Drycha weak defense

Yohyoh

Something I've noticed about playing Drycha, compared to other wood elves her defense is pretty weak. Wood elf defense is pretty weak to begin with, but Drycha is particularly bad. The reason is her glamour elves, being a weaker version of normal elves, with their only benefit being expendable, which doesn't matter in defense.
Since she has the same defensive units in settlements as other wood elf factions, it just means she is a lot weaker in defensive fights as a result. It seems like a bit of an oversight to me. It's not like she is particularly more powerful offensively compared to other wood elf factions.

Ideally, she would field more tree spirits and animals instead of elves her settlements. Can't be that difficult of a fix surely.

Eternal88

I agree that drycha should get more spirits in her garrisons as they are pretty pathetic. Actually, are the garrison elves also glamoured? I haven't checked. It seems like she can't really hold anything with garrison alone, especially settlements. To be honest, I raze most settlements as they give almost no income/benefits and are free for the taking against any attacking army. Ironically, the attacking army takes more damage colonizing a space than it does slaughtering the garrison.

Nitros14#7973

Perhaps she's just intended to be weaker. I like having harder and easier campaigns.

Neodeinos#5871

Nitros14 said:

Perhaps she's just intended to be weaker. I like having harder and easier campaigns.

There's no such thing as a hard WE campaign, at least there wasn't in WH1 and WH2.

#568367

Is that .....a problem?

Isn't the campaign, especially as Drycha, **** easy to begin with?

Captain_Rex#1635

GreenColoured said:

Is that .....a problem?

Isn't the campaign, especially as Drycha, **** easy to begin with?

Yeah it’s one of the easiest campaigns in the game. You can have a Treeman Doomstack around tune 25 and just stomp everything.

I mean it was fun for once, but it became repetitive really quick.

MonochromaticSpider#5650

GreenColoured said:

Is that .....a problem?

Isn't the campaign, especially as Drycha, **** easy to begin with?

So because Drycha's active offense is pretty strong, the garrisons should be practically non-existant?

#568367

MonochromaticSpider said:

GreenColoured said:

Is that .....a problem?

Isn't the campaign, especially as Drycha, **** easy to begin with?

So because Drycha's active offense is pretty strong, the garrisons should be practically non-existant?

...yes, very much so. Do you not understand the very basic concept of balancing? You want her to be better a defending? What will you give up in exchange?

Captain_Rex#1635

MonochromaticSpider said:

GreenColoured said:

Is that .....a problem?

Isn't the campaign, especially as Drycha, **** easy to begin with?

So because Drycha's active offense is pretty strong, the garrisons should be practically non-existant?

Yeah it’s called balance ma dude.

Scottishclaymore

...yes, very much so. Do you not understand the very basic concept of balancing? You want her to be better a defending? What will you give up in exchange?

Thats not balancing if she is weaker than average to start, your assuming shes balanced as it is but most factions need tweaks right now. Ive not played Drycha in IE yet but I get the impression shes the weakest of the WE factions (could be wrong there). I will say she has a very difficult start surrounded by hostile factions on all sides.

GloatingSwine#8098

Scottishclaymore said:

...yes, very much so. Do you not understand the very basic concept of balancing? You want her to be better a defending? What will you give up in exchange?

Thats not balancing if she is weaker than average to start, your assuming shes balanced as it is but most factions need tweaks right now. Ive not played Drycha in IE yet but I get the impression shes the weakest of the WE factions (could be wrong there). I will say she has a very difficult start surrounded by hostile factions on all sides.

Drycha has a ludicrously easy start.

Malevolent Dryads are an amazing early game unit, 60 armour/20 phys resist, 35 base MA and Frenzy taking it to 45 means that they'll beat anything you send them at and at 43 speed they can catch almost everything as well, and she starts with a Treeman which can beat down absolutely anything*.

Like all those people complaining about how hard it is to kill Vlad have never seen what happens when he tries to fight a tree.

All those hostile factions around Drycha are super easy matchups. You can peace out with Ostermark as soon as you kill their army, go and clown on Vlad for diplomacy points with the Dwarfs, then turn around and do the same with Festus on the way to grab Laurelorn and neither of them have an answer to you.



* And that's before you stack the other buffs on them, get two Branchwraiths with Resplendance of Luminescents and Annoyance of Netlings for +10MA/+10% WS for you and -10MA/-10%WS for the enemy, Call of the Woods and Howl of the Forest for another 15MA, and two Glade Captains for Dance of Loec and Possessed by the Trickster God for +14MD. Since there aren't many Branchwraith traits it's easy enough to build that even when you want at least one of them on Lore of Life, so you can get it all active by about turn 12-15. 70/50 melee units on turn 12 anyone?

#568367

Scottishclaymore said:

...yes, very much so. Do you not understand the very basic concept of balancing? You want her to be better a defending? What will you give up in exchange?

Thats not balancing if she is weaker than average to start, your assuming shes balanced as it is but most factions need tweaks right now. Ive not played Drycha in IE yet but I get the impression shes the weakest of the WE factions (could be wrong there). I will say she has a very difficult start surrounded by hostile factions on all sides.

What're you smoking dude, the Swine above already gave a way better explanation than I ever will. But to say that she's even the weakest WE when she's always been one of the easiest ones is just hilarious.

Her dryads are practically marked by khorne.

#463363

if you think that Drycha's earlygame in Immortal Empires is easy, you really need your head screwed back on. Being at war with 4 legendary lord factions before turn 20 means that you're constantly on the defensive without a single chance in hell of actually beating any of the factions you're at war with. at any time, one 14 stack could kill off the garrison in the Gryphon wood without a sweat because the garrison is GARBAGE, it's TRASH, it's literally nothing. The best you can try to do is use a 10-stack for defense and sacrifice a significant amount of your attacking power to do so. Especially now that you're only getting treemen at tier 4. Her campaign is a total mess and stands as one of the hardest in the game. Especially since they can't seem to fix her damn quest battles.

manpersal#3961

#463363 said:

if you think that Drycha's earlygame in Immortal Empires is easy, you really need your head screwed back on. Being at war with 4 legendary lord factions before turn 20 means that you're constantly on the defensive without a single chance in hell of actually beating any of the factions you're at war with. at any time, one 14 stack could kill off the garrison in the Gryphon wood without a sweat because the garrison is GARBAGE, it's TRASH, it's literally nothing. The best you can try to do is use a 10-stack for defense and sacrifice a significant amount of your attacking power to do so. Especially now that you're only getting treemen at tier 4. Her campaign is a total mess and stands as one of the hardest in the game. Especially since they can't seem to fix her damn quest battles.

No point in discussing what was true in a previous patch. That's CA's way of doing things. Remember the Vampire coast at release? Taurox? Skarbrand?

#463363

manpersal#3961 said:

No point in discussing what was true in a previous patch. That's CA's way of doing things. Remember the Vampire coast at release? Taurox? Skarbrand?

What do you mean previous patch? And what the HELL are you comparing Drycha's IE faction to three of the strongest earlygame factions period? Daemons and Beastmen in General have very robust garrisons, Taurox additionally has along with skarbrand, multiple campaign mechanics around gaining a significant advantage from continued aggression and destruction of enemy territory that benefits themselves greatly, allows for replenishment on the move, and also allows them to make resettling the areas they have taken **EXTREMELY DIFFICULT**. Both have bonus movement after any settlement razing with their main armies, along with strong mechanics to establish their presence in a region thereafter involving corruption and one other mechanic (taurox's left-behind battle effects + bloodgrounds and skarbrand's attrition buildings and blood hosts) Beyond that, they also have momentum-based mechanics to push them into other territories easier (Again, blood hosts, but also bloodletting for skaarbrand, and again the left-behind after-battle effects along with the stampede effects for Taurox) This makes them VERY strong on the campaign map. Which makes them incredibly powerful in the early and midgame to establish themselves and gain an advantage on other factions which would normally be considered stronger.

Drycha has, at most, a vampire counts raise dead mechanic with overpriced, but fun units and outpost garrisons that are mildly stronger than the ones other W-elf factions get, but certainly not ones that will kill an AI attack army that wasn't just leftovers from a soon-to-be-destroyed faction. Her offensive power rests entirely within the fact that her dryad building line units have a few bonus effects and that she can replace the units in her armies at a reasonably high cost on the move, often trading out the combat effectiveness of the units that were already built into the army. They also cost more than the normal dryads, which are typically stronger line units and require more APM to make effective, incur an upfront cost which diminishes her economy, and also generally will disrupt the cohesion of the force and the battleplan that it will run off of. They also SUCK in autoresolve. Every campaign benefit that Drycha has either comes with a downside or is the same as the rest of the Wood-Elf factions, which normally benefit from being in relatively easy to defend position. This is not so for drycha, who is surrounded on all sides by normally hostile factions. Again, 4 legendary lords (Azhag, Vlad, Katarin, and Ungrim) are going topretty much immediately be at war with you on top of the empire factions which will steadily devote more and mroe resources towards you as they are pushed out by the earlygame chaos tide that plagues the empire in IE. None of drycha's mechanics can properly address this, so you are forced to play extremely defensively in order to wear down the forces that are sent against you and cripple one faction before moving onto another, slowly wearing each down as they slowly recover until you can FINALLY kill off ONE of the many legendary lord factions that are at your throat. If you play your cards right you can raze Kislev early on and have a CHANCE of dealing with Azhag's Waaagh that WILL be directed towards you while vlad trickles in armies at you. This is not a sure strategy and has failed for me a couple of times due to Talabecland taking an interest at inopportune moments nad taking out my 8-stack secondary army and forcing me to turn around to defend the Gryphon Wood because that garrison NEEDS to be babysat or it WILL DIE.

TL;DR her offensive power is entirely on the battle map, which is the LEAST of any of the actual things that matter for making a campaign a powerful offensive faction. Orcs are considered garbage, same with Khorne, in terms of overall effectiveness on the battlefield. They get an advantage on the campaign map to overwhelm any forces they encounter. Also she's **** WORSE now that she only gets Treemen at Tier IV (4), so the battle-power she had previously is going to be delayed another 15 turns at least on average.

Maedrethnir#1968

GreenColoured said:

MonochromaticSpider said:

GreenColoured said:

Is that .....a problem?

Isn't the campaign, especially as Drycha, **** easy to begin with?

So because Drycha's active offense is pretty strong, the garrisons should be practically non-existant?

...yes, very much so. Do you not understand the very basic concept of balancing? You want her to be better a defending? What will you give up in exchange?

Mastigos#4130

Drycha has, at most, a vampire counts raise dead mechanic with overpriced, but fun units and outpost garrisons that are mildly stronger than the ones other W-elf factions get, but certainly not ones that will kill an AI attack army that wasn't just leftovers from a soon-to-be-destroyed faction. Her offensive power rests entirely within the fact that her dryad building line units have a few bonus effects and that she can replace the units in her armies at a reasonably high cost on the move, often trading out the combat effectiveness of the units that were already built into the army. They also cost more than the normal dryads, which are typically stronger line units and require more APM to make effective, incur an upfront cost which diminishes her economy, and also generally will disrupt the cohesion of the force and the battleplan that it will run off of. They also SUCK in autoresolve.

Amazing. Everything you said is wrong.

I'm going to appeal to my own authority when I say that I've played Drycha as my main faction since the day she came out -- and I can say with confidence that you're underestimating the Wargrove of War in several critical ways.

If you want to talk more about it, shoot me a DM. I'm not comfortable talking about powerlevels of factions in a public forum; the last thing I want is a bunch of people crying about balance in two weeks because I clued everyone in.

#463363

Mastigos#4130 said:

Drycha has, at most, a vampire counts raise dead mechanic with overpriced, but fun units and outpost garrisons that are mildly stronger than the ones other W-elf factions get, but certainly not ones that will kill an AI attack army that wasn't just leftovers from a soon-to-be-destroyed faction. Her offensive power rests entirely within the fact that her dryad building line units have a few bonus effects and that she can replace the units in her armies at a reasonably high cost on the move, often trading out the combat effectiveness of the units that were already built into the army. They also cost more than the normal dryads, which are typically stronger line units and require more APM to make effective, incur an upfront cost which diminishes her economy, and also generally will disrupt the cohesion of the force and the battleplan that it will run off of. They also SUCK in autoresolve.

Amazing. Everything you said is wrong.

I'm going to appeal to my own authority when I say that I've played Drycha as my main faction since the day she came out -- and I can say with confidence that you're underestimating the Wargrove of War in several critical ways.

If you want to talk more about it, shoot me a DM. I'm not comfortable talking about powerlevels of factions in a public forum; the last thing I want is a bunch of people crying about balance in two weeks because I clued everyone in.

Mastigos#4130 said:

Amazing. Everything you said is wrong.

I will politely decline to respect your "authority" since you refuse to approach with any actual argument and are just calling me wrong citing "trust me bro"

#568367

#463363 said:

I will politely decline to respect your "authority" since you refuse to approach with any actual argument and are just calling me wrong citing "trust me bro"

Problem here is you have jack to discuss


Your premise, that one of the more laughably easy campaign is in any way "hard" and that Drycha, a commonly agreed to be upper tier character, is in any way weak opens yourself to nothing but ridicule.

Not to mention TW campaigns are all kind of a joke atm regardless of your choice of LL, but DRYCHA?!