Best hero? ...and why is it Edwin...

[robtock216]

I have had this game for a long time, i can't remember if it was on release but it was certainly a long time ago back when Edwin and Aelis were the only hero's to choose from.

I really love the dark age fantasy setting, much more than i enjoyed they are billions, in more recent updates however the dev's brought out several new hero's and re-organised them into new factions, i have played all the hero's with the exception of drunken guy, i forget his name.

anyhow i just finished a game with Cyrus where i made it to the final wave but lost with 7k enemies left, now in theory i should love Cyrus i like long range static defences but unfortunately i just don't, he isn't completely awful but his skill cool downs in particular are awful, especially his volley skill, your lucky to get 2 uses of it in a nightmare but overall it just left me wandering why anyone would want to play as the rebellion, they are a terrible faction with no redeeming qualities i can see at all.

i think for me nothing can compare to the order, and in particular Edwin, as the order you have access to lightbringers who both heal your units and remove horror, furthermore Edwin's passive ability makes your units embolden faster meaning by the endgame wave your entire army is emboldened fairly easily.
on top of this catapults are now locked to the order and they are stinkingly powerful, the rebellion has nothing in comparison and no way to stop crushers which are ultimately the only real threat of the current waves, i haven't looked at the stats but hunters just don't compare to arbalests either, they feel slower to fire with less range and less damage and there little puff of smoke trap is beyond useless, i may be wrong but my hordes of hunters just couldn't take on multiple crushers before they reached the walls and wiped all my pikemen, and impalers and fire launchers were just not up to the task of stunning them.

in comparison as the order you have catapults constantly aoe wiping hordes of weak enemies and stunning bigger ones including crushers, you have arbalests mowing down everything in sight, and you have Edwin making forays out into the horde constantly using his cone fire attack to wipe the field clean.

So, long live the order.

[Lord Robin]

Good analysis

[SpaceCat]

I've had more win rates on horrific with Aelis, she clears so much in a short time. I wanted to like the new halberd dude but the devs made him into such a a-hole in campaign story, same with aurelia.. why make them so unlikable personality-wise

And yes, hunter traps are next to useless in deathnights

[Crypto Gamer]

Assumes nightmare difficulty.


Now first of all order has no faction bonuses for melee or ranged units so they slightly clear map slower than other 2 factions in early-mid game.(get eco slower).

I think order units have more hp if emboldened tough.

Rebbelion has ranged bonus+movement speed.
Volatist has melee bonus+horrify works differently.


But Order have the strongest siege+catapult so defence wise the best by far.
Catapult is expensive and slow for map clearing+you need them for wave can not be far away.

Catapults need zero micro once set up+can even defend all 5 waves at once thanks to catas.


Volatist if set up can likely do max 3 wave.

While rebbelion max 2 waves at once.


And Order can afford to clear less of the map albeit only on nightmare difficulty on map non killed enemies also join the FS.

(horrifiy FS is"only" 44'000, nightmare is 79'940+every on map mob+elite).


Rebbelion hunter moves faster and have more dps than arbalest and cost 150 less gold so will clear the map faster.

You can afford more hunter numbers than arbs.



BUT arbalest in towers attack speed goes down to 3.5 seconds so they will have more shred,range and damage per second so simply better and more space and food efficient in defence.

So rebbelion will need more towers and are worse at defending multiple waves at once.

So Rebbelion is the weakest in defence but their units can move faster if emboldened so clear the map faster.

But they also need to clear more of the map cause they are worse in FS than other 2 factions.

Cyrus can reach lvl 10 by DN3 unlike other heroes.

Ultimate can snipe a corner spitter group or a wave crushes unlike other heroes.

One of the strongest heroes in wave defence can be safely behind walls and towers.
Also has crowd control and very strong shred.




Volatist.(hardest to use,my FAV).


Auleria with dark fury and melee units or flamers will clear early mid map much faster than anything else IF hero is microed a lot.

A flamer "attacks" 4 times per attack cycle(every 2.5 seconds?) and dark fury applies to all of its 4 attack ticks BOTH the fire and physical damage so gets 8/EIGHT damage boost from dark fury flat bonus including the fire dot which gets the dark fury boost too........


So you can have flamers with doing more than twice the dps and slightly more tripled fire dot if also horrified than other factions......so clears fast.


Dark fury+a few sentinels+Auleria+ triage center can face tank the wave FAR FAR better than Edwin could ever dream of.

But you need to micro her a little to get back Dark crystals againts higher tiers nightmares.


Warlocks are expensive including 1 dark crystal but only 1 pop and NO food and much better than archers in wave defence.

But they have only around 4.5 range in tower while archer has 6.
Still they can supplement +50% dmg arbalest with very strong health dps.




Now the Order is the easiest faction to play and Edwin is the first hero from 2021 also order faction is the most played in the campaign.

So he is the most balanced and easiest to play even if you just A-move.

And recommended for new players.





Volatist likely needs the most"micro" but they can do stuff other factions can not.

You can use cheap melee units but likely take losses.


Other two factions gain minus 50% dmg and usually minus 30% Movement penalty less hp regen if horrified.

Volatist gain PLUS 50% dmg usually minus 15% movement penalty if horrified+ lowered health regen.

So you can have no light towers in your wave defence spot and have a few wood tower+archer in tower for vision.


Use a few warlocks to horrify your arbalest rookies for+50% dmg and put them into towers.(make sure not in "light")

Now a arb is already better than a hunter in defence a+50% dmg one is WAY better than even a+25% emboldened hunter.

So you can afford to have less units for defence and more units for clearing the map so you will clear faster(while wave is being held) but it needs lot of micro macro to set up.



Now emboldened units only gain+25% dmg they can clear the map while rookies defend the wave even if it is counter intuitive.


Volatist impaler if horrified will have 45 dmg and 60 shred so it two shots tier 3,4 axemen can sometimes make a difference in wave defence.





But other factions can put "light" everywhere without thought,Volatist can too but they can also use their faction bonuses to their advantage.

Also an all attack speed volatist pikeman will have 0.8 second per attack......

13 dmg 19.5 if horrifed you can even dark fury him will clear the map very fast.
I had 25 dmg or so pikeman clearing very fast.



Aleis she has a skill that "increases attack speed" which is actually reduce by cooldown by stated % at-15% health cost.

Eg 50% reduced base cooldown is+100% dps.....

So with buffed mass ranged and siege stuff usually dies before they can reach and also clear the map very fast.


Hunter traps have little use in survival mode but they have some use in the campaign.







On foot arbalest fires every 5.3 seconds while hunter fires every 3.0 seconds.
Archer every 2.5 seconds.

Fire arrows deal the same damage/tick so hunter will benefit more from it.

Archer even more but spitters will own them.

FA helps clear the map faster and has some benefit in wave defence especially againts bursters who take 50% projectile damage(15% if still armored) but full 100% damage from the fire component of FA.

+if burster health "killed" whilsts burning their explosion also deals fire damage+fire dot to nearby units which can set of other bursters too.....



+50% dmg and shred if in towers perk has almost zero benefit in map clearing but very strong benefit in wave defence.

An arb has 45 shred(25+5)*1.5 with tower perk every 3.5 seconds while hunter has(16+5)*1.5=31.5 shred with tower perk.

Important to have tier 2 ranged units in tower for the extra 5 shred and increased range.

[Vvv]

Originally posted by Crypto Gamer:

Assumes nightmare difficulty.


Now first of all order has no faction bonuses for melee or ranged units so they slightly clear map slower than other 2 factions in early-mid game.(get eco slower).

I think order units have more hp if emboldened tough.

Rebbelion has ranged bonus+movement speed.
Volatist has melee bonus+horrify works differently.


But Order have the strongest siege+catapult so defence wise the best by far.
Catapult is expensive and slow for map clearing+you need them for wave can not be far away.

Catapults need zero micro once set up+can even defend all 5 waves at once thanks to catas.


Volatist if set up can likely do max 3 wave.

While rebbelion max 2 waves at once.


And Order can afford to clear less of the map albeit only on nightmare difficulty on map non killed enemies also join the FS.

(horrifiy FS is"only" 44'000, nightmare is 79'940+every on map mob+elite).


Rebbelion hunter moves faster and have more dps than arbalest and cost 150 less gold so will clear the map faster.

You can afford more hunter numbers than arbs.



BUT arbalest in towers attack speed goes down to 3.5 seconds so they will have more shred,range and damage per second so simply better and more space and food efficient in defence.

So rebbelion will need more towers and are worse at defending multiple waves at once.

So Rebbelion is the weakest in defence but their units can move faster if emboldened so clear the map faster.

But they also need to clear more of the map cause they are worse in FS than other 2 factions.

Cyrus can reach lvl 10 by DN3 unlike other heroes.

Ultimate can snipe a corner spitter group or a wave crushes unlike other heroes.

One of the strongest heroes in wave defence can be safely behind walls and towers.
Also has crowd control and very strong shred.




Volatist.(hardest to use,my FAV).


Auleria with dark fury and melee units or flamers will clear early mid map much faster than anything else IF hero is microed a lot.

A flamer "attacks" 4 times per attack cycle(every 2.5 seconds?) and dark fury applies to all of its 4 attack ticks BOTH the fire and physical damage so gets 8/EIGHT damage boost from dark fury flat bonus including the fire dot which gets the dark fury boost too........


So you can have flamers with doing more than twice the dps and slightly more tripled fire dot if also horrified than other factions......so clears fast.


Dark fury+a few sentinels+Auleria+ triage center can face tank the wave FAR FAR better than Edwin could ever dream of.

But you need to micro her a little to get back Dark crystals againts higher tiers nightmares.


Warlocks are expensive including 1 dark crystal but only 1 pop and NO food and much better than archers in wave defence.

But they have only around 4.5 range in tower while archer has 6.
Still they can supplement +50% dmg arbalest with very strong health dps.




Now the Order is the easiest faction to play and Edwin is the first hero from 2021 also order faction is the most played in the campaign.

So he is the most balanced and easiest to play even if you just A-move.

And recommended for new players.





Volatist likely needs the most"micro" but they can do stuff other factions can not.

You can use cheap melee units but likely take losses.


Other two factions gain minus 50% dmg and usually minus 30% Movement penalty less hp regen if horrified.

Volatist gain PLUS 50% dmg usually minus 15% movement penalty if horrified+ lowered health regen.

So you can have no light towers in your wave defence spot and have a few wood tower+archer in tower for vision.


Use a few warlocks to horrify your arbalest rookies for+50% dmg and put them into towers.(make sure not in "light")

Now a arb is already better than a hunter in defence a+50% dmg one is WAY better than even a+25% emboldened hunter.

So you can afford to have less units for defence and more units for clearing the map so you will clear faster(while wave is being held) but it needs lot of micro macro to set up.



Now emboldened units only gain+25% dmg they can clear the map while rookies defend the wave even if it is counter intuitive.


Volatist impaler if horrified will have 45 dmg and 60 shred so it two shots tier 3,4 axemen can sometimes make a difference in wave defence.





But other factions can put "light" everywhere without thought,Volatist can too but they can also use their faction bonuses to their advantage.

Also an all attack speed volatist pikeman will have 0.8 second per attack......

13 dmg 19.5 if horrifed you can even dark fury him will clear the map very fast.
I had 25 dmg or so pikeman clearing very fast.



Aleis she has a skill that "increases attack speed" which is actually reduce by cooldown by stated % at-15% health cost.

Eg 50% reduced base cooldown is+100% dps.....

So with buffed mass ranged and siege stuff usually dies before they can reach and also clear the map very fast.


Hunter traps have little use in survival mode but they have some use in the campaign.







On foot arbalest fires every 5.3 seconds while hunter fires every 3.0 seconds.
Archer every 2.5 seconds.

Fire arrows deal the same damage/tick so hunter will benefit more from it.

Archer even more but spitters will own them.

FA helps clear the map faster and has some benefit in wave defence especially againts bursters who take 50% projectile damage(15% if still armored) but full 100% damage from the fire component of FA.

+if burster health "killed" whilsts burning their explosion also deals fire damage+fire dot to nearby units which can set of other bursters too.....



+50% dmg and shred if in towers perk has almost zero benefit in map clearing but very strong benefit in wave defence.

An arb has 45 shred(25+5)*1.5 with tower perk every 3.5 seconds while hunter has(16+5)*1.5=31.5 shred with tower perk.

Important to have tier 2 ranged units in tower for the extra 5 shred and increased range.

Order has the toughest infantry. I think soldiers can get around 200hp if you focus HP

[Vvv]

I agree with you. My favourite is Edwin to this day and I think he's objectively the best hero out there. He is super tough from beginning to end and just gets stronger. Great skills with fire shield and crackfire. I can safely go engage a crusher surrounded by mobs and fight him till the arbs take him out. Halberd guy is good also but he's outclassed by Edwin I think. It's a shame that a two handed sword and a halberd do not shred armour however...armour is so badly implemented in this game.

Cyrus is great vs waves and such but overall I think he's very underwhelming. His trap skill is probably his best because the ultimate ability has a long CD. Aelis is waaaaaaaay better especially later on. Good cheap archers for rebellion however.

Auleria was actually good and fun to play meanwhile the guy with hand Vizargo I think just feels weak and dies easily even with heals. But I think their faction sucks the most and their wizards suck as well despite high dps. Spearman really shine with their faction however if you focus attack speed.

Order is easily the best because of catapults anyway. I just wish light bringers had a little bit more range because they are squishy for a melee unit.

[robtock216]

Yer 100%, Cyrus's ultimate ability, volley has a 2m 5 sec cooldown on it, during a death night that is an absolute eternity

in comparison Edwins ultimate ability is flame shield which makes him invincible and then explodes and is 1m 43 second cd
Enflame is a 55 second cd but also lasts 55 seconds so effectively up all the time
but in my opinion his most powerful attack is crackfire, which by the time he is lvl 10 is a huge cone attack that will hit most of the area in front of him, its only a 20 second cd.

the comparative attack for Cyrus is snipe which is a 33 second cd, almost 60% longer than Edwins in comparison, rather than a cone it hits everything in a line straight ahead and it can do decent damage but again, not much to crushers which are the only real threat during a death night.

the main thing, by far, with any strategy is you need a melee tank of some variety to intercept and engage the crushers away from your walls and other troops, this could technically be a Sentinel but they wouldn't last long and as the crushers do huge AOE damage sending multiples wouldn't last any longer than 1.

Edwin is the perfect crusher tank, especially with his shield, let him hold them while hunters/arbs snipe them down then get him back to the walls, if he gets cut off which he likely will just crackfire everything around him to get out.

I did try Merek (drunk guy) a couple of days ago and he seemed a decent hero but i didn't get too far as the map was horrible so i haven't been back to that game yet, ill likely restart.

[Crypto Gamer]

Edwin flame shield likely has a few hundred hp points (used to be 25% of his hp)so not invicible still very strong.

Enflame is afaik likely just a 4 fire damage dot buff which is almost fully useless by endgame if you take flaming arrows or flamers which will overwritte dot as the "strongest dot".

Crack fire is very strong albeit not that impactful againts tier 3 crushers.

+exp buff helps every one.




Cyrus ultimate can shred like 1000 armor kill a crusher,elites or even a bunched up spitters from a safe distance by itself which no other hero can do in such a short time.

Ultimate also increase attack speed and splinter chance for a while.

On 7.7x you get attacked from all previous crystals at once as well.

Eg.DN4 is 1+2+3+4 happens all at once.

Stuff like no hp and armor regen malice last forever and hero death ends the game as loss.

So Cyrus is very safe to use behind the walls even if he can not regain hp unlike melee heroes who are at risk.

So melee heroes are less safe albeit order healers can still heal back.

He is a primary wave defence hero.


(On lower difficulties the above is less revelant and he clears slower than most.)




Auleria with dark fury and triage center can regen 100+hp per second and can tank the entire wave if well semi-microed.

+few sentinels regening 50+hp per second help as well as long as you micro and use lvl 2 whip to gain back Dark crystal and stay within triage center radius.

+crystal can be used to tank a few crusher,spitter and burster hits+slowdown the wave.
Useful during clearing too even just to "kill"bursters.


Horrified arbalest and warlocks can easily snipe the crushes before they can even get a hit in.

As that faction can reach the strongest single target damage.

Auleria likely clears the fastest in the game but she and the factions needs the most micro and light manegement.

That said her hero is damage is weak but she is a damage support hero.


Primary point of Warlcoks are that they do not cost any food(arb/hunter,sentinel is 2 food)+they only cost 1 population like archers with much stronger health dps.

And they can horrify on demand for+50% more damage if not cured by light sources.

So 2-3 wizards can horrify volatist arbalest and themselves for+50% damage and get into towers for the coming wave defence for easier hold.

Also buff has movement speed increase so semi useful for map clearing but due to their 2 range on foot warlocks are not good for map clearing.

If you have many dark crystals you can make wizards in towers to supplements arbalest health dps as that will melt crushers insanely fast.

Horrified volatist impaler also kills everything in less shot than any other faction.


Merek is the weakest hero in the game.

Vizargo is likely the second weakest unless he can reach high lvl and is microed a lot.

Other 4 are more viable.

I wonder what is considered the strongest faction.

[robtock216]

Cyrus volley ability doesn't melt crushers very well at all, it melted the elite slasher while clearing the map in 1 go for example but against crushers it gets them down to about 50% hp, it was the first thing i used it against, of course you are then on a 2m 5 sec cooldown which is a bloody big window of trying to deal with crushers.

i have never had any problem melting crushers with arbs in the past especially if cats are stunning them before they reach the walls but only order get those now, likewise lvl 3 walls are pretty decent at holding off everything with the exception of crushers but crushers have them down in about 2 seconds, my rebellion loss saw them break through 6 layers of lvl 3 walls, 4 lvl 2 ballista towers, 2 fire-bonker-thingy towers and like 20 lvl 3 towers all full of hunters at a single choke point in less than a minute once they reach the wall.

id upgraded all my fire launchers and ballista's with aoe and concussion to in an attempt to compensate for no cats but they were not enough to keep the crushers back without taking wall damage.

Cyrus may well be a decent hero but imo he can't compare with Edwin or Merek at actually being able to tank stuff away from the walls, having him behind the walls isn't particularly of any benefit when those walls last seconds, and i guess the devs purposely made his skill cast range so small so that you couldn't have him sat miles back, the fact that his shatter passive skill - put simply 50% chance that a basic attack causes aoe exists in comparison to Edwins basic attack which always causes aoe damage literally means theirs a 50% chance his basic attack is as good as Edwins basic attack and a 50% chance its not i personally think that's a heavy nerf hammer in comparison, i guess because he is ranged, but again, ranged isn't overly beneficial during a death night, theirs certainly no shortage of enemies and they close that melee gap in a split second so its not like every other hero is sat waiting to fight

[Vambran]

Last time i played the Queen at lvl 10 could hold a single spot non stop vs anything , with good timing of her respawning guards. No other heros can do that , they all take damage and have to fall back sooner or later.

[robtock216]

Edwin can, he can naturally outheal most and even if he is overpowered a quick trip behind the gate to 2-3 lightbearers will heal him up to full, hell they can do it at range.

[Fideo]

Well, everything I read here seems really interesting to me and I appreciate the information... although on the other hand I find the information in general that is obtained from the game really sad.
Is the game balance that bad?
How fun can it be for someone who comes from playing C&C Remastered or StarCraft 2?
I'm certainly not looking for a death simulator.

Is it worth buying in its current state?

[Crypto Gamer]

Game will soon recieve some kind of update.I think next week.

Still in Early access balance is acceptable but obviously far away from Starcraft.
Likely at least 6 month of early access.



Game is winable with all 6 heroes on the highest survival difficulty.
Reaching that lvl is likely 100+ hours of game time and is likely slightly harder than brutal in SC2 campaign.

In fact there is even a custom hardship to play without hero on survival mode and you can still win hardest.


I played Red alert and such+SC2.(Even Warcraft 1).

AOD is a wave defence survival RTS game like "They are billions",Diplomacy is not an option.

Just like them it is a very hard game by design.

Economy is basically almost the same as in TAB and others in the wave defence RTS genre.

Not sure if you played any survival wave defence RTS game.

You might have played SC2 custom mode like that.


AOD has campaign mode which is more like WC3 style but only around 10-15 hours long with fixed difficulty including no base build missions.

It is good tutorial for survival mode.

Starts of as extremely easy than reaches around "normal"survival difficulty by the end.

I can recommend it on sale in its current state.


Pathfinding is not that good albeit still better than harvester and most units from C&C remastered.

So if you played old games it is slightly better than them.

Unit balance is worse then in TAB.
But it is slightly improving from 0.8.


But they likely will patch it based on roadmap.So likely player feedback will affect balance.

Also this game will have survival mode coop unlike the vast majority in the series as this game can have many thousands of units on the screen at once.

So almost no in the genre has coop.

Heroes work similary to Warcraft 3 minus the items.
They have 4 skills with last the ultimate very WC3 like.

Again most games in this genre do not have heroes.

Game is demanding on the CPU.

[Fideo]

Originally posted by Crypto Gamer:

Thank you very much for the information.

No, I haven't played any survival wave defense RTS, although it looks interesting.
Do all heroes appear in campaign mode?

[Crypto Gamer]

Yes all 6 survival heroes appear playable in the campaign mode+some charaters are campaign only,

But the primary faction and hero in the story is Edwin and the Order.

He is also the very first hero released back in 2021 and is likely the most begineer friendly faction in survival mode it is the most turtle friendly too.


3 factions have slightly different(hidden)stats bonuses to some units(eg.Rebbelion archer is better than other 2) and have very different heroes.

+1 core unit get replaced by a faction unit.Eg.Soldier get replaced by cultist.

And there is a faction exclusive unit.
Eg.Order has light bearers.

Afaik next week Order will get"Sentinel"unit" replaced by"Order Knight"from the campaign.

That said patches are very uncommon likely once every 3 months.

[Fideo]

Thanks :)