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| Thread: Strategist's corner - advanced strategies, opinions and advices * Luck or Leadership |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 10, 2010 10:52 AM |
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Edited by Elvin at 13:56, 04 Jun 2010.
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Strategist's corner - advanced strategies, opinions and advices * Luck or Leadership
I raise this topic for showing some of the great strategies, from experts around the forum, in order for us all to improve our overall view of the game. Hope many of you forumers, will be taking some of your time, posting your thoughts here 
I will start with a small - but very important in my oppinion - topic for now :
Paladin vs. Champion, which is the better upgrade?
In my early days of ToTe, I had a mirage, that Champions were much better than Paladins, because of the extra damage and ability to hit two units at once, when jousting like the dragons, and paladins were relagated only for Haven vs. Necro or Haven vs. Inferno match-ups...
Over the time, I slowly started leaning more towards Paladins, reaching a point now where I choose Champions very rarely, in Haven vs Dungeon 90% of the times and in Haven vs. Academy 50%.
The "WHY" :
Champions have higher damage than paladins, but on average, their damage is 27.5 and the paladins' damage is 25... Not that big of a difference, only 10% extra damage!
Champion Charge, is another 50% extra damage, but only if you manage to score it, and that is a very remote possibility, as your opponents(the good ones) will place their troops accordingly or block Champions or their path to double hit, stopping them from dealing that sweet extra damage! Only advantage is forcing some placement issues on your opponent.
And here pretty much end the advantages, and start the down-sides.
4 extra defense for Paladins, in balanced games, mean almost -20% damage taken from opponent, that is roughly twice as much as the extra damage the champions deal.
Immune to Frenzy, is a no brainer vs. Dark Factions, and it makes the Paladins, clear choice vs. them, one of the reasons Inferno and Necro almost always face Paladins 
And finally Lay Hands, again a no brainer against Dark Factions, but enough to trump Champion Charge + extra damage, in combination with the higher defense vs. Orcs, Dwarfs and Sylvan?
My answer is simply yes, and I will explain why:
vs. Orcs, it takes care of the nasty slow from witches, but not only that. It also takes care of the nasty Blood Eye from the Cyclops and also other curses from hexing attack ! And when you charge with the Paladins, between the orcish troops, you will last longer from the defense, which is great!
vs. Dwarfs, can remove Mark of Fire, and other Fire related abilities from Hero! The main benefit remains the extra defense of course, and the possibility to use them defensively as well.
vs. Sylvan, it can remove the super nasty Unicorn Blind, and that is not to be taken lightly, having your Archangels Blinded for a long time is unacceptable! And versus such a damaging faction, the extra defense is really the top!
Of course, scoring a hit on a Meleer + Arcanes is a very dreamy possibility, and can solve the game vs. Sylvan in one shot, but keep in mind that a good player will not allow that, so the long term benefits of having Paladins is the trump card!
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted May 10, 2010 12:37 PM |
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Pretty much, champions are more of a single-use card. I'll pick them only if I hope to deliver the first blow and I'm positive I can hit two targets at once. Which means I must have an initiative artie(less chance of an 11 init unit blocking them), luck since that lucky attack may cripple both attacked stacks and probably tactics as well. After that initial charge they fall fast so it's hard to preserve them for long. Divine guidance aided by empathy is a possibility but missing a first turn mass spell.. only if the payoff is too sweet to reconsider.
Sylvan and academy are easy to block them, the former with wind dancers, the latter with artificered gargoyles and should they attack gargoyles they will be within full shooting range. I might use them vs dwarves but even bears can get lucky enough to block you, and if you don't attack first they can activate a rune of incorporeality. Lost games that way, no fun.
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Kispagat
Famous Hero
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posted May 10, 2010 02:27 PM |
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Immune to Frenzy, is a no brainer vs. Dark Factions, and it makes the Paladins, clear choice vs. them, one of the reasons Inferno and Necro almost always face Paladins
From arena/duel point of view, this is quite clear. But in normal games, when quantities and hero level can be higher and almost every spell is available, I would rather pick champions against inferno.
WHY:
I think empathy is a must skill for haven. With empathy you can speed up casting to protect ur troops from dark spells, there is real basis to hope that ur hero can counter even frenzy with immunity or vampirism.
Also, champion's charge is a real threat, usually force inferno's horse or lvl 3 creature to charge and not to gate. That gives a target to haven shortfooted stacks who could not reach ur opponent, too.
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 10, 2010 03:18 PM |
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That falls into the category dont you beleive him  , for so many reasons!
First of all, Paladins are better for creeping than champions, defense and taking lesser damage being more important in creeping than dealing more damage, so it would be a waste of money changing them back for battle.
Second, empathy is an over rated ability, especially if you don't have high spell power, lots of spells and mana, and Haven mana is in the lows, even in full games, so keeping up is rather a question of mana than of atb.
Third and most important of all, it is Lay Hands that is the most important ability vs. Inferno, not Immune to Frenzy.
Lay Hands enables you to heal the Seduction, and multiple Curses at once, making the paladins really shine.
I am not saying that using champions is out of the question, though 90-99% of the times I think it is, in this scenario. Placement can stop Champion charge as I said, and with the battlefield full of troops, mobility will be too low to take advantage of it anyway.
I usually use two paladin stack one small and a big one vs. Inferno, but maybe 1 paladin stack and 1 champion stack could work in that 1% of the situations, though it is a risk not worth taking in my oppinion!
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Kispagat
Famous Hero
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posted May 10, 2010 10:27 PM |
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Quote:
That falls into the category dont you beleive him , for so many reasons!
I dont understand why would haven order to his main force to lay hands in a final bettle? Whats the plan then? Defense, defense and defense? Dont think that works
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ebbafan
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 10, 2010 11:59 PM |
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haven't been here for a while...
anyway the champions vs paladins argument: basically the usual offensive vs defensive choice(like vinds vs squires or crossbowmen vs marksmen, etc.)
i think having one big stack of champions and one small stack of paladins is ideal. it would be wasteful to use a big stack of paladins to cure dark. also, haven(along with acad and necro) is one of the top factions that don't need to fear mind-control dark as much. its native magic schools both have counters for this as do some of its units.
also paladin's immunity to frenzy is a plus, but doesn't do much good when the archangels next to them get targeted
as far as opponents' positioning/blocking goes: unless you're facing nebiros your tactics should give you a decent chance to get in a double strike. an opponent blocking with a unit/summoned obstacle is an altogether different story. but there are still advanced strategies for overcoming this
i would say that as the gameplay evolved the %chance of choosing paladins has increased, though probably not to the degree you suggest.
some things that have been on my mind:
if you have plenty of mana, just cast the mass dark or mass light spell rather than the single one to get the casting time bonus
there was a poll before about whether logistics is more important or whether enlightenment is; my conclusion is logistics is fairly important throughout the game and can be gamebreaking(snatch, swift mind, familiar ground, warpath, even pathfinding and navigation sometimes!) mid to late game. enlightenment is great, but its value rises in a parabolic fashion from beginning to end, peaking with the ultimate skill mentoring in the very late game.
i also wanted to point out the importance of power stacks with creature specialists: creature specialists that use phantom forces on their specialized stacks gain more advantage. inferno can actually get 4 power stacks(ex. grawl gating then cloning both sets of dogs)
mass confusion affects haven badly because it is hard to counter in its entirety, affects archers and priests, and negates the counterstrike advantage b/c of lack of retaliation.
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 11, 2010 09:28 AM |
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Quote:
I dont understand why would haven order to his main force to lay hands in a final bettle? Whats the plan then? Defense, defense and defense? Dont think that works
No, it is not about defense, defense, defense... but yes you might want your main force to lay hands sometimes!
Look at the following situation: your 14 Archangels get Puppeted or Seduced, and your 50 Paladins have the chance to Lay Hands on them, or charge, and kill 15-25 out of 30 Pit Spawns... That's a huge damage you are missing out one, but by not laying hands, you would lose:
1. ~8-10 Paladins from Archangel attack
2. ~4-5 Angels from Paladin retaliation
3. a stack still Puppeted for the Hero to Cleanse or Immune, which might mean potentially two delayed Mass Spells
4. and you would have two stacks on the battlefield with no retaliation
I think Lay Hands is the much better choice.
Not to mention that towards the end of the battle the small Champion stack becomes useless, while 2-5 Paladins with their Lay Hands will still be very important!
The strategically correct decision is to go for Paladins vs. Inferno, no doubt about it, the long term benefits are far greater than the Champion Charge vs. Inferno.
I think we should continue this topic by pointing out strong combos that might make one lean towards one or the other stack.
The "WHEN"
Vs. some of the light factions I mentioned before and Orcs, I know I would go for Champions if my chances of scoring a Champion Charge were increased with :
+ 1 speed boots
+ champion initiative arties
I would add to those Tactics, and Storm Wind, to slow down the fast fliers, and maybe then the Champions would become an interesting choice. Tactics without the boots wouldn't convince me though.
@Elvin - can the title of a Topic be increased ? I would like to add to it something like : current topic - Paladin vs Champion
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SKPRIMUS
Promising
Supreme Hero
The One and the Prime
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posted May 11, 2010 09:44 AM |
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Advanced strategy discussions from great players are all nice
I'm a little bit picky (& non-expert) & just wanted to say that I think the issue has been little bit clouded over split stacks [ofc no question that small stack (or depleted large stack) of pallys is extremely useful for lay hands]...the question may have been raised as whether the big stack should be pals or champs?
[on the other hand a big stack of champs with small stack of pallys require more micro-management of exact pally numbers]
Towerlord wrote: "almost -20% damage taken from opponent, that is roughly twice as much as the extra damage the champions deal." - perhaps a little misleading as damage taken vs damage given by these units don't always compare well...the +4def is enough for me as the big pally stack can be ganged upon by the rest of the enemy before their 2nd action & lucky hits (eg. by inferno) really hurt bad.
Kispagat wrote: "champion's charge is a real threat, usually force inferno's horse or lvl 3 creature to charge and not to gate" - just wondering when would inferno's horse be "forced" to charge when one knows they are facing champs? Wouldn't haven want that instead of gate? [yup big stack of champs can strike more fear over its "potential" than anything else, esp with windstrider boots...wonder why knights can't get aura of swiftness?]
Ebbafan wrote: "unless you're facing nebiros your tactics should give you a decent chance to get in a double strike" - depends...if one knows one is facing champs, wouldn't one take tactics to counter tactics? ofc knowing that the enemy is not taking champs means that one may be free to take something else other than tactics.
Since inferno was mentioned, I actually found split pally stacks in duels a little problematic vs inferno with split succubus stacks because I want a mass haste as first hero spell action ...but my duels can suck badly
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bashing orcus 
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veco
Legendary Hero
who am I?
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posted May 11, 2010 12:26 PM |
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The thing with Lay Hands is that the Paladin is a 2x2 creep and needs to be in contact with the target. So it can be blocked or it has to break the defensive formation (you can easily predict but other than that you can't really influence the way Palas will position themselves).
BUT haven has acces to another Frenzy/Puppet counter which are the Zealots - splitting those into 2 stacks (and possibly with soldier's luck and/or refined mana) gives you a pretty high chance for purging Puppets, debuffing opponents and cleansing low level curses and Blind with spells. With Righteous Might as a bonus. Of course Purge or Cleansing is not as reliable as Lay Hands but it still has a fairly good chance of happening and while having more uses (debuffing) it can also hit from range. 2 stacks of Zealots with Soldier's Luck are a good enough replacement and free your main heavy hitter to do some smashing. Still, againts Necro you need all the cleansing you can get, similar case with Inferno although Demonlords lack the spellpower to be THAT effective at using Dark.
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none of my business.
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ebbafan
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 11, 2010 03:40 PM |
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@primus: actually, i already assumed the opponent picked tactics, that's why i used nebiros as the exception character.
if neither side has tactics, the knight still has a decent chance of getting in a champ charge b/c of 3 large units(let's assume no block spells/units for argument's sake)
if both sides have tactics same as above
if knight has tactics, but opponent is retarded, then he most likely eats a champ charge
if knight has tactics, but opponent is nebiros, you can't use tactics, but he can, then pick paladins.
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 11, 2010 05:32 PM |
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Don't know why you are debating this tactics issue... tactics without boots of speed means 0% chances of Champion Charge, at most you will force the Hell Stallions to attack instead of gate right away, which is not necesarily a good thing, since a lucky attack, a fear and the searing aura might cripple you badly. Not to mention that a couple of obstacles on the battlefield, might bring the possibility of perfectly safe placement.
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Kispagat
Famous Hero
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posted May 11, 2010 06:21 PM |
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Quote:
Don't know why you are debating this tactics issue... tactics without boots of speed means 0% chances of Champion Charge, at most you will force the Hell Stallions to attack instead of gate right away, which is not necesarily a good thing, since a lucky attack, a fear and the searing aura might cripple you badly. Not to mention that a couple of obstacles on the battlefield, might bring the possibility of perfectly safe placement.
I began my opinion reflecting to a normal game not a duel/arena type. So I dont think u r right about boots of speed thing. Cuz u seem to forget familiar ground. This is one. Second imps, cerberus have 13 init, horse 16 and pal/cav 12. Stallions need to be positioned well to launch an attack on cavs, and not gate, which very probably make some serious impact in the outcome. Fear usually has lower chance, cuz HP of Cavs are more then the stallions.
If I see paladins with inferno, I can gate without thinking too much on it. If I see cavs, I feel the urge to stop them especially when they might take seducers away. And I think forcing ur opponent to give up its speciality (gating) should be a strategical advantage.
Of course small group of paladins make sense. no doubt about that.
To summarize my opinion, the bigger damage maker in ur army the 6th level unit is, the more you need to take cavs. Like in hg we had a game with Fire, where my army looked like 12 Angels, 80 cavs, 150 shooters, 600 peasant, 3 priests. Dont think paladins would be a right choice in this army.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted May 11, 2010 10:08 PM |
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Familiar ground is another story, gotta love that perk
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diedevil
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 12, 2010 01:48 AM |
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paladin paladin paladin! lay hands is so much usefull than i thought.
also, when training your lower tier units to higher tier, you get paladins, and not champions
101 percent of the time i use paladins!
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 12, 2010 07:43 AM |
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Even in that kind of situation Paladins are the better choice, unless you are sure you're getting a Champion Charge, because 4 defense is better, compared to 2.5 extra average damage. And anyway at that kind of number, the first hit will take out one stack for sure, be them Champions or Paladins.
Familiar ground looks great, but you'll usually see swift mind on hero, and not that skill, not to mention you have to find a grassy plain for the battle, another risk that you have to take...
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Hethrir
Tavern Dweller
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posted May 12, 2010 10:30 AM |
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Isn't swift mind "most of the time" banned?
I agree about the familiar ground perk... it doesn't look cool like that, but when you use it wisely it's just one of the most useful for elven or haven.
About the topic, I would even more say that champion with Klaus are quite deadly and are worth it even if paladin lay hand can turn over a battle. Sometime, 1 charges of champions just make you the battle.
I'm not an experienced player though, so I'm glad to hear Elvins, Kispagat experiences
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 12, 2010 12:41 PM |
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Only thing left to be said here, are the spells, that favour one stack or the other.
Regeneration - Better on Paladins, because of higher defense
Ressurection - Same
Raise Dead - Same
Vampirism - I would say equal, usually better for paladins, because they die harder when focused
Divine Strength - better with Champions because of higher damage
Weakness - worse for the Champions
Other spells are pretty much the same... One thing to remember, would be that Vampirism "kills" Retribution, Divine Guidance and Empathy, so it is not the best thing for Haven, but nevertheless a very powerful spell, just when going for the dark side, keep that in mind and maybe ignore those abilities! There was a myth in arena, that a 38 Champions stack with Vampirism can kill the whole Dungeon army by itself, the opponent being unable to fend that
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veco
Legendary Hero
who am I?
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posted May 12, 2010 03:20 PM |
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Quote:
Vampirism "kills" Retribution, Divine Guidance and Empathy
and Morale
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none of my business.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted May 12, 2010 03:33 PM |
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Champion charge drains life from both? I find that hard to believe, I think blade of slaughter didn't drain extra.
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Towerlord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted May 12, 2010 03:57 PM |
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To tell you the truth I never could use Champion Charge at the stage of the game when I cast Vampirism, but since Raska can leach from all targets... I assumed that's the case with the charge also, though I can't say the same about the hydras... it remains to be tested, but being a melee attack, in my oppinion it should work.
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