Pyro Build Advice

[Anthreris]

I've asked variations of this questions multiple times, as I've struggled to get my build exactly where I want it. If you can't tell from the faction description the overall goal of the build is to burn everything.
Below you should be able to see one variation out of three I've tried. This particular variation is very close to being perfect. It is capable of using massive amounts of Mercenary for broad uses (like garrisons or defending vital locations) while keeping costs low.

However with the recent update Feudal got a rework, and so did the city sprawl environments. I dislike the Reaver city sprawl with the "ocean spike mine blimps" being everywhere. I'm also slightly interested in playing this faction as a Monarchy since my main army would have no upkeep cost, which makes certain units actually reasonable to use (looking at you Mythic Dragons).

However if you look at my faction backstory text, it refers to the faction as renowned craftsman. Feudal and Mystic my alternative choices don't really match with such a description, and the society traits change slightly for each culture. If I'm running mystic I'll be evolving Magma Spirits. Tome of the Horde isn't as useful for Feudal since the units promote making it even more temporary. With the right buffs such as the Chaos Wizard Tower structures with Fury of the Horde I massively buff troop damage with one spell, and can also have something like Fan of Flames become actually viable as a splash aoe option, rather than using Lava Burst from Tome of the Crucible.

The alignment generally sways towards evil, which is represented by the revolutionary diplomat mixed with the moral ambiguity of the backstory. Being a Wizard King with a Reaver factions matches the backstory, as this puts the factions at odds with other since the Scorched are the recent upstarts in the world.


Most of my hours in this game have been trying to figure out exactly how I want this build built, because of this I haven't ascended this ruler to be a Sorcerer yet. Is anyone willing to help me figure exactly how this pyro faction should be?

https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/20936849980320168/0676FC404178417161F1F98860A6E628A1CCEF47/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[Råb!d]

It looks good. I'd say just play a few complete games to refine it and hopefully win at least once.

Tinkering with the map settings could add some fun depth to your adventure. Volcanic eruptions and Demons could be cool.

[ashensizzlor]

The cool thing about feudal monarchy is that its now materium focused so the culture having strong craftsmen makes sense. If your going feudal I would switch horde to pyromancy. The main unit for monarchy being the long bowman benefits from fire arrows and the pyromancer gives feudal a battle mage with an aoe.

If I was running your build I would use pyromancy, revalry, devastation and chaos channeling for the fire theme and the exp and moral boosts.

On the materium side I would pick rock for its defense controlling abilities and the bleed, Winds for greater archer range and the ability to move enemies. Transmutation for fire theme and economy boosts and crucible for more fire and meteor arrows.

Having access to pyromancers flame burst weapons and meteor arrows on the majority of your army gives you a constant swath of AoE. your longbows get eight range turning them into artillery that cause burning and bleeding. your melee units get more damage against burning targets and cause explosions when they score kills. They also get strengthened 1 when they score a kill due to blood fury weapons, get defense buffs from tome of rock and transmutation making them much harder to kill. With scion of flame you become immune to burning damage yourself.


If Going mystic you can pick summoner and the same tomes and focus on the elementals, battle mages and throwing fire around. Your melee options still get their buffs the same and you get a shield based rock elemental, a battle mage fire elemental and a fighter wind elemental that deals physical and can blind. you still get exp boosts from revalry to speed up unit growth for evolution and you get a tier 4 battle mage in the form of the transmuter who strip defenses and turn people into gold for you to melt down.

[Anthreris]

I forgot that Monarchy Feudal had the materium point. Longbows seem really good, since they would have the longest range of any unit. And the Monarch buff makes any unit have no upkeep, which is extremely good, when I do a summoning build I usually grab druid and druidic terraformers. Since both reduce elemental cost, but as a monarch cost doesn't really matter.
Scion of Flame would also stack with Inner Fire making my culture units deal lots of fire damage to opponents that are attacking in melee. Those tomes you suggested are what I typically end of running, however I am aiming to unlock Tome of the Archmage once for the Sorcerer Ascension.

I guess my tome of the horde version could also work as Mystic with Cultural Attuned blades buff, since the tier 1 is equivalent to Reavers' Mercenaries.


What culture would you do? This build would clearly work with any of these cultures, it's just a matter of which one.

[ashensizzlor]

Originally posted by Anthreris:

I forgot that Monarchy Feudal had the materium point. Longbows seem really good, since they would have the longest range of any unit. And the Monarch buff makes any unit have no upkeep, which is extremely good, when I do a summoning build I usually grab druid and druidic terraformers. Since both reduce elemental cost, but as a monarch cost doesn't really matter.
Scion of Flame would also stack with Inner Fire making my culture units deal lots of fire damage to opponents that are attacking in melee. Those tomes you suggested are what I typically end of running, however I am aiming to unlock Tome of the Archmage once for the Sorcerer Ascension.

I guess my tome of the horde version could also work as Mystic with Cultural Attuned blades buff, since the tier 1 is equivalent to Reavers' Mercenaries.


What culture would you do? This build would clearly work with any of these cultures, it's just a matter of which one.

so I have an astral chaos build. Its mystic attunement with an astral dragon lord. form is lizard folk with arcane focus, tenacious and elusive. My cultural traits are ritual cannibals and manna addicts. my starting tome is tome of the horde.

The entire idea of the build was to create an army of tiny angry magic throwing kobolds. casting fury of the horde gives all tier 1 units strengthened 1 for 10% more damage, it also activates mana addicts for life steal, a moral boost and activates starblades chaos for more fire damage. On top of that I go tome of mayhem for mark of misfortune to debuff enemies with fumble then tome of dragons for flamer focus and draconic transformation.

On the astral side you pick up evocation, scrying and amplification for more lightning damage, higher accuracy, crit hit chance from casting spells +1 range and frenzy. on all of my battle mages. I think in all my tier 1 archanists can get 15% from arcane focus, 20% from spawn kin, 30% from dragonic rage, up to 50% more damage from strengthened and 20% damage from being legendary rank for a total of 135% bonus damage with +1 range and a fire AoE if all the conditions are met. They also have multiple forms of hp regen in the form of life steal, corpse eating and natural regeneration. The same buffs also apply to my tier 2 and tier 3 battle mages and support.

If you want to do mystic chaos astral with a fire theme I would keep the same chaos tomes I recommended to you and focus on the defensive astral spells, tome of warding, scrying/summoning, If you find your lacking in damage go for amplification if your dealing a lot of damage go teleportation for the mobility.

Tome of astral reflection is really good for mystic culture as well. Not only does it have mirror veil that reflects 50% of the non physical damage you take, but it has two forms of unit copying. Mirror mimics and summon astral reflection. Summon astral reflection can be used to summon copies of your own tier 3 battle mages which hit like trucks and give 10 more casting points when they enter combat. When you factor in astral echoes you can get some decent power by photo copying the same battle mage over and over again. just keep in mind that when you copy a unit you take on their buffs and debuffs as well.

[OakenWall]

Well the obvious choices for a fire focused build are industrious(with fire giant) and Primal ash sabertooth. Your basically wasting a slot picking ash land adaptation when going something else but ok, its not the end of the world.

That aside I would neither go with astral or order for that matter as side element.
Personally I would not use tome of the horde, maybe that's because of the midget units but really It does not give you any important synergy within the build and you only want so many tier 1 tomes and both fire and materium has better ones.

A fire focused reaver build could definatly work, I just have not tried it, good luck!

[Inocybe]

I like the back story ! You probably already know about this tool, but https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html is great to plan your game (tome path). Maybe you could use it to show us how you plan your tome path.

Chaos and materium is a strong pick ! Have fun forging your universe with fire !

My only problem is that, in my mind, reaver are kind of anti-magic with the killing wizard kings and stuff. Yet, a powerfull fire mage freed the scortched people. I would expect many people learning magic, instead of using technology. That's why feudal monarchy could be a more fitting choice.

EDIT : something like this sounds like a lot of fun https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html?u=148:49:c6,31,25,5a,215,50,s,ba:b5:bb:b9:bd:8a:b1:bf:af,000000,1ae,a,h,n:r
Dragon tome would be good, cleansing flame too. Having some pyre templars as royal guards would be fitting. It's impressive the number of tomes with fire thematic, yet there are only 2 ice tomes ... :/

[MattStriker]

I'd go primal ash with a fire giant ruler. You'll be spreading lava EVERYWHERE.

[Anthreris]

Currently trying the Feudal Monarchy version right now, during this match though I haven't dived too much into the chaos tomes yet. The Longbows' are disgustingly powerful and I'm loving it. If built right they can have fire 9 hexes away, or 10 if you're defending your own city.

I could see the Mystic version working really well, with the attuned blades plenty of fire buffs would be applied making all units that are already being strengthened quite potent.
I also disable most appearance changes so I don't really notice spawnkin that much. Ones I typically don't disable are Astral Blood, Scions of Flame, and Demonkin I guess.

I also agree Reavers and their singular chaos point scream the fires of industry not magic. Though the Overseer does use a fire staff, it is a very good though if going for the theme that only the ruler uses pure fire magic.


I don't have the Giants King expansion yet, I'm waiting for the season pass to go on sale, I could afford it right now I'm just being picky on pricing. Looking forward to making a Frost Giant faction though, at which point I'll be feeling that lack of ice tomes.