Undead Unit Promotion Guide

[ninjarealist]

Undead Unit Promotion Guide

by NinjaRealist

The purpose of this guide is mainly to tell you which units are worth spending EXP on and which units are better left unpromoted.
Walking Corpse

Promotes into a Soulless. Soulless are kind of useless units because they aren’t good enough to really be worth recalling and the EXP could be better spent elsewhere. At the same time, killing a unit with a walking corpse can be a good idea because it gives you another walking corpse. So it may not be a bad idea to try and keep feeding one walking corpse until it promotes into a Soulless. Soulless are decent units. They have better survivability and better offense than walking corpses and if you are playing against undead, they have impact damage.

Ghoul

Ghouls are great units to use against any faction, but are Necrophage’s a significant enough improvement to warrant giving experience to? Necrophages have a slightly better attack and slightly better HP but are they really much more useful than Ghouls? I think that your exp is better distributed to another unit: if a Ghoul somehow manages to rack up a few kills, then you should promote it, but otherwise I say leave this promotion alone.

Ghost

These units not only deserve a large chunk of your EXP, but I’m of the belief that you should try your hardest to promote every single Ghost you buy. Ghosts are decent units on their own, but either promotion is seriously awesome and will be invaluable to your army. But so which promotion to choose?

Wraiths are generally the better choice. They have excellent survivability and are surprisingly powerful attackers. There are few units that combine such high resistances and defenses with high movement and good attack power. They are perfect for killing melee units with physical attacks because drain allows them to win almost any extended 1 on 1 exchange, while Wail lets them do a decent amount of damage from range without themselves risking being harmed. Their Arcane damage type allows them to do well against trolls and elves but it truly excels against undead and drakes who have a -50% and -30% resistance respectively. They are also good scouts. Put them on a town and they are difficult to kill without mages.

Shadows are my second choice because they are so highly specialized and don’t excel in as many different situations as Wraiths do. But offensively the Shadow has more physical attack power than just about any other unit in the game. At night, with backstab, a shadow can get upwards of 20 damage per attack. This is coupled with 8 movements, skirmisher, the ability to fly over any terrain except water, and the fact that they are friggin invisible at night. There is no better unit for killing enemies with low to bad resistances to blade type attacks. Even against units with resistances, their raw damage is so high that it doesn’t always matter. This is the perfect unit for killing leaders and having one in your army will constantly keep your opponent wary of deploying their most valuable units. Shadows have very low survivability though, so be careful not to put them in range of too many mages or archers.

Skeleton

The classic undead unit. Skeletons are another unit in your army which should get a pretty big hunk of EXP. They are fairly lopsided units that have excellent blade attacks and excellent resistances to blade and pierce. But they are extremely vulnerable to arcane, impact and fire.

The Deathblade has better movement than the Revenant and it does more damage but has lower HP. In most multiplayer games, the Deathblade is a better choice, as it is a better offensive unit than the Revenant. More over, it is unlikely that you will get enough EXP to upgrade a Revenant into a Draug during the span of one multiplayer game.

If however you are playing in a single player game or a particularly long mutliplayer one, I think the Revenant should be your emphatic choice. It may not hit as hard as the Deathblade but it has better survivability. Eventually the Revenant will upgrade to the Draug. The Draug just blows the Deathblade out of the water. It get’s a whopping base attack of 60 blade damage and it has almost 70 HP. It is extremely resistant to pierce and blade as well. This means that the Draug is almost impossible to kill with those damage types, and can easily soak up two or three such units. The downside of course is that fire, impact, and arcane units all wreak absolute havoc on Draugs. Give these units a wide berth.

Skeleton Archer

If you buy a skeleton archer upgrade it. Simple as that. The Bone Shooter trades a weak impact melee attack for a decent blade melee attack, and it’s base damage at night increases by twelve points. The Bone Shooter upgrades into a Bane Bow, which does Godly amounts of pierce damage. Like the Skeleton, keep it away from fire, impact and arcane.

Bats

Bats aren’t really worth upgrading because they are basically just scouts anyways and they don’t really deserve the EXP. Don’t get me wrong, the Dread Bat is an awesome unit, but it’s hard to get one and all that experience could be better spent elsewhere in my opinion.

Dark Adepts

What can I say about the upgrades of the Dark Adept? They basically get more awesome as they grow up. They add a weak melee attack and their magic attacks both increase appreciabbly. The best thing about Necromancer’s and Dark Sorcerers is that they actually hold up pretty well to physical attacks. If you can get your hands on a Lich, they are truly the best units in the game. But usually you will only get to control these in campaigns or in AoH.

[HomerJ]

Hey, can I add promotion guides to all the other factions too? Lets see... ah I'll just leave this here. Greetz
HomerJ

[Drydd]

is there a jpg of the link that homer j posted?

[HomerJ]

is there a jpg of the link that homer j posted?

What do you mean? The link links to the wesnoth units database.

Oh and after rereading the OP, I didn't want to discourage people from posting opinions on certain unit advancements, just wanted to hand in a shortcut to the unit stats.


Greetz
HomerJ

[Dragonchampion]

How do you make something like Homer posted? Sorry to get off topic, split if you wish.

[halifix]

One thing I find insufficient about that list is that it only lists the obvious traits. Often, when leveling, certain units get increased defence that is amazing. I think a lvl 3 poacher gets 40% dodge in water without any elemental weaknesses. But it's a great list overall. Also, that's a link that's been around for a while.

Soulless are my favorite lvl 1 unit. They only take 2 kills to get one in MP, and often, turning a unit into a corpse lets you but a meatshield where you usually couldn't place one. Also, they're free (until you level THEM up as well)! There's a reason walking corpses are now more expensive.

Most people also choose revenants over deathblades in MP (in general), if only because they last longer. Skeletons have too many weaknesses to trust to a low HP unit.

Also, the dark adept tree loses damage over time, losing out to the skeleton archer tree. Although magical attacks are always a bonus.

Huh... I never knew that dread bats still only have 9 movement. I thought they would give it 10 movement because it's 2 levels higher than the recruitable unit, and every other faction has a 10 movement unit

[randomdragoon]

Dark adept's (ranged) damage increase on level up is actually quite poor. They go from 20 base damage to 26 base damage. Compare that with a mage, which goes from 21 to 32 on his red mage path. The main thing about the dark adept promotion is gaining a melee attack and much more HP.

Who cares if bats never get 9 mp? They're the only scout that doesn't get slowed down by caves. Or by anything (edit: except. ... MASS MUSHROOMS), for that matter. (besides ghosts, but whatever they're in the same faction anyway)

I've always thought wraiths were better than shadows, but I recently won a royal rumble classic using a shadow leader (and creative recruiting of walking corpses). Not scientific at all, but yeah the damage output can be huge if you get lucky.



I'm pretty sure none of the undead units get additional defense on level up. The deathblade and blood bat routes do get extra moves, however, as does the lich.

One unit that I never realized gets extra defense until recently is the dwarvish guardsman. I've always thought them inferior to the dwarvish fighter line until I realized that stalwarts get 40% defense on flat.

[thespaceinvader]

(besides ghosts, but whatever they're in the same faction anyway)

Ghosts are slowed significantly by water. And the Drakes don't get a 10 MP unit. at any point in the tree.

[randomdragoon]

(besides ghosts, but whatever they're in the same faction anyway)

Ghosts are slowed significantly by water. And the Drakes don't get a 10 MP unit. at any point in the tree.

I meant the part about getting slowed down by caves. bats and ghosts are the only scout type units that move full speed through caves.

[csarmi]

skirmishers and augurs do, as well

[ninjarealist]

One thing I find insufficient about that list is that it only lists the obvious traits. Often, when leveling, certain units get increased defence that is amazing. I think a lvl 3 poacher gets 40% dodge in water without any elemental weaknesses. But it's a great list overall. Also, that's a link that's been around for a while.

Please, tell me what I'm neglecting to take in to account about undead units, I hate to even have this up if it is dead wrong.

[Star_sky]

Undead Unit Promotion Guide

long stuff

A shorter version :

For MP :
Promote any unit you can promote
For Skeletons I prefer Deathblades (the high damage LV2 skeleton), wich enable you to leverage your L2 unit more
For ghost, it's important to promote them on your turn, because you want a wraith far much more than a shadow. At night, a wraith is one of the best MP tanks, especially when facing L1 units. Any efficient unit your opponent could muster to threaten your lifedraining wraith will be axed by skeletons. Shadows are not bad, but they won't have the gamechanging effect of a wraith.

For campaigns
Getting LV3 ghosts will make life (far) easier. Basically, Ghost are the key unit to upgrade (wraith path) Upgraded skeletons(both paths) and dark adepts are good too, level 3 shadows can be usefull for taking out big targets as long as you have enough wraiths. Other units (ghouls, WC, bats) are not worth feeding XP

[StandYourGround]

I prefer Shadows over Wraiths. At night, I can scatter them strategically to provide an ambush screen for wounded units, and have them always ready to do a surprise backstab attack. My favorite tactic to quickly assasinate an enemy leader is to place a Shadow next to him without attacking, then bring a second one along to the other side to start the backstabbing fun. Get them leveled up to Nightguants, and they are to be dreaded.

I used this especially well in Delfador's Memoirs, giving them Holy Water in Showdown in the Northern Swamps.

[csparrow]

i do something similer but i use wraiths to attack first and then shadows

[Darkaros]

I prefer Shadows over Wraiths. At night, I can scatter them strategically to provide an ambush screen for wounded units, and have them always ready to do a surprise backstab attack. My favorite tactic to quickly assasinate an enemy leader is to place a Shadow next to him without attacking, then bring a second one along to the other side to start the backstabbing fun. Get them leveled up to Nightguants, and they are to be dreaded.

I used this especially well in Delfador's Memoirs, giving them Holy Water in Showdown in the Northern Swamps.

You still had Shadows/Nightgaunts at that point? They left me by then... So instead, I gave the Holy Water to Delfador, who killed the lich leader in one turn with 31-2 Lightning melee attack. I laughed. In fact, the only unit I actually used WAS Delfador by that point in the campaign, even though you could recruit Arch Mages on that scenario.

I like using Wraiths more than Shadows, but I still have at least 2 Shadows for assassination. At night, Wraiths can tank easily with 7-4 draining, and at least they have better counterattacks than Shadows.