40 Blood Furies or 3 Black Dragons?

[ThunderTitan]

You're falling into the same trap as DaemianLucifer did (and still is).

That's one deep trap.

Then consider the case where you don't have Black Dragons. What will the Titans' target be then?

The Matriarchs?!

[Mytical]

Let me see if I can then unflaw my opinon and clarify. It is true that dragons are dangerous, I've never said otherwise. In any battle I would take them out before worring about furies, and I've never said otherwise. This is 3 vs 40 however. Now since presumably you would have 6 stacks in this scenario (either furies OR dragons not both) it would be smart to split stack one of your creatures. Me personally I would split the furies. The only reason I would not split the other no-retal is they have a chance to regen (deep hydras) and 2 no retal hits are always better then 1. Now I know, that is not a huge threat, but the enemy is faced with a decision. Target 2 stacks of no-retal creatures, or the rest of the presumably more dangerous stacks. Either choice is a bad one. Untargeted furies are free damage, constant, continuous, and they strike very often. Target the furies and that leaves a stack that could do more damage initially free to do so. This is what makes the furies so frustrating. Nobody is going to leave the dragons arround (even at the risk of freeing up another stack) simply because their is only 3 of them, and taking a stack out means one less attack to worry about. So titans would automatically target them. Now those 20 furies (2 stacks) means either you use a tier 7's attack twice (for less benifit) or you target a more damage stack. To me that is an easy choice (but this is because I personally don't ever have to target them to destroy them) but that is not the point. I am guessing we have to assume the neccessary skills, ect to do so are not present. Now you leave the 2 stacks alone, and they will hurt you, you target them with anything not no-retal or under tier 4 your units are probably going to take worse then they get. You use anything over that, then one of dungeons higher tiers is free to wreck havoc elsewhere. This is a win-win situation for dungeon, while having dragons do not offer that win-win situation. Especially when your dragons CAN hurt your own troops. So to me 40 furies is more useful the 3 dragons.

If your opponit is clever the stack he would be attacking with a titan is either grim riders or Deep Hydras. Why target 20 furies? Go ahead and waste your titans attack on 20 furies...I won't mind a bit . Again that, and skills, are furies strength. They make it where you are forced into a bad choice either way you go.

[Jolly Joker]

I still don't see any point in this discussion.
Even if you disregard the development costs,
3 Black Dragons cost 13500 Gold and 6 S while
40 Blood Furies cost 7000 Gold.
If you have 13500 Gold and 6 S you could obviously buy 2 Black Dragons, sell 1 Sulfur and buy 26 Furies as well.

So this is what *I* would buy: 26 Furies and 2 Black Dragons.

You can also ask the question:

Would you buy 3 Black Dragons or 78 Blood Furies (and keep 3 S)?

[Mytical]

Well this is more a matter of a scripted choice. No actual financial involved. Basically would you rather start out with 3 dragons or 40 furies in a given map.

[Jolly Joker]

3 Dragons, then, and rather obviously.
To get the Furies up to shape you need a better hero than level one, and even IF you had a better hero, speed 9 is really all you need.
Pit them against Emeralds (high tier, high initiative). Emeralds have higher speed than Furies, so they CAN hit them, no matter what, and 1 Emerald will kill 5-8 Furies. You'll need something like 5-6 Emeralds, though, to kill a Blackie. 3 Emeralds would make minced meat out of my Furies, while, the first retaliation strike of the 3 Blacks may already kill one Emerald.

[wimfrits]

Voted Black dragons.

But if the question had been 1 fury or 1 BD, I'd have voted 1 fury

[sylvanllewelyn]

Blood furies are too weak against shooters and spells, and there are more of those around than you'd think.

[Banedon]

ThunderTitan - yes, it's a deep trap. I wonder how DaemianLucifer will fight his way out of it. As for the Shadow Matriaches...well, you're right, but my point is that suppose the Blood Furies become the units that are doing all the killing. Naturally they'll get targetted soon.

Mytical - a problem with that is that Dungeon needs the extra room to split Shadow Matriaches, not Blood Furies. 20 Blood Furies can be easily killed as well (or rendered incapable of anything) by Academy's non-level 7 creatures like Archmagi.

You also seem to be saying that the Blood Furies will be doing a lot in the final battle. I disagree; Dungeon's main (creature) threats then are the Black Dragons, Shadow Matriaches, Grim Raiders and (if teleported / walked over) the Deep Hydras. Blood Furies are quite far behind. Just like no one would intentionally target Assassins, so would few people intentionally target Blood Furies.

JollyJoker - it's not for me to decide how many Blood Furies DaemianLucifer wants to bring into battle

wimfrits - SmokingBarrel pointed out something: Black Dragons can take on slow walkers the same way Blood Furies do. They move further than Blood Furies, they fly and they can almost always take a hit without any losses in a way Blood Furies cannot. They have lower initiative and they are large creatures, but the above three advantages may compensate. All the more reasons to take Black Dragons - in fact, I begin to think that 1 Black Dragon is way better than 1 Blood Fury.

[Mytical]

Yes 1 black dragon is always better then 1 fury, or just about any other dungeon tier creature. That is why they are tier 7. Any tier 7 creature is greater (even if only slightly) then any 1 of any other tier no matter how you cut it. Never denied this, or that the dragons are stronger. I agree that the dragons are much stronger. As for the arch magi, yep I agree arch magi can neutralize the furies. That frees up your own tier 3 however. Since furies are tier 2, not 3, and no level 2 (well maybe marksmen but that wouldn't be academy) should take on the minos that just suddenly freed up because the magi are worring about the furies. See again that proves my point. If you target them, you HAVE to target them with a higher tier, or a spell (until and if you get the right skills/spells that can do it without targetting them). Targeting them with same level or lower tier creatures (with only a VERY few exceptions) is suicide. Now lets assume for a minute that if you have dragons your enemy has tier 7 also, but no tier 2 (because of the lack of furies lets even the playing field). Your enemy is going to target your tier 7 with his, and be free to do whatever to weaken the rest of dungeons army (or help his creatures defeat those dragons faster). So the dragons don't force the enemy to do anything really. Since they are magic resistant (or immune) no need targeting them with spells (so that means implosions, ect on the rest of your creatures, or mass haste/bless/ect, or well you get the idea). Also the dragons can cause your own troops harm (dragon breath), block key points for your troops (if not careful), and since they can not be enhanced by spells or healed they remain the same regardless. Not a bad thing, but lets look at the flip side.

Going on the premise that both sides have similar stacks (not neccessarily numbers, but if one has 6 the other has 6). So your enemy does not have tier 7, you don't have tier 7. Ok so you split whatever way you want, the matriarchs, the furies, whatever. Now they split their way, and the battle begins. Ok they know matching up their tier 2 (Only havens tier 2 would be an option) against your furies is suicide. So they are faced with a choice. Target them (with higher tier and free up the tier that would have been faced off by that tier or spells) or ignore them. Both are bad choices. If you are targeting the furies with your spells, that means the Warlock can ignore that and target your higher tiers with their spells. If your enemy ignores them then they get FREE damage. Uncontested, high initiative, free damage. Either way the hero is good. Do you target the furies to stop that free (uncontested) damage, or do you not and just take the losses. This is why furies are dangerous (and can be situational killers).

[okrane]

Frankly I do not understand what this poll is all about...
Black Dragons and Blood Furies are complementary units, not oposing ones. They do not exclude themselves in any way, so I don;t see the point in having a conversation about which is better

each of them has its uses. I mean, blood furies are all about early game: you can dominate neutrals with them allowing you to build up your hero and your town and eventually build black dragons. To me they are the backbone of a dungeon army.
Another thing about them: I usually don't bring them into battle when fighting enemy heroes unless necessary, and that because the AI targets them and kills them really fast.
I prefer using them to kill large stacks of neutrals(and you can beat pretty much everything with them: maybe except dragons) and the rest of the army I use for battling the enemy heroes: including the black dragons...

Now black dragons that's another story: they are strong, they are feared, they are really expensive. And what I hate about them is that they can be harmed by warlock's spells... anyway they are a very good tier 7 unit.

So to answer this poll I would say: both

[wimfrits]

wimfrits - SmokingBarrel pointed out something: Black Dragons can take on slow walkers the same way Blood Furies do. They move further than Blood Furies, they fly and they can almost always take a hit without any losses in a way Blood Furies cannot. They have lower initiative and they are large creatures, but the above three advantages may compensate. All the more reasons to take Black Dragons - in fact, I begin to think that 1 Black Dragon is way better than 1 Blood Fury.

Initiative is what counts.
For example: in the Raelag campaign, a lvl 3 or 4 Raelag could take out 20-something Deep Hydras split into 3 groups with 1 fury. In fact, the number of Deep Hydras 1 fury can beat is unlimited. You can't win that kind of odds with large creatures like black dragons.

Overall I'd say that if you take all battles you will fight in an average map on champion setting, you can win (without loss) approximately:
- 25% with 1 fury
- 30% with 40 furies
- 20% with 1 black dragon
- 35% with 3 black dragons.

The area where black dragons outclass furies are primarily the battles against ranged units or magic users, like you already pointed out.