Age of Wonders 4 Tier List - Unit Enchantments [Part 2]
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ส.ค. 2024
- Welcome back to part two of my Age of Wonders 4 Unit Enchantments tier list. Part 1 Here: • Age of Wonders 4 Tier ... #ageofwonder4 #gaming #strategy
Note: I evaluate based on: power level, opportunity cost & unlock timing/ conditions, internal synergies within the affinity & the uniqueness of the effect (can I get this elsewhere?).
Feedback on part one was mixed, some really enjoyed it, and others were flagged by TH-cam and had their comments held for review due to profanity or other guideline breaches by YT (the 'held for review' inbox is a frightful place!!). Behind the negativity was good feedback though: it's hard to evaluate things in Age of Wonder 4 in isolation. They're build-dependent, often needing X to justify Y. They're playstyle, map and victory condition dependent. They stretch multiple yields, and offer different outcomes. As a result of the huge number of variables, nobody is likely to ever agree with the conclusions (especially not some of them!).
I'm keen to provide as much value as I can (guides, breakdowns, tier lists, livestreams and gameplays, news & reviews). These focused videos, reviewing spells or cultures in a vacuum, won't feature too heavily moving forward ✌️ - เกม
Amplified Arrows should get a tier of it's own above S, because not only does it do the extra damage, it allows you to apply statuses to secondary targets at no dimishied effects. And to go even above then, if you have a triple shot archer unit, and for example the first shot kills the target, your unit will then send it's next two shots to another target, which is just an absurd amount of action economy. In it's vaccum on it's own, sure maybe it's an A tier, but when combined with everything else you can do with it, it gives you so much more power than any other enchant in the game.
I really wonder how people that sleep on +1 range play tactical battles. All melee zerg?
Absolutely bonkers to put it in A tier. Combine this with some extra range and one of the T3 archer units, and you're nuking the enemy's units from half a map away.
@@perer005 Yeah seeker arrows below searing blades gave me a chuckle.
@@perer005 autoresolvers a shame that a ton of players skip on the joy of tactical battles in this game
In addition, it plays well with extra range (High culture awakening/Legendary tier archers/enchantment) because the AI doesn't keep out of the extended range, so you'll get even more of the extra efficient attacks off.
Phase enchantment is never a D tier. The impostant thing is that the phase doesn't cost any action points. Being able to reposition your mage units means that you can cast your powerful 3 point abilities even if you would be out of range or have an enemy right next to you. You can also use it to flank or get into a safer position.
not just 3 point ability but even just being able to flank and do a 3 burst of the basic battlemage attack can be enough to outright kill an enemy unit
Agree, being able to reposition out of melee and get either a 3 point attack or an additional 2 more basic attacks is always good.
It may not be S tier, but it’s good, Maybe B tier. If you’re leaning towards a mage focused build it’s always a worthwhile pick.
It feels like the low evaluation of +range and positioning abilitues are due to people autoresolving…
Phase enchantment is D? NOW YOU HAVE DONE IT, I VE BEEN ENDURING YOUR BLASPHEMY LONG ENOUGH! THE TORMENT OF SHADOWS AWAITS YOU!
XD
Amplified arrows is the strongest enchantment in the game imo. There is Amplified arrows in S+++, then nothing in S++, then Seeker arrows in S+ and then all other enchantments. Once you have seeker arrows and amplified arrows online it becomes almost impossible to loose, they are beyond broken.
yeah man, this are two of my first picks in every game, +1 range from material tome is a good one too
Amplified arrows is very strong. That 30% damage split is a bit buggy after all and buggy in two very beneificial ways:
1) If your target dies on shot 1, then your next 2 attacks will go onto the secondary target.
2) The secondary target does not need to be in the range units original range for this effect to trigger.
Therefore, you can effectively have 10 range archers in some niché situations, but most vitally, it helps one of the highest dps units in the game be even more efficient with its actions. This combined with the fact that the secondary 30% does have the SAME chance of proccing debuffs, you're looking at 2x the debuff application, and the synergies that provides, and quite often the prevention from dps loss. You can just target down that low hp enemy as your other two attacks will go through anyways. Furthermore, if the enemy has soemthing like steadfast the sequence goes:
Archer shoots -> unit "dies" -> remaining archer attacks go too other unit -> Steadfast revives unit
This is an unique effect in the game, not even melee units (Who probably should) do this, every single other multi-attack unit in the game will waste their multiattack, and amplified arrows basicly makes it so your archers do not. It's insanely busted, and probably should be S+ tier, it's a key component in allowing stacks of tier1 archers to break the game.
@JumboPixel First of all, nice tier list videos!
Some points that I disagree with:
I wonder how you build unit stacks, since you seem to value enchantments that target melee units higher than ranged or caster enchantments for the reason that they enchant more types of units. Have you ever built an army that has 1 polearm, 1 fighter, 1 shield and 1 charge unit? On purpose?
Most of the enchantments are the same for either melee or ranged, and yes it works for more unit types when it's melee, because there are more types of melee units, but that doesn't mean you will have more melee than ranged units in a stack. With some builds you won't even build melee units, because you have combat summons to tank, so saying a buff for melee units is a higher tier than a buff for ranged because there are more melee unit types is kinda silly imo.
Meteor arrows in C tier is just wrong, its one of the best ranged buffs in the game in terms of damage, almost on par with amplified arrows. Archers can usually shoot at least 2-3 times per turn, so that's 10-15 extra aoe damage per shot, often on 3 or 4 units (+30-60 dmg). Compare that to +4-6 damage on 1 target, which most of the other buffs do, and meteor arrows should make you very happy. Sure its a later tier upgrade, but if you go for an archer build it's a must have.
Decaying stops healing. There is no permanent healing in combat, its all temporary hp, which decaying stops.
You list the enchant from tome of the creator as high, but failed to notice that it only affects elemental units. As in, if your armies aren’t primarily elementals then you don’t get undying at all.
Decaying do not only prevent regaining normal hp (witch can't be regained in battle anyway) it prevents regaining hp in general including temporary hp. There is no way to heal a unit with decaying without removing decaying first.
"Enchanted units" means objects of this spells, they are mentionted in a list below
I would give you 2 likes if I could
you forgot that many mages have abilities that need all of your action points, phase don't cost any, so you can replace them before casting a powerful spell and that's really valuable (if you don't auto-battle all your fights), wich is more than a D tier ranking should be abble to do
Note: I evaluate based on: power level, opportunity cost & unlock timing/ conditions, internal synergies within the affinity & the uniqueness of the effect (can I get this elsewhere?).
Feedback on part one was mixed, some really enjoyed it, and others were flagged by TH-cam and had their comments held for review due to profanity or other guideline breaches by YT (the 'held for review' inbox is a frightful place!!). Behind the negativity was good feedback though: it's hard to evaluate things in Age of Wonder 4 in isolation. They're build-dependent, often needing X to justify Y. They're playstyle, map and victory condition dependent. They stretch multiple yields, and offer different outcomes. As a result of the huge number of variables, nobody is likely to ever agree with all the conclusions (especially not some of them!).
I'm keen to provide as much value as I can (guides, breakdowns, tier lists, livestreams and gameplays, news & reviews). These focused videos, reviewing spells or cultures in a vacuum, won't feature too heavily moving forward ✌
I understand the mixed reception. Tierlists might be entertaining, but especially for a nuanced game like AoW4, their actual informational value is questionable. Therefore, they might come across as cheap/easy click content.
What might be interesting content that I would personally be interested in are in-depth guides/builds. They can showcase a certain playstyle in detail without going over the entire breadth of the game.
I have been struggling to get a propper necromancer build going that actually utilizes skeletons, but that's just a personal interest.
As fun as it can be to disagree vigorously on tier lists, something I enjoy as well, abusing JumboPixel is not good. He's creating this content for our enjoyment, at zero cost to us. Be respectful, even if you're sparring over opinions :)
Quick note on Eternal Earth: It only applies to Elemental type units, notably your Copper Golems and Steel Golems. There are a few other synergies (It applies to Phoenixes, for instance) but it's a very narrow effect.
Important note! Thank you for correcting :)
Does it apply to Golden Golems?
@MasterofWoWclassest I don't believe it does, as they are tier V units
@@forestbahamut8253why wouldn’t it apply to Tier V? Elemental is not a combat type.
@@FozinWoW golems are elmentals so I assume so, but it would have been funny if at last one of your materium race transformation gave the elemental trait to your race. It don't sound that far fetched.
Dude you SERIOUSLY put in work with these videos. Hats off.
It's a right call on True Death Magic. For Tier V it sucks... It doesn't even have synergy with other dark books. Fetid Legion is what you're reaching for in Dark, and once you get it you want to retool your armies for melee so you can stack the Weakened debuff across their entire line. Your hero is your ranged/support unit, you're running shock units and whatever close combat units you can muster in order to keep their units, and yours, grouped up. Then you add a Battle Mage/Support spell at Tier V? Dark barely has support troops, and their ranged units suck.... The reason I focused on Fetid Legion to begin with was to get rid of my warlocks. Now I'm supposed to add them back for a 30% chance on single units when the fights are stacking 3 armies deep? How is this useful?
Scout synergy with Windborne scouts is with the Industrious culture. Scout prospecting on mountains. This will allow your scouts to zoom over mountain ranges getting you items and resources from prospecting. Probably it's only use, EXCEPT if you pick up Spider Mounts. Then your OP spider mounted scouts will be FLYING SPIDER SCOUTS!
Honestly though, I've never picked up this enchantment, but would be interesting for prospecting.
Or with the Barbarian Culture (scouts can build outposts). Place Outposts wherever you can/want, secure Magic Minerals, or build Teleporters to swarm your targets from the other side of the map (nice for continents/divide worlds for example).
@@rybosny Which one is that?! :EDIT: Oh you mean Barbarian culture. No wonder as I'd already picked something else! Cheers bud! :EndEDIT: I know there is one and I was looking to see if I could get that and Talented Collectors but I must have looked right past it when looking LOL
@@Stu-Bo It is not mentioned in the Culture Description though, so it's easy to miss. You have to look at the unit roster to notice it (the same goes for the Universal Camouflage for Mystic Scouts, etc) as there are some differences even in the same unity type.
And personally, I also enjoy Talented Collectors as Mana & Research are global, so you benefit from your carefully placed outpost provinces more. :)
Cheers!
@Rybo Cheers for that. My next game will be Barbarian with Talented collectors and Wonder Architects :) Probably leaning into chaos/nature in a megacity game
@@Stu-Bo Wonders Architects are one of my favorites because you can annex those Ancient Wonders to your outposts even without Work Camps. Thus giving you a "free" province, and you can build a Work Camp and connect an extra province normally. Nice synergy with Talented Collectors. :)
And if you happen to go Barbs with Spider Mounts, you can even build a full stack of scouts, they will be able not only to build outposts but also clear those early to mid-level Ancient Wonders by themselves.
13:50 In my one Super Archer playthrough, I noticed that Meteor Arrows would expose damaged units to all the debuffs the archer caused, poisoning and burning groups of enemies.
Sundering blades is insane, Tome of enchantment is one of my Favs, - Great tier list - Agree with the Vast majority
Also just to mention, Eternal Earth only works on elementals, so generally that just means iron golems and golden golems, altho if your going for spirits it could be pretty good id say altho mana expensive. I really do think Materium should get a major race transformation that turns them into elementals, maybe if you take rock, steel and Gold minor race transformation you unlock it or something, its unfortunate that there the only ones without one.
"Strong in the early game..." There's no diminishing returns for defensive stats, each point makes you take 10% less damage than you did before. Undying is also prob a B/C tier, notice that it only affects elementals, on a tipical materium run that means only the golems.
At 1 armour you get 10% damage reduction, At 10 you will have 65% damage reduction, at 20 it caps at 88%... that literally is diminishing returns XD
@@tuskular
100 HP and 0 defense -> 100 raw damage to kill unit
100 HP and 10 defense -> 287 raw damage to kill unit
100 HP and 20 defense -> 823 raw damage to kill unit
a 20 defense unit can take 2.9x the damage of a 10 defense unit which can take 2.9x the damage than a 0 defense unit
@@JemandOhneName Indeed (great work btw altho its 286 raw dmg and 833 raw dmg ;) ), but per point you are getting a reduced rate the more you add as it is 10% of the already reduced damage value, or in other words... diminishing returns... if every point was worth the same you would hit the cap at 9 not 20, which is where the investment becomes questionable in comparison to other choices.
@@tuskular the %number diminishes yes, but the point is that the more damage reduction you have the more valuable more damage resistance is. So it ends up not diminishing in terms of adding effective hp
@@busbee247 Indeed, in terms of effective hit points it increases substantially and multiplicatively, but the transaction of armour for damage reduction decreases with each point.
Can't say I agree with everything, but it was a very good list of things with some gameplay perspective. So thanks. =)
Personally, I think you place too much value in the amount of classes that enchantments applies. Say, mele enchantments that apply Slow to enemies, covers a lot of unit types. But mele has to come face-to-face with an enemy to apply it. So there's little to no point of slowing down an enemy, that doesn't need to get to you anymore.
Oh, and +1 range is broken, because you have a minimum accuracy on your furthest range. So if you increase range from 4 to 5, then your accuracy at range 4 will be 20% more then it was. And you can kill enemy range units before they can make a shot. Love it. )
It feels like you undervalue defense a lot. You love super growth for its ~10% more hp but for some reason we dont like 10% damage resistance which is frequently adding more effective hp in the late game
Please make a video for units from the tomes of magic , we need to know the best fighter or best support unit ( for example) from the tomes
If you ever revisit ranking enchantments, keep these things in mind.
Ranged units suck without enchantments. Because they apparently suck, you hardly use them. Because you have so few of them the enchantments don't seem worth it. Maybe make a separate video for these?
I'd also like a separate for support/battlemage and one for melee units.
This can be part of a series evaluation a combination of strategies: tomes, units to focus on and what synergizes well with them.
One can then combine these evaluations into popular ways to play the game. I'd stick to one main focus, a secondary type of magic and optionally a splash of a third.
Quick question... In your video when looking at various enchantments it lists at the bottom which unit the enchantment applies to. I don't have that when I look at the enchantments in the Encyclopedia. Am I missing a setting to make that visible or are you using something else? BTW...Love your videos. They are filled to the brim with great info and advice!
I'm not sure if that info is in the encyclopedia or not actually - If you want to see what I saw, I used the Tomes library because it has (I think) all of the tooltip info and the troop details. And cheers for the nice words :)
@@JumboPixel You dont see which unit types the spells apply to in the encyclopedia, so you have to start a game for that.
40:42
It’s exactly the temp hp’s it stops. All combat healing and regen comes as temp hp’s.
seeker arrows with order is broken, you already get insane range with archers that are awakened then you add that amp arrows and meteor arrows, hell even throw misfortune arrows, you can hit enemies halfway across the screen and hit multiple enemies and stack debuffs.
i can tell you havent played materium much, if you had you'd understand the one use for windborne scouts, and that is that it adds movement to your pioneers who get prospecting and can add random items or resources, and alot of times those prospecting areas are ontop of mountains.
The flying mounts scours still have to stop and embark on ships.
Fully agree with Marked for Death being D tier. It's honestly not even that powerful, and I'm not entirely sure I'd take it that often if it were on a tier 4 tome instead. Marked for death can be easily dispelled or resisted at this point in the game (especially at that abysmal base 30% success rate), and takes so long to trigger that the battle's probably already decided by the point it would matter. Even doubling the base chance to 60% might not save it, as absurd as that sounds; though, then you could at least reliably attempt to make use of it.
Phasing, on the other hand... There are so many circumstances where that extra movement makes a massive difference. Sure, you can argue that you could position better to avoid needing it, but I find it opens up brand new positioning options that would have been impossible without it. As other people pointed out already, it lets you make easier use of 3-cost abilities from well outside their normal range; similarly, it also lets you potentially get 1-2 extra strikes of 3-hit attacks in if you're just closing with the opponent. It eases escaping and counterattacking out of zones of control and opportunity attacks, when stray high-mobility enemy units inevitably close and get a hit or two off (presumably you're using mostly mage/support units, so the front line might be a bit thin on top of dealing with high mobility opponents). And it's great for quickly moving your armies towards one flank of the opponent, reducing how many units you have to fight at once. If you don't end up using it up on all your units in the main fight, it's still handy for picking off routing enemies to avoid any chance of escape/later respawning. The opportunity cost isn't even that high, given how good the teleportation tome tends to be anyways. That said, it does screw up auto resolves in rare occasions if the AI gets a bit reckless with it, so it might make it a little more necessary to fight manually. It's still at least high B tier in my opinion.
Also putting Mirror Veil in D tier personally, just because every time I load the game the enchantment seems to dispel itself and has to be recast. So purely out of spite, nothing to do with what the enchantment does or doesn't do.
there is a material spell which has a kill chance on low tier stuff works really fine for me to get rid of annoying archers at the start of the battle
you seem to underestimate moral, using a banshee stack plus hero for overchannel you can slam into an enemy army, always striking first due to teleport, inflicting 60 moral on impact (insta rout) with a double spell of -30 moral as backup
you wont even get a turn to split up your units if attacked so unless you field units that are immune to moral you will struggle to rally your troops
I heavily disagree with Amplification Arrows, Meteor Arrows, and Seeker Arrows. They synergize incredibly well with Zephyr Archers. First off, you can get a free round of shots off before the opponent gets into conventional range. Second off, it allows you to get more opportunitities for flanking shots off by increasing the flexibility of targeting. This is a tier 1 tome.
I also don't see how an additional 15-20 damage per shot is not an A or S-tier when the default "+2 damage and a 30% chance before resistance for DOT" is overall put at A-tier. You're almost doubling the damage output of archers and skirmisher shooting. Yes it doesn't come online before the late-mid to lategame, but the amount of damage buffed Zephyr archers can throw out this way is terrifying.
Finally, Amplification Arrows deserve an S-tier for both being a tier 2 tome pickup and increasing the damage of archers by 30%. I do not understand your logic of putting a 30% increase in damage and doubling targets for status ailments is put any lower than a 10% increase in damage to battle mages and support units.
Agree with your comments, after watching two videos some scores seems so random it is not even funny. The last straw that broke the camels back was an S-tier for adaptive armour and a C-tier for the meteor arrows one after another. If meteor arrows are C than adaptive should be around P-tier at best. I know the value for each use would be relative, if you have zero archers than meteor arrows have 0 value however, how someone can rank a very situational minor protection buff over a source of very significant amount of extra damage is just beyond me. It is AA is also very reactive, it gives you the buff after you already took the damage while MA is a proactive enchantment. Also you cannot stack AA in a single turn you need five and how many fights are not decided or finished beyond sixth turn??? Also how many armies are magic damage only? MA do not care which turn it is what enemy army composition would be and if it is 2nd or 10th turn and if you cannot hit multiple units in enemy formation it means you already won the battle anyway...
@@sebar80esotank18 I agree with most of that, but almost all fights (vs empires) have all units do magic dmg. All you need is 1 of the magic enhancements for melee/ranged units and they all do magic damage. Granted, its not a lot with just 1 buff, but they do add up.
@@kimdg3429 That is something I did not considered tbh. Maybe because battles against other empires are probably less than 10% for me, it just doesn't happened to often and would be scenario and player influenced. However, if the player is very aggressive in their gameplay and fight a lot of empire on empire wars/battles than I would still not expect them to value Adaptive Armour over Meteor arrows. I would take extra damage and faster kills over some dmg reduction on 2nd hit and after any time any day if I would have to choose one or the other.
How would you buff wind scouts to make it not d tier ?
I think tome of warding would be powerfull with industrial culure with staves of warding alone. Where grant defences not only give +2 bolstered defences but also +2 bolstered resistances and each stack of it can be converted into damage and health with strenth from steel (while the ability that convert bolstered stacks into offences also give bolstered resistances itself).
But it also give access to a minor race transformation that cover one of the industrial culture's greatest weakness, lack of magic resistances.
How about feudal supports that give their support buffs to the entire stack, so all your units get the resistance buffs.
@@kimdg3429 sound strong as well but they can't use the stacks to make a massive heal but it is still a huge area buff
I think you are severely underestimating what plus range can do. Sure +1 is not all that good but that thing can stack with other and if you can get +2 range or more that is S+++ tier.
In most battles the enemy army stops just outside archer range and also clumps together, now if you have some archers with +2 range you basically get one free round shooting with your archers.
Late game a few Zephyr archers with their aoe and range can basically kill half the stack before it even gets in melee range.
Does the demolisher arrows give area of effect anti-fortification arrows?
yes, it even one-shots towers even if you haven't fully depleted the health of whatever is on top of the tower for some reason and two shots open up stone walls
does dcaying stack? im thinking the necromancy enchantment and cycles one
nope
Don't meteor arrows splash your own units too, if they happen to be in the way? My archers shoot enemies adjacent to my troops all the time. I'd hate to have to make the decision not to fire off my archers in a battle turn because the cost to my own troops was too high. This puts that one at D in my estimation.
Amplified arrow is busted, it almost single handedly make any archer spam build viable as it doesn't just deal damage but also apply status effects. and 30% of a full buffed archer on an archer stack is like bringing at least 3 more archer into the battle
also phase is absolutely not situational, it's a free phase meaning it dont cost action point, you can use it offensively to move a 3 AP battle mage in range of an ennemis or in flanking position and blast the enemy out of existence with your 3 AP still remaining
I definitely disagree with the phasing enchantment thing, for one single reason: Almost all battlemage and support units are _useless,_ genuinely incapable of doing anything, if they are inside an enemy's Zone of Control. Oftentimes, you cannot rely on being able to just not let enemies get into melee. Having phasing on all such units gives you a once-per-three-turns chance to teleport away and thus prevent having some of your units become useless (or take opportunity attacks.)
It isn't *essential.* You can avoid needing it if you carefully position defensive or token units between your casters and the enemy. But it really is a very powerful if you're specialized in mage/support armies. For that reason, I would rank it at B tier myself: it is only useful for specialized armies, but for those armies, it can be a complete game-changer.
Purely offensive or strategic usage is simply icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.
Do unit enhancements stack?
You cant have the same one twice, but the different ones can stack their damage bonuses etc.
@@kimdg3429 So you can stack the +20% crit bonus from one line with the +30% bonus from another? You know I completely don't understand how crit bonuses are applied. Are they added to moral effects and have fumble effects subtracted to give one die roll? Or do they somehow trump or replace the morale crit roll?
@@zanzibart3 I think crit and fumble counter eachother, so if you have a 50% crit chance and a 30% fumble chance, you actually have a 20% crit chance and won't fumble. Could also be you have both crit chance and fumble chance at the same time and a very small chance for a normal hit. I do know for sure fortune and misfortune counter eachother, just like strengthened and weakened negate eachother.
If you have +20% crit chance from morale and +30% from fortune it should be a 50% chance of critting. There may also be a hard cap on crit/fumble of 50%, but I don't know that for sure.
Your standard should instead be Synergy, Opportunity Cost, Upkeep, and Power. Then it would literally be the SOUP test!