Best ranged unit?

[BigSexy]

What do people think is the best / most powerful ranged unit? Physical and non-physical?

thanks

[AnemoneMeer]

Zephyr Archer.

AoE at extreme range. Durable. Good damage. But you have to take Tome of Winds to get it, which is a hard sell for many builds.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by BigSexy:

Best ranged unit?
What do people think is the best / most powerful ranged unit? Physical and non-physical?

thanks

Zephyr Archer and Shrine of Smiting

[Roderick]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by BigSexy:

Best ranged unit?
What do people think is the best / most powerful ranged unit? Physical and non-physical?

thanks

Zephyr Archer and Shrine of Smiting

What about Glade Runner? No AoE damage, but can soften up a single target as a free action.

[ReverseRaven]

Originally posted by Roderick:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Zephyr Archer and Shrine of Smiting

What about Glade Runner? No AoE damage, but can soften up a single target as a free action.

Super unimpressed with Glade Runner since the Houndmaster can do the same thing and is 1 tier lower.

[Azunai]

The t3 archers are both pretty decent. I also like the t1 dusk hunters a lot (high culture).

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Roderick:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Zephyr Archer and Shrine of Smiting

What about Glade Runner? No AoE damage, but can soften up a single target as a free action.

Flavour. I guess. In my mind in regards of the question, I try to figure out which unit is unique enough to fit the bill to be the best. And such as sundering is very good. But I would prefer the Zephyr's attack power because of power ups from tomes which diminish the "uniqueness" of the Glade Runner. Still, I consider Glade Runner a good choice too!

Alternative, I would bring up the Awakener with superior support skills and self-buffed power output.

[Roderick]

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Originally posted by Roderick:

What about Glade Runner? No AoE damage, but can soften up a single target as a free action.

Flavour. I guess. In my mind in regards of the question, I try to figure out which unit is unique enough to fit the bill to be the best. And such as sundering is very good. But I would prefer the Zephyr's attack power because of power ups from tomes which diminish the "uniqueness" of the Glade Runner. Still, I consider Glade Runner a good choice too!

Alternative, I would bring up the Awakener with superior support skills and self-buffed power output.

Sounds valid. I do have my problems with buffed up units, so free debuff on a hero/ruler/high tier unit is always welcome. But that always needs others to add up damage...

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Roderick:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Flavour. I guess. In my mind in regards of the question, I try to figure out which unit is unique enough to fit the bill to be the best. And such as sundering is very good. But I would prefer the Zephyr's attack power because of power ups from tomes which diminish the "uniqueness" of the Glade Runner. Still, I consider Glade Runner a good choice too!

Alternative, I would bring up the Awakener with superior support skills and self-buffed power output.

Sounds valid. I do have my problems with buffed up units, so free debuff on a hero/ruler/high tier unit is always welcome. But that always needs others to add up damage...

From my personal point of view, that is what makes the game interesting. Instead of everyone using the same units, there is much more potential in mixing and having different approaches. What I mean for example is: Glade Runner can be super viable if e.g. you rely a lot on shock troops. I on the other hand use preferred shield troops. Zephyr Archer and Glade Runner fulfill different roles for different compositions, leading to more variety on the battlefield. That is just one of many layers of complexity the game can have.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by Roderick:

Originally posted by アンジェル:

Zephyr Archer and Shrine of Smiting

What about Glade Runner? No AoE damage, but can soften up a single target as a free action.

Glade is a worse unit in a better tome. Zephyr is a better unit in a worse tome.

You take Tome of Winds for raw archery power and little else. Unless you like going faster on the water.

[Seswatha]

From cost effectiveness perspective it's Dusk Hunter. And with mighty meek & tome of the horde they're also the highest damage archer with their repeated attack in most cases.

Zephyrs are very good, but often not worth the cost bump. Mostly the increase in defensive stats and hp helps them survive better, damage wise it's a wash. So I only start making them when I'm very rich. AoE is ok but deals a lot less damage than the repeated attack with a bunch of enhantments, still sometimes useful to poke from long range.

Glade Runners are good, but their Mark ability has lower range than their actual attack when you buff them up with xp + tome of enchantment + Awaken making it awkward to use.

If by "non physical" you mean battlemages there are a few great options:

Chaos Eaters - "Consume Chaos" is insanely strong if you have ways to apply tons of debuff stacks (e.g. Sundering Curse or Mental Mark).

Entwined Scourge - there's no easy way to make them except some Anicent Wonders but they also can appear in the armies from the forest awakening spell. Since they can disable enemies and then pop summons out of them when dead they're really strong.

Lightbringers - well, I guess your question was more in terms of the best ranged attacker but mind control is pretty filthy at this tier.

Awakener - just a good support unit for the High Culture, and exposing light is a great way to deal aoe damage and debuff resistances. Being High, get +1 range compared to other battlemages when Awakened.

Spellbreaker - these guys hard counter buff based strategies, destroy magic origin units, boost your CP in combat by a lot. Still do decent damage outside of that.

Evoker/Pyromancer - both are solid cheap aoe damage dealers, Pyromancer is probably better in PvE and Evoker is better in PvP.

Out of Mythics, Shrine of Smiting of course.

[ArchAnge1LT]

Basic high culture archer + tome of the horde buffs+tome of enchantment+tome of artifice+tome of amplification.

You get tier 1 archer with 80% crit chance,+2 range, that kills/severely injures tier V units and continues firing after you kill a unit onto another unit if he has more actions.

Later you can backtrack to get the mark from tome of beasts for overkills.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by ArchAnge1LT:

Basic high culture archer + tome of the horde buffs+tome of enchantment+tome of artifice+tome of amplification.

You get tier 1 archer with 80% crit chance, that kills tier V units and continues firing after you kill a unit onto another unit if he has more actions.

Later you can backtrack to get the mark from tome of beasts for overkills.

And they die enmasse to zephyrs, since you stacked all the damage enchants onto them, and no durability on a T1 unit.

Zephyrs outrange them with their AoE that will delete most of their health in a single pass. They also get nuked for massive damage by even basic spells due to not having a resistance stat at all.

[yuzhonglu]

Spider Furies from barbarian. It's got an AOE just like Zephyr but it's tier 2 and doesn't require tomes.

[Midas]

Zephyr archer is pretty solid, though I personally don't find it's AoE shot all that amazing. For non-physicals, I like Awakeners and Fire Elementals.

[Seswatha]

I'd throw Snow Spirits into the list, their ranged freeze attack bounces with Amplified Arrows so they can freeze 2 units with one attack with 90% base chance.

inquisitors would be able to Stun 2 units but seems their ranged attack isn't properly marked as base and doesn't bounce, probably a bug.