Dread Knights

[Chazar]

I think starting pillage at 70 would be too high. At this a lv-2 DN could be at 85%. That is too high too soon. Increasing to 55% to start with might be better, and perhaps allowing the DN to increase his movement up to 16(still start with 14). This would still be slower than other heroes, but not by such a huge margin.

+1

For me, it is definitely the 14 movement points that kill him: high movement means that a hero can level much faster (e.g. the assassin can deviate from the main stack to search ruins, etc.), so allowing him to increase to 16 is a must have for me.

[LPhillips]

The problem with dks is vs neutrals. Most heroes give their bonuses to the full stack. DK only uses his bonus on the single neutral defender. That makes him a poor choice until contact with other players are made. At a high level, he is by far the best, imo.

I did not undestand. We have a dread knight and some units in our stack and one enemy unit. What is real difference between to add strength to all our units and to decrease enemy one unit's strength? In the first case each our unit will have greater strength and in the another case one enemy's unit wil have lesser strength but for all our unit. So I think it is almost the same. Isn't it?

You are right Solo; in fact Chaos is more effective against a single unit unless that unit is powerful and likely to kill several of your own before it dies. Chaos is more powerful/effective than Leadership, which is why it has a lower start value and slower growth; it is also the reason why the Dreadknight moves slowly. In a battle of 15 vs 10 for example, lowering the enemy to 7 is more effective than raising your unit to 19. There are also many ways to increase your units' strength, while effective ways to lower enemies' are uncommon.

The reason we don't see the Dreadknight is that he he has been replaced. The high powered non-Leadership hero is now the Assassin, and the Assassin can't be countered (as the Dreadknight can). For something that becomes very effective very quickly, you still have the Valkeria and the Horselord: the Paladin still rules ruin searching and item use, and the Barbarian is the best at quick expansion. The only one infringing on the DK is the Assassin, and it boasts faster movement, a high-powered ability for interception and defense, better ruin searching, and easier leveling. It can even make use of Chaos items well.

[KGB]

Chaos is more powerful/effective than Leadership, which is why it has a lower start value and slower growth; it is also the reason why the Dreadknight moves slowly.

Only in non-hero fights. What I mean is that a L1 Paladin is better than a L1 DK. This rule holds true until like L13 when the DK reaches 18 Chaos and the Paladin caps at 16. Otherwise in a 1v1 hero fight the DK is always slightly worse off by 1. The fact the Paladin is also better at ruin searching, movement and just about everything else dooms the DK.

Also in those non-hero fights the Chaos is *only* more valuable if the strength of your units is equal to or better than the strength of the enemy units. For example consider attacking everyone's favorite city defender the Hv Infantry at 20 strength. If you have 10 strength units (Lt Calv) and could have a hero with +5 Leadership or +5 Chaos which one is better for you? Well the Leadership hero fight is 15's vs 20's. The Chaos hero fight is 10's vs 15's. The 15's vs 20's are better odds. So in reality Chaos isn't even always more effective in non-hero fights. This matters especially in the expansion phase when even +5 city walls makes the Paladin a better bet (14 vs 15 ) than the DK (10 vs 12) assuming 10 strength units on both sides with +5 walls for the neutral.

So in reality the Chaos power is over penalized.

The reason we don't see the Dreadknight is that he he has been replaced.

I would not say he has been replaced. We simply have been given more choices of heroes with different skills (ambush, specialized leadership/movement, individual combat). Every one of those heroes and their skills has proven to be more effective than choosing the DK/Chaos combo. To me it all comes back to the fact that in hero fights the DK is almost always the loser. He's just useful for attacking non-hero stacks and there are plenty of other ways to accomplish that.

That's why I suggested making him into a pillaging machine so that he has another useful skill to encourage his use.

KGB

[smursh]

The DK is not as heavily used because the assassin is such a fast versatile hero. Consider the combat value(both group ambush and city fear, cannot be countered by archons), speed, potential UL. He is 1st or second in value for almost every category here. It isn't that the DK is too weak so much as the assassin is a more generally useful hero who fills the same role. This is the same reason the paladin is probably more used than the horselord, the paladin is a more all purpose hero instead of a specialist.

[KGB]

Smursh,

The Assassin's 2nd power is City Chaos, not City Fear. The Archon definitely negates that.

The UL between the DK and Assassin is irrelevant. The DK starts higher (8 vs 7) and at L2 they are both 10 and at L3 both are 100% sure to search L1 ruins (12 and 13). However in reality no one is investing in UL with either of these heroes given that the investment in Learning is 10X as important.

That said the Assassin is definitely the more versatile hero due to speed and the fact at L1 he can provide you with an instant chance to kill a super Barbarian (L5+) which no other hero can do.

KGB

[Negern]

The problem with dks is vs neutrals. Most heroes give their bonuses to the full stack. DK only uses his bonus on the single neutral defender. That makes him a poor choice until contact with other players are made. At a high level, he is by far the best, imo.

I did not undestand. We have a dread knight and some units in our stack and one enemy unit. What is real difference between to add strength to all our units and to decrease enemy one unit's strength? In the first case each our unit will have greater strength and in the another case one enemy's unit wil have lesser strength but for all our unit. So I think it is almost the same. Isn't it?

Stack of four units with ten strength, plus pala 4+.

4+ x 6 = 20

So bonus is 20 on that early level.

DK stack vs city, however, only gives one -3. It's better later, when the cities are filled with many units. But in early games, dk is no good vs cities. It's like a bad ram. It can be hard even to get to 90% vs the early neutrals, i.m.o. That's why I think the str should be raised, so one does not have to expand very slowly or risk loosing it vs neutrals.

I like the idea of higher plunder value too.

Solution for assa is nerfing ambush. Snotlings idea of allowing max 3 hp being taken from ambush was very good, imo. Also, is stack ambush really capped at 70% or whatever it was, or is it just stack ambush from assa that's capped. Adding ghosts will still raise it, if I don't hallucinate. Why not cap it completely at 70?

[KGB]

Negern,

Stack of four units with ten strength, plus pala 4+.

4+ x 6 = 20

So bonus is 20 on that early level.

DK stack vs city, however, only gives one -3. It's better later, when the cities are filled with many units. But in early games, dk is no good vs cities. It's like a bad ram.

You are kidding right? I hope you realize this logic doesn't make sense.

It would be the equivalent of you saying that having 4 10 strength units with 2 hits and a +4 bonus to each was better than having 1 10 strength unit with 8 hits and a +4 bonus. I hope you realize this would be an equal fight and not a +16 bonus for the 4 units and only +4 bonus for the 1 super unit.

So when your 4 units + Chaos hero fight that lone unit in the city the Chaos bonus is applied for ALL your units. In other words as each of your units dies and the next one steps up the enemy unit continues to fight at -3. Hence each one of your units is applying -3 in it's 1v1 combat.

KGB

[smursh]

I also agree that a moderate increase in pillaging would be beneficial. Starting at 55 with a ten pnt increase per point spent would be enough to make the hero worthwhile as a pillager. I still feel allowing this hero to increase his speed to 16 would also make him more useful.
I don't think any major change to the chaos skill is needed. You are trading his early game strength for his higher potential. This is sort of the opposite of the barbarian, where you get tremendous early strength, but not as much value added at high level compared with other heroes.

[Zaque]

I will also agree that the speed is the big reason I tend not to use him early on. Unless I find myself having to defend a city and can buy him in the city. In the early game the slow speed crimps expansion, while in the mid to late game it just takes too long to move him to the front lines.

Of course I think all of this will have to be rethought once we can buy higher level heroes.

[Negern]

You are kidding right? I hope you realize this logic doesn't make sense.

True true. Pretty obvious now that I think of it.

But still, based on my experiences, it's harder to reach 90% with dk in the first turns. Might be because of what lp said, that palas are better vs stronger units. Walls makes the defenders stronger than the early attackers (mostly one turners and a two turner).
If it's a problem or not, or even a fact, I leave for brighter people to decide.