Latest Patch 2025 Builds

[Eeveemre]

Drop some good and interesting builds here i wanna test out some stuff but all i can find is outdated af

[KD.AltQQ]

Rangers trueshot+killshot is now completely broken now that they scale with the weapon damage. Try it with the bow you can purchase from the crystal dwelling which does like 30 dmg (which is insane)...
Every turn you are dealing 100-200 pts with "go for the kill" and if you kill something (which you likely will) everything refreshes--including all your items (such as spider wands). This also means rangers are even better than mages at using things like magic missile, lightning strike or blizzard wands because if they kill anything with it, they can use it right again the next turn.

They are still not as broken as mages (as they can only hit one target at a time) but combined with the stone walls you can summon from a rock giant token, it makes for some pretty hilarious builds. They can resummon the walls over and over and over.

What I do is have my stone giant throw a boulder which is guaranteed to slow everything in a huge radius and then my rangers take the +20% damage to slow/frozen enemies signature shadow skill.

[Gundalf]

If you want to use the new major transformation Druidic Terraformers is a good society trait choice, because its 20% upkeep reduction for elementals works for your Form units. As Geomantic Crystallatization turns them into elementals.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Gundalf:

If you want to use the new major transformation Druidic Terraformers is a good society trait choice, because its 20% upkeep reduction for elementals works for your Form units. As Geomantic Crystallatization turns them into elementals.

It's also perfect for Storm Giant when combined with Expert Seafarers + Storm Giant Terraform Spell that gradually turns provinces into river provinces. River Kingdoms!! :P

So you're getting 20% discount on all elementals + tons of resources + Druidic transformation, giving you even more bonus resource on top of that.

Take Shepard Ambition too for more Elemental discount on upkeep +20 health.

This combo may further synergize with Geomantic Transformation/Tome beyond just elemental type, due to the malleability of the transform, giving stat bonuses based on terrain type. Oh and you also have riverwalk in some cased with say Swamp Adaptation (at least eventually with Nature Affinity Tree and having a minimum 2 points). Then summon the river terraformers around your borders to make very hard terrain that slows down enemy factions that don't come via roads.

[Baron]

Here's a Dragon Knights build that I've wished would work since Dragon Dawn released, that now finally came together with the Feudal rework.
https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html?u=48:14f,31,25,5f,52,4f,s,ae:a6:b3:ba:ad:b7:150:151:87,000000,1aa,a,h,Faramond%20Steward:Men%20of%20the%20Line

Ruler has Shepherd.

This build is strong early (note: Slithers with Poison Blades), plateaus in power midgame, and becomes strong again late. Because Slithers, Wyverns and Dragons (excl. Prosperity/Calamity) are not Magic Origin units, you can reach the upkeep reduction cap easily with Aristocracy + Swarmers + Champion. Meanwhile, Runesmiths permits the enchantment stacking you'll be taking advantage of on your units, without making the Skirmishers break the bank. For flavour reasons, it's also nice that the tome progression enables Oops All Dragons stacks late in the game.

Note that this build focuses more on making draconic Knights and Liege Guards to use with Unleash Beast. For a build that focuses more heavily on the Tier V evolved dragons, you might consider Monarchy with a Dragon Ruler instead, since that's one of the few cultures that can buff Mythic units and your ruler stack is 100% free.

https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html?u=48:14f,2a,25,5f,215,51,197,ae:a6:b3:ba:ad:a8:150:151:af,000000,1aa,a,h,Fireheart%20of%20the%20Steward's%20House:Men%20of%20the%20Line

Note the flex into Cycles and Chaos Lord, respectively for the Longbow buff and Avatar of Chaos to trigger For the Monarch. You can flex to those tomes in the first build too, if you like that better. Just be aware that if you don't plan to use Force of Nature, the crit buff from taking Chaos Dedication is a bit less valuable.

I actually have both of these factions in my game, the lore being that the Steward's House kept the aristocracy in line until a true Dragon King could rule. One little twist, and you get two factions for the price of one! I prefer the first version, personally - I find it's easier to actually achieve promotions with the experience gains from Aristocracy.

The build has two main weaknesses. First is that your units have very little in the way of defensive buffs (just extra HP and regen from the transformation) until you hit the T4 enchantments, so you may want to consider taking Initiate of Materium/Order on your Ruler and respeccing to Chaos later. Theoretically, this isn't too much of a problem, but the autoresolve AI doesn't always make decent use of Defense Modes on your Shields and Supports. In singleplayer you can manual your early clear, but hoo boy is that ever a time sink. This fragility is compounded by the second weakness: the build contains no Astral or Shadow affinity, so you're missing all those Empire Tree buffs to knowledge generation. Runesmiths is the only help you'll have getting to your T5 tome, so curate your research accordingly and look aggressively for extra sources of knowledge.

[Baron]

Figured I should post a modernized DLC-free build, too. Here is a Demonic Purifiers build.

https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html?u=147:1c:20,2a,2d,61,53,4f,s,b5:94:b9:93:91:bd:b0:90:af,000000,1a9,a,h,Iorrick%20Skulltaker:Ashen%20Purgators

Ruler has Lawbringer, to synergize with Fabled Hunters. Beyond that, if you don't want Ritual Cannibals, take some other Chaos trait - we need the point. Hero class should be one of the ones that can take advantage of crit scaling: Ranger, Warrior, Mage, Death Knight or Spellblade. I'm a fan of Ranger with Crowmaster Bow, personally, since the free unit makes the early game a little smoother and the T1 Barbarian frontline is already so strong.

The idea is to rely on Barbarian's natural early strength, then plan for the Demonkin racial transformation in the lategame, using Inner Frost and Anointed People to mitigate its elemental weaknesses. This makes for a build that starts at a middling power level and grows steadily and the game goes on, scaling with crit chance. Overwhelm (20%) + Artisan Armaments (30%) + Flameburst Weapons (20%) + Demonkin (15%) = 85% crit chance. The remaining 15% comes online with Morale (wasting 5%), so you actually don't need any Chaos dedication from your Hero to help with your crit. This lets you stack defensive stats by taking Materium and Order points - and believe me, you will want them.

That said, Adept of Chaos > Chaos Empowerment is particularly good with this build, so you may find it feels better to swap from Overwhelm to Tough and just let your crits come online later, especially since that relies less on positioning, which makes it easier to hand off to the autoresolve AI.

Alternately, if you do have DLC, you could move some Tomes around, maybe something like this:
https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html?u=147:1c:20,149,2a,61,53,4f,s,b5:94:b9:b3:ef:91:b0:151:af,000000,1a9,a,h,Iorrick%20Skulltaker:Ashen%20Purgators

This is the version I personally use, since - let's be honest - Pyre Templars are still megabroken. You can start Pyromancy instead on either of these, but Summon Irregulars is just so good on Barbarian, and Spawnkin doesn't tax your mana upkeep. Speaking of which, while Ritual Cannibals is necessary in the first version of the build, this version instead requires an Order point. I chose Vigilante Knights because Fabled Hunters synergizes with the fancy infestation-finder bounties, but I bet Imperialists would work just fine. If you find yourself missing the extra mana, and/or if you want to run Pyromancy and Zeal together, you could always swap Hunters back to Cannibals, or take Runesmiths instead. EDIT: Oh, and Fabled Hunters doesn't apply to the bonus resources you get from Vigilante Knights. That's what I was originally testing with this version of the build, but no, taking those two specifically together is not necessary, just nice.

For weaknesses, again, this build doesn't have any Astral or Shadow, so it really needs any knowledge boost it can get, which brings us back to Fabled Hunters or Runesmiths. Also, without the DLC you won't have access to area status effect cleansing from Cleansing Flame, so the Tome of Sanctuary is doing a lot of heavy lifting with Salvation and Anointed People. Finally, this build doesn't have any added mobility until your units get Flying at T4, so you'll be relying heavily on your summons to trigger fights, and the fact that your Sunderers have Fast Movement naturally.

[Balekai]

Nice builds! :)

Edit: I think it's a good thing that the new patch is starting to (at least for me), push us towards not using at least 1-2 Shadow Affinity as a Crutch or a dip into Astral. :p :P

There's now more options that make it more appetising to drop them and just focus on what you want to do with any given faction

[Baron]

Originally posted by Balekai:

Nice builds! :)

Edit: I think it's a good thing that the new patch is starting to (at least for me), push us towards not using at least 1-2 Shadow Affinity as a Crutch or a dip into Astral. :p :P

There's now more options that make it more appetising to drop them and just focus on what you want to do with any given faction

I mean, I honestly think that any build that doesn't have at least one of those affinities is just unavoidably weaker, because Knowledge is ultimately what snowballs the hardest. I just happen not to care, because I like tinkering too much to let the meta stop me.

Still, I would like to see flavour-appropriate ways for other Empire trees to either supplement their own Knowledge, or reduce the Knowledge income of others. Raiding Libraries for Chaos; research buildings for Materium; diplomacy/stability for Order; terrain or node manipulation for Nature...

Devs are doing a great job of addressing issues in the game, though. I believe in the vision :)