Sylvan Vs. Necro strategies?

[PhoenixReborn]

How do you like to play this set up? I find myself losing with Sylvan against Necro enemies. Playing on hard against a.i., on various mp maps, I find myself outmagicked and outnumbered.

What skills do you suggest?

[Shuyssar]

You should install the 1.3 patch!

[Sir_Toejam]

luck defense and logistics.

luck for damage and magic resistance

defense for vitality and ranged resistance

logistics to get to the necro territory quicker (before the massive stacks of skellies can appear).

use unicorns for magic resistance and druids for ranged against ghosts.

don't bother waiting to build dragons.

additional skills:

light magic, and hope for haste and righteous might, then get the mass versions with the wrath perk. or hope for endurance and deflect missile and go for the mass versions of those.

offense if you can get it.

edit:

actually, installing the 1.3 patch would make your job even harder, as sylvan then requires a tremendous amount of wood.

if you want to have a better chance with the 1.3 patch, you might consider trying out the mod i made that shifts the resources around a bit.

[Kilop]

Well I don t believe that sylvan is a magic faction , that s why light magic is a good way to go.
But try ( and especially against AI ) the combo triple balista + imbued balista if you can afford it.
makes he skel stack a lot easier to deal with.

[MrSteamTank]

Well I think a good portion of the necro force can be nullified by putting skeleton archers as your favored enemy. As for skills I can really only suggest maxing out luck. Attack and defense only need to be lightly invested in(basic attack for battle frenzy/archery and basic defense for protection/evasion). Then you can smoke him in a general battle. Unicorns and luck magic resistance to counter his debuffs and include protection if you want to counter his dmg spells.

[Elvin]

Especially when the ballista is imbued with ice bolt with freezing effect Too bad warmachines is offered rarely.Luck mixed with avenger can be quite damaging too so pick your favoured enemies for the big fight(usually vamps,skellies,wraiths) but I have found that in the long run defence->evasion and light magic will serve you better than warmachines and destructive.Then again I used that on Nicolai and he had several thousands of skellie archers

[Cyrox]

You should install the 1.3 patch!

Have u ever played Sylvan before and after the 1.3 patch on hard? Dont you know that 1.3 makes it more difficult for Sylvans?

Anyway, this is usually wat I do against Necro on hard.

I tend to skip the blade dancer/war dancer buildings now on 1.3 since they made the wood costs so unreasonable, and save the wood for hunters and treants instead.

I try to get treants as soon as possible, because treants are very durable against anyone.

I'd try to upgrade to master druids first before any unit else, because they get extra mana for casting lightning(on ghosts) and more attack. I usually split my master druids into as many stacks as I can so they can cast more lightning(and cause greater damage)

I usually can handle the necro player with master druids, master hunters, and treants.

The tactic is split master druids into stacks, because u will maximise their spell damage and u will be able to cast lightning alot more times. Split them into as many stacks as u can.

Master hunters, its up to u to split them into stacks, usually I split them into at most 2 different stacks, because there will be a higher chance of their warding arrow succeeding. More stacks= more chance of a warding arrow. Warding arrow= later enemy turn. Also, if the necro player has too much skeleton archers, at least they wont kill all of ur master hunters in one go if u split them.

Usually treants, I try to get them to ancient as soon as possible, but if thats not possible before I meet the necro hero, I'll make do with them cuz they're pretty tough already. I usually charge them towards the enemy lines to entangle enemy troops. I head first to the skeleton archers if there are too many of them so as to force them to use their melee attack(less damage) to my treants and divert their attention from my master hunters and master druids while they deal with the faster melee units like vampire lords and wraiths. If skeleton archer numbers are low, I will use treants to entangle those nasty wraiths(who can kill ur ranged units easily).

So usually:
Treants head to skeleton archers and entangle them, or in my first strike I use either master hunters or master druids to reduce the skeleton archers to a not so threatening number while my treants entangle the faster melee units.
Master hunters deal with vampire lords and wraiths.(I dont use them on ghosts)
Master druids deal with ghosts with lightning, or the vampire lords and wraiths depending on who reaches first.

I do not use war dancers cuz of their insane building costs, and I use unicorns too, but I do not have a strategy with them, I just use them for dealing damage. Their blindness doesnt work on necro units anyway, so yea.

Hope I helped.

[Elvin]

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Master hunters, its up to u to split them into stacks, usually I split them into at most 2 different stacks, because there will be a higher chance of their warding arrow succeeding. More stacks= more chance of a warding arrow. Warding arrow= later enemy turn. Also, if the necro player has too much skeleton archers, at least they wont kill all of ur master hunters in one go if u split them.

Nope.Chance for warding arrow depends on the stack's total hp so if you split them the chance for each is lower.

[Cyrox]

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Master hunters, its up to u to split them into stacks, usually I split them into at most 2 different stacks, because there will be a higher chance of their warding arrow succeeding. More stacks= more chance of a warding arrow. Warding arrow= later enemy turn. Also, if the necro player has too much skeleton archers, at least they wont kill all of ur master hunters in one go if u split them.

Nope.Chance for warding arrow depends on the stack's total hp so if you split them the chance for each is lower.

YES and NO.

Anyway, no, I should have rephrased my sentence. But that's wat I meant anyway.

Why split master hunters and why u will have a greater chance of a warding arrow?

Okay, example.

You only have one stack of master hunter, one stack of master hunter acts every 10 turns, for example.

If warding arrow doesnt trigger on their turn, you have to wait another 10 turns.

If you split them, you will have 2 stacks of master hunters who act every 10 turns. So in 10 turns, you will have 2 chances of warding arrow triggering instead of 1. So in 20 turns you will have 4 chances of warding arrow triggering instead of 2 chances if you only have 1 stack.

Get it?

I tried this and tested this MANY MANY times. Dont believe me go test it out. I DARE say u will have more warding arrow chances if u have 2 or more stacks instead of 1, even though u might argue the chance for each stack is smaller. Would u prefer throwing in ur lot in 1 single stack of master hunters(and hope it'll trigger) or throw in ur lot with more stacks albeit with a lower percentage of triggering but overall I DARE say more stacks= more warding arrows trigger. Besides, having 2 stacks means u can trigger warding arrow on more enemy stacks.

[PhoenixReborn]

Thanks for good responses.

I am playing in 1.3 don't worry. I do skip the war dancers, it isn't worth it.

I guess my mistakes were skipping luck and logistics. Aren't dragons cheaper now? Is it really not worth it to wait around for them?

Do you upgrade unicorns? A medium speed walker is rarely worth it in heroes games (I'm looking at you H II minotaur).

[Elvin]

I guess my mistakes were skipping luck and logistics. Aren't dragons cheaper now? Is it really not worth it to wait around for them?

Do you upgrade unicorns? A medium speed walker is rarely worth it in heroes games (I'm looking at you H II minotaur).

Luck and logistics are the ranger's favoured skills!No wonder you faced difficulties.
Dragons are cheaper but getting 15 crystals and gems is hard.One way to get them fast is to skip treants,build resource silo and mystic pond-all you need to do is flag a crystal mine and be lucky with the pond's offered resources.
Still it's better to accumulate them as they die fast without the proper skills and unless you have a wood shortage treants should be built early.The dragons can wait until you upg some key units.This strategy however can save you from a necro with a massive skellie stack if your hunters/druids have been weakened by other conflicts.Rangers can't deal with ranged threats without them.
Unicorns gain a lot with their upgrade: +20 Hp,+5 att/def and blinding strike for 2 round duration.Be sure to do that.

[PhoenixReborn]

What is the percent chance of blind occuring? It seems to happen about 1 in 12 times.

[Gaidal Cain]

If you split them, you will have 2 stacks of master hunters who act every 10 turns. So in 10 turns, you will have 2 chances of warding arrow triggering instead of 1. So in 20 turns you will have 4 chances of warding arrow triggering instead of 2 chances if you only have 1 stack.

On the other hand, the chance for warding arrow is based on damage done to the stack. I don't remember the exact formula, so I don't know if it favors splitting further, but it isn't automatically so, like for example Blinding (which should be 30%, IIRC)

[Jolly Joker]

Just for the record here: Sylvans will get a slightly lessened Wood need in 1.4 If I'm not wrong it's 5/10 instead of 10/15 for War Dancers , but 12/15 for Elves I think.
On top of that Fort and Citadel have been changed to 5W/5O both.
I'm pretty happy with that, even though I dont really know why Hunters cost 12 Wood now. Maybe I missed another change, maybe 12 is someone's lucky number, I don't know.
I have the feeling that with 1.4 the resource costs will be final.

[PhoenixReborn]

Just for the record here: Sylvans will get a slightly lessened Wood need in 1.4 If I'm not wrong it's 5/10 instead of 10/15 for War Dancers , but 12/15 for Elves I think.
On top of that Fort and Citadel have been changed to 5W/5O both.
I'm pretty happy with that, even though I dont really know why Hunters cost 12 Wood now. Maybe I missed another change, maybe 12 is someone's lucky number, I don't know.
I have the feeling that with 1.4 the resource costs will be final.

Welcome news. There will be a 1.4 and they are still adjusting.

On the other hand how could 1.4 be the final adjustment...don't they have to work the new faction in? So 2.x would be the final...

[Kilop]

yeah but then they would have to rework their numbers for naga town, so 3.x would be final ... but wait, then , etc.

[Elvin]

Just for the record here: Sylvans will get a slightly lessened Wood need in 1.4 If I'm not wrong it's 5/10 instead of 10/15 for War Dancers , but 12/15 for Elves I think.
On top of that Fort and Citadel have been changed to 5W/5O both.
I'm pretty happy with that, even though I dont really know why Hunters cost 12 Wood now. Maybe I missed another change, maybe 12 is someone's lucky number, I don't know.
I have the feeling that with 1.4 the resource costs will be final.

That's good.All of it!Blade dancers won't be skipped anymore and any reduction for hunters' cabin is welcome.And seems you got your wish too with the citadel/fort costs!Or was it citadel/castle?Good change though the citadel is no more a 'cheap' building for sylvan And finally,it's a good idea to end this resource rebalancing per new patch.Heard anything about academy?Pls?