Loth Tips

[Quillithe]

I got this not too long ago and have been finding it great - but I seem to always struggle in AI skirmishes whenever I try out Loth. What am I missing? (I think I'm trying to use some bad units, honestly)

Anyway, here's my opinions of each unit to get some better input:

Rats - I should use these more, they seem pretty dangerous - but they are going to take losses. Pretty sad essence too.

Oathbound - Seem like a core unit to basically just spam.

Toxicologists - Also seem pretty core, shame about the short range. I guess you can aim while moving up with the upgrades.

Cultists - Sadly expensive for musicians AND with less points of essence than the other similar ones. It can be okay to take some to buff, but mostly not impressed over more oathbound. Guess they do move faster and make undead on death.

Aurelian Scholars - I want this unit to be useful, but it's just not. Their ranged damage and health are terrible before the upgrade, and afterwards if you use them for essence they don't get to shoot anyway. Add to that no retaliation and enemy heroes almost always having magic resist, and they just don't do damage either way. I guess you could throw them 1/slot to save money, but I don't think it's worth the building.

Extra sad because the other essence battery unit is so much better.

Scavanged bones - seems like a decent guy to walk in and retaliate, kinda uninspired and weak to archers for the cost. Also terrible essence, the magic in this faction is incredibly weak.

Spectres - The upgrade ability is good on lower tier units (rats) I guess, but they seem pretty frail for the cost otherwise and without wait to help out. Actually good for spellcasting at least.

Legions - honestly not sure, are they good?


I guess I should just mass undead and rats, but they seem pretty weak compared to the other factions with far better magic and special abilities

[pi73r]

Loth has the best essence generation together with rana so idk what you are talking about. If you don't wanna go magic you could go mass rats on smaller maps.

[hanjimatt]

Ok here is my thoughts:

If you want more defense you can go for oathbound and upgrade them asap, then you can build mausoleum (crypt required) to get spectres and scavanged bones.

Spectres are the hammer, the core attack for the build since they can ignore zone of control, upgrade asap because Seneschals get huge increase stats and their ability get more buff.

Scavanged bones are the shield, high HP with nice defense and infinite retaliations, you can put them at the choke point or near the allies you want to protect.

And Legions are good, good stats, good arc AoE, intimidating and relatively cheap. But this build need more resources because you build crypt at the beginning instead of resources buildings.

If you want magic, specially arcana, Toxicologists and Cultists is the core units, both are generate arcana essence, upgrade them asap for huge stats increased.

Use Toxicologists to reduce enemies stack and oathsingers take care the rest, if range is too short, use Dimensional Door spell to get them closer to the target, repel spell can kick enemies away from your troops

Aurelian Scholars are essence generator, but Necromancers need Celestial Ore and so does when you upgrade laboratory level 2 in order to get Banes, you have to choose where to spend.

And for the Rats, they are early game units for transition, they are good for attack, but can't take any hit.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by pi73r:

Loth has the best essence generation together with rana so idk what you are talking about. If you don't wanna go magic you could go mass rats on smaller maps.

Not really. Very late game Loth can get Order and Arcana magic together and boost its essence generation, but until that point it's way behind the rest of the factions.

They have only 2 units that give 3 essence, and 2 units that give 1. And one of the 3 essence units is pretty terrible as a unit.

Compare to other factions - Arleon has 5 units that give 3 essence when upgraded! Rana gets Chelun!

Barya isn't great at magic admittedly. Unless you count the magic of guns.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by hanjimatt:

Ok here is my thoughts:

If you want more defense you can go for oathbound and upgrade them asap, then you can build mausoleum (crypt required) to get spectres and scavanged bones.

Spectres are the hammer, the core attack for the build since they can ignore zone of control, upgrade asap because Seneschals get huge increase stats and their ability get more buff.

Scavanged bones are the shield, high HP with nice defense and infinite retaliations, you can put them at the choke point or near the allies you want to protect.

And Legions are good, good stats, good arc AoE, intimidating and relatively cheap. But this build need more resources because you build crypt at the beginning instead of resources buildings.

If you want magic, specially arcana, Toxicologists and Cultists is the core units, both are generate arcana essence, upgrade them asap for huge stats increased.

Use Toxicologists to reduce enemies stack and oathsingers take care the rest, if range is too short, use Dimensional Door spell to get them closer to the target, repel spell can kick enemies away from your troops

Aurelian Scholars are essence generator, but Necromancers need Celestial Ore and so does when you upgrade laboratory level 2 in order to get Banes, you have to choose where to spend.

And for the Rats, they are early game units for transition, they are good for attack, but can't take any hit.

Yeah, think I was trying to build the wrong mid-size building. Seneschals buffing rats, making essence, and swooping in to finish off units sounds much more promising.

I kept trying to make Aurelian Scholars any good, and it's just...not possible until much later game. They have such terrible stats and arcana seems like a weaker magic type since EVERY AI wielder in skirmish I've encountered has magic resist and Loth has no wielder with bonus magic damage, so that basically just disables half the spells.

[pi73r]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by hanjimatt:

Ok here is my thoughts:

If you want more defense you can go for oathbound and upgrade them asap, then you can build mausoleum (crypt required) to get spectres and scavanged bones.

Spectres are the hammer, the core attack for the build since they can ignore zone of control, upgrade asap because Seneschals get huge increase stats and their ability get more buff.

Scavanged bones are the shield, high HP with nice defense and infinite retaliations, you can put them at the choke point or near the allies you want to protect.

And Legions are good, good stats, good arc AoE, intimidating and relatively cheap. But this build need more resources because you build crypt at the beginning instead of resources buildings.

If you want magic, specially arcana, Toxicologists and Cultists is the core units, both are generate arcana essence, upgrade them asap for huge stats increased.

Use Toxicologists to reduce enemies stack and oathsingers take care the rest, if range is too short, use Dimensional Door spell to get them closer to the target, repel spell can kick enemies away from your troops

Aurelian Scholars are essence generator, but Necromancers need Celestial Ore and so does when you upgrade laboratory level 2 in order to get Banes, you have to choose where to spend.

And for the Rats, they are early game units for transition, they are good for attack, but can't take any hit.

Yeah, think I was trying to build the wrong mid-size building. Seneschals buffing rats, making essence, and swooping in to finish off units sounds much more promising.

I kept trying to make Aurelian Scholars any good, and it's just...not possible until much later game. They have such terrible stats and arcana seems like a weaker magic type since EVERY AI wielder in skirmish I've encountered has magic resist and Loth has no wielder with bonus magic damage, so that basically just disables half the spells.

The only S tier loth wielder is bonus magic damage. Yes, upgraded they aren't the best spellwise but they got the best early game generation and unless you are playing on large maps the games are decided before that.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by pi73r:

The only S tier loth wielder is bonus magic damage. Yes, upgraded they aren't the best spellwise but they got the best early game generation and unless you are playing on large maps the games are decided before that.

Oh, yeah they do have a magic damage wielder - I forgot. It just gets wrecked so hard by magic resist that you still don't do any damage.

I don't think they have a particular advantage on essence even un-upgraded though. The only thing that stands out there is Aurelian Scholars, and they're pretty abysmal as units so they'd better get something.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

My best foray as Loth was with Brother Hillar as the main wielder, making the most out of spamming rats. Hardly elegant, but against the old AI it worked really well - swarms of rats combined with oathsingers to make them even scarier and a stack of toxicologists as a ranged option. Loth does indeed have the worst shooter selection, but they in particular become decent once upgraded (the aim ability on top of poison which stacks with the rats' one).

As far as Loth's magic being negated by MR - you still have things like Aggression (again, for the rats in my aforementioned case) and Sabotage which are worth maxing out the Destruction skill for. Ice Arrow has control utility even if its damage is negligible (since nothing in the game has magic immunity). The Arcana/Destruction combo (the one you'd have the Aurelian Scholars around for) also gives you essence removal to counter things like the Chelun Elders (although if it's a well-built Rana player they'd get their spam out before any of your stacks get their turn...) and the Faey Queens (which I don't think are really used all that often because Arleon has far better army compositions (fists of order, forest ragers)). Rift is kinda utterly useless against a 50%+ MR wielder, though, that much is true. You can still cast things like Repel and Dimension Door, though.

The game really does need some means for casters to be able to bypass magic resistance. As for Loth, again - it seems their advantage is meant to be in having hardy ranged-resistant units, excellent chargers in Senechals and, well, rats, with high legions being a powerful endgame option if you manage to get ways to reliably make the most out of their AoE attack (teleporting them into the enemy's ranks and casting Blind Hatred / Carnage on them is one, but it needs Chaos essence to happen, having them fully upgraded so the enemy doesn't retaliate to them also helps a lot). Blessed bones are a good alternative to the scholars as the essence generators since you can keep sacrificing them to get the free oathbound (Order/Destruction, which at least gives you Judgment - too bad Rapid Fire is wasted on Loth).

Risen are mostly a joke, though - I know they've meant to introduce some equivalent to the necromancy mechanic via their existence but they are much too weak to be in any way useful even in larger numbers, and you don't have an abundance of disposable human creatures to keep making them. Now if you could raise them mid-battle somehow, they'd at least be useful as a distraction and make ranged compositions more viable.

[pi73r]

I'm no expert (yet :P) but isn't loth considered to be the best faction next to Rana while all S tier wielders are spellcasters? I don't think we need any nerfs to magic resistance at current game state.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Risen are mostly a joke, though - I know they've meant to introduce some equivalent to the necromancy mechanic via their existence but they are much too weak to be in any way useful even in larger numbers, and you don't have an abundance of disposable human creatures to keep making them. Now if you could raise them mid-battle somehow, they'd at least be useful as a distraction and make ranged compositions more viable.

Thanks for the tips!

Yeah, like you said the best use I've found for risen is that earlier on if you have more command than you can really fill, you can take the extra slot and just use the tiny amount of risen as bait and body blockers - any hit they take is one your real units aren't.

And yeah, it's more their arcane magic that MR hurts pretty badly. Pushing enemy units back is okay, dimension door is alright (I prefer chaos step that usually does what you need for half the cost). But they're quite a bit more limited, every other magic has a buff or debuff in its spells and usually a secondary effect on its damage spells. Not to mention that one of the two arcana/destruction spells is also pure damage!

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Loth does indeed have the worst shooter selection, but they in particular become decent once upgraded (the aim ability on top of poison which stacks with the rats' one).

Wait, I'd give worst shooters to Rana, I thought. Shaman are alright but seem less of a, Eth'dra come pretty late (and don't upgrade to shooters) and that's it.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by pi73r:

I'm no expert (yet :P) but isn't loth considered to be the best faction next to Rana while all S tier wielders are spellcasters? I don't think we need any nerfs to magic resistance at current game state.

I'm guessing they're top tier because of early power? Having bonus spell damage can help take early neutral stacks I'd think.

Probably something I'd take advantage of more, but I'm pretty casual - hardly going to get into competitive pvp or anything.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Loth does indeed have the worst shooter selection, but they in particular become decent once upgraded (the aim ability on top of poison which stacks with the rats' one).

Wait, I'd give worst shooters to Rana, I thought. Shaman are alright but seem less of a, Eth'dra come pretty late (and don't upgrade to shooters) and that's it.

Shamans / Sages come in huge stacks and, unlike militia, don't need to reload, plus they have poison which scales with the stack size rather than the creatures' individual power (hence why both rats and shamans are really good if you want to use it as part of your tactics), and they generate essence well (arcana and creation, so you get roots you can effectively remove enemy melee units from the fight with entirely and just shoot without reservation).

eth'Dra coming late can be somewhat alleviated by optimizing your town building sequence, and I'd still consider dragons to be shooters of a sort (because of the 2-tile range on their attack, and since Rana have the easiest access to Arcana they can be repelled / dimension doored them away to avoid getting hit back).

I'd argue that Rana's shooter options are better than Loth's, and they have the strongest tier-8 creature in the game, and they have the most powerful musician unit (both in statistics and in the effect of the song), but their late creatures are pricey and I couldn't really ever find a good way to use Guards in an army except to fill a slot and absorb damage.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Wait, I'd give worst shooters to Rana, I thought. Shaman are alright but seem less of a, Eth'dra come pretty late (and don't upgrade to shooters) and that's it.

Shamans / Sages come in huge stacks and, unlike militia, don't need to reload, plus they have poison which scales with the stack size rather than the creatures' individual power (hence why both rats and shamans are really good if you want to use it as part of your tactics), and they generate essence well (arcana and creation, so you get roots you can effectively remove enemy melee units from the fight with entirely and just shoot without reservation).

eth'Dra coming late can be somewhat alleviated by optimizing your town building sequence, and I'd still consider dragons to be shooters of a sort (because of the 2-tile range on their attack, and since Rana have the easiest access to Arcana they can be repelled / dimension doored them away to avoid getting hit back).

I'd argue that Rana's shooter options are better than Loth's, and they have the strongest tier-8 creature in the game, and they have the most powerful musician unit (both in statistics and in the effect of the song), but their late creatures are pricey and I couldn't really ever find a good way to use Guards in an army except to fill a slot and absorb damage.

Fair enough - also didn't realize poison was purely stack size based, sounded like it was damage based. That would put them ahead of toxicologists which otherwise seem pretty competitive.

I really like Rana too - definitely the best musician unit (probably give second to Barya for the initiative boost, but Arleon is respectable too).

The whole guard building is kinda tough to use - guards are so slow and compete with Chelun for the role if you want a stationary blocker, but Chelun do so much more - if you're trying to play defensively ranged resist and more essence are so good. And crawlers are fine, but don't seem to naturally pair well with guards - I'd usually rather have ravagers and tremors.

Anyway - kinda tempted to start another thread for another faction, I always enjoy some good unit discussion. There's plenty for me to learn.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by pi73r:

I'm no expert (yet :P) but isn't loth considered to be the best faction next to Rana while all S tier wielders are spellcasters? I don't think we need any nerfs to magic resistance at current game state.

I'm guessing they're top tier because of early power? Having bonus spell damage can help take early neutral stacks I'd think.

Probably something I'd take advantage of more, but I'm pretty casual - hardly going to get into competitive pvp or anything.

Just responding to myself to say this seems to be the case after completely rampaging every neutral on the map with starting units into 4-10 minstrels with the Arleon spell damage wielder. It's pretty strong that you never need to head back and can put all your recruited units on a complete secondary wielder.

And then dying to another player is basically just a free teleport back to your town.

EDIT: Or I might just beat the AI with 10 minstrels. They really should add some cheating AI, this is kinda sad. Though it's also my feeling that creation magic might be a little bit too strong - a well timed insect swarm lets you get two turns in a row and acid cloud seems like the best damage spell by a lot. Mist can let you do some absolutely unfair things at times, and Earth block pretty much negates all melee units.

Also it's entertaining how stacking nothing but Troubadours makes your side basically immune to spell damage (and honestly any damage) at the same time you're spraying spells everywhere.

[hanjimatt]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Shamans / Sages come in huge stacks and, unlike militia, don't need to reload, plus they have poison which scales with the stack size rather than the creatures' individual power

Dev team never explain how does poison works, some says that based on wielder's level and you say based on stack size, that reminds me to test out :D

If it's based on wielder's level, let's say Lv.5 and we have 30 shaman, split to 3 stack can do more 15 damage. If it's based on stacks size the poison will be same damage.

I have same issue with the guards, they supposed to protect hunters and ravagers, but their movement is only 3 steps to left behind.

[Quillithe]

I got the hang of it more eventually - they still feel a bit weaker than some other factions because they don't have quite as absurd a fast no-casualty kill all neutrals strategy like 5 troubadours or one group of dire dreaths (it's kinda funny how neutral melee AI knows not to attack them, but it will just continually pass its turn instead of walking past them once it's in range).

In particular I realized part of the awkwardness from going spell damage focused - Loth basically doesn't actually get Channeling skill for more damage! You can but only if you randomly roll it after randomly rolling Essence Leech and being lvl 5+, which is pretty rough. Most other factions are a bit likelier to get it easily, I think.