Dogs of War Online

I'm curious to hear you opinions about what you think being "underpowered" at the moment, meaning those units who always perfomed pretty bad and felt like a waste of AP.

Wolven:

Hard to pick but i would say predator of blood. Why? i feel this unit cost too much AP for what it provides. Yes the damage is pretty high but the Grave Guardian which costs less seems to perform better and bring more value for the less AP. Grave guardian has the benefit of having higher DOD and PAR and TOU making him very well performing in defensive stance/rush even when outnumbered while the predator feels like Wolven hunter nr 2. It sucks when little morbid puppets or base units are able to hit you often and you cost at least 120 AP. Maybe it will perform better in bigger games but sadly i do not know or at higher levels (making you shed one tear everytime it gets hit ). Needs more testing.

Undead:

The joke of the company is the gargoyle. Nice idea but again too expensive for 75AP. Compared to other assault units to me is the weakest. Highest damage of them but 6 TOU makes you feel it is made of paper, making me doubt how much it will benefit from the hardboiled talent. What is really infuriating other than his low TOU (which let's say is "normal" since it is an assault unit) is that is not a living dead unit. Yes our "petit" Gargoyle is afraid of so many things with WIL of 6 despite living in a undead barony. Amazing to have your assault unit charge a little necromancer and be feared. Also the fact that you cannot heal him via the necromancer is bad as well, preventing hit and run tactics. So please for 75 AP make it at least living dead...it is a gargoyle...at the very least should be a construct since it is made of stone.

Lion:

very hard to pick one here. i feel all units they have are strong minus maybe the sparkling of light which in a vacuum might not be that good considering his "heal" skill is more or less the same as valkyrie which has a longer range and there is probably no reason to increase its AP other than lvl 1.

so what are yours?

Thanks for this interesting feedback.

As for the Gargoyle "living" state, this is sadly one legacy of the Tabletop game, because, in fact, it was neither an undead, nor a construct in the background of this universe (yeah, that's kind of strange when you think of it, but it was less of a problem in the tabletop system).

To be honest, it is a pain for us gameplay-wise, and we consider changing it on a regular basis.

I suspect we will make some change about it soon, though I do not know yet exactly how it will change;
I guess a Fear Immunity like the original miniature reference would be a good start.

Note : to all - please fell free to discuss more about the underpowered units.
That's a subject we're really interested in.
We really want to hear out your feedbacks about this, guys!

i think gargoyle fear immunity at the very least will be necessary . Flavorwise i think it is also ok. Anyway i also add one thing that i feel a bit underpowered at the moment:

The priest of saluel: i really love devotion as a mechanic and naturally i really love the priest BUT in my opinion also that needs some rework at the moment...or at least some of his skills.

- Unavoidable destiny should be called avoidable destiny. I think this skill was meant to be "comboed" with bad omen. Sadly 2 faith points are too much for what it does (which is nothing the first turn) and unless i've 4 points of faith i would use bad omen rather than that. I think the skill at the moment is pure rubbish and inversion / aura of crepuscular princes will always be better (i mean they do something the very turn you use them!). Adding some damage component would make the skill more interesting. Also why skills like occult erosion last till the end of the game and this one (which is really a miracle if triggers twice) end when the priest dies? they even have the same AP cost...EDIT: the skill does damage, i got fooled by the wrong tootip.
- EDIT: Occult erosion can be casted multiple times, up to 3 times, this makes the skill much more interesting... I would anyway still move occult erosion to level 2 and a buffed unavoidable destinity to tier 4. Priest talents structured like this would give him the possibility to be a good debuffer or a good damaging spell unit (occult erosion + spiritual aggression) according to the talents.

Undead : There's no useless unit imo, the Gargoyle is ok, the problem is the use ppl do of it. Generally ppl "launch" this kind of unit in the enemy zone before others, that's a mistake for 2 reason :
1) Undead almost always lose initiative.
2) Gargoyle is fragile so you need to wait for the horde of morbid puppets to reach the enemy and use gargoyle to snipe your target surrounded and already damaged by the "horde".
3) Also if he had good defence and dod, that's not help vs damage spell.

Add that it's not an undead army so many spell don't work with it and that explaine how is not very often seen on the battlefield.

Anyway i don't really like that kind of unit because it's not fit very well in the army list lore. I would like to change it with a spectre, a unit that can pass throug other unit and do insane dmg and being ethereal. ;D

Lion : Sparkling of light is too expensive and don't have proper skill tree that could make it usefull. All other unit are usefull imo. (well very usefull)

Wolfen : Predator of Blood in the miniature game had dure a cuir (hard boiled) skill instead of implacable/1. Surely that would made him more usefull and resistant at the beginning and would be a nice change.
Another unit that i would like to be changed is the hunter. In the miniature game it had the role of assault unit, but here he suffer a mobility penalty... imo his mov rate need to be upgraded to 7 to reflect his truly role.

The gargoyle is nice if you want to rip apart the archies, but yeah to weak. The PoB is nice but when or if you have a bigger map to maneuver. And i think its not the place to suggest itm but have you even considered to try a match with a Fog of War? I think for the current (small) maps it will be nice and interesting

Fog of War is definetly not for this type of game - but if you want to play with something like that - then wait for the first units with scout abbility.

And its time to my opinion about underpowered units:

Acheron:
Skelleton Warriors without Feriocious could be little cheaper (same price as now with feriocious)
Crane Warrior - it should be cheaper and weaker or have higher cost and be stronger - currently Paladin at level 5 is mostly better.

- Piersts are great and definetly noe underpowered - 2 pierst escorted by 2 paladins with loyal can easily gain 6 faith per turn with makes them even more better than Alachan mage - and with mote than 6 they are definetly better and starts to be OP executors.

Alachan
- Sparkling isn't underpowered - he is a mistake Currently its so useles that even taking him on a training mission makes it hard
There are 2 options of fixing it
*Rebuilding him to be cheap assault unit with real flight that can engage necromancers covered behind hedges od harrasing wolfens with crossbors (Dodge is his only good stat)
*Giving him a Heal at level 1 not 5 (who would rise the cost of the devoting unit?). Alachan should have cheapest healing while currently have only regeneration that is less evective than necro/wolfen healing mostly.

- Swordsman
It have no resonable skill at lev 2 (especialy compared to skeleton). Parry is the only option that changes anything but Parry 14 isnt exeptional at all with current meta. He can succesfuly blocks only Pupets. For anything else he need Defensive stance that negates Parry. Vivacity would be acceptable to not making him cost more - but his base Dod 8 is nothing compared to Wolfen stats.
And level 3 gives him choose between something like anti-combo of Taunt-Parry (-3ACC is not so much when opponent wants to atack archer or mage, while Parry bonus dissapear while swordsman uses taunt - at least until end of turn). Second choice at lev 3 is no choice at all - Quick Strike is so useless that i cant even find a situation that it fits... a reversed Heavy strike could be usefull against encircled enemies but most usefull would be C3 Sequence for 10-20AP givilng him additional strike with -3ACC.

Wolfens Dont knew yet - anything that i encoutered playing with Alachan/Acheron was dangerous due to born killer and insane Dodge alone ;P

think wolven dodge too much? Favorable auspices is your friend aaanyway yeah priest is good just needs some rework on some skills imo. I posted some feedback about them in another post but i will repeat myself here:

-aura of crepuscular princes should be redesigned by giving -2 Par and -2 dod instead of -3 par. In that way it would be more interesting and maybe a competitor vs occult erosion (for palas) and transfer
-Unavoidable destiny should have slightly more damage (5 is too little and i guess it gets reduced with hard boiled). Probably 7 would be better as you can reach 10 damage with enlightment talent (+3 spell damage) making it quite relevant

think wolven dodge too much? Favorable auspices is your friend aaanyway yeah priest is good just needs some rework on some skills imo.

1 - Making Valkirie obligatory even for lions is realy annoying
2 - While playing Acheron - my archers are totaly useless no matter everything ;P

Dragon_Warrior wrote:

think wolven dodge too much? Favorable auspices is your friend aaanyway yeah priest is good just needs some rework on some skills imo.

1 - Making Valkirie obligatory even for lions is realy annoying
2 - While playing Acheron - my archers are totaly useless no matter everything ;P

overwhelming them is the key i don't think their DOD is so high and i played often vs full melee wolven . I actually think archers are the wolven nemesis block the paths with the morbid puppets and slaughter them almost point blank