Draconian Warlord

[✝ Gamlingwine]

I like tough units and prefer very much to focus on melee troops, and after trying a Theocrat Orc I felt trying this combo. I guessed that the fast healing bonus of Draconians could very much compare to the +5 health bonus of the Orc.
The reason why I chose the combo, aside from the above, is 50% because I like how Warlord plays and 50% because aesthetically and mechanics-wise it seems to me the Warlord units mix well with the Draconian ones, granting the former sturdier units (I HATE squishy ones, and Draconian units don't seem very durable - rather damage oriented).

I don't like magic too much, so beyond Creation adept I picked Grey Guard and something else I forgot.
The question is, has anyone tried any build of the sort before; is it too weak to play? Would a theocrat combo be much more durable and defensively-effective?

[hiliadan]

Check the meta stats here: https://www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=ladderstats
Draconian Warlord is the least popular race of Warlord. Draconians do not synergize very well with the Empire Upgrades of Warlord. If you want sturdy units, maybe play Dwarves?
If you want to play defensively, Theo or Dreadnought are probably better.

[✝ Gamlingwine]

Thank you for your reply.
See, my issue with dwarves is that I don't find them too appealing aesthetically, so they are out. I like to partially roleplay in these games and see myself as the leading hero - Dwarves aren't my type in this sense.

Assuming I use your balance mod; if I really wanted to stay with the Draconians, what would you suggest between Theo and Dreadnought, mechanics-wise? I was doubtful about the latter because machines must me repaired and can't be healed back (can they even be repaired?). Also the regeneration bonus of Argonians would kind of be wasted when using mechanical troops. Possibly it would also synergise badly with the healing capabilities Theocratic leaders grant? Since units are healed through multiple abilities, the racial bonus might not be exploited to its full potential, I reckon.

I'm just reasoning in the hope you can contribute with your experience, so thanks.

[✝ Gamlingwine]

Anyway judging by the statistics you sent me, Draconian Warlord are twice as popular as Draconian Dreadnoughts, does this mean something or is it just because the DN is the least popular class overall?

EDIT: I think you meant just the class, not necessarily the combo with the draconians. I checked up the empire upgrades and did notice the Draconians really match poorly with both DN and Warlord. Instead they seem to work well with the Theocrat.
One question I ask myself now is whether Exalted units are good as Draconians or Flyers are more efficient. Flyers possess a few more perks such as higher health and more projectile defence, which seems to make them sturdier.

[hiliadan]

Dreadnought is (or was) indeed the least popular class, but you're right that I was refering to the class in general and not in particular to Draconian DN or Theo. Draconian DN is indeed pretty lame: no armored units, double down on Fire damage, no good interaction with machines. But DN is a good defensive class overall.

Engineers heal Machines, your Leader and DN heroes can also heal them.

Theo Draconian is much better, the Elder is a very good unit and benefits from Theo's Support boosts. It also opens up a new damage channel (Spirit).
The Fast Healing means your Exalted or other troops can work on their own without Supports or heroes/Leaders, so it's not a duplicate if you build a good strategy around it.

[✝ Gamlingwine]

Although you answered all I asked, I would like to bring the topic under another theme: Orcs. After downloading the mods you suggested me including yours, I realise Draconians swerve even farther away from my playstyle while Orcs get nearer with an additional heavy and slow unit (Goliath) and some racial defensive upgrades. I'd like to make another Orc hero, but not a theo this time, rather a DN or Warlord.

Both seem to match very well, because they boost units that I use a lot. For example the +15 hp boost to cavalry is impressive because I use an Orc Elephant rider unit contained in a mod and this HP addition would make it extremely durable. Also the upgrades and skills seem to have many defensive options; e.g. the +5 def against retaliation attacks or the defensive formation hero skill. On the downside, the Warlord units are heavily overlapped by some Orc ones, for example the phalanx and warbreed are worth little when the Empire Building mod adds a heavy lancer unit and the aforementioned Goliath.

The DN on the other hand has powerful musketeers (no idea how they compare to mounted archers from the Warlord tree?). Additional armor for armored units (almost all orcish ones). Pistol is given to cavalry (so also my dear Orc Ele rider, although it already had javelins). Also offensively the machines allow you to use non-physical damage against heavily armoured units, so you get a more flexible army.

Economically both get similarly working upgrades but Warlord's better, DN gets armoured units with a 10% gold discount, Warlord gets all infantry, cavalry, archers for 20% less.

All in all, I think both synergyse well and the Warlord is more interesting defensively while the DN gets a better edge on the offensive and a bit more safety against non-physical attacks. Would you agree?

as always thanks for your assistance

[hiliadan]

Mmh, that's a difficult question... It also depends on the specialisations you choose, which can open up new damage channels or favour certain strategies (city expansion, exploration, war or vassalship...). I'm also not very familiar with the EBM or other mods you use and they probably change the equation a lot.

Warlord is more mobile than Dreadnought: Machines are very slow, suffer from movement penalties on Wetlands, Forests, Mountains... At the opposite, Warlord has relatively fast units: Mounted Archers (their mobility makes them very different from Musketeers, who also need to Reload), Warbreeds, Manticore Riders, and has Death March to further speed things up.

Warlord Orc is really doubling down on the class and the race's strength (physical damage, high damage output...), whereas Dreadnough is probably a bit more resilient to stuff that attack on elemental damage and resist Physical damage.
Warlord is more straightforward. But in both cases, the Victory Rush can be quite helpful to compensate the lack of good healing of the class (though Warlord's Field Medic should not be underestimated and Dread get Guardian Flame at level 3).

I think in the end, you should look more at what you want to play and how it interacts with your specs. Both alternatives are viable (and actually all class/race can work if you build a strategy around them).

Hopefully Iguana will come and complete my answers. :P

[✝ Gamlingwine]

Originally posted by hiliadan:

Mmh, that's a difficult question... It also depends on the specialisations you choose, which can open up new damage channels or favour certain strategies (city expansion, exploration, war or vassalship...). I'm also not very familiar with the EBM or other mods you use and they probably change the equation a lot.

Warlord is more mobile than Dreadnought: Machines are very slow, suffer from movement penalties on Wetlands, Forests, Mountains... At the opposite, Warlord has relatively fast units: Mounted Archers (their mobility makes them very different from Musketeers, who also need to Reload), Warbreeds, Manticore Riders, and has Death March to further speed things up.

Warlord Orc is really doubling down on the class and the race's strength (physical damage, high damage output...), whereas Dreadnough is probably a bit more resilient to stuff that attack on elemental damage and resist Physical damage.
Warlord is more straightforward. But in both cases, the Victory Rush can be quite helpful to compensate the lack of good healing of the class (though Warlord's Field Medic should not be underestimated and Dread get Guardian Flame at level 3).

I think in the end, you should look more at what you want to play and how it interacts with your specs. Both alternatives are viable (and actually all class/race can work if you build a strategy around them).

Hopefully Iguana will come and complete my answers. :P

thank you, I did clear my mind a bit, because you confirmed me that both builds are viable and more than that. I am curious to try the Orc DN both because it seems to be extremely rarely chosen (the stats you sent me say that) and I like odd and unpopular things. ;) Also the machines and rifles give the Orcs a more sophisticated look.

and thanks also for having me notice of those two healing perks.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

I love playing Orc Warlord because it's such an archetypical class. Berserkers with Warcry, Shocktroopers with Martial Arts, Physical Resistance from racial governance, and more damage and healing from Victory Rush for everyone.

It's not the best class, as Hilliadan says. You double down on weaknesses as well as adding to strengths. But that need not be a big problem outside of competitive multiplayer, and a good specialisation can do a lot to compensate.

(Grey Guard Master for Cardinal Culling, and an even stronger economy and even tougher units, or Wild Magic adept for Degenerate, or Destruction Mastery for Wreck, or even just Fire adept/master for fire damage and elemental summoning.)

I admit I've never tried an Orc Dreadnought for the same reason you like the idea: It's just so out there.

But the thing with Dreadnought is that race matters relatively little if you focus on machines. Machines are equal across all races, leaving just Engineers and general economic concerns to consider. This makes Humans such a good choice for Dreadnought (extra production, extra medals, cheap settlers and gold from ports) with their racial synergies as a cherry on top. (Healers, lots of armoured cavalry to benefit from Dread upgrades.)

Orcs have far lesser synergies: no healing, only one cavalry unit (can't consider your mods since I don't know them) and -1 damage on musketeers and engineers.

(Which isn't a terribly big deal: 26 damage on an Elf or 24 damage on an Orc is a less than 10% difference. 6 damage on a Razorbow vs. 9 damage on a Elven longbow is 50% difference, and that's before you add in the lack of range penalty.)

But again, that won't matter terribly much if you focus on machines.

Early game you'll do fine thanks to Victory Rush and tough units, perhaps with a musketeer or two added to provide some honest-to-god firepower. Later on you can replace Golems with Shocktroopers, though they'll be a bit slower if you cast Great Mobilisation.

But it won't be that different from playing a dreadnought of any other race.

(For what it's worth: My favourite dreadnought races are Goblins and Halflings, mostly because it amuses me to have the physically weakest compensate by bringing guns to the battlefield. Plus, Party Robots. And Tibbles' sweet Halfling Musketeer reskin. They look awesome with their masks.)

Originally posted by hiliadan:

Hopefully Iguana will come and complete my answers. :P

Heh. :-)

[✝ Gamlingwine]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

But it won't be that different from playing a dreadnought of any other race.

I'm afraid that's my problem, I planned using the tier IV unit exclusively, I guess it's best to stick away from the DN Orc then ;). I do plan to play 90% of my time on SP but I also plan to convince a few friends to join and have matches together, in such case I wouldn't want to have "specialised" myself in a setup that doesn't have good synergy.

The Goblins from Warcraft resemble much the DN-Goblin combo on AoW III; if you've ever seen them in the Warcraft universe you know what I mean.

So, to conclude the discourse, I think I'll reason some more and choose between Warlord and Theocrat. Like I said earlier I like roleplaying in the real sense and I also like to imagine fictional societies in uncommon varieties: the thought of the brutish orcs being civilised under the rule of a monastic order or a royal house of technocrats plays with my imagination more than a tactician 'warlord' leading orcs to battle with phalanxes and troll-like monsters.

Since the synergies between the Orcs and said 2 classes have already been discussed I won't prolong this further. Thanks to both for your time.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Milo Jurament-de-fèr:

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

But it won't be that different from playing a dreadnought of any other race.

I'm afraid that's my problem, I planned using the tier IV unit exclusively

You mean in combination with racial units, or as entire stacks?

I can't really recommend the latter. Boring and expensive, and not that effective.

As for combining machines with racial units: Cannons would be my first pick for that. They can deal a ton of damage at great range. Not as tough as Juggernauts and not as easy to hit multiple enemies, but in practice their range and precision makes them more useful to me.

Flametanks are also pretty great, though you can skip those in favour of some melee.

But you can certainly do well as Dreadnought by adding 1-2 warmachines to a bunch of racial units. Ideally you'd use armoured cavalry like Knights, but you could do perfectly well with, say, 1 engineer, 1 cannon, 1 juggernaut, 2 shocktroopers and a black knight. (Or better that mammoth mod unit of yours.)

As for Theocrat Orcs: that's a very strong and fun combo, but to stick with the archetypes I prefer to play them as an evil theocrat. There's a pretty good evil priest outfit for a theocrat leader, and if you add in some Shadowborn specialisation you have some very nice "Cult of the Dark Gods" style Orc warriors.

Plus you get to add shock damage, life stealing and all the theocrat upgrades to your already very tough racial infantry. Great synergy.

[✝ Gamlingwine]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

Originally posted by Milo Jurament-de-fèr:

I'm afraid that's my problem, I planned using the tier IV unit exclusively

You mean in combination with racial units, or as entire stacks?

I can't really recommend the latter. Boring and expensive, and not that effective.

As for combining machines with racial units: Cannons would be my first pick for that. They can deal a ton of damage at great range. Not as tough as Juggernauts and not as easy to hit multiple enemies, but in practice their range and precision makes them more useful to me.

Flametanks are also pretty great, though you can skip those in favour of some melee.

But you can certainly do well as Dreadnought by adding 1-2 warmachines to a bunch of racial units. Ideally you'd use armoured cavalry like Knights, but you could do perfectly well with, say, 1 engineer, 1 cannon, 1 juggernaut, 2 shocktroopers and a black knight. (Or better that mammoth mod unit of yours.)

As for Theocrat Orcs: that's a very strong and fun combo, but to stick with the archetypes I prefer to play them as an evil theocrat. There's a pretty good evil priest outfit for a theocrat leader, and if you add in some Shadowborn specialisation you have some very nice "Cult of the Dark Gods" style Orc warriors.

Plus you get to add shock damage, life stealing and all the theocrat upgrades to your already very tough racial infantry. Great synergy.

I meant as a mix with other racial units, because to be fair I don't like machines very much.
The problem with the elephant rider and the DN bonuses is that it doesn't benefit much, whereas the +15 hp from the warlord is considerable for an already sturdy unit (starts with 90 HP, it's tier III).

As for evil characters, I never liked them, so I either play as neutral and exploit both alignments to a minor degree or go good.

one thing though, are there random and sparse freezes normal with about a dozen mods...? In only a half dozen hours of actual gameplay I've had the game freeze once and another time (seconds ago) the game wouldn't respond to any UI button and the unit I had just commanded to perform an move stuck before the targeted allied unit without doing anything. Could do nothing but alt f4.