Class/Race/Specialization-Combos

[upuaut]

What Class/Race/Specialization-Combos do you like to play and why?

[Astasia]

If by trait you mean specialization, they don't really matter that much. I try to pick something that converts terrain to something the race likes, rather than relying on city buffs that change what each city likes (since this doesn't effect unit morale on those tiles).

Class/Race combos, I dunno, there's not too much synergy. Class units generally obsolete racial units, and the racial passive effects applied to those class units is a little underwhelming. I just started a Goblin Druid, not sure if it's a racial thing but my summon animal spells are summoning a lot of blighted boars and undead birds, which is pretty cool.

[Burden of Brine]

Warlord/Draconian/Master Fire+Creation Adept
As I play without city founding I do not need Expander, and while Explorer is nice if for nothing more than my precious Monster Hunters it is not nice enough to warrant a slot.

Warlord because I like Monster Hunters and Phalanx, and Mounted Archer is swell if I find an Elf City. The overall emphasis on solid(if specialized) units is also sweet to me, though while magic is not the strong suite of the Warlord, Fire Master and Creation Adept certainly helps there! Can't forget that the research that gives +15HP also apply to your Heroes, and I am mostly a singleplayer guy with a fancy for RPGs; those extra HP means my heroes are less likely to die and also give me more points to spend elsewhere!

Draconian because they not only were my favorite race in AoW:SM, but also because I just like their racial units! Or some of them anyways! Flamers are the most 'unique' Tier 1 Archers, in that they provide area damage. Elders are my #1 favorite Support unit in the entire game, and their Dragon Ancestry support ability is my favorite thing since sliced bread. Also helps that the Flyer is a pretty solid Tier 3 Infantry, all things considered. Can't forget the racial Fast Healing skill, it makes sure my guys are always fighting all the time!

Fire Master is good for my Warlord, as it provides several things: A decent damaging combat spell(Fire Ball), a Tier 2 Summon(Hellhound), a Tier 3 Summon(Fire Elemental), and a battlewide damaging spell(Hellfire) which my own units are fairly resistant towards(As they are Draconians). The summons in particular feels good to have as it gives me something to spend my surplus mana on!
It also provides Domain of the Sun(Makes City like Tropical/Volcanic) plus Tropical Empire(Spreads Tropical climate). Draconians are alright with Tropical climates, so Domain of the Sun would be optional.

And finally Creation Adept, as it provides a solid healing spell and Clenase The Land(Changes a decent chunk of hexes into Temperate terrain). The latter in particular is useful, as all races are alright with Temperate climate, which thusly allows me to get decent terrain-related happiness for my cities anywhere except underground.

All in all, my favorite setup so far. Sure, I admit, it is -very- much limited in terms of elemental variety damage-wise, but it got plenty Physical and Fire to go around for everyone!

[Jaxtor]

Some things go with certain races better than others. For instance rogues get a thing that cause certain units to do blight damage. So a rogue goblin combo ends up with goblins that do extra blight damage. Arch druids get a thing that cause archers to cause bleed damage, mix that with elven archers who seem to take no range penalty unless shooting through something and you get a pretty sick combo especially if you take the destruction domain and put killer instinct on said archers, things can die pretty quickly!

[upuaut]

Warlord/Draconian/Master Fire+Creation Adept sounds fun. Haven´t found "my" combo yet. I´m still trying all the different possibilities.

[Healthyveggie]

I had an absolute "Blast" with my dwarven dreadnought, earth tier 2 and expansionism. blow stuff up man :)

[Undead Llama]

Either Elven sorcerer or Dwarven warlord - Sorcerers perform well when paired with gryphons, as their highly mobile nature allows them to take advantage of units the sorc stuns. They also are able to keep pace with summoned armies regardless of terrain, which is always nice.

Dwarven warlord because they make their units heavy-hitting tanks - dwarven manticores are unbelievably tough to kill, and a stack of Warlord boosted Firstborn will tear apart landships which outnumber them 2:1.

[Szeron]

Warlord-Explorer is probably my favorite so far. You get brutally efficient Monster Hunter killing machines that can take on anything and everything along with a very powerful cavalry force.

Go with Humans and Creation 1, and you've got really nasty Knights backed up with Mounted Archers and Manticore Riders that are easy to keep happy through Cleanse the Land and Terraforming to Fertile Plains.


Second favorite combo so far is probably Orcish Archdruid. "Hunters" synergize very nicely with their melee-heavily forces and let you charm every monster/animal in sight. Orcish Spearmen work nicely with Explorer as well(shields, ranged attacks, and the ability to dash in conjuction with passive irregular movement speed and terrain buffs).

[Edge]

I love doing a high elf arch druid, 2 earth 1 creation. I think the spell is called sunburst, deals 15 damage to the entire army. Great spell to use before fighting the AI especially in multiplayer with auto resolve on. Also love the 6 extra health regen per turn hero trait. And the summon spells are excellent to reinforce an army on map. Elves just because it makes the most sense to me to go with a druid.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

I am currently experiment so this might change but for now:
Human socceror.
Fire adept, fire mastery, expander.
Reasoning:
I love magic.
And socceror is your typical archmage.
Also summon mouth is awesome.
As for why fire...while it is freaking overpowered.
Fire halo makes you immune to fire, hellfire is a instant cast mana bomb.
And you get two very powerfull summons.
And tropical empire is only slightly worse them temperate empire.
Aslo fire ball.
High dmg again anything execpt draconions.
Also humans because there pretty :P

[Marc]

^ Okay, that was painful to read.

Anyway, I've been playing a Goblin Sorcerer lately.

Blight Doctors are awesome debuffers, and with phase, the stunning ability, they can really shutdown large armies. Plus they're cheaper than the sorcerer class one.

Specialization would be 2 destruction and 1 fire
Since Goblins do not get a penalty for Blight, you can use Blight Empire for transforming your entire empire to blighted. Receiving a good defense bonus against enemies, as they're not happy to be in your lands.

The 1 fire would be for Domain of the Sun. Goblins hate Tropical and Volcanic, this fixes both. Though I'm still testing it, if we're using Blight Empire it hardly matters. Maybe Expander instead of fire for an even bigger growth rate and expansion.



What I've also found working pretty nicely, is Dwarf Theocrat

Tanky nature of Dwarves with great healing ability from Theocrat.

[Krutsi]

Haven't really played that many games, but so far my favorite combination is a Dreadnought Draconian with Fire mastery and whatever for the third specialization. Can AOE around your own units with the high fire resist, and you get a strong T3 flier from your racials to cover lacking them otherwise.

Weakness is obviously something of an overreliance on fire damage, but to be honest there generally isn't that many ways to exploit this for the opponents short of being draconian themselves.

[Luciferos]

My favorite combos:

Dwarf Dreadnought, Fire Adept, and 2 Preference:

Draconian units all come with 20% fire protection natively, but the Dwarves have Forge Priests and Firstborn with 100% Fire resistance that make Destabilized Mana Core, possibly combined with Hellfire, delightfully powerful while leaving your units completely immune. Fire Adept grants Skin of Oil, capable of breaking pesky fire immunity. Great Blacksmithing and Solid Engineering negate the increased cost of superior Dwarven units and makes them even tougher. Siege engines provide dwarves with a powerful ranged punch. Weapon Kit can provide your potent infantry with additional combat tools. Aside from Destruction's limited utility, pick two specializations that fit your playstyle and romp the map. (try Air Adept for Seeker, place on Cannons and Muskets)

Orc Rogue, Explorer, and 2 Preference:

Orcs have the best race irregular in the game, with Victory Rush, War Cry, Shield, Sprint, Armor Piercing on Gold, and the highest HP. The unit is dirt cheap. All of this synergizes amazingly well with Rogues' research benefits: +2 poison melee enchantment, +1 medal level on hire, backstab, and invisibility on city hexes. Irregular gives them cavalry movement, enhanced world map vision and terrain mastery. The rest of the Orc melee race units are above average and also benefit from early Rogue research. Playing Orc helps eliminate the Rogue's shaky early game, and Explorer + Orc + Rogue makes their irregulars exceptional at clearing, exploring, and conquering early.

Goblin Arch Druid, Expander, Air Adept, Air Mastery:

-Hasted Hunters with 40 square base movement and Seeker on their bows.
-Haste on giant stompy monsters. Your myriad animals and monsters don't suffer from Goblin racial penalty.
-Tame Troll enhanced with Savage Rage can have Charge, First Strike, Armor Piercing, Overwhelm, Wall Crushing(x2), Regrowth, Demolisher, Guard Breaker, Killing Momentum, Fearsome, Mind Control Immunity, enhanced resistances, and nearly 30 physical power. Oh, and Haste. And these get reduced unit upkeep costs.
-Goblins: +10% population growth and -10% unit costs (settlers & builders!) Fertility Rites: +15% population growth. Expansionism: +20 production and double population growth. Fertile Domain: +200 population growth. Manifest Destiny!

[Sarkin]

uh i usually play a druid, with Fire mastery, and creation adept...with Elves ...my only reasons being i go with what i like o.o i have no strategic reasoning behind it. Druids because i like thei dea of being one with nature....an fire cause o.o everythings susceptible to fire.(atleast in reality) o.o

[Nabeghlavi]

Human Dreadnaught - Grey Guard Mastery, Wild Magic Adept.

Fastest production in the game with human Dreadnaught. Can be a bit of a pain staying neutral, but with scales of fortune buffs on your cannon producing cities, they crit twice as often. Shield of dispassion is also nice early on. Absorb enemy cities in half the time, then in huge battles, cardinal culling is just brutal against enemies that rely upon a certain type of unit. To top it off, you get decent summons with summon lesser elemental, a good debuff with degenerate, and can warp your knights behind gates with swap locations, or warp their support units out right in front of your cannons. You can't count on it, but if it's a large or XL map and the game goes long, Chthonic Guardian is a solid tank / flier as well. A fun combination that takes a bit to get going.

[Noble Ten]

I mented it over the past a few times but might as well add to the dicussion

Human Warlord. As I like playing military might style, I found Greyguard Master, and Expansion my specs to suit the style. Sometimes change expansion with scout if I plan to build monster hunter packs (they become good combat scouts as well,) Scale of fortune, and the defence buff +2def and +1res are helpful skills to warlords.


Being nuetral is a bit touchy tho, you really have to think about the effects from beeing too good and too evil, have to balance out your dicissions. If you want to be making vassles, you have to take a more declare war approach or kill fleeing monsters.

Strengths
Cavalry units (including heros) get a good affinity with humans and warlords. With the race military tree and the warlord passives such as purebreed mounts and matial arts, Knights practiclly become lesser T4. Suprisingly I dont like using the manticores because they have filthy riders (I'll mod them to remove the riders and change them to monster one day), but on paper they would indeed benifit the same, as they are consided cavalry? Also Cavalry(T2) get evole meaning they are cheaper to produce and become Knights on level up.

Weaknesses
Really is not having an effective alterntived to element damage, as its all physical. If you plan well you can use Priests to counter undead, but thats about it.

Scouting is rather slow and weak unless picking up the Scouting Specialization that gives irregulars some movement strength.