Tips for archdruid?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

I am trying to improve my archdruid skills but i find the entire class lacking.
I get it is a jack of all trade master of none but i cant seem to get the hang of it.

Any tips on how to play an archdruid.

[scottkbeers]

Originally posted by icepac:

Just for the heck of it since somebody already necroed that thread ;)

Disclaimer : this is my opinion. I don't pretend to know everything and be right about everything... <end Disclaimer>

Arch Druid and Rogue Lord are amongst the least liked class because they are NOT combat oriented class...

Here is my analysis of Arch Druid :
Positive :
- Best growth (by far) in the game, especially if you specialize with Expander and choose Goblin as a race
- Great (if not best) unit pound for pound (which means 1v1 against equivalent ranked unit) (Why are they so bad at combat then ? Read on and see !)
- Top mobility in game
- 2nd best stealth
- top 3 in terms of range fighting (especially with massed serpents)
- Great at defending their territory (which goes hand in hand with the previous 3 pluses)
- Superb synergy with their own hero (Archdruid hero ftw!!)
- Master of the seas (enraged Kraken anyone ???)

Negatve :
- Worst (by far) in army deployment. The bulk of their army is summoned and they have no way of accelerating their summoning (unlike Sorc) THis means that by end game, ennemies are pumping up units by the dozen with 10+ cities and you are still popping your units 1 / turn (max), (assuming you are not casting anything else...)
- Heavily reliant on both mana and spellcasting point (again due to heavy summoning reliance)
- Best spells can be disjuncted. Not many / interesting direct dmg / effect spells
- Very bad at siege due to the fact that most units don't have wall climbing / destroying capabilities (they do have a wall destroying spell, but again it can be disjuncted)

Strategy :
In a nutshell : Force the ennemy to attack you on your territory where your overland spells (Poison etc) will tip the balance in your favor even if you are (should be) outnumbered

Detailed : EXPAND early, often, in all direction. Take out resources. You should have (at least) half again more cities than your opponent. And only a Rogue can map better than you so you definately should have a leg up on resources...
Resource to focus on : Spellcasting points (hard to get without reasearch or buildings); Mana, pop... Rest should come naturally
The idea is to suffocate your enemy with your cities and structure and force him to engage you in your territory. Only go on offensive when you are sure of victory.
DO NOT get into a battle of attrition, you are sure to lose (see first negative)
Focus on summoning your animals as much as possible. This is why having Arch Druid heroes is almost essential so they can cast 'Enrage Animals' without depleting your spellcasting points...

Best Race : 1- Goblin (growth bonus synergy and also their Support unit cast weaken which help all of your poisonous critters and Shamans). (Great things to have against undead)
2- Halfling : Specialize in Life magic and you create both pref. environment of halfling (Forest and fertile land). Some Halfling like to backstab while you have a plethora of entagle abilities so that's a great synergy ! You will be weak against undead, which Life magic helps out against a lot

Voilà !

Great comments sir BUT when you said VERY bad siege class that is a BIG not true.You forgot about Wild Hunt spell sir.All your units just float over the wall lol! = Best siege class in the game.

[icepac]

Wow !
And I thought this forum was inactive !!!!

First, you guys seem to be playing 1v1 competitive.
I imagine you play on a small 1v1 map which of course has a huge impact on strat I imagine blitzing is 'au menu' ?

How are those tournament organized ? Is it possible to get into a game ?

Ok now for some answers to your posts :

Originally posted by Nefrogitis:

Your opponent could follow the same strategy guideline you suggested, and he probably will, because that's how the game should be played, and you will find yourself forced to attack him first. Not fun at all.

If you are A.D. and he's not then there is simply no way he can compete with your expansion, unless he got extremely lucky and started with 4 farms !

@hiliadan

I wont pretend to know how to play tournament. My only comments are twofold :

1- Shamans and Hunters are backline units. So what do you have in front of them ?
2- Shamans in particular are level 3 unit. How are you going to mass them before you are completely overrun by your opp. Especially on a small map shouldn't you be looking to mass tier I and II units for a quick strike blitzkrieg style ?

Originally posted by scottkbeers:

Great comments sir BUT when you said VERY bad siege class that is a BIG not true.You forgot about Wild Hunt spell sir.All your units just float over the wall lol! = Best siege class in the game.

Wild Hunt is the last spell of your book. Unless you never siege a city until you have Wild Hunt available, (I'd like to see a game where nobody siege before they reach Tier IV super enchants) you are effectively the worst siege Class in the game.

By the time you have Wild Hunt the game should be pretty much decided...

[hiliadan]

We play on a Tournament size map which has about +16 hexes and +8 hexes compared to a small map, but is still quite small indeed. So yes, clearly it does influence strategies. However, my comment remains true on Large maps, as I based it on a play on a Large map where I overlooked Hunters and Shamans and then paid the price (and lost).

You can see the current tournament here: https://www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=tourneymain&tourneyid=6
Check the "Rules" section for the settings.

There is also a live MP tournament looking for players here: https://www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=tourneymain&tourneyid=8

Once tournaments are started, you can sometimes pick a seat if a player drops but it's relatively rare.

Originally posted by icepac:

1- Shamans and Hunters are backline units. So what do you have in front of them ?
2- Shamans in particular are level 3 unit. How are you going to mass them before you are completely overrun by your opp. Especially on a small map shouldn't you be looking to mass tier I and II units for a quick strike blitzkrieg style ?

For a complete overview, I invite you to watch the videos I linked (uploaded up to turn 6 now).
I send Hunters alone, a pack of 4-6 Hunters can take on low level sites and can take most poorly garrisoned cities alone (i.e. most cities in multiplayer :D).
Same for Shamans, I send Shamans and Hunters together. You cannot really send other units with them because they move too fast (40 MP, Free Movement, Swimming, Cave Crawling for Goblins... that's fast). You do not use them to fight big battles against Knights and Giants, you use them to harass your opponent in his lands, when his army is not there. For the big armies, you still need the big animals and your racial units.

Indeed, you don't get Shamans that fast. So I did use T1 for blitzkrieg: Hunters. Their mobility is really key and you need to use it to run around the enemy without giving him the opportunity to catch you. Because in face to face fights, they have no chance against decent armies.

But for me the key point is that AD is very weak late game (Wild Hunt is much much worse than other end game spells IMO) so you really need to take advantage of early and mid game when your mobility, summons and Befriend ability means your army can be a bit stronger and at places where it's not expected.

[Sam Hotte]

Originally posted by icepac:

1- Shamans and Hunters are backline units. So what do you have in front of them ?

Racial units, of course. Nothing prevents player to mix class and racial units.
As you suggested Goblin as the race to go with AD: Those pikeman with lifestealing are good protectors for hunters, for instance.

2- Shamans in particular are level 3 unit. How are you going to mass them before you are completely overrun by your opp.

Unlike most other classes, the AD only needs to research "shaman" and built T1 class building in a town to produce T3 unit. (The other classes need at least their T2 class building).
So producing Shamans is quite fast in comparison.

Wild Hunt is the last spell of your book. Unless you never siege a city until you have Wild Hunt available, (I'd like to see a game where nobody siege before they reach Tier IV super enchants) you are effectively the worst siege Class in the game.

Nah, not really. If you have spiders and/or flying summons, you can go past walls nearly the same as other classes. And AD can create summons behind Walls.

So, yes, there are other classes that do better in sieges, but it's doable with AD also.

[Calm]

I know this is a necro, but I don't think you're meant to rely on just raw summon power in the late game. As others have said, you'll just never produce enough to keep up with warlords or dreadnoughts.

I think you're meant to use racial units AND summons as the bulk of your armies. You can actually afford to do both, because the racials only take gold, and the summons only take mana.

Of course, your racial units will always be inferior to warlord units, but you have access to a lot more tricks---combat spells in particular. Doesn't matter how elite the enemy units are if they can't get to you.

[Calm]

One trap I've fallen into is to over-prioritize megaliths. The 20/mana turn is pretty great, but you really can't use all that mana until you ALREADY have a bunch of summons.

What units to build as archdruid is kind of weird. As humans I found the most success building a bunch of longswordsmen for a while, mixing in summons. The hunters I use more as scouts/observers than real combatants. After that it's a toss-up between trebuchets, priests, and cavalry. Trebuchets are for dealing with walls/closed-off camps, priests are for healing longswordsmen/summons, and cavalry are if I'm being attacked.

Anyway. The point is: don't get too caught-up with summons. You really do end up needing a more balanced force.

[icepac]

Originally posted by Calm:

I now this is a necro, but I don't think you're meant to rely on just raw summon power in the late game. As others have said, you'll just never produce enough to keep up with warlords or dreadnoughts.

Hey Calm, I've necroed it before you so you're forgiven.

If you let live a Warlord and especially a Dread (yikes) all the way to late game then you plly should resign unless you've conquered more than half the map. The point of AD is to strike early, fast and hard. You got ambush units (hunters, more on them later) and you also have a very decent army that you can buff to smithereen with the right spec:

AD is one of 2 (other being Theo) that really makes use of Grey Guard 'Scale of Fortune'. SoF makes the Shaman - beast combo compltely crazy !
I found the best setup to be : Air mastery + Greay Guard :
You stack : Awaken, Savage Fury and Haste on any beast and you get a freight train that can charge at will and gets 50% chance of a crit (on a charge!)


Last time I played AD was with the Vanilla version.
In the latest version, AD has changed a lot !

If you use Elf race then your GOvernance will solve those mana and most importantly CP problem by mid game.

Air mastery also takes care of your biggest problem with Elf race (terrain management) Using Arctic Empire will nullify all those terrain penalties.

You're right however not to use Hunters in your main army... Instead of using them just to scout why not stack 6 of them and have a real commando force that can take poorly defended ennemy cities and ambush roaming units... That will greatly put a dent in your ennemies strike capability and make them defend instead of going after you, leaving you room to grow.

Also, another bonus of going Air is that you have one of the best scout in the game = Zephyr Bird that you can also add in 'beast army' if need be... However you would need to get it early enough to be relevant...

Grey Guard also provide Essence Harvest which is will help your CP in the early going before you can get to 'deity' level with your High Elves

For Heroes, you should go AD (for Savage Fury), Necro (control undead), Mage (control magic being), Theo (morale bonus), and then Warlord (army bonuses)... I personally try to stay away from Rogue (Although it seriously help your siege abilities) and especially Dread...

[Calm]

That feeling when you're reading an interesting thread and find that you commented on it a year ago. I should really start playing Necro...

My thinking has changed since I wrote the above. Or at least grown in nuance, hopefully.

The thing about Druids is you have to change the "scale" of your thinking. The same units act differently at different scales. Up close, Hunters are squishy targets. A little bigger, they are potent ranged attackers. Even bigger, they are slow (before upgrade) archers that can't project power over a battlefield like cavalry can. Even bigger (on the global map, outside of battle) they are unstoppable invisible T1 Shadow Stalkers that laugh at terrain and can avoid detection.

Thinking at the big, slow scale is where Druid play is at. Combat should pretty much be won before it starts, between your crazy growth (Fertile Domain + Henge + Megalith + summons) and your overland mobility (forests, water, flight). You probably have the best ability of any class to set up fights where you outnumber the enemy.

[sinobas]

Druids are one of my favorite classes. My overall strategy, which usually works: play as high elf, build hunters early in the game. Concentrate on research and mana. Go through your summoning tree as soon as possible...hell hounds, serpents, horned gods. High Elf Hunters are the best tier 1 unit in the game IMO, but you can't rely on them too much late in the game because they are just too easy to kill.

Don't waste your casting points on combat spells, save them all for summoning, and always be summoning. Once you get horned gods, you'll F'up everything. They are the best unit in the game. As a summoning class, you can keep summoning units to your "spearhead" stacks that are going around the map conquering treasure sites, and cities.

Shaman are useful too for their entangle/dispell/primal rage ability. But 1-2 shaman per stack is enough.

Another great thing about playing as high elves, is the +5 casting points you get with great temples. That really helps with summoning.

[sinobas]

Originally posted by Nefrogitis:

Archdruids don't stand a chance against Warlords in the end game. If they don't snatch a victory early on, they just lose.

Not true if you have a stack of Horned Gods. Horned God's will wipe out any warlord army of equivalent level...

[MattStriker]

The problem is that warlords can produce manticore doomstacks far quicker than an archdruid can summon horned gods. You might win if numbers are equal, but they won't be. You'll be outproduced and overrun.

[BBB]

I'd venture the thought that a Horned god is worth 2 manticores!

[MattStriker]

Which doesn't matter if you can summon one at a time and the warlord can build as many as they have cities once their economy gets rolling.

[sinobas]

Originally posted by MattStriker:

Which doesn't matter if you can summon one at a time and the warlord can build as many as they have cities once their economy gets rolling.

But summoning has a big advantage over producing in a city: you get to plop the summoned unit anywhere on the map (assuming you have a hero there). You have to move a city produced unit all the way across the map, which takes several turns. So you can often outnumber your opponent where it matters, even if your total number of units is less.

A stack of Horned Gods will whip manicore riders, even with global assault. They'll just keep winning and healing and taking over cities.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

If those horned gods are in the hands of a player and the manticores are in the hands of the AI, the player can win against a late-game warlord just fine. Keep pushing their cities, make sure the horned gods don't die, back them up with plenty of racial units. As long as the empires aren't too disparate, they'll be fine.

But it's not a question of unit or faction balance so much as it is a question of the player being able to use his units better, both in tactical combat and especially on the tactical map.

If that late game warlord managed to exploit his production capacity and economy to maximum possible effeect and have his stacks attack on all fronts, the druid would lose.