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| Thread: Sylvan strategies? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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elmek
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 24, 2007 09:47 PM |
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Sylvan strategies?
Hi, I used to play Rampart back in H3 and started to play Sylvan in H5 as well. However I realize that this faction is a little slow at the beginning.
I wonder if any of you play Sylvan and have some nice strategies to share.
Ossir seems a great candidate for a main hero, however I noticed, that Wyngaal has been modified with his initiative bonus at the beginning of the combat.
How about getting War Machines with imbue + triple balista coupled with Flaming arrows? That would enable nice creeping I think. With elven luck and other bonusses, however we'd miss the Tent skill then...
I haven't tried it so far, but perhaps some of you already did and have some opinions.
Thanks!
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 24, 2007 10:09 PM |
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Edited by Elvin at 22:13, 24 Apr 2007.
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Yes it would offer a good beginning if it weren't two things: 1) It is offered on 2% of the lvl us which makes it too hard to get early. 2) The ballista costs 4500 for that faction though you may be lucky to recruit Talanar that has one equipped.
Attack with archery is a very good one for the beginning but attack is equally rare though you can start with Wyngaal. I don't play him however as he is overpowered and gets a +2% bonus to atb in the beginning of the combat instead of the 0.5% it was supposed to be.
Light with Ylthin can help boost your early damage output but you'd have to get divine strength. In any case haste can help too if cast on the hunters with adv+ light.
Leadership works fine because with just a level in it you get a 30% chance for morale(you already have 2 morale with native army.) and it can buy your hunters time to shoot against the neutrals.
Finally luck which is the main sylvan skill along with logistics. It is good on its own but with soldier's luck->elven luck it does a pretty good damage.
You may also utilize avenger. You build avenger's guild, go kill some weak stacks of specific units that you will face later in larger stacks and then use them as your favoured enemies(40% chance for double damage).
I also like to get defense->vitality/evasion to help with the hunters' survivability.
I have noticed that wardancers and sprites are often targetted by the AI so if you charge with them, enemy ranged shooters will often forget the hunters.
By end of week 1 you should have druids(depends on town starting lvl) in which case you'd better split your 8 druids(week 2) to 2 stacks of 4. The general rule is that the less units the more damage their spells will do as it doesn't increase linearly.
If you get unicorns they may resist some enemy spells(when surrounding your hunters) but I wouldn't depend on it even if the chance is 30%. It can be a life saver in some cases.
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 24, 2007 10:47 PM |
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In what difficulty? basically, sylvan strategy varies from normal to hard and heroic (hard and heroic have same strategy).
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elmek
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 24, 2007 11:02 PM |
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Quote:
In what difficulty? basically, sylvan strategy varies from normal to hard and heroic (hard and heroic have same strategy).
I'm always playing on heroic.
And that 2% for grtting war machines does not sound too good 
Counterspell would sound good in the late game, but after looking at the reqs it almost impossible to get.
What is the common strategy for heroic? Is it simple humters + druids guarded by treants or something else?
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 24, 2007 11:45 PM |
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You got it, hunter+druid guarded by treant is the first number one aim for sylvan creeping in any difficulty.
But, in hard and heroic, don't rush to master hunter, it's okay if you can't afford them, but be sure you can get druid as fast as possible while not forgetting about hunter (not master hunter), i'm sure you already know about that. The only problem about sylvan is only creeping problem, againts another faction, there is not much problem, but some faction need another strategy.
About creeping, some maps have an exception, i mean that in some maps, getting hunter is very hard, and sometimes it's better not getting them, because sometimes they'll delay town development too long. If you can't get hunter quickly or play with no hunter, just get War dancers and pixie or sprites and blade dancer (depends on your wood stock), but i suggest war dancer and pixie, because they do better damage than sprites and blade dancer. And aim for imbue arrow and mage guild asap, even stone spike is nice to be imbued with, pray for eldritch arrow, also deadeye shot is nice to get after imbue arrow. With imbue arrow (and deadeye shot if possible), pixie, and war dancer, creeping is easy, after getting hunter and druid, it's easier. Tier lv 1 and 2 of Sylvan unit have very good initiative, so you can split those war dancer to few stacks, one big and the other 1 to eat enemies retaliation, war dancer do better damage than blood furies. With correct posisitioning of war dancer and pixie (sprites if possible) + imbue arrow (and deadeye shot if possible), they will make many miracle, and get druid asap, much more miracle will come. That is if you play with no hunter, i mean in early days.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 12:07 PM |
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I almost never play sylvan, but when I do, I use ossir+m.hunters and tiny stacks of dancers and pixies as suicide-bait. I have no clue why neutral shooters pick them one time, and my hunters another time, though. Is it totally random or I mess something up?~~
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radar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Castle/Haven player
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posted April 25, 2007 12:42 PM |
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maybe computer wants juggle with morale
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sdfx
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 12:49 PM |
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Apart from a 2% chance for war machines there is also another 2% hope for a ranger: summoning magic -> fire warriors. Fire elementals are durable and they deal good damage - they form a great army for the first 2 weeks.
Also, there is a 25% chance that the sylvan's guild will support a ranger with phantom forces, which will obviously strengthen ranger's creeping speed A LOT.
Fire trap is also to be listed here, because it owns 2x2 walkers and you are forced to take stupid earthblood anyway. Things like AI chasing a phantom through a mine field, just to miss its attack, are always priceless 
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 01:20 PM |
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Right, phantom force is also good, but i hate to gamble.
Usually, creeping with only war dancer and sprites is possible, covered with imbue arrow and deadeye shot, it's just playing with creatures placement, war dancer dmg cannot be understimated at early creeping, sprites also do good damage, it's not that great, but they're very useful for hit and run. Also i find that creeping with sylvan troops is a combination of inferno (troop placement) and dungeon (hit and run).
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TemjinGold
Known Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 04:31 PM |
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Quote:
Apart from a 2% chance for war machines there is also another 2% hope for a ranger: summoning magic -> fire warriors. Fire elementals are durable and they deal good damage - they form a great army for the first 2 weeks.
Also, there is a 25% chance that the sylvan's guild will support a ranger with phantom forces, which will obviously strengthen ranger's creeping speed A LOT.
Fire trap is also to be listed here, because it owns 2x2 walkers and you are forced to take stupid earthblood anyway. Things like AI chasing a phantom through a mine field, just to miss its attack, are always priceless
If you want summoning, why not just start with Dirael?
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 25, 2007 04:38 PM |
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I guess she is not as useful most of the times to even gamble it. She only gets an imbued wasp swarm shot for sure, maybe more with rain of arrows. That's not enough even if it helps a lot with enemy shooters at creeping. If you were sure to get fire trap and phantom forces I'd consider her.
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sq79
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 05:32 PM |
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I guess the creeping likes in imbue arrow
Imbued elwritch arrow can do quite some damage.
Fights against marksmen .. split 6 stacks of sprites, and charge forward, morale will give ur sprites 2 turns before marksmen and sometimes archers.
Fights against golems and zombies seems to be easiest for them can be done with even 1 sprite.
Against squires imbued arrow rules 
However they do face problem if need to fight master hunters in week 1  Can't be done though without hunter losses.
Hope this helps
Works in both heroic and hard mode.
Final battle for sylvan lies in swift attack especially against dungeon. So never built treants against them since its almost never possible to afford all troops in most maps.
Game winners are normally unicorns and emerald dragons in late game while opponent does everything to kill the master hunters, yet if they're not killed.. they shall do damage beyond imagination
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 06:10 PM |
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Treants may be useful against paladins, though. After all you don't want them running around, killing things.
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 06:33 PM |
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@sq79: Agreed, that's the most possible way, and without gambling, to be honest, that's the way i use sylvan, and imbue arrow totally rocks, this skill is awesome to get for early creeping, sometimes, there is no need tu rush hunter, just druid and imbue arrow covered with war dancer and sprites is okay.
Yeah, unicorn and emerald dragon are very good creatures, especially emerald dragons, this unit can easily score breath attack. As for unicorn, they can easily score blind with soldier luck, especially if the target stack has lower total hp than the unicorn.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 06:44 PM |
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Quote:
As for unicorn, they can easily score blind with soldier luck, especially if the target stack has lower total hp than the unicorn.
which, surprisingly, are the level 7s. Yeah, they come late to play so their total HP is quite low
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 07:16 PM |
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Usually unicorn will come at week 2 in hard or week 3 in heroic, i think it's normal for lv 5 creatures. Blind is often triggered compared to nightmare fear ability, or maybe i'm just a lucky man.
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Vlaad
Admirable
Legendary Hero
ghost of the past
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posted April 25, 2007 07:20 PM |
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Edited by Vlaad at 21:33, 25 Apr 2007.
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@ ChaosDragon
Quote:
You got it, hunter+druid guarded by treant is the first number one aim for sylvan creeping in any difficulty.
Creeping with Treants? By the time you got Treants, creeping should have been over...Quote:
And aim for imbue arrow and mage guild asap, even stone spike is nice to be imbued with, pray for eldritch arrow, also deadeye shot is nice to get after imbue arrow. With imbue arrow (and deadeye shot if possible)
Can you use Imbue Arrow before you get Deadeye Shot (or Rain)?
@ sdfxQuote:
there is also another 2% hope for a ranger: summoning magic -> fire warriors.
Fire Warriors?! How many skill points do you need for that - 11, 12, 13? It won't matter much by the time you got it anyway. You'll have Expert Light and Expert Summoning.
If you're into such kinky stuff, you'd better get Battle Commander to level 3 Talanar.
@ Doomforge
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I almost never play sylvan, but when I do, I use ossir+m.hunters and tiny stacks of dancers and pixies as suicide-bait. I have no clue why neutral shooters pick them one time, and my hunters another time, though. Is it totally random or I mess something up?~~
No idea, but sometimes I'd rather keep Ossir's Hunters out of the combat IF his Dancers can beat the shooters themselves.
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sdfx
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 08:38 PM |
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Edited by sdfx at 20:38, 25 Apr 2007.
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Fire Warriors?! How many skill points do you need for that - 11, 12, 13? It won't matter much by the time you got it anyway. You'll have Expert Light and Expert Summoning.Quote:
That's why you need it early.. and summoning with right spells vs AI will matter one way or another, don't worry about that
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If you want summoning, why not just start with Dirael?
Direal starts with master of conjuration while you need earthblood for fire warriors.
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ChaosDragon
Famous Hero
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posted April 25, 2007 08:57 PM |
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Can you use Imbue Arrow before you get Deadeye Shot (or Rain)?
Nope, you can't, i forgot that only deadeye shot and rain of arrow that can be imbued. Nice correction.
Quote:
Creeping with Treants? By the time you got Treants, creeping should have been over...
Depends on the maps, in bigger maps, it's possible, but i never recomend creeping with treant, because with imbue+deadeye, war dancer, sprites, druid (and hunter), there should be no problem, unless you creep very strong caster (archmage, elder druid, etc).
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Vlaad
Admirable
Legendary Hero
ghost of the past
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posted April 25, 2007 09:23 PM |
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Edited by Vlaad at 21:26, 25 Apr 2007.
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Quote:
Quote:
Fire Warriors?! How many skill points do you need for that - 11, 12, 13? It won't matter much by the time you got it anyway. You'll have Expert Light and Expert Summoning.
That's why you need it early.. and summoning with right spells vs AI will matter one way or another, don't worry about that
The point is you cannot get it early enough. In fact, you may never get it, since the requirements are as undesirable as unlikely: Storm Wind and Fire Resistance. In addition, the same hero could have Mass Haste, Mass Righteous Might, Resurrection, Phantom Forces or Conjure Phoenix... not to mention Imbue Arrow. Fire Warriors seems completely redundant. Finally, a level 10+ Ranger has, like, zillion better choices.
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