Frost vs. Fire/Electricity Builds: Seeking Deeper Synergies

[Devin]

I've been enjoying frost-based builds for their synergy with physical combat—reducing enemy resistance and then freezing them adds a strategic layer I love. However, fire and electricity builds, focusing mainly on additional damage through burning and electrifying, seem less tactically engaging to me.

Am I missing any intricate mechanics with fire and electricity? Or is focusing on an elemental build, particularly frost, not as effective as I think? Would love to hear if anyone has discovered unique synergies or mechanics that make fire and electricity as compelling as frost in terms of gameplay strategy.

[TirAsleen]

Units and types of units like the undead have resistance to cold + blight and weakness to fire and spirit. Ethereal has weakness to lightning and if its an ethereal undead unit like a Banshee or Corrupt Soul it has weakness to all 3 dmg channels, but still frost resistance and blight resistance.

Its merely just about damage channels, so your frost build might have worked well, because you did not face either units with frost resistance or at least high (general) resistance and status resistant units.

You can notice this well with the Tome Units.

https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/List_of_tome_units

Here you see that you can for instance, counter frozen with burning, which should remove the stun, there is also interaction with wet.
Poisoned and Regeneration cancel each other, too and Decay might trump Regeneration alltogether, but does less blight dmg than poisoned.

Just 2 examples.

https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Status_effect

[Midas]

In my experience, Fire is pretty straight forwards, and that makes sense to me. Raw damage, brute force. Makes sense to have at least one element keyed to uncomplicated maximum destruction and the chaos element definitely makes the most sense.

For lightning, I don't feel like it's too different from fire, but lightning-focused casters and spells tend to have less raw area effect power than fire. On the flip-side, lightning is a major elemental weakness for some of the most dangerous foes, like high-tier Construct enemies.

[Isseus]

In Planetfall fire damage could melt armor and electricity could stun. Wish those were in AOW4.

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by Isseus:

In Planetfall fire damage could melt armor and electricity could stun. Wish those were in AOW4.

Melting armor sounds good, but that was only a thing in PF.
Maybe its due to Sundering Blade, an materium enchantment that does reduce defense =basicly melt armor?

The electricity stun was there since AoW1, maybe lightning themed tomes would be too strong with stuns enchantments, but there are plenty of stun abilities in AoW4.

[Flushing]

Originally posted by Devin:

I've been enjoying frost-based builds for their synergy with physical combat—reducing enemy resistance and then freezing them adds a strategic layer I love. However, fire and electricity builds, focusing mainly on additional damage through burning and electrifying, seem less tactically engaging to me.

Am I missing any intricate mechanics with fire and electricity? Or is focusing on an elemental build, particularly frost, not as effective as I think? Would love to hear if anyone has discovered unique synergies or mechanics that make fire and electricity as compelling as frost in terms of gameplay strategy.

I like taking frost with reaver culture because it synergises with the Overseer's Subdue ability ( https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/ReaverUnits.html?type=overseer& ) for unit capture. Overseer does fire damage, so that gives you a small commitment to fire.

Beyond that, having both fire and frost enchantments (even splashing in more) from starting tomes makes your archers and starting units much, much, more effective. I have splashed dark, fire, and astral just for those purposes.

Astral and Dark also have some natural synergies in the empire upgrade tree, which allow you to accelerate research and have a great mana economy.

[OakenWall]

Not sure if I used any "deeper synergies" but the latest expansion first quest realm have many units that are weak to electricity and it worked wonders using mostly lightning tomes to beat that realm.

[Charlando[SunsOfStmChrts]]

Dont accidentally combine fire and frost arrows. Actually that will kind of work. But dont mix white witches and fire arrows :)

[SQW]

It's all just damage with a different coat of paint. AoW4 has the most flat tech/enchantment interactions I've seen compared to other 4Xs where you can match unique races with unique damage forms. This sandbox, Stellaris style design forces the devs to devolve damage types to just color palette so players can stack tomes willy nilly without creating conflicts.

[Blanch Warren]

Just given their own basic descriptions, electric has aoe with more ranged, fire is lower ranged and probably better for focusing damage from other units. Frost is frost... It does some damage and stunning and I don't think it was nerfed.

[Flushing]

Originally posted by Blanch Warren:

Just given their own basic descriptions, electric has aoe with more ranged, fire is lower ranged and probably better for focusing damage from other units. Frost is frost... It does some damage and stunning and I don't think it was nerfed.

I find frost to be the best damage type, but the enchantments and combat spells are not extensive. I take it just for the stun. I like the stun subdue combo with Reavers.