Flying Units Question

[hoot hoot]

I bought the dragonrider merc thinking that flying would be a little more useful than it seems to be. I have the merc alone in his squad, so he still "flies in the sky" when I look at his squad overview. I did this because I assumed this meant he was, you know, flying rather than on the ground with other ground-based units.

But when I attack with this flying unit, he is on the ground and is pretty squishy vs virtually everything.

So what is the point of flying units? Just to hop onto/over walls and other obstacles?

I can't actually find any information in the in-game tutorial that explains flying units specifically, only how it relates to movement. Is that all flying is? Why would a flying dragon land so that enemies can hit it with their swords?

[KatArus]

Yeah, not the best design.

No, flying unit doesn't mean that it can be only attacked by archers and mages, it only means that it can fly over rivers and walls and such and doesn't get slowed down by marsh tiles and whatever but difficult terrain is almost absent in the latter half of the game and infantry being almost as fast as cavalry makes it basically useless and if you fly over enemy lines for a backstab attack it will just get gangbanged 100% the next enemy turn unless you have 3 dragon riders and a mixture of sorcs and healers to heal and debuff in the squad and hopefully kill some of units in retaliation attacks so they don't attack twice or you can add a dedicated tank infantryman with aggro trait to tank for them.

Okay to be picked as mercs, basically a waste of a perk slot, gems and obsidian otherwise. The same problem as in Disciples 2 - individually they don't pull enough weight for the 2 unit slots they occupy.

[hoot hoot]

Originally posted by KatArus:

Yeah, not the best design.

No, flying unit doesn't mean that it can be only attacked by archers and mages, it only means that it can fly over rivers and walls and such and doesn't get slowed down by marsh tiles and whatever but difficult terrain is almost absent in the latter half of the game and infantry being almost as fast as cavalry makes it basically useless and if you fly over enemy lines for a backstab attack it will just get gangbanged 100% the next enemy turn unless you have 3 dragon riders and a mixture of sorcs and healers to heal and debuff in the squad and hopefully kill some of units in retaliation attacks so they don't attack twice or you can add a dedicated tank infantryman with aggro trait to tank for them.

Okay to be picked as mercs, basically a waste of a perk slot, gems and obsidian otherwise. The same problem as in Disciples 2 - individually they don't pull enough weight for the 2 unit slots they occupy.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. My Barnabas unit alone seems to fulfill the role a dragon-rider unit would fill with (from what I'm experiencing) insane combat ability. I just send him off to flank and seize and he melts every stack that touches him.

And now I learn that regular dragons, the ones that are fully grown and have wings, can't fly until they are actually dragon rider units. This really doesn't make any sense.

From a balance perspective, it feels like flying is entirely useless if they're anywhere near archer units, so why does it feel so restrictive to have them? Their mobility is great, but aside from back capturing settlements while my useful units fight, I have no use for these things until late game when I guess I can get more ... but I suspect archer units will still blow them away in one or two attacks.

Feels too situational, too niche, for a regular part of your army, but idk if I'm good enough at the game to argue they need a buff.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Hickory Pete:

Feels too situational, too niche, for a regular part of your army, but idk if I'm good enough at the game to argue they need a buff.

Dragons are a great source of Magic AoE Damage(that also scales with STR) early on. They are also decent for proc'ing certain status effects, like Chill and Stun. Usually it takes much longer for a unit to hit stats/CP required to become a Mage/Sorceress to get arguably same/better effects or damage.

Dragons are quite frail until they become a colored or rider... and even then they are squishy unless you invest a bit into them. Generally speaking, if you've raised them right, a squad of 3 riders will be able to ignore terrain, have far movement, and often 1-shot nearly any enemy squad if they attack first. Plus, your formation/leadership can counter the innate frailty by using healers or having soldiers/tanks upfront.

TLDR: So they are a misleading unit, especially when you are first introduced to them. They are still arguably niche/weak compared to DPS squads(Assassins, all mages, siege, etc.) but their utility often makes up for it. Also sort of dependent on player tactics/playstyle, IMO, a lot of people just form up and essentially "walk forward" stomping everything in their way. But, hey, whatever works.

[Hand of Gabriel]

I'm surprised that folks are finding dwagons underwhelming. They're a really strong unit that comes with a reduced (ish) capacity cost to fill a team. 3 dwagons + 2 paladins + 1 templar doesn't deal as much damage as a mage-team but they're still super tanky, deal a ton of damage, can fly, and cost ~25 less LDR to fill out a full squad; having an infantry/mage squad of similar composition at the same LDR means you likely have a weaker squad than you would with dwagons.

They're really strong and compliment a lot of squads but they're just a different part of your army.

Regarding the flying feature alone: flying is a staple of a lot of my efforts into the late game. Ignoring walls/obstacles is a staggeringly good feature and allows you to force surrenders/deal damage to enemies you couldn't even reach prior to having access to flying.

[davea]

Having one flying squad makes the Dragon's Haven side mission pretty easy; the squad can easily reach Azuros to defend him. There are lots of other places where a flying squad can help, especially clearing isolated archers off of fortifications. Of course any unit, flying or otherwise, who gets surrounded can eventually be killed, so don't send them off into the middle of enemy controlled areas.

[Alpaca]

What are you guys talking about? Dragon riders + AOE Magic damage and 2 healers melt enemies and you can fly them everywhere

[hoot hoot]

It just seems like the difficulties of making a good dragon unit are steep enough to make it something a player can easily ignore. The Dragon Haven mission, for example, is a mission where dragons could shine (if you have them, which they were still locked for me), but I also had no issues when I just marched melee cavalry in there and solo'd half the map's enemies. Literally just one unit of cav (Barnabas, 2 knights, that mounted-paladin-type unit, and two mounted archers) while the slower units mopped up behind.

And cav mobility is comparable to dragons in most maps since this game doesn't make that much use of terrain limitations. I could fly a dragon unit over walls, but the walls are usually swarming with enemies/archers and that's a quick death anyway. Plus, you can just fit more into a single squad since you don't have 2-3 dragons taking up 6 of the 9 available slots.

After reading the replies, I guess dragon units are better than they seem at first, but I'm not sold on the flying and AOE outweighing ground-based counterparts. I've got AOE up the wazoo and cavalry is easy to build up.

I think part of the issue is perception. Dragons in this game are weaker than they generally are in fantasy settings, which might be why people don't like them? The game itself says "whichever side of the war has more dragons, generally wins", but then dragons in gameplay aren't really that big a deal. Underwhelming.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by Hand of Gabriel:

dwagons

Someone's been reading Erfworld...

[Hand of Gabriel]

Originally posted by Pixel Peeper:

Originally posted by Hand of Gabriel:

dwagons

Someone's been reading Erfworld...

You're the first person to catch the reference :) it broke my heart that it was discontinued as a series and was one of my favorite comics. Rich Burlew's OOTS kept me enamored for years and was an inspiration for my tabletop gaming since I was a little kid... it led me to Erfworld which was an awesome storytelling experience.

[Pixel Peeper]

I too found Erfworld on accident while reading OotS. Turned out to be my favorite webcomic, the thought that went into writing it was amazing. It truly is a great loss that it had to end before it was completed, but it couldn't be helped.

Still glad we got what we did get.