Favorite; or alternative ways, to fight Umbral forces?

[IlluminaZero]

So I've more or less just beaten the Edlritch story missions - With the Archon DLC implying more Umbral forces - And I couldn't help but notice I am basically defaulting on Cleansing Flame + Angelic transformation for burning and mind control immunity.

After seeing half my army kill itself via the "Insanity" debuff I'm basically treating "Control Loss Immunity" as a hard requirement for fighting Umbral forces. Which seems to imply either Construct forces or Celestial.

In a sense I equally wonder about this as I find myself going Cleansing Flame way too much since its so good against Umbral and Undead. Hopefully the upcoming double chaos Archon DLC will have some fire resist to shake up the story mode meta.

[The Big Brzezinski]

My favorite used to be a cavalry army with animal handler heroes, but that's no longer possible. These days, I'd probably pivot to constructs as well. See how they like bronze golems and ironclads. There is no strength in flesh, only weakness.

[IlluminaZero]

Animal handler heroes were before my time in AOW4 - How did it help against Umbral? 🤔

[The Big Brzezinski]

It was a hero skill unlock that came with the vigor tome. Heroes that took it would give control loss immunity to cavalry and animals in the stack they led. But that and similar buffs are all gone now.

[IlluminaZero]

That's pretty cool. While investigating if there is an equivalent with this via "signature skills" I actually (re?) learned that Celestial Dragon's "Elder of Order" can basically get that effect universally. Namely as they give "Control Loss Immunity" to ALL friendly units. Not just those in their specific army stack as leader.

I'm a bit surprised that its Dragon that has among the strongest army buffs and not Champion though... <<

So basically - Another option to shut down Insanity that doesn't involve Angel Form, Celestial armies, or Golems is to have a Lv 16 Elder of Order Dragon. A seemingly preposterous proposition but with how powerful Dragons are independently power leveling a Dragon isn't really unreasonable. Celestial Armies are also rather late-game due to basically requiring Tier 4.

So basically if you go Order/Chaos with your Dragon then you won't need to go Order/Chaos via tomes. <<

[The Big Brzezinski]

Could also try stacking status protection/resistance. Lots of tomes have that.

[IlluminaZero]

While true I feel that is basically mechanically redundant with going Angel Transformation since that implies going heavy order lol. Particularly if you are "stacking" status resistance.

Although I suppose Order/Nature is a way to stack resistance that doesn't lead up to complete immunity via Angel form. It helps that Umbral Demons typically aren't using fire.

Order/Nature - Lacks burning - Would likely play similarly to Celestial
Nature/Chaos - Lacks Control Loss Immunity.

If "animal handler" were still a thing Demonic animals would be another hard counter. Infernal Hound, Nightmares, Infernal Juggernauts all have great fire damage and can cause burning.

[TirAsleen]

Kill it with fire. Like how MacReady does it in "The Thing".

[Pantagruel]

Since the only hard counter for curse eater is burning, options that include chaos will always be better, but you can also get control loss immunity with mythics, or use units with high natural status resistance, or kill their armies with tactical spells, or just use brute force. Generally speaking if you aren't using burning you probably want to just use raw damage, unless they give you an immediate kill.

[Midas]

I've never felt mind control immunity was necessary. You can space out to avoid the battlefield effect, and the rest is not much different than dealing with any other kind of mind control.

[IlluminaZero]

Funny thing is that in the final Eldritch Story mission the way they destroy Umbral zomes is not with Fire and brimstone but freezing the Umbral areas. Sundren joins you at high level with a FROST INDUCING rank 4 Polearm. The Polearm is even referenced in story text while Sundren is freezing over the zones!

Going by what is observed in the story mode frost SHOULD be effective against the Umbral... Which is the exact OPPOSITE of what is exhibited in gameplay.

I mean they could at least allow "ghostfire" to modify "frost" so that it doesn't immediately cancel "burning" or something.

[IlluminaZero]

Originally posted by TirAsleen:

Kill it with fire. Like how MacReady does it in "The Thing".

Cleanse it with Fire one might say. <<

Originally posted by Pantagruel:

Since the only hard counter for curse eater is burning, options that include chaos will always be better, but you can also get control loss immunity with mythics, or use units with high natural status resistance, or kill their armies with tactical spells, or just use brute force. Generally speaking if you aren't using burning you probably want to just use raw damage, unless they give you an immediate kill.

It may be circumstantial to the Eldritch story campaign... Although I heard that Tome of Corruption is actually really popular in PvP? Which implies Umbral Mistresses and Gloom Strider major transformation? I've heard Pyre Templars are really popular in multiplayer and it wouldn't be terribly surprising if half the reason is that they hard counter both Undead and Umbral.

In Eldritch Story 1 Umbral are basically like what you would see in any random campaign map. That being NPC mobs. And in that mission I basically used Celestial and Mythic units... Which was primarily Righteous Judge, Dragons, and Heroes. Considering my Ruler was a Dragon and Righteous Judges are tagged as dragons it was basically a Dragons > Umbral. (I suspect Dragons > Everything though if you have enough...)

Eldritch Story 2 however has Lithyl Nightweaver spam you with Umbral forces. The campaign is pretty comfy now that I have Angelic transformation (IE both Merlin and Serena are wiped. Everyone in alliance is alive) but before Angel transformation facing Lithyl's Umbral stacks was pretty terrifying.

Originally posted by Midas:

I've never felt mind control immunity was necessary. You can space out to avoid the battlefield effect, and the rest is not much different than dealing with any other kind of mind control.

You might be right. It may be that my perspective is a bit warped since I am presently going though; and being reflective, of the 2nd Eldritch story mission.

[Pantagruel]

Originally posted by IlluminaZero:

It may be circumstantial to the Eldritch story campaign... Although I heard that Tome of Corruption is actually really popular in PvP?

Tome of corruption is pretty overpowered in PvP, so its popularity depends on whether it's been banned. Corrupted boon is flat broken, and the rest should really be a tier IV tome.

[Zoggy]

i would just like to add I find the Resilient trait helps a lot + defence mode warding with supports- it can let you get by with the right enchantments and unit choices. ( magic ranged damage heavy)

I think you were unlucky with the infectious insanity sometime RNG can just go completely against you.

pure breath on dragon lords is also really good due to its cleansing/ high spirit damage.
side note might meek is really good ( particularly oath bound honour blades and mystic anarchists)

You might want to try a infernal + accursed verse umbral game if want a different play through i had a lot of fun with it recently- just don't use chaos eaters. (oath bound-strife)

[Isseus]

Like Sun Tzu teaches us, defeat your enemy before meeting them on the battlefield.

Turn them off in the world settings.

[✧Starshadow Melody✧]

Originally posted by Isseus:

Like Sun Tzu teaches us, defeat your enemy before meeting them on the battlefield.

Turn them off in the world settings.

Along this vein, just don't even own the DLC.

Honestly I'd like to have it, pretty much exclusively for the new ruler type, but even if I had the money I don't think I can justify spending any more on DLC until something's done about the hero situation.