Undead desperately need buffs

[Efyian]

I've come to the conclusion that the UD faction is currently the most underpowered faction overall.

It all comes down to 1 point: they need a unit that does elemental or spirit damage. A magic tower that does spirit or elemental damage would also be really important. It doesn't have to be 10 damage (ex. a 7 spirit damage tower, or a 8 elemental would be fine, but they desperately need something like that.

A few other minor buffs I would recommend would be:
a) Give Flying Line Galleus a HP buff (I still don't see them ever showing up in MP games due to high cost and military academy requirements, but an elite unit like them needs more hp).
b) Krolm's Housecarl are pathetic. 16 attack? 40hp? At the very least, it should be 20att with 50hp. I would actually recommend 24att, 55hp to make them semi-useful, and even then I would prefer the other 3 temple units over them.
c) Dracolich is by far the most useless unit. it has the lowest base damage of any elite unit (14 elemental????), and is cursed with low hp (35) as well. At the very least, raise it to 18 elemental/9death, and 40hp. Even then, I doubt I'd ever train one, but it would make a potential (if highly unlikely) option.

Reason why they're weak:
a) their capital's tower, and all their magic towers do death damage. The end result is that if you can krypta's summon skeleton spell, or a single undead neutral city will make their magic towers and capital are useless.
Every other faction's neutrals can build 3 or 4 magic towers (elemental damage) with military units, and form an nearly-invincible stronghold in mid-game. Undead players doing this can be easily cracked, due to basic units (the skeletons) that have immunity to death magic.
Similarly, the UD capital doing death damage means that in the early-game, its defenseless if you have any skeletons, and only needs to be worn down.

b) vampires, their magic unit, does death magic. Sadly, this makes them so easy to counter that I never see them in MP.
c) Early game consists of 2 main points, really. The first is grabbing lairs as fast as you can with your troops. The second is the ability to kill a great fire elemental, so that you can make temple units
Since GFEs have high melee, missile resists, and are immune to death, UD basically cannot hurt them much.
In other words, your only chance of killing one is getting a high elemental damage spell (fireball, lightning can work if used properly, but nowhere near as good) or a ranged hero (elvish healer, goblin archer, and shaman can all kill GFEs pretty easily with some archer support).
However, being so reliant on luck is not a good thing, especially since the other factions can easily take down these elementals with units (humans with a wizard + archers, and goblins with 1-2 shaman and a higher number of archers).

As for grabbing lairs... well 3 movement on their skeletons is not conductive to being able to reach lairs quickly and efficiently.
A unit that does elemental/spirit damage would fix all these issues, and give them a fighting chance.

Note:
a) an alternate way to fix it would be to remove skeleton and GFE death immunity, but that sounds a bit odd even to me.
b) Koatl village perk fixes this issue (Koatl warlock attack is elemental, with a death damage stunning spell). But Koatl village is completely imbalanced (way too effective for its 2 point cost, and Koatl warlocks are completely OP). This is doubly true for UD who don't even need to bother with food upkeep.


EDIT:
- Magical Transformer from Magic Fields applies to Casters, Healers, and Constructs. It gives +20% power which is great.

But... the only unit it affects for UD is... vampires? Which, as stated earlier, are really hard to use...

 

[Mardagg]

I agree on the Towers and the Capital.
Should be Elemtal damage.Very important!

Flying Line Galleus...well yeah i never bother to upgrade the Flying Galleus due to the horrendous cost and the fact that the simple Galleus is pretty good already for the tasks i give it.I doubt an in increase in HP would change this...but it would make sense.


Other then that i think that UD are pretty good and really shine on larger maps,where the ability to always get to Bats/Flying Galleus really fast can accumulate a lot of money,especially when there is ocean as well+UD generally get a long very good vs all Indies except the Elementals.Predator Spiders for example are no match for UD player even early on.
No need to further improve them imo.

The Draclich unit should not made stronger imo.
Its a kind of bonus unit anyways and i only used it in SP games so far....but there it really shines:
U can do a lot of nasty things with with just a few perks like the very important ghost armor ,the dracolich has pretty good inherent resistances,the level perks when advancing fit very well to it AND you forgot to mention that it has area damage which is really OP with a flying unit vs the AI.
I could see using it as well in MP if i start playing on really large maps.It synergizes going the vampire route in the capital pretty good and you can get out a flying area damage unit pretty early that way.

Krolms Housecarls are a big joke,thats right.

 

[cryptc]

Agreed on capital tower and housecarls...

But as someone who loves playing undead, I feel they aren't underpowered... Lunord and Krypta temple units are very powerful, their basic warrior/archer units are cheap and has huge ranged resistance which helps a lot especially in early game, but also later.

If ignoring food and just doing mana/gold pure undead their economy gets really strong, and they can have bats and bears for no upkeep, and plenty other units for less upkeep than they cost for food dependant economies.

Lands of Death are also very nice terraforming spell helping yourself and causing problems for non-undeads, and is very useful against the Dremers in apocalypse mode.

I won't say they are the most powerful race, but I find them fun to play, and better than elves atleast.

 

[Mardagg]

Agreed on capital tower and housecarls...

But as someone who loves playing undead, I feel they aren't underpowered... Lunord and Krypta temple units are very powerful, their basic warrior/archer units are cheap and has huge ranged resistance which helps a lot especially in early game, but also later.

If ignoring food and just doing mana/gold pure undead their economy gets really strong, and they can have bats and bears for no upkeep, and plenty other units for less upkeep than they cost for food dependant economies.

Lands of Death are also very nice terraforming spell helping yourself and causing problems for non-undeads, and is very useful against the Dremers in apocalypse mode.

I won't say they are the most powerful race, but I find them fun to play, and better than elves atleast.

Death Paladins are nice as well.
Some months ago i was under the impression that Undead are overpowered.
I did change my mind a little after quite a lot MP games though because of several disadvantages at small to medium maps if favor of Fervus is forbidden(which is OP with Undead as long Bears dont cost more mana ands/or mana upkeep in addition to food).The death damage Towers/capital being the biggest issue.
You are a little slower initially and like Efyian mentioned have a tougher time to get first temple out.
You can offset this though with some intial starting perks like Couatl House or starting blademaster Lord.
Thing with the economy is,while its right that you can ignore Food,which can backfire on you on larger maps though with many non undead indie cities,you still need a lot more mana cities to feed your population/units.Most of the time i end being short of mana with Undeads for the first 30-40 turns which e.g. makes taking Archmage less effective compared to being Human/Monster,where it is tough to get good mana income but you dont have much if any mana upkeep at all and thus can cast many spells early on.Also it is much easier to get food cities rolling than mana cities most of the time.

But the pros of Undead Faction are pretty important for all games,SP and MP alike:

you are guarenteed to get 3 of the most essential things,to me at least,early on:
-Bats
-Flying Galleus
-ghost Armor

Bats are to me the most cost effective unit in the game and my overally favorite unit before Iril Bows.
You get great scouters,great looters and lair treasure hunters and a great "weapon" to finish off fleeing enemy units.
If you get a bat city with Iron and Pumpkins you get the option to upgrade your bats when needed to actually pretty decent units vs many threats.

Flying Galleus are to me one of the best units in the game as well,because you just need 1 or 2 and can start wearing down most of the stronger indies and level 5 indie cities.And all you need is 2 buildings to get them!
You can enter the sea and beat Leviathans,slowly wear down Krakens and 2 slightly leveled up Galeus win even vs the sea serpents.This is strong on maps with water because water treasure tends to be huge.Admittedly they mostly shine vs Indies and the AI because Humans usually take them down with Spells but THAT at least takes away precious casting time.The fact that they are so good vs Indies makes for a fast start and thus makes them good in MP games as well.

Ghost armor is an absolute must have for many units in this game,not only undeads.Can make the difference to field units with ghost armor faster than your opponent.And its cheap.

In addition,Undeads have some nice side strats going,like e.g. making units that cost mainly food upkeep a pretty nice to have thing.
-

Of course with undeads you are forced to find at least some indie sites to get some diversity going,if you dont want your human opponent to exploit your weaknesses.But usually thats not a big problem.

If I would have to rank the faction,i would say that Humans,Monsters and Undead are all about equally strong,with the exception of UD being slightly worse in short to medium MP games.Just making the capital Elemtal damage and maybe the towers as well would make them on par there as well imo.
Elves on the other hand are inferior to all 3 in my book as long as the settlers are 75 gold and 3 turns.

 

[unmerged(489718)]

Most maps are densely populated with neutral cities so settlers aren't that crucial until you want a special resource or holy ground. Don't forget that the life weapon enchant usually comes along fairly early in a game - even earlier for the elves because of their research advantage. So ithril bows with the life weapon enchant can be pretty devastating to undead. In regard to the relative strengths of the different races, I am reminded of an interview that Chess Magazine once did with a famous grandmaster. When asked the question regarding which was the stronger piece, the knight or the bishop, the grandmaster replied: "When I have the bishop, the bishop is the stronger piece. When I have the knight, the knight is the stronger piece." It really depends on the skill of the player.

 

[Mardagg]

"When I have the bishop, the bishop is the stronger piece. When I have the knight, the knight is the stronger piece." It really depends on the skill of the player.

Haha,yea,i like that quote.
But most Grandmasters would agree that 2 Bishops are better than 2 Knights
Regarding Life Enchant:
Yes this very good vs Undead but pretty much useless vs other races.And i would put it differently,since unupgarded unechanted Iril Bows are bad vs UD at start and start to become good with this enchantment,not OP though because the unenchanted part of the damage will still do not much damage.
Certain races have certain advantages/disadadvantages vs other races and player skill is the most important factor always.
But still,overall,having to wait longer for a settler and pay more is pretty big of a downside for the early game where 1 turn more and 25g more can matter a lot
.Additionally elves shine when iril bowmasters are available at which point often 25-35 turns did pass.Midgame elves are nice.Endgame not so because of economy flaws .
I would like to see the settler either 75g/2 turns or 50g/ 3 turns.makes sense since the elven settler is move 3 and can deal some archer damage to make it slower to produce or more costy.But not slower and more costy as it is now.

 

[unmerged(492719)]

Dracoliches hit three stacks at a time. They may have very low base damage (though the 50% boost makes this less horrible), but they splash.

They have 75 resist to missile, immunity to death, and (IIRC) 50 elemental resist. Meaning that most things that can actually proactively attack them, are doing 50% or less damage.

They can be built fairly early in the game from your capital, earlier than any other flying elite.

Honestly, I don't feel they are a weakness.

Truly, Undead are the knee jerk faction of choice. They have so many weaknesses, while also having so many strengths. It is their entire theme. Terrible starting units... but then they get bats, the best scout in the game. Bats are very weak with only 10 hp... but fly meaning most things can't get them. Easy access to galleus allows cheesy ranged strats vs lairs.

I'm not sure if they end up being strong or weak, but I think it's a bit too easy to jump the gun.

Though I agree that undead should not be immune to death damage. Living aren't immune to life right? So let's give undead 100 death resist instead of immunity.

 

[Efyian]

I initially thought UD were acceptable, because of flying galleus rush and high missile defense on base units.
That said, I never play them much in MP (almost always monsters and humans, with a few arathi games). I only used them in SP.

Only recently did I start testing them out against other players, and the more I did, the worst they felt, until I had to make this thread.

 

[unmerged(492719)]

I initially thought UD were acceptable, because of flying galleus rush and high missile defense on base units.
That said, I never play them much in MP (almost always monsters and humans, with a few arathi games). I only used them in SP.

Only recently did I start testing them out against other players, and the more I did, the worst they felt, until I had to make this thread.

So you only played against them in MP, not really as them? Did you ever lose to them?

 

[Mardagg]

I initially thought UD were acceptable, because of flying galleus rush and high missile defense on base units.
That said, I never play them much in MP (almost always monsters and humans, with a few arathi games). I only used them in SP.

Only recently did I start testing them out against other players, and the more I did, the worst they felt, until I had to make this thread.

I quote Zechnophope here:"Truly, Undead are the knee jerk faction of choice. They have so many weaknesses, while also having so many strengths"

I think that nails it.
UD are different to Humans/Monsters.Similar to Arethi Elves they require a different approach.But unlike Arethi Elves,where you basically are competitive once you can mass produce arethi Bowmasters,UD require a constant finetuning of the many availabe strategies to them according what opponents and indies you encounter.
First of all,i think the decision on what to make out of the capital is even more important to UD.Since if you dont make it Vampire----> Dracolich you most often wont get to use these units until midgame.But often it can be crucial to get skel veterans/snipers asap.
Second u want a bat city or 2 up as fast as possible ideally with at least iron mine.Third u want at least 1 if not 2 coastal cities asap to make several galleys.While doing this u have to constantly watch your mana reserve and are in need to make at least 1 if not 2 mana cities asap as well.And alll the while doing this you want gold cities .Your mana cities will later on be able to produce Zombies and Ghosts .Depending on circumstances these units can be very effective as well.Then you might want to skip food cities,this choice has to be done pretty early and often depends on available indie cities.With a good timing you can switch to negative food a bit later untitl your level 1 Human/Monster/Elves cities have grown a bit in size.But if you get high food upkeep units or heroes early on you might want to go negative food much earlier.
To sum it up: UD are by far the most difficult race to play imo and it takes a lot of practice.

I have played 90% of my single player games with UD and about 50% of my MP games.If i am not playing UD in MP i choose Humans or Monsters.Never would play Arethis in MP with current 75/3 settlers but played 2 big games with them in SP.
I did encounter some opponents in MP that did chose arethi though and thats what i am basing my experience on.Because these guys always had a tough time in early game and always proceeded to lose the game mainly bc of this.

 

[Efyian]

Do you want to try some 1v1s Mardagg? By all means I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I just don't see it.

Vampires can't really be used (vs the very common trolls, shamans, werewolf / wizards)
You don't get much mana income at the start, so spellcasting early on is very tough (as compared to humans/monsters who get a steady 5/turn)
Your army can barely move if you're in hills or forest terrain.

 

[Mardagg]

Maybe just Ud style doesnt fit your style?
Its like i just dont like arethi elves as starting race.

You keep on mentioning Vampires,this isnt always a key unit for UD and only useful in certain circumstances mostly on non rush maps but it can be great even vs human players as long as you dont rely solely on it.
Btw,They are not that bad as you make them look,really.E.g. Vamps with ghost armor and iron armor, both rather easy to come by, crush most indies and many early/midgame top units 1vs1. And did you ever try waterwalking vamps ? Personally i dont upgrade them most of the time because its pretty easy to counter them.I prefer having several of these guys in the pocket to force my opponent to come up with counterstrats.

If you dont like vamps dont build them in your cap.Go other routes and concentrate even more on flying galeus which can be build very fast in new cities or even in your cap.
FLying Galues fills the role where other factions can get trolls or wizards, at least at the start of the game.

I agree on the mana income for Early game.Often tough for UD to get it rolling.Finding a place for a Mana pump is of a great importance for them therefore.
And being able to produce non mana upkeep units early on can help as well.
On the other hand at midgame and later UD most of the time have the upper hand regarding mana income.

I always happily play 1 vs 1 vs good players.
Atm though i have temporarily uninstalled Warlock to force myself to concentrate on more important things
Lets talk more on detail on this end of this month.

 

[Efyian]

I mention vampires because its a mid-game unit which can't be used because so many units with death immunity exists.
So, effectively, they're forced to use skeleton archers/snipers for range attack. Joy. 3 movement missile troops with 7 or 10 attack.

Humans, I will often train a wizard or 2 because of the 17 elemental attack they have. I then switch over to making clerics for healing, and aim for temple units at the same time.
Similarly, goblins I often use 2-4 shamans for healing and 10 spirit damage, and then aim for temple units.

UD... just don't have a trainable high damage unit, since their vampires with 16 attack aren't of much use?

Just a side note. I beaten Dremers with UD before. It's not a matter of I can't play them. It's a matter of... they are inherently weaker.
In 1v1 MP, when I play humans, monsters, or arathi, I can generally have the other player surrender within 35-50 turns (note: I do play flat map, not cylindrical, so the capitals are never beside each other.

With UD, I've figured out a strategy for them: it basically involves not using any UD (except for the initial 3-4 skeleton-types and training 2 bats), and instead using tons of mercenaries and units from non-UD neutrals instead.
It works because they can go massively neg on food without worry, and lets them support tons of minotaurs and donkey knights. Not having to support your UD units also allows you to have a high mana income, so you can throw high level spells at the enemy without worry. It's shockingly effective, but somehow, I don't feel like this is how UD should be played .

Oh another fun point with UD: their units don't heal any HP inside your zone of control unlike humans, goblins, and arathi. So you're often stuck with 13/15 or 14/15hp skeleton archers and such.

 

[Mardagg]

...

Humans, I will often train a wizard or 2 because of the 17 elemental attack they have. I then switch over to making clerics for healing, and aim for temple units at the same time.
Similarly, goblins I often use 2-4 shamans for healing and 10 spirit damage, and then aim for temple units.

UD... just don't have a trainable high damage unit, since their vampires with 16 attack aren't of much use?

Just a side note. I beaten Dremers with UD before. It's not a matter of I can't play them. It's a matter of... they are inherently weaker.
In 1v1 MP, when I play humans, monsters, or arathi, I can generally have the other player surrender within 35-50 turns (note: I do play flat map, not cylindrical, so the capitals are never beside each other.

With UD, I've figured out a strategy for them: it basically involves not using any UD (except for the initial 3-4 skeleton-types and training 2 bats), and instead using tons of mercenaries and units from non-UD neutrals instead.
It works because they can go massively neg on food without worry, and lets them support tons of minotaurs and donkey knights. Not having to support your UD units also allows you to have a high mana income, so you can throw high level spells at the enemy without worry. It's shockingly effective, but somehow, I don't feel like this is how UD should be played .

Oh another fun point with UD: their units don't heal any HP inside your zone of control unlike humans, goblins, and arathi. So you're often stuck with 13/15 or 14/15hp skeleton archers and such.

Yeah,thats what i meant by different approach.Humans and Monsters are just str8forward.everything makes sense,money cities are money cities,which occasionally rogue/ratmen spam.Food is Food.Mana is mana +Magic users/Werewolves.undeads often have less specialized cities,or have cities specialize later on,like e.g. having 2 Galleon cities early on and then razing at least one of the flying harbors to make it pure gold city.bat cities can get vampire cities or go to gold cities.
mana cities can get zombie or ghost cities.

To be fair,Vamps can get some elemental damage as well and with some perks this can get notable.Life Drain is just plain great vs indies and thats where UD generally shine.No need to rest that vamp ever,just keep on stomping all non death immunes.
Despite people saying they are a bit slow,i regularly can get the most cities by turn 30 with UD than with other races.
This is bc of superior scouting and more loot gold early on espcially on water maps,bc of the galleys,bc of death immunity and missile resistances vs many indie threats and because of skipping to worry about food upkeep from time to time.

Furthermore you can get vamps really fast in your capital without hurting economy too much bc you get more gold income as side effect.2 or 3 vamps in early game can be tough to be beat ,unless your opponent has early access to UD indies which is not guaranteed.If he raises skeletons via krypta he will waste casting time doing so.
But yes,on small to medium maps,Vamps cant get enough indies out to be worth it more often than not.

But for this type of game,you have the other big advantage you mentioned:

No food.Mana is tough early on=weakness.
But no food route= strength.
And this results in UD being the perfect fit for couatl perk,all mercs,indie Monster/Human city unit spam.As well as starting lord.
Its just that if you mention the mana problem you have to mention the food advantage and you have to live with where this leads to.
Thats exactly the way to play UD on smaller maps.And this effect magnifies once you reach the turn around point where you get more mana per turn than your opponent and have no food to worry as well.
if you dont like it then thats what i meant by style of play.
UD feel unique on bigger maps but tend to be a lot more dependant on side strategies on smaller ones.
And of course you still will have some UD troops.Its now up to your opponent to focus on Death immunes bc you have some UD`s or to do something vs your mercs.Its not that the UD warriors and archers are bad.And the upgraded sniper is quick to produce .I generally have mostly indie or coutl melee units backed up by snipers and(if available) human archers backed up by dozens of bats.From the basic units.

That no healing thing is right.Same with healing spells,which often come later for UD.
Bats can heal though,and Galleons are mostly untouchable early game.

I really think you are being very biased vs Undeads because you just dont like the troop lineup and the generally playing strat for them like you actually are admitting already
Its certainly true,bc they are so different and require thinking in different directions,that turns use to take longer with UD whch can get problematic on bigger maps with MP games.Furthermpre,unlike the other races, you generally can have unlimited bats bc they are food only which can result in much more troops to move on big games.

Looking forward to playing you soon.

 

[Efyian]

maybe a bit biased (with regards to their units anyways). But nonetheless, the death damage dealing capital, and death damage towers are a fatal flaw

Just friend me on steam sometime Mardagg when you can play (I'm guessing exams? )

 

[harmonius]

Imho undead are OP. Optimal strategy is the same for any race: rush by mercs + summons + archers. Game can be completed within 30 turns on average map. Best archers are undead archers because they have 75% missile resistance.

 

[Efyian]

Imho undead are OP. Optimal strategy is the same for any race: rush by mercs + summons + archers. Game can be completed within 30 turns on average map. Best archers are undead archers because they have 75% missile resistance.

I'm going to assume you're playing cylindrical map, so that the capitals are right beside each other, for the game to end within 30 turns like that.
In a game like that, then yea, UD would have a big advantage since they would grow naturally despite heavy merc recruitment, while the other factions would stall out on city growth quickly due to neg food.

 

[fcm13]

Imho undead are OP. Optimal strategy is the same for any race: rush by mercs + summons + archers. Game can be completed within 30 turns on average map. Best archers are undead archers because they have 75% missile resistance.

If you are playing on a normal map against 1 mage it's possible to win in 30 turns, but against 4 rival mages, I think you would need at least 40 turns. When I have the time I will try it.

 

[harmonius]

If you are playing on a normal map against 1 mage it's possible to win in 30 turns, but against 4 rival mages, I think you would need at least 40 turns. When I have the time I will try it.

I mean MP game 1vs1. It is usually enough about 30 turns to surrender.

 

[cryptc]

I think Mardagg and Efyian have managed to break down for me why my own strategy with UD involves ignoring food, I've just not gone into such deep analysis of the various strengths/weaknesses.

One thing I notice is that I hardly ever bring undead archers to offensive engagements... they are too weak and slow to be much use as a major invasion force... but they are absolutely ideal defensive units in own territory, cheap and resistant to missile and death magic... I usually keep such archers in all my cities, and whenever something happens (ogre lairs/dremer attacks), it's the archers that are first on the scene and clean up the problems (with a spell or two when needed), leaving my offensive units to focus on their goal.

I do usually leave some other units behind for defense though admittedly... often bats (no effective maintenance) and zombies (low maintenance), that can sit around, gain xp, and be useful in a pinch

Food based mercs I do enjoy using, but I still focus more on undead temple units usually...