03, 2009 06:34 AM |
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I see you don't get it ... It's not 21 Sp from Druids, it is your hero's knowledge that adds to the Spell Power, which is 12-16.
21 was admittedly probably an overestimation.
21 * 1.5(expert enlightenment) = 31.
31 * 0.30(knowledge gain %) = 9.45 or 9/10 knowledge
+2 library = 11/12 knowledge.
So you'd need another +10 worth of knowledge for 21, which is steep. Just the same, my earlier estimate for spellpower was probably underrated. You get a big load of artifacts in the tournament, so the bonuses can stack up pretty easily.
Not to mention elemental artifacts. There are artifacts that reduce elemental damage as well, but they are far less likely to matter since the enemy doesn't even know if you're going to go destructive, and even then, they don't know which elements you're going to be using. So elemental artifacts are superior to elemental reducers.
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You cannot aim your Fireball if you use rain of arrows. And if you don't use.... the build is pointless as damage is very low.
The damage is not really low. Why do you keep saying this? Can you please at least watch some replays. And this is why you pick and choose what your favored enemies are. If you're fighting sylvan vs sylvan and plan on using fireball than choosing the fast units for your favored probably wouldn't be a swell idea. But you can use it on high druids, arcanes, and treants. The point is, it's all a matter of what enemies your fight, and you pick which favored enemies you feel would work best.
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Of course they are not going to have the buffs from the first turn, but instead they are going to have attack skill and attack/defense oriented artifacts, and the buffs will come in for second turn.
You can still get defense/attack artifacts with destruction. But understand that the artifact come randomly and you may or may not have a good hand for a might/light build. Really, what kind of artifacts I have offered to me greatly influences whether I go light or destruction.
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Not the whole stack, but a very big part of it, the remaining is small enough not to matter that it has or hasn't Deep Freeze effect on.
Agreed. Destructive ranger is so amazingly awesome that the vulnerability from deep freeze can often times not even matter since the stack simply dies. But it's still there should you need it.
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Well, it's not that Righteous Might and Haste are the best, they are just the easiest to explain in terms of damage. You have difficulties understanding those, so imagine explaining the hidden power and benefits of the others, since extra damage is not so obvious.
Yes, a buffed up sylvan army can be very impressive. I never felt otherwise. But contending that destruction is inferior in most cases just sounds amateur.
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Also keep in mind, that non-sorceried hero, casts twice slower than Light Mass Hero, so by the time you cast your 2nd spell, The Light Hero is already at his 3rd.
Sorcery doesn't speed up casting mass spells. It would speed up your resurrections though and make you 30% faster. But keep in mind that you were arguing earlier that a light hero can focus more on might skills, but remember that getting expert sorcery is going to take up 3 skills that a destructive hero can spend elsewhere. A destructive ranger should almost always go for enlightenment, which takes up some slots, but that benefits might as well as spellpower/knowledge.
Also, concerning the unicorns, remember that you have to forfeit getting silver unicorns in order to get that double res combo. I'd still prefer Child of Light if I was a light ranger, but it's not like a destructive ranger is missing out completely. They lose the res combo, but a +30% magic resistance aura can be substantially helpful as well.
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted March 03, 2009 01:09 PM |
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I think you finally realize, that 35 power is a dream, and 25 is actually a pretty good scenario for a ranger, so I can move to the fast casting .
You don't need Sorcery to speed up Mass spells, they are wasting only half of the hero initiative by themselves... they are actually faster than Sorcery.
I hope you learned something from my posts, cause this is the last one on the current subject. As sweet as 3000 damage might seem at first sight, it isn't actually that much in reality.
Btw, I posted a 35 spell power Jhora few posts ago, you should watch it, as it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words
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samiekl
Supreme Hero
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posted March 03, 2009 01:43 PM |
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Why would anyone take destructive as sylvan when light/attack/enlightenment/luck/logs make them the most feared faction?
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Lepastur
Known Hero
The Red Taskmaster
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posted March 03, 2009 01:47 PM |
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Quote:
Even Lepastur's quote is wrong in this case, since Druids can be killed,frenzied or puppeted rather easily, making the damage un-impressive and useless.
Since you can protect them with Unicorns + Resistance with a nearly 50% chance to trigger from the enemy Hero's spells, the only way I see to kill them for sure is by Dragons (speed 9 and fire breath) or something like that, and not all factions can do that, not before they move at least (and that's what they only need, after that you can drop them down as you wish: if you can't kill them, you're lost - Last stand could help Sylvan here). Even the flying dragons ones can't do it sometimes if they don't place correctly 50% chance about "on what corner are they going to be?". And if we suppose the enemy can launch a Dragon charge we can always try to pick Tactics or even a Swift Minded Blade Barrier or even Anti-Magic to counter that and preserve the Druids long enough to destroy nearly HALF of the enemy's army at once and on two hero's turns at last. With Light, you'll need several more and some Luck about the enemy's Dark Spells.
About puppeting and frenzing, Sylvan always have the double chance to get Cleansing or Anti-Magic, so you'll need to be a little lucky in order to cast Dark properly. On the other hand, not all factions have Dark Magic to do that.
And in order to finish, I don't care about what school is better, I suppose both have pros and cons, but with Light you can't doom a match , while with the proper Artifacts and a little luck on the ATB you can do so using Destructive from time to time.
P.D. -> The Rabbi stuff is not an exaggeration, it's a truth like a fist. If you manage to place your hero's turn on a good ATB position you can counter easily from +12At-Df/+40%Init to -12At-Df/-40%Init, so you'll make enemy's Light almost useless. And sometimes you even need nothing to position it, because you have it from start.
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Torre de Marfil Foro / Portal - La Comunidad
hispana más completa sobre la saga Might&Magic.
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sq79
Famous Hero
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posted March 03, 2009 01:56 PM |
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I think i'll choose light anytime for sylvan, its hard to explain why.
But wasting another 2 skill slots for imbue and rain of arrows doesn't seem a good choice. And f.enemy are easy for sylvan to kill usually even without destructive. It depends on the config really.
So far if the swift strike is done efficiently, usually opponent types gg before their creatures gets the turn 
if you're going to imbue and rain of arrows, that's a total of 5 additional skills wasted. U can get Expert Attack with battle frenzy which will be greatly boosted by mass haste and mass r.might
The thing about the duels map is we're kinda forced to bring those lousy treants to battle. That alone, will almost lose the game already 
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted March 03, 2009 07:27 PM |
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Quote:
Btw, I posted a 35 spell power Jhora few posts ago, you should watch it, as it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words
Ok, I watched it. Let me get this straight: you post a replay of a sylvan army controlled by a wizard against a necromancer using CotN, and it is suppose to convince me that sylvan light is better?
Now I can post some pictures. These aren't hand-picked games with totally rigged scenarios; these are just the 4 matches of destructive sylvan I've played in the tourney:
Blizeugen2
SP 22 (+11 elemental) = 33SP with favored element
Asheera vs Blizzard
SP 29 (+14 elemental) = 43SP with favored element
ggblizsylvan
SP 24 (+12 elemental) = 36SP with favored elmeent
blizselu1
SP 37
Average SP over those 4 games (excluding elemental arty bonus) = 28.
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