What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era?

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SBak
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Joined: October 8th, 2011, 1:36 am

Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by SBak »

To me it's between the Bowman and the Footpad.

The Bowman is the worst archer of all the Default factions. It's not as mobile as the others, not as versatile as the Poacher, and needs almost as much XP to level as the Elvish Archer (in my opinion the best of all the archers).

As for the Footpad. I know that it's a scout but so too are Wolf Riders and Elvish Scouts which are both more mobile and generally deal more damage. I generally find lvl0 Ruffians better with a club, and find Thieves a much better alternative with their backstab.
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nuorc
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by nuorc »

I just played HttT again and the 2 Footies I got were useful in most scenarios (at least as Fugitives).

Unlike those crappy (nerfed) bats, which keep dying on me...
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Flameslash
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Flameslash »

I think the weakest are berserkers. Sure, they do damage, but only 4 (IIRC) a hit, so they lose vs most melee units, and they can't defend against range. Even in melee, at the right ToD some archers can beat them up.
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TheEmptyLord
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by TheEmptyLord »

I think the worst unit is Direwolf Rider. It does not makes sense to have 2 blade attack, one 9-4 and one 4-4 poison. I have yet to see 4-4 poison be used at all. The potential damage lost to use the poison attack makes not worth being used.
Ive got to disagree about the Rider. For one, he is a level three of a scout unit with high mobility and not necessarily meant as a mainline fighter. Because of this, the poison attack can be very useful as hit an run, particularly if the enemy doesn't have access to many villages or healers. Besides, he is at the least a straight upgrade over the Knight, and still a powerful scout. Of course I still prefer the Pillager to the Knight line, but that is because I love having a ranged slow on a melee scout, not because I don't like the choice of melee poison.
As for the Footpad. I know that it's a scout but so too are Wolf Riders and Elvish Scouts which are both more mobile and generally deal more damage. I generally find lvl0 Ruffians better with a club, and find Thieves a much better alternative with their backstab.
To be honest I used to completely agree with you about the footpad, but when I actually started extensively using them (funnily enough right after their nerf) I found out how great they could be. They have nice movement, great defenses, and a decent (if not great) melee and ranged attack. There have been several games of WC against undead in which I have decided to retreat and 2-3 footpads managed to hold villages for 4+ turns surrounded. At night against skeletons they are a great counter, particularly if you get slightly lucky. My biggest use for them is as a scout early game, and then I generally stick them on a 70% defense hex and let the enemy waste time focusing on them. Sure the Elvish Scout and Wolf Rider hare better attacks, but neither get 70% defense anywhere (or 60% on flat) and both cost a bit more. Personally I never really liked the thief because of his horrible survivability, and the fact that to be effective he needs to get behind enemy lines, but either way it is rather hard compare a unit who shines in the middle of a battle to a scout.
I think the weakest are berserkers. Sure, they do damage, but only 4 (IIRC) a hit, so they lose vs most melee units, and they can't defend against range. Even in melee, at the right ToD some archers can beat them up.
That's why you need to protect them ;) They aren't a huge favorite of mine either, but they are actually very useful against quite a few enemies, you just can't treat them like a "normal" unit. They can be used to pick off mages, dark adepts, rangers, leaders, spearhead holes in enemy lines, weaken badly defended powerful units for your other men, etc. If you just march them along in reach of normal melee units they will almost certainly die of course, so maybe they aren't the unit for you.
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Aelaris
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Aelaris »

Flameslash wrote:I think the weakest are berserkers. Sure, they do damage, but only 4 (IIRC) a hit, so they lose vs most melee units, and they can't defend against range. Even in melee, at the right ToD some archers can beat them up.
Oh, and don't forget, they cost 19 gold!

Of course, they are absolutely great units. They are like super-slow horsemen on steroids. No, on steroids that are on steroids. You don't use your horseman against full melee units, you use him against archers and mages and scouts.

And thus, with one Urfserker hiding in your defensive line, your opponent has to re-think how he or she attacks with archers, mages, and scouts. Because if the Urfserker can get them and still be protected (or get the mage at all), then that's not an attack that's going to be very happy. They are a unit that says "Nope, all those aggressive plans are a terrible idea, try something a little more tame."

The best part is that they are going to have a bunch of ranged units, because the alternative is fighting dwarven fighters in melee.


They aren't that impressive on your side, but talk to your opponent about how they felt about your lurking Urfserkers after the game.
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sadlyknight
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by sadlyknight »

I think the worst units are the zombie and berserkers. The berserkers even if they mange to kill a unit they will get killed by a fighter. Zombies can by killed by any unit.
Deki
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Deki »

Zombie is probably the weakest unit, but there could be good use of them if large numbers are available. I do not use them much though. Footpad on the other hand is weak but great to use as guerrilla fighter. In any case, I would not think of removing and unit from the game, each unit has it purpose and role to fulfill. That is also indicator how great game Wesnoth is.
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Ranger
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Ranger »

The "Great" Mage. The only thing great about him is the amount of micromanagement needed to get one. :mrgreen:
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by WesnothNewbie »

Ranger wrote:The "Great" Mage. The only thing great about him is the amount of micromanagement needed to get one. :mrgreen:
The "Mage Magister" unit in Delfador's Memoirs has to be exempted though: he does 16:4 magical ranged, 14:2 magical melee (with staff of power), has 6 movement hexes, 65HP, Leadership (at level 4!) and +4 healing to boot.
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Eagle_11
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Eagle_11 »

Honestly, this would be the troll rocklobber. Deals much lesser dmg on hit(unless facing skeletons) and has same problems -read that as: one chance to attk that almost never hits- as its dwarven counterpart(and in the case of skellies you are better off with the troll-grunt line anyways.)
myte7
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by myte7 »

From my multiplayer perspective: the Loyalist Bowman.
It's the only unit in the default era which does not have a strong point. It does not shine at any task. It's just all around mediocre in a game where most of the time you need a specific unit for a specific job.
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Rigor
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Rigor »

Finally somebody mentions the good for nothing bowman. It took some time and a ton of insignificant characters first but what we all know just as 'aquabow' trope can be finally dismantled as a joke. He is just not that good is the end of the story.

Take lvl2s - whos far up on ur red list? For me its the gladiator drake If thats his name. Many mediocre hits without first strike means plenty retaliation eaten. And no flight. Grrrr.
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Chief_Chasso
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Chief_Chasso »

The troll rocklobber can be useful in SP campaigns. I generally go with a 2:1 ratio of troll/rocklobber. It seems the enemy thinks twice before attacking a rocklobber because of their potentially hefty melee and ranged retailation damage. Put rocklobbers on the front lines as good defensive wall.
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Coffee
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by Coffee »

Have to agree that the troll rocklobber is useful to deal 'psychological damage' to opponents (fearing retaliation damage on melee/range).

Speaking as a player the worst units are IMO in order from worst to least worst: ghost, bat, bowman, merman hunter, heavy infrantryman, *footpad, *elvish archer (*with notes).

I don't know what it would do to balance, but IMO ghost should be one gold less, bat 1 extra hp to make up for feral (as he would have gotten likely strong or resilient as second trait anyway), bowman an extra damage in melee or less xp to advance, merman hunter an extra hp point, heavy infantryman (well... it's fine if we keep him for jokes in water :P), footpad should switch nerf on melee to nerf on ranged instead, elvish archer should be 16 gold. Again, saying all this is as a player.

So in short, a vote for ghosts as worst unit here.
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iceiceice
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Re: What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era

Post by iceiceice »

I vote for bowman as worst unit. Coffee, to prove my point I challenge you to a match in which I recruit only ghosts and you recruit only bowmen :p
Coffee wrote: ... footpad should switch nerf on melee to nerf on ranged instead ...
I guess it is some serious necromancy on my part but I favor the change proposed by Cackfiend here: that footpad melee should be changed from impact to blade or even piercing. The reason is to mitigate how devastating these guys are to undead... they utterly destroy skeletons, give significant retal to adepts, and are extremely cheap and fast. Here (attached, I managed to find it :) ) is a recent ladder game of Cackfiend and Honor on Sullas which clearly illustrates the point.

Basically, undead has no serious way to fight an early attack of footpads with ulfs backing them up, especially on a large map where the footpad mobility makes a huge difference. Skeletons are not cost effective as they are hurt too much by the impact damage, adepts only will work in very large numbers, and will be chewed up by the ulfs / hurt significantly by the ranged retal. You can try to use ghouls to poison the footpads, but if you get more than one or two you don't have any killing power and are sure to lose... also the ghouls are seriously hurt by impact, and can easily be ulfed.

One thing that's pretty bizarre about the game is that, instead of trying to land the first devastating strike on his opponent, Cackfiend basically just rushes at his opponent with the footpads, knowing that there's nothing he can do about it. This is something you pretty much never see in a ladder game... I think it strongly indicates how powerful the footpads are against undead right now.

In alternate era, TBS decided to just nerf their hp so that adepts are more effective, and afaik this change has been well recieved. But just changing the melee damage type, so that a couple skeletons could reasonably attack a footpad without fearing much retal, also seems like a natural fix, with less potential impact on other matchups.

The change would basically mean that if the Knalgan player wants to enjoy the numerous benefits of melee impact, he needs to bring out the dwarves.

Edit: Let me point out that I am not a multiplayer expert... I'm speaking here as a mid-level player and mostly just reiterating the opinions of some experts.
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20131004022653_Honor_vs_Cackfiend_wesnoth-ladder.gz
Knalgan(Cackfiend) vs Undead(Honor) on Sulla's Ruins
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