[.991] Balance: Great wolf's army is not weak.

from Elemental Forums

The great wolf's army counts as weak.  Now, I haven't even tackled it with a low level champion, but I just had a level 8 soloing champion barely make it. After he barely got alive through two rounds of combat, he used a despair scroll.

He has 11 attack and 10 defense.  I do not consider him weak.

Why is the great wolf's army so effective? 

To begin with, it has a total of 10 units.  These are high attack/no defense units with high initiative and five move.  They will get the first blow, even if you abuse the targeting AI.

Then you have the great wolf, who goes first, and uses "Howl". This raises the army's attack by a wooping 50! 

So lets recap.  Every unit strikes before the enemy, goes often, and retaliates. And 102 total attack, with a very respectable 9 on each individual.  In my estimate, this army will take on a hero and two basic warrior troops (one hander + shield + leather) and win handily.

Maybe it should be rated as medium?

7,039 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Yea, wolves got a real boost awhile back, they use to be pushovers, and now they scare me.  They are so fast they tend to dry rape to death your weakest unit before you ever get to move.  

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 1
Yea, wolves got a real boost awhile back, they use to be pushovers, and now they scare me.  They are so fast they tend to dry rape to death your weakest unit before you ever get to move.  
End of Lord's quote

Delicately put, but true.

And to counter arguement: ALL medium enounters should be rated 'weak' relative to the WEAK dark wizard encounter. <_<   Despair needs a nurf.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GFireflyE, reply 2
And to counter arguement: ALL medium enounters should be rated 'weak' relative to the WEAK dark wizard encounter. Despair needs a nurf.
End of GFireflyE's quote

Think my last game I battled the dark wizard's crew and it wasn't marked weak anymore. I may be remembering wrong though.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Leo, reply 3

Quoting GFireflyE, reply 2And to counter arguement: ALL medium enounters should be rated 'weak' relative to the WEAK dark wizard encounter. Despair needs a nurf.

Think my last game I battled the dark wizard's crew and it wasn't marked weak anymore. I may be remembering wrong though.
End of Leo's quote

Yea, if they hang around to level to 20 and gain an army, they can boost up to strong...but that strong should be epic. I fought one and it cast despair twice.  Wiped out a group that I had killed multiple dragons and powerful demons with.  

But this topic is about wolves, and they are fucking tougher than you would expect.  

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Wolves are weak.  try using the token one you can get.

Great Wolf's Howl is medium-strong.  I avoid the Great wolf for a long time.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 5
But this topic is about wolves, and they are fucking tougher than you would expect.
End of Lord's quote

Oh yeah, completely agree on the wolves, when they are in the great wolves army. Otherwise they are still pretty wimpy.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

The 3packs of wolves can do some chomping even without a great wolf there.  I don't dismiss them like I use to.  unarmored units without counterattack will be eaten pretty quickly by wolves. 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I love wolves, especially Great wolves, because I take the beast lord trait, and it is indescribably awesome to have the power of Howl with stacks of archers. :P

 

But, yeah, it really doesn't make sense that three air shrills with 8 - 16 HP each and paltry damage is 'Medium' whilst a Great Wolf army with much more HP and dealing a lot more damage is 'Weak.'

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I must be the only person scared of monsters.  Air shrills are a strange thing, if you are not alone, or you have enough hit points to survive their initial barrage of range attacks, then they are easy as shit, but they can dish out 25-30 hit points in a group of four air shrills, which is easily enough to destroy a lone sov/hero early in the game.  

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Great wolf with three wolf packs should be medium.  They can wipe out an early army.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I think I should try beastlord again, now that it doesn't have that casting time.  I know one game I got a hoarder spider(the really super big ones) early in the game and then when attacked by Resolin, I was taking spiders from them.  It was fun.  I might even make an Urxen faction...or even play as Umber, they have assassin weapons and super scouts, which isn't bad at all...

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Beastlord isn't as easy in .99x as I thought it would ... it costs 40 mana to cast, and that's tough early on to cast very often.  You definitely want to get every enchantment/artifact/promotion could can get to both boost your mana production and reduce the mana cost of tactical spells on your sovereign.  Its especially tragic when the spell is resisted, you aren't allowed to recast it on the same beast even after the 10 tactical turn cooldown on the spell. :/

I play it by webbing the beasts I want to capture, casting Slow on them, casting Fast on my sovereign especially if I want to capture more than one beast as it takes 10 cooldown turns (will really help to get the Familiar which can also cast it, but bear in mind the familiar is much weaker and can't wear armor), can be useful to have a high-HP/armor member of your party that does NOT have a counterattack to help absorb punishment while waiting for spider web skill to cooldown and recast.