Wraiths vs Shadows

[WanderingHero]

Or Spectre vs Nightgaunt, I don't know.

What do you prefer and why?

When I did Descent into Darkness I spammed endless Wraiths and it got me through my of the levels easily enough. They hit hard and their draining makes them pretty good tanks. Though I hear Night Gaunts can do superb damage, and I wonder if I was missing out.. thoughts?

[Velensk]

Depends on if you need a etherial line holder or an assassin.

Nightguants are very hard to stop, fast moving flying, skirmishing, and do something on the order of 30-3 damage when backstabbing at night. Good use of this can save you a lot of money in campaigns giving you more cash for cannon fodder.

I'd say it's best to have both capabilities at your disposal.

[Joram]

Both. If you're playing DiD, then you should be focusing almost exclusively on ghosts anyway. I usually have at least 6 ghost advancements, with usually 4 wraiths and a couple shadows.

Wraiths/Spectres are by far the more versatile unit, imo, being useful in more situations. The Shadow/Nightgaunt is a specialty unit. As such, I don't really have a 'favorite', although I do choose Wraiths much more frequently.

[Insinuator]

A Wraith can be used to hold villages until your main line arrives, particularly against melee units. A Shadow can not. I seldom use Shadows because of their lack of a ranged attack or Drain. In my opinion, better to have a couple of strong, survivable Wraiths than a couple of opportunistic, short-lived Shadows.

[Xalzar]

90% of the times I prefer leveling a Ghost into a Wraith. No way, Shadows are terribly fragile.

There is something that I can't understand...Look here:

|---> Wraith: 25 hp ---> Spectre: 33 hp
|
Ghost: 18 hp
|
|---> Shadow: 24 hp ---> Nightgaunt: 35 hp


The Shadow has less HPs (-1) than the Wraith, but...oh! The Nightgaunt has more HPs (+2) than the Spectre!

How can this situation be explained?

Let me say this... I know it is quite unconvenient to pop up and propose changes to the units... but:

if we raise the Shadow's HPs of 2-3 points? The easy-computable total is 26-27 HPs.
The increased health will make it less fragile, but only a bit: having only a melee attack and no drain, nearly always receives damage when it attacks, then when it is attacked by ranged and melee units, without having the possibility to gain any HP. Very often, if the opponent is not a disaster, the Shadow can only exploit one attack before being vanished the following turn.
2 or 3 HPs surely do not resolve this, and also, this is not even a problem: it's the characteristic of the unit itself. But they help anyway to make the unit more desiderable, I think.

Reassuming...

Possible PROs:
- we improve the survivability of the Shadow, so maybe it would be chosen more often than now;
- we make the unit line more coherent, with all the "Shadow line" possessing more health than the "Wraith line" to compensate for the inability to drain (giving 2 or 3 HPs seems a reasonable change without overpowering the Shadow);
- ... [write here your opinions]

Possible CONs:
- ... [write here your opinions]

IMPORTANT: I know I'm a perfect stranger for most of you, quite the last arrived... Mine is only a proposal. I do not oblige anybody to change everything, I'm satisfied with the current balance of the Default Era. I think there is always room for improvement though, and my proposal wants to head in that direction. Obviously if you do not agree, I'm happy even with the current balance, as I said.

[Dixie]

Default era's balance is mostly around lv0-1s and possibly a bit lv2s. Wether Age of heroes (an era playing with lv2-3s) is balanced or not is still up for debate, I think. Not that it's much of an issue, anyway.

[Insinuator]

if we raise the Shadow's HPs of 2-3 points?

I agree completely, except that you mean "by", not "of". The Shadow is too fragile and that would not be a huge change to balance anyways.

IMPORTANT: I know I'm a perfect stranger for most of you, quite the last arrived... Mine is only a proposal. I do not oblige anybody to change everything, I'm satisfied with the current balance of the Default Era. I think there is always room for improvement though, and my proposal wants to head in that direction. Obviously if you do not agree, I'm happy even with the current balance, as I said.

With respect, Mr. Xalzar, you can't oblige anyone to change something, especially not on the Internet.

[MRDNRA]

I almost always pick wraiths, just for their drain ability. In fact, aside from a couple of rather half hearted attempts to play through the DiD campaign, I have never really had any reason whatsoever to pick shadows other than on one of the other expert level add-on campaigns.

[Skrim]

In DiD I use a mix of both Wraiths and Shadows - Wraiths are a better general combat unit, but Shadows make nice assassin units and do much more damage, especially against arcane-resistant opponents (humans in general, and most egregiously the light-wielders in the third-to-last mission).

In MP I'd generally choose Wraiths, except against Loys, where the skirmisher and very high blade damage could be useful, and the Loy mages and arcane resists diminish the relative survivability advantage of the Wraith. They're probably better against the Khalifate too for that matter, since the Khalifa are also arcane-resistant lawful guys, who also have a unit that pwns both Wraiths and Shadows equally (i.e, the Naffat).

[stegyre]

In DiD, I go very heavily with the shadow line, as they make A Small Favor much easier. I will aim to have 8+ shadows and only 2 wraiths.

Yes, the shadows are fragile, but they are great assassins, and not too difficult to replace. ('Though I admit I regret each loss.)

[monochromatic]

Wraiths don't hold a line in my experience. Fire arrows, magic missiles, light beams, and dark waves decimate even Spectres terribly quickly. Heck, most undead units are like that.

I usually hold lines with Ghouls/WCs. Both Wraiths and Shadows are assassins, with Wraiths mostly grabbing free kills on the battlefield and the Shadow doing its business at the enemy leader's camp.

... Which is why I usually get Shadows, especially when fighting Loyals, Rebels, Orcs, even Drakes at times.

[Dunno]

I always choose wraith if I need a strong unit asap (like in MP). But when playing campaign I mix it 50-50.

[powershot]

Wraith, any time. I used to play undead and my nightgaunt 35hp went down. They have too little hit points, +Wraith has drain.

[enchilado]

What I would choose depends entirely upon the circumstances. Neither is generally better - each is better in certain situations.

[Astra]

The two units are typically chosen depending on the circumstances, Nightgaunts are for kill and runaway techniques and are amazingly fast at hunting down singular strong units. Spectres on the other hand I like to think as units that tick people of, Spectres always survive due to their drain ability and their 50% avoidance everywhere. In DiD I used nightgaunts and on the scenario where you have to sneak into the mages tower, I just walked two of my nightgaunts up the the leader and they weren't noticed due to Nightstalk or whatever their ability is and I assasinated him in one turn.