What are the worst units in the game

[Gyra_Solune]

Horsemen do suffer badly when things go wrong but I find that their effectiveness is worth the risk a good amount of the time.

It's worth noting, that if the drakes are simply playing clashers and saurians I'd never recruit the horseman. However, it does not change the fact that I do still find them useful against drakes under other circumstances. I also still find them useful against rebels who aren't going wose heavy and knalgans regardless.

So you would charge a Drake Fighter? Because charging a Drake Fighter, for instance, if it's strong there's a decent shot the Horseman will die. And there's a far greater chance that the Drake will inflict two shots than the Horseman will inflict two shots. A quick glance into Wesnoth shows that if the Drake inflicts two and the Horseman only inflicts one, the Horseman will get the worst of it.

I just can't for the life of me fathom how this unit is worth a quarter of your OR.

Why is there a far greater chance the Drake will get two hits in compared to the Horseman? A drake maxes out at 40% evade which is what a Horseman is getting on its favored terrain - on flat ground drakes only get 30% evasion. It is actually way less likely for a Fighter to kill a Horseman, because it needs to hit all three times while evading at least one attack against itself.

Like okay, I need to actually ask what you think would be more ideal for the Horseman. Making it cheaper? But it seems really crazy that the unit with the single highest attack power in the entire game should cost less than it already does, especially given that the Gryphon Rider is even more expensive. Like you keep saying you'd rather buy a spearman and a half with that money, but a Horseman can do basically as much damage as a spearman and a half, so it seems like a fair price?

[UK1]

Why is there a far greater chance the Drake will get two hits in compared to the Horseman? A drake maxes out at 40% evade which is what a Horseman is getting on its favored terrain - on flat ground drakes only get 30% evasion. It is actually way less likely for a Fighter to kill a Horseman, because it needs to hit all three times while evading at least one attack against itself.

Like okay, I need to actually ask what you think would be more ideal for the Horseman. Making it cheaper? But it seems really crazy that the unit with the single highest attack power in the entire game should cost less than it already does, especially given that the Gryphon Rider is even more expensive. Like you keep saying you'd rather buy a spearman and a half with that money, but a Horseman can do basically as much damage as a spearman and a half, so it seems like a fair price?

... A drake has three strikes, a horseman has two. A drake is likelier to get 2/3 than a horseman is to get 2/2. It's a really basic, basic concept in Wesnoth. I don't see much point in addressing the rest of what you said, but yeah it's definitely too expensive.

The Gryphon Rider is worth the money. It can fly, for one. It's less suicidal, it's good at all times of day, it has better defense ratings, can be relied upon to hold in a line, the list goes on and on.

[Gyra_Solune]

... A drake has three strikes, a horseman has two. A drake is likelier to get 2/3 than a horseman is to get 2/2. It's a really basic, basic concept in Wesnoth. I don't see much point in addressing the rest of what you said, but yeah it's definitely too expensive.

Okay, yes, it's likelier to get 2/3, but the thing is the drake's 2 strikes will not kill the Horseman. The Horseman's 2 strikes will. Drake needs to get all three hits to defeat the Horseman, which is less likely than the Horseman getting the two.

The Gryphon's resistances are not better than the Horseman's though. It resists nothing and is instead weak to Impact. Horse guys in general resist impact, blade, and arcane. And the Gryphon has less HP than the Horseman, so defensively it's going to fall slightly faster.

[UK1]

... A drake has three strikes, a horseman has two. A drake is likelier to get 2/3 than a horseman is to get 2/2. It's a really basic, basic concept in Wesnoth. I don't see much point in addressing the rest of what you said, but yeah it's definitely too expensive.

Okay, yes, it's likelier to get 2/3, but the thing is the drake's 2 strikes will not kill the Horseman. The Horseman's 2 strikes will. Drake needs to get all three hits to defeat the Horseman, which is less likely than the Horseman getting the two.

The Gryphon's resistances are not better than the Horseman's though. It resists nothing and is instead weak to Impact. Horse guys in general resist impact, blade, and arcane. And the Gryphon has less HP than the Horseman, so defensively it's going to fall slightly faster.

You're completely missing my point. Re-read my post and play more Wesnoth.

[Gyra_Solune]

I must then ask for the point to be clarified?

[beetlenaut]

You're completely missing my point. Re-read my post and play more Wesnoth.

You sound very rude and dismissive when I think it is actually you who missed the point here. Gyra_Solune is pointing out that if the horseman hits twice, the drake won't get his remaining strikes, and that's the most likely outcome. It doesn't sound like you took that into account. In fact, if the drake is on 30% defense (which is common, like Gyra_Solune said) the drake only has a 2% greater chance of getting two hits. That's not exactly obvious without doing the math.

@ Gyra_Solune: What you are not taking into account is that there are three ways for the horseman to miss at least one strike (hit/miss, miss/hit, and miss/miss). Even though hitting on both strikes is the most likely single outcome, it is not more likely than the other three outcomes combined. (Unless the drake is on 20% or less.)

[Gyra_Solune]

Ahhh, yeah I'd not taken like, the three different possibilities into consideration. It's been like four years since I last took my high school statistics class, so I'm perhaps slightly rusty on how exactly you do the math, so maybe take my analysis with a bit of give, heh. Disadvantages that come with a game centered around manipulating probability is that it can be a little tricky to discuss the inner workings of things!

I'm probably just going to leave this on me remaining unconvinced that the only unit in the game that can reliably take almost enemy enemy from full HP to 0 in one turn as being never worth the extra cost. I wouldn't wish them to be any cheaper than they are, because if they cost less then suddenly they become way more viable as a permanent central fixture of the faction and drastically changes their nature. I like them as they are, as an overwhelming destructive force that's tempered by prohibitive restraints, which can do absolutely amazing things in the right hands, but which is not even really necessary to use if you do not wish to, because again that's the Loyalist thing - they're an okay and sort of meh faction if you only have spearmen, bowmen, mermen and cavalry, and you can even win perfectly fine if you use nothing but those, but you can spice it up with a bag of tricks up your sleeve for when the situation calls on it. That has to be considered when you're talking about making changes to Loyalist units because they're very delicately balanced and even a tiny buff to HI or Fencers or a tiny nerf to the Spearman totally mixes up the formula.

And here I thought the units I'd have to vouch for would be like, the Poacher or Footpad which IMO, while certainly not unusable and absolutely having their moments, are still probably around the bottom of the tier list. I also kind of never really get how to use the Skeleton Archer since the Adept is kind of where it's at in terms of a ranged offense, though I suppose it is nice how cheap the Archer is. Probably just like, if you need to be getting at someone in a more protracted fight against a single distant opponent in a fortified location, like a typical scout unit? But kind of a weird case.

Oh by the by, I've always wondered, why does the Skeleton Archer start with an impact melee side-arm but then changes to the usual blade dagger thing? I'd kind of make the case that the Undead could actually use an impact-focused specialist fighter and like the idea of a sort of skeletal monk fistfighter mixed-purpose alt promotion sort of in the vein of the Deathblade but being more evasive and dodgy instead of simply faster, and doing less damage than the Bone Shooter but having it in both melee and ranged.

[Mystery]

I'm on your side man, I love Horsemen. Wesnoth is mostly very carefully balanced around damage-per-hex, zone of control, etc. to make it rather difficult to break a strong defensive formation in a single turn. The Horseman is the only default unit that simply says "screw you" to the rules. It fundamentally breaks the game. I'd argue it's one of the best units in the game for that, the prohibitive price tag is necessary for balance. As for Footpad... well, the nerf was totally deserved because they actually were my pick for best unit in the game until the whole "Urf + Footpad auto-win the Undead matchup" thing was realized. The nerf hurt, no doubt, but they still have excellent mobility for their cost while being slightly less impotent in combat than Bats/Falcons. They also have a clear role in Knalgan as a secondary scouting unit, as Gryphons cost... well, more than Horsemen.

Poacher I could definitely see, so I'd love to hear the defense there. What do they have going for them? All I got is that they deal reliable damage for a non-magical unit, having four strikes, and their combo of damage and mobility fills the gap between Dwarves and Footpad/Thief that may fill a precise need... but due to Dwarven terrain costs +1 MP hardly makes Poacher more mobile much of the time. They're unusually canny on Swamp terrain for a non-aquatic unit... but that amounts to a whole +10% Defense, no mobility advantage, and Swamp terrain is uncommon on most maps.

I'd probably put Thief just a hair above Poacher, as they're ridiculously fragile and Backstab is difficult to realize against good players, but arguably even the threat can force opponents into less favorable positioning. They're also cheaper and more mobile, plus Rogue is devastating if you can promote one whereas Trapper is a more typical, incremental upgrade to Poacher. Maybe Wolf Rider? As Northerners' scout unit, they're a necessary evil but quite clearly inferior to those of other factions. I suppose you might say the same of the aquatic units though, as they're both worse fighters in water than standard melee units are on land, but also that it doesn't matter since they have a very clearly defined, specialist role.

Skeleton Archer has a distinct and notable advantage in being the only basic ranged unit that is actually cheaper than its faction's basic melee counterpart. If standard Skeletons are better overall, and I think it's very much arguable because Archers are dual-range, it's because they hit the all-important 7 damage threshold for +2 on ToD bonus and Archers don't. In comparison, Bowmen compare far less favorably to Spearmen and the others are more expensive. Although I don't think you were bringing up Skelly Archers as an example of a bottom-tier unit anyway.

[Gyra_Solune]

Oh, so the Footpad used to be somewhat more powerful? Interesting, interesting...yeah, I can see how a more powerful Footpad really changes the Undead matchup. The Poacher is, I feel of the Knalgan outlaws, the one you can most use as a standard unit. Knalgans don't have any other ranged options aside from the Thunderers whose damage nature means they aren't as good defensively as offensively (although they have better melee) - at night, the Poacher actually slightly outpaces the Thunderer for damage and is a touch more flexible overall, as well as its capacity as kiiinda aquatic, maybe, sort of, on the right maps where swamps are mostly found as being near the typical water avenues. The Poacher isn't quite the fantastic upgrade that the Rogue is but it's still a pretty solid-ish one, it gets a respectable enough melee boost and is okay sort of at both ranges instead of ultra blatantly weaker at one, and it takes very little XP to get to level 3, where both the Huntsman and Ranger are actually pretty decent units (Huntsman especially is actually pretty valuable for the otherwise accuracy-bonus lacking Knalgans).

In a sense on them I'm kiiiiiiind of appraising units more individually than for their faction - it's undeniable that the Knalgans more often use the dwarves than the outlaws, because dwarves are just so good and really the outlaws are there to fill out the roster numbers. If the Dwarvish Scout was like, just a touch faster and was able to evade more in non-rugged terrain, it could very handily just replace all three of those units (while simultaneously being more worth its weirdly high cost) - leaving a lot of weak outlaw units without much of anywhere to go, as a dedicated outlaw faction as it stands would be a little lacking and not fun to play. Also I think maybe the Knalgans having those halfway-tacked on outlaws serves a very slight niche purpose as being a faction you can use to teach people new at the game how to play. The three combined are at this weird balance where most factions are absolutely at an undeniable advantage normally, but not so weak that it's impossible for a better player to narrowly come out on top of a new one. I do tend to enjoy doing outlaw-only MP games to introduce people to the ropes! (saurians-only is also pretty good for that but slightly less exciting)

Skeleton Archer isn't like, a bad unit per se, it's just in a kind of weird place in the faction. It and the Skeleton are functionally identical to the Spearman and Bowman, and while the Archer has the price advantage in their favor, the Dark Adept is just so good and the Undead's nature favors making bold moves over playing it safer with more balanced units. I see where you'd use it, when perhaps an attack hasn't gone entirely your way and you need to protect your Adepts from like, Mages or Assassins you haven't dispatched but hm, that's a slightly niche scenario. I'm only now really getting used to the Undead so I've only really experienced using the Archers in weirdly specialized cases that I often feel would've been done better with different units!

[Mystery]

If Dwarvish Scout was in Default Era, I think it would all but replace Poacher and even largely be a better Thunderer. 5 MP is huge with Dwarven terrain costs (damn near Flying) and the only mainline unit with more competent damage at both ranges is the Drake Burner. Sadly, it is not available in standard multiplayer. Thieves are cheaper and Footpad has 7 MP. As for Poacher still, I think Thunderer is more flexible, as one of the most competent dual-rangers in the game, Poacher is just more reliable if you only need a finishing blow. Nobody wants to take the 18-1 in retaliation either, though to Poacher's credit it does indeed average more damage at night.

Poacher feels like a specialist unit, whose specialty is incremental gains in a few areas over a very strong generalist in the Thunderer. Poacher has more mobility, but only over Flat terrain at +1 MP and the Thunderer having great terrain costs. Poacher deals more damage at night, but just barely and still less in melee. It doesn't really have better survivability for its cost, they're about the same factoring in Thunderer's resistances... I suppose in Forests (and Swamp obviously). It uses the same damage types. (Footpad deals Impact damage.) It does little different from Thunderer, it just might be very slightly better in a few cases when the exact numbers work out in its favor. It's not a Merman or Orcish Assassin or Horseman, which have very well-defined special purposes. Poacher is itself a generalist, but Thunderer is mostly better in the same role.

Skeleton Archer is quite plainly the best standard ranged unit, though it says as much about Skeletons as it does the Archers. Bowman compare much less favorably to Spearmen, as Spearmen have First Strike and a token ranged attack that Skeletons do not. Thunderers are good as well but noticeably less survivable than Dwarvish Fighters, traits which O. Archer and E. Archer take to larger extremes. Drake Burners are prohibitively priced... Khalifate don't really fit the mold since you're more choosing between Liminal vs. Lawful alignment than melee vs. ranged damage.

Melee Skeletons have no standout features at all. They're only ~2% more survivable for their cost than Archers and don't even have a second weapon type like Dorfs. Whereas Spearman and friends are obviously their faction's "primary" unit, whether to favor Skeletons or S. Archer is more on the matchup. You can very well buy mostly or all Skelly Archers against Drakes, Loyalists, Northerners, while on the flip side you want most or all melee Skeletons in the mirror and versus Rebels. There is never a circumstance where you want a ton of Bowmen and no Spearmen, Burners but no Fighters, E. Archers but no E. Fighters. Skelly Archers are good.

On that note, Bowmen are pretty bad too. Orcish Archers have Fire arrows and dual range in general over Grunts. Elvish Archers have more MP than Fighters and 70% Forest defense. Bowman... deals less dual-range damage than Spearman (26 vs 27), to say nothing of First Strike. It costs the same but has identical resists and defenses, MP and terrain costs, less HP. Doesn't promote into anything special, in fact Javelineer is extremely similar if you want to turn your promoted Spearman into a "Bowman" of sorts. It seems all they have is a whopping -3 XP for advancement, and they deal Blade melee damage instead of Pierce. *shrug*

On paper, they're hardly even better than Poachers too. They deal slightly better damage, and have +1 HP, but Poacher notably takes -10 XP to promote and has better Forest/Swamp defenses (and Swamp mobility).

[Gyra_Solune]

I don't think the Loyalist Bowman is particularly bad, it's just an absolutely standard ranged unit in a game where there are weirdly very few with most having some form of accuracy bonus or a fire attack or what have you. In the context of the Loyalists they remain kind of critical as your only ranged unit that isn't the pricey and squishy Mage. And it does pretty well for itself on promoting? It actually gets a very marked damage buff, while also having better melee than all but the Fire Drake and Thunderguard, and more HP than all but the Drake too. I'd argue perhaps the level 1 could use a slightly better short sword attack to sort of tie into how of all the primary ranged units in the game it's one of the more flexible at higher levels. Opinions of it might be radically changed simply by adjusting it to like, a 4-3 or 6-2! But Loyalists are somewhat delicately balanced and not having the most amazing ranged options is part of that - something needs to remain cementing the Spearman as your only really good option at holding the line, and keeping the Bowmen in the back.

In general the outlaw units are probably intentionally some of the less useful units out there. They are, after all, just a step above civilians, armed with whatever they can get their hands on, so it makes sense that they aren't up to snuff with proper armed forces - though they have a handful of tricks up their sleeve. At the end of the day they're really more in the Knalgan Alliance for flavor purposes, it seems?

[UK1]

I agree Skellies are bad. You kind of need one, but you should avoid getting more than that unless your opponent is going ham on spearmen or something. I think choosing between "Focusing" on Skellies or Skelly archers is kind of a weird question. Undead is a story of having as many DAs as you can and having just barely enough Melee to protect them. I think I only buy Skelly archers against Drakes sometimes or maybe if I'm against a loy who is spamming spears/cavs or a reb who is spamming fighters/scouts. They're not as good at range as the adept and they're not as good at shielding melee as a Skelly or a Ghoul. Yes, adepts are 2 gold more, but adepts are underpriced for the firepower they bring so they're a better buy imo.

And yes, sorry for being a bit rude. I'm not saying Horseman doesn't have uses. I'm saying it's not worth the price. Which is also my beef with Skeletons. Can it one-shot a drake fighter? Potentially. But you can basically buy one and one third Drake Fighters for the cost of a Horseman. So the real contest is a hypothetical scenario where it's pit against a drake fighter that is 33% more powerful.

Saying "Horseman v. Fighter" is misleading. That being said, I still would probably not charge a Fighter with a Horseman because if you get a little bit unlucky, things can really go belly-up in that scenario. Which is very, very characteristic of the horseman. If Talluvah, Goddess of RNG favors you, Horseman is great. If she doesn't it's horrible. And I don't like putting 23 gold on the line like that.

I think poachers and footies are both good. Footies were only barely nerfed. They're still considered an excellent anti-undead recruit, though they're not the kryptonite they were when they had a ridiculous cold resistance. They're a good scout. Whenever I play Knalgans I always recruit at least one in my OR. I definitely wouldn't put them in the running for worst unit.

If I had to nominate a second candidate, I'd say HI for sure. Barring limited use against Knalgans, I've never really used them. Slow, luck reliant, expensive.

[Mystery]

There's nothing wrong with the Bowman per se, but what do they do? Spearmen are dual-range, so Loyalists don't absolutely need Bowmen to avoid being abused and freely chipped down by Elves (as Knalgan need Thunderers and Northerners need Orcish Archers). Blade melee, sure, but you're not going toe-to-toe with a Wose anyway which is the only time it really matters. You don't save gold like you do with Skeleton Archers.

Part of it is that Spearman itself is really good but the Bowman doesn't really have much of a role, it's just an inferior generalist that is range-focused. It's just sorta something you might go ahead and buy one just to have a little variety in your forces. Maybe you have it to punish Drake Burners defensively, it can finish off a weakened melee unit while taking less (or no) retaliation like a Spearman, whatever. Kinda like Poacher vs Thunderer, but at least Poacher has actual advantages in that comparison. And Bowman is hardly any better than Poacher on paper.

I think outlaws inject a bit of Chaotic flavor into the otherwise Neutral Knalgan Alliance, just as Woses and Mages give Rebels a dash of Lawful in an otherwise Neutral faction. It avoids having a "true neutral" faction in the game. They also give the Knalgan important mobility, since Dwarves only have 4 MP and Gryphons are prohibitively expensive.

[Gyra_Solune]

Well, yes the Spearman has a ranged side-arm, but it's hardly something you can mount an offensive with, it's a 6-1 javelin that ranged enemies are going to be okay with taking if it means getting to slough off the Spearman's health with impunity. Spearman's not dual-ranged like say, the Jundi is, where its entire high point is that it can do a modicum of retaliation no matter how it's attacked, it's dual-ranged in, well, the same way the Bowman is where it has another range solely for a slight bit of coverage. Enemy ranged units will still be able to deal with a Spearman just fine, they'll just be slightly dinged up by it.

[Mystery]

It's dual-ranged in the sense that enemies can't pluck at you for literally free damage. That's all that really matters. It's not like the Bowman's melee is super-strong itself, more so than Spearman's range but the latter more than makes up for it with stronger primary-weapon damage. It helps hold a defensive position, unlike say Dwarvish Fighter getting pushed off a Mountain by Elves (even Fighters) simply because he's eventually going to die for free if left to his own devices. Or the chip damage helps you get a kill on your turn, if the opponent failed to convert one themselves and their attacking unit was left vulnerable due to not freeing up your unit's hex to bring in a blocker. At any rate, Bowman's superior secondary damage doesn't make up for their inferior primary damage in comparison, especially at the all-important 7 damage threshold that gets Spearman the +2 in daylight.

Hmm, HI... They're definitely not awesome like the Wose. Do you even want them against Knalgan? I know they lack magic, or poison, to explicitly exploit HI's weak points but they also have the best availability of Impact damage: Fighters go toe-to-toe with them, at a lower price point, and Footpads are meddlesome. Perhaps more so Northerners if you can avoid their ranged units, but even the Orcish Assassin can pay the price of poisoning an HI with its life since HI can two-shot them depending on traits, plus HI are Fearless. They also fare well against Undead and the Loyalist mirror so long as you don't get them bopped by a Mage/DA, as they're quite resilient against literally everything else and much more punishing to Ghouls than Spearmen.

HI are pretty bad on paper, but it's been said that's true of all Loyalist specialists for the sake of balance since Loyalists have access to more specialists than other factions. On which note, Fencer is most definitely worse than Saurian Skirmisher... but as only one of two available skirmishers for recruit I don't think you can hold that against them too much, definitely a much more useful unit than HI at any rate (who compares even worse against Wose besides) because skirmisher is a very powerful ability. Nonetheless, I'd say HI have some clear if not narrow uses. I think I'm still on the Bowman train, which is just an inferior generalist to its own Spearmen.

Or I could go back to Wolf Rider, which is really quite bad on its own merits. As the Northerners' scouting unit, it's a necessary evil to recruit one or two early for the initial village grab, but it's straight garbage compared to the other scouting units. Even if Goblin Pillager is a sweet promote.