First ranked week, impressions

I'm not sure where I ended. On sat night I was in the top 10, but didn't play sunday and droped down to like 50'th or something. I want to say my end stats were probly in the range of about 28-7ish but I can't remember for sure on that either.

I was running 1 priest, 2 pally, 2skel war, 1 bownman. Boath war's had sac, one pally had exahsting and the other was a lvl lower. The bowman was stock, and the priest has spirit agro. It felt prity solid vs zergs, as well as bigger unit comps. Tho I did have issues if my priest got killed early, and my bowman felt next to useless. Iron clast wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be, and I still think exahusting is op. Alot of my losses were pre et, as I added that in later when my lvled up archer was just as useless as the lvl 1 archer. ;D

Tho loseing to several different builds, from every faction, there was one that stood out. A wolf player with 1 warg + 3 xbows, two of wich had harrass(ended in draw, but only because of etouch). It showed me my build is helpless vs the xbows even after the patch and with the priest (who's swap I hoped would combat it). Wolf vs ram feels like the ram can only lose/draw vs certain comps if they are played well. Not only that it's a very boaring fight, as basicly I can only bluff and chase them off trying to keep weaker units out of the line of fire.

I'm in the prosses of lvling up a wolf team to see if I feel the same on the other side. All in all I had alot of fun, learned alot, and found lots of new questions to ask. Very promissing, and with more armys I can see the complexity and options being very entertaining for lots of hrs.

glad somebody was using the priest anyway harassment is very tough vs ram in fact i used to swap one of my wolven for a crossbowmen with harass everytime i faced a ram. What is crazy is their ability to disengage, making them very though to damage, even if engaged by multiple skeleton warriors, I guess thats where you need some good ranged/assault units or else you are going to suffer a lot

EDIT: trying for fun some different ram combinations...due to my ELO i faced 4 times the same high ranked player playing...fang zerg (oh the surprise, who would have thought so!). He has beaten me 4 times, this might be connected to the fact that my comp was not ready yet (can't play 300/200 to level it, thanks ELO) and i may have played it terribly wrong (or he was just good but that part makes me wonder when you play the zerg and you bash a paladin already dead with fierce with 2 units). Simply put Fang > all. Ram has no way to beat the fang zerg unless they go the zerg route too (which is probably the only viable choice at the moment if you plan to go ranked). Having about 200 AP of your army made of elite units is a suicide because you can't protect them well enough (if they are casters) or they get surrounded and steam rolled. As of today 8 guys of the top ten are wolven and 2 are lions. Admittedly when i started playing last week i faced only 2 times the zerg fang swarm but i've the feeling it is starting to become the normality.

I liked the priest alot. He isn't as squishy as the necro, brings more firepower with his nuke, and has a couple of realy good utility spells. I realy hesitated to find a spot for him with the changes to bad omen, but I'm glad I took the time to try and find space for him.

As for vs harassment... Ranged units are prity much out for ram vs the xbow with haras. The bowman is stuck shooting at like a 1% chance while the xbow hits at 45%, and they can keep that range indefinetly. The priest can't get into range to nuke because they can stay well outside his ironclast range, keeping him on low faith. The only answere seems to be garg's, but you better be running several of them cause they are gonna get pounded all alone as they will halfta outpace your army to get into range.

With my new team I'm useing x2 lone wolves (who don't even have mort yet, but when they do...) and as many xbows as I can fit in. So far I havn't felt like I needed to lose a match. Even if I was way behind I have a hard time imagining not being able to draw with this comp, and again that's befor my heal. If any ram players think they have the answere or wanna test some ideas let me know and we can set up some games. I feel like being able to control the engagement with the shoot/move skills and signifigantly better move speed and better ranged abilitys means that my setup leaves me in a win/draw position vs ram, and probably most lion armys too. Tho I will get shreaded by wolf maybe as they can catch me...but we'll see.

I played alot and managed top 5 I think. Really enjoy the game.

I played human with various different setups and that was causing me to lose quite a bit, especially to wolves. Until I started running a mage + kotl (only unit that can tank wolf dmg)+ lion(more dmg)/valk(more support)+ 2 healing sparks. I now it sounds thin but i realised that as humans your on a clock if you are running a mage, if hes gone its gg unless u traded him for the majority of the other team so you have to end fast so no need for lots of meatshield.

Vs other humans its pretty simple most of the time since they usually go for archers and I find them useless if you can postion your units well. I just rush them before the wall up and its usually gg.

Vs undead its all a matter of the skill of the oppsiong player. he if can position himself where I would have to waste turns going through free units he'll most likely win, but that doesnt happen too often. Also if he is running Black paladins is a really annoying thing vs human. I started a thread about this but I still think they are too much of "anti-human mages" and too little anything else. Occult erosion looks like it was designed to take out human mages and little else.

Oh and no matter what anyone else says I take the credit for the 3sparkling bomb setup, that was all me. =P

Great game btw and thank you for 100cyans.

@lima: you managed to get to top 5 (last week) by using the knight? did i get it correctly? if so im impressed. i thought i was the only one using an expensive melee unit that made it to the top.

other than that, occult erosion is fine, just make the debuff disappear when the pala is killed. If you say it is made to counter lion mages you never felt an occult erosion on a necromancer with respite of the death. Good luck using your heal from then on. It can also lock low lvl lonewolves from using the water attack every 2nd turn. All in all i can say all races get their share of paint

@glean: mortification was good when elites were cheaper and healing that +10 hp to your lvl 5 PoB was critical to your victory. Now what is critical is having as many efficient units as possible. 3 Lonewolves lvl 2 (or even 1) can basically take out any elite unit safely without even the need to engage it too much and can provide immense support with the shields. You can take your 3 fangs + 3 lowcost lonewolves and sail to victory. Just shield everyone first turn , move closer to the enemy and on the second turn unleash your water attacks -> you basically rape any assault unit with 3x water attacks, heavily wound any black paladin and you can play a great hide & seek game with the other mage while you kill him!

My thought on mort is with the harrassing xbows I'll occationaly take damage disengageing, so I'll just heal it up and keep the xbows topped off. I still have the x2 water atks, i don't even use shield as it takes mana. This way the lone wolves can be either offencive power or sit outa range and let the xbows do the work. It'll let me be alittle more agro with the xbows while still never loseing a unit, making sure I can beat the 14turn limit. The low lvl lone's are very effective, but more expencive than the xbows. I think over all dpr will be similar tho, as the lone's halfta wait on mana while the xbows shoot every round with a lower hit chance. I think either setup will completely lock out ram, as I can beat the 500 ap ai army with my sub 400 army without loseing a unit even without the heal. I think i could do the same vs the 1500 ai army but its on the wrong map and I might not have the damage to finish it in 14 rounds. 8 /

My thought on mort is with the harrassing xbows I'll occationaly take damage disengageing, so I'll just heal it up and keep the xbows topped off. I still have the x2 water atks, i don't even use shield as it takes mana. This way the lone wolves can be either offencive power or sit outa range and let the xbows do the work. It'll let me be alittle more agro with the xbows while still never loseing a unit, making sure I can beat the 14turn limit. The low lvl lone's are very effective, but more expencive than the xbows. I think over all dpr will be similar tho, as the lone's halfta wait on mana while the xbows shoot every round with a lower hit chance. I think either setup will completely lock out ram, as I can beat the 500 ap ai army with my sub 400 army without loseing a unit even without the heal. I think i could do the same vs the 1500 ai army but its on the wrong map and I might not have the damage to finish it in 14 rounds. 8 /

yeah well wolven have so many things that are a pain in the ass for the ram that i think you can't go wrong Anyway if you want (or any of you) you can add me to try some matches (did they fix the friendly matches or am i supposed to play with my whole army again?!)

Heh, ya. I sent you a friend request, lemmi know when your on and we'll try and figure it out. (if the request dosn't go thru you can inv me, havn't messed with the firend thing yet so I might be screwing it up.)

Heh, ya. I sent you a friend request, lemmi know when your on and we'll try and figure it out. (if the request dosn't go thru you can inv me, havn't messed with the firend thing yet so I might be screwing it up.)

yup got it