Strategy Guides

[Madamos]

This thread was originally created by zzzaacckk on Legends Forums, and with the help of many other TAO vets.

With the possible comeback of TAO, i thought it would be great to have a thread like this up.

If anybody has more to add to this, please go ahead and add your strategies/guides.

I'd like to keep this thread discussion free (makes it much easier to read through all the guides).

If any posts have mistakes or needs updates, etc... please let the user who posted it know (By PM or by other means, but not by posting on this thread, please).

Damage Chart

Scout LOS Chart

Quick's Strategic Advice (Unfortunately incomplete, but there's still some good stuff.)

Welcome, new players (n00bs), Veterans, and all others in between. This topic will hopefully give you the tools to become a master of this game. Within it I and other skilled players will post our strategies and winning techniques as well as other useful information that pertains to this great game.


Index of completed Strategical Essays:

1.1 Damage Evasion

1.2 Scout Line of Sight Tactics

1.3 Cleric Placement (Theocritus)


Currently I am planning posts on:

-Building a Mage Bomb and burning your foe to death

-Building a Turtle and playing defensively/offensively

-Knight Walls: offensive/defensive combat

-Enchantress Mind Games

-Ward usage and placement

Anyone who wishes to add to this post should start a new thread and write their own ideas and/or essay within it. All submissions will be routed through me.


I play my game from this standpoint: Damage evasion is better than dealing damage in many cases. If you have a unit that is about to be overcome by enemy forces, attack and retreat or just retreat if attacking would be foolish. Then the enemy will have to follow you in, and you will possibly kill his attacking unit. Damage evasion is also killing units that can do the most damage to you, like Witches, Dsm's/Pyros, and units that are in a position to deal deathblows once they recover.

This concept works very well for all you Furgon people. The point here is to avoid damage until you can heal it all back. Shrubbery protection is excellent to this effect. If your enemy has to chop through shrubs to get at one of your units, then they can't hurt your damaged unit. You now have time to heal and retreat the unit further out of the ranged units attack influence.

The Furgon/retreat strategy also forces your enemy to either pursue, or spread their damage around. If they elect to attack something else, they merely make your healing more effective. Damage evasion also means moving your units out of vulnerable places before they can take a hit. If your Scout is next to a Witch at the beginning of the game, don't leave him there. He's going to get nuked. This is also why Barrier wards + Mages or Scouts are very effective.

You can prevent damage by killing units that are likely to hurt you the most. Suicidal Witches, Dsm powered Pyros, and Dragons. Situation: Mage Bomb with two Pyros in front of your L Ward and the Dsm in the back. One Pyro is directly in front of your ward, and the other is to the side of it. The one on the side could pentrate deep into your formation, and kill your Cleric. The one in front of your Ward is limited in movement and striking capability because of your L Ward. Which one do you kill? Obviously the one that could get at your Cleric. By doing this you remove your opponent's ability to hurt you most.

I love to prevent damage by freezing. Always make sure that if you're going to freeze something, your focus won't be broken next turn. If that is the case, don't do it at all and try to eliminate one of the sources of possible damage instead. If you freeze it and your enemy can un-freeze it easily, all you've done is given your enemy a free shot at your Frosty.

Try not to move your units into compromising positions either. Unless you have two Clerics and/or a Stone Golem supporting you, you won't be able to win in such a situation. I've seen many players run their stoned Scout right up to an L Ward and a Dragon so they can take out their opponent's armor. These people think that he's got enough hp to take a Lightning Bolt, Fireball, and possible Scout or Knight hits. Newsflash, unless sacrificing that Scout is really worth it, don't send him in. Your enemy can always retreat and stone up again, whereas your Scout is now gone forever. This goes for Beast Riders and Mud Golems too. Charging in with your Golem right at the beginning of the game doesn't work unless you've got units in good position to capitalize on the situation. Stoned Muds will die eventually, especially if there's a Frosty right there holding them down.

Preventing damage by making "pockets" within your formation for damaged units to retreat into is also very smart. If your enemy doesn't have range, then they have to kill one of your outside units first, again, spreading damage around and making your healing more effective. By pockets, I mean a cross shaped grouping of units, without a unit in the center. Since your piece is able to move through these four other units at will, you can hide him in there where your enemy won't be able to get him. If he attackes one of the units on the perimiter of the pocket, heal and you've just done twice as much healing as you would have before. The unit attacking your pocket will probably be swarmed by your five or so guys if he persists in trying to crack the proverbial safe that you've hidden your damaged unit in.

Crip's Strat Guide

i dont feal like saying lot of the fing's but 1 of the fing's like in chesss alwes make sure that everyfing is protected by somefing or lured like if the atack's it his ganna die or doying a run escape like atack and hide back the most of the unit's that r used to block other unit's r like knight or unit's with a lot of hp like rock golem forgot his name or try to alwes make him be 1 scare in back of the atack if a guy try's to do the assasin trick the best way to kill it befor he does it its use the dragon or risk a scout hit if u dont wanna waist ur time to get ur assasin low just use the poison wisp -.- and dont put any strategie with the scout special aatck and golem because weery 1 in this lan know' s sit and its posted everywhere so try to put somefing original i dint axely put some good stuff on =.= and dont use rushe's because whwen it come's up that the guy wass a realy good defence he will get on healing and killing you slowly 1 at the time

Metal_Monster's Guide

hello ppl!!!!
the reason i made this tutorial was the newbies that haven't got a lot of experiance on this game..... i will tell you my tactical opinions and i hope those will help...

1. Attacking at the beginning of the game is a bad idea-
when you attack your enemy you actually send 1 unit against a whole bunch of units, no matter how much units you are sending, the enemy has more.... so i think you should attack only when you have at least 4 units advantage
2. Use your enemy units recovery time to finish them quickly, so ranged units with high HP and armor (scout) shouldn't stay far behind
3. Place spellcasters behind knights- i saw some formations with witches on front designed to kill the cleric if he has nobody standing 5 sqares ahead of him, but those formations will be only effective if the opponent doesn't have anyone standing 5 squares ahead of him
4. you should have a unit standing 5 squares ahead of the cleric....why??? (Hint:dark magic witch) yes!!!!! your right! the witch can kick his ass!!!! newsflash! the witch will kill your healer in one hit!
5. dont make a too spreaded formation cuz your nice enemy will vanish your little spellcasters
6. DON'T RELY ON THE FUCKING KAMIKAZEE TRICK!!!! i played with someone who attacked his assassin with the pyromancer and then sent the assassin away HOPING i will be dumb enough to hit it with the knight, but i had a witch standing there.....
NEWSFLASH-most people know the fucking kamikazee trick
7. memorize the lighting ward range so you wont accidently send a unit into there

Ape Advice

Ok, herrz some tactics which will hopefully help you to become a better defender. I'll add more later on.

I usually play defence, even though its kidda hard these days with the busher, wisp, plus the shit load of mages that we already have to worry about.

Defend Against Turtle Rushs (DIFFERENT SIDES)----

MOST rushing units takes 2 or more turns to get to a place where it can threaten your units, i.e. break focus/dmg cleric, so I just use my ranged units such as Scout, Dragon, Mud...and maybe the Wisp to start damage them slowly before they reach my main formation or the most sensitive part, the ideal choices to pick off are the Mud, Busher, Wisp and mages, since they cant block, have less armor, and long recovery...your Frost and Wisp can handle the on coming BR and Scout later on. By the time when they gets to where I am, their HP are alrightly 1/4 of the way gone(on average), so then use the heavy power units such as Knights, LW, and Dragon to finish it off, if extra hit is needed for the kill before they can recover and do further damage, use Frost and Wisp to delay, but be sure to place them in a position that their focus wont be broken right after they cast their spell. Furgon and the placement of your units can help, using shrubs or your own units limit their move space or to block the enemy's attacks, such as the Scout's LOS, Mudquake and the BR "poke". And if you absolutly cant prevent some of your units from dying on your next turn, be sure to make use of them while you still can..like attacking with them (unless they cant move, or you only can kill the enemy with one of your higher powered unit). Here is a very important law that applies to all good defenders----ALWAYS save your Frost rather than your Cleric, because the Frost is just far more useful, they can assist you in delaying/ fast killing your opponent.

Defend Against Turtle Rushs (Same Side)----

These are very annoying and more difficult to defeat, since it will take less time for the focus breakers to get to where you are. Since you know that your Stone's focus is gonna be broken anyway, why not use it as a lure, stone first, move around a bit so you can protect Cleric and Frost from the already existing flaws in your form such as the vulnerability of los. Most peoples sents in the Mud for the focus break, and this is when you freeze'em. If you find that you focus is going to be breaked by the Scout, you can always freeze without moving, since Frost only have to wait one turn while Scout have to wait two. Then try to use the Furgon or other units to limit movement or attack. Furgon + Frost is a good combination for countering rushers. Freeze frist with the Frost (make sure that focus wont be broken in the next turn), then using the Furgon to block all possible los attacks so forcing your opponent to move in BR, Knights and such. I noticed that all players have the tendency of charging in units to break the Frost's focus even when they already know that the frozen unit is dead meat. The defender can take great advantage of that behavior, quickly finishing the frozen units off then freeze another one.
-----Additional Strat----- Another flaw I noticed is that rushers only charges in units with high movement or range, which means less armor or hp, but if stoned they can be hard deal with. As they are coming move your focus breakers + backup (Scout, Mud, Knight, Dragon, Wisp?, Busher?, BR) closer to places where you can break your opponents stone. Dont make it look obvious, thus your opponent wont retaliate. i.e. if you know that it takes five spaces for your Scout to get into a place where it can break the Stone's focus, dont move four spaces right off, move one, then four. In certain situations, these focus breakers are sacificed, but for a greater cause. After the focus is broken, start pummeling with Dragon, Knights, LW or Mud. After all the focus breakers are gone, your opponent will start sending in the Knights as a natural reaction, simply freeze one, kill it and freeze another until opponent runs out of attack force.
-----Which units to kill----- If the Ambusher is up front, KIIILLLL ITTTT FFIRRSSTT!!!! Then Mud if it charges in, follow by the Scout and Wisp (they are tied), BR and Knight.
----Protecting Cleric While Playing Same Side Ambusher Turtle Rushes----
-----Frontal Amushers-----Hate these mofuckers, they are the official Turtle Killers!!! >:S And thank you White for the brilliant invention ....Anywayz, assuming that your opponent is going to heal the Ambusher, it'll have 72 hp (60+12=72), you can get 4 hits off of it due to its recovery time, BUT you'll need ALL four hits unless you use a Dragon(Dragon blast+ Knight slash+Knight slash) or LW(LW bolt+Knight slash+Knight slash). If you have the extra turn, try set some sort of barricade(i.e. shrubs and unit blockage) inorder to protect your Cleric. If you dont have the extra turn, try to move the Cleric out of the way(out of the turtle) of the oncomming attacks if you want to save it that is. Then set of blockages. Furgon, Frost and Wisp are the best way to go in situations like this, but they can only delay, so you have to kill the Busher fast while the other tries to get their share of your Cleric. And dont forget stoning the Cleric...can make it last a bit longer, that bit might be enough time for you to kill the Ambusher and hold off the others.
-----Ambusher in the back-----
No worries until later, thats if it will have a later. Start picking it off with the Scout(If you like, bring Mud for back up in cast of Frost and Knights to hide behind) to force it back, if it gets up to the front pound it with LW, Dragon and knight, even if its stoned, it'll die fast, hopefully fast enough. While all this is happening, use your own Frost and Knights to slow down on comming units(if possible do it when the ranged units are recovering). If all else fails, make the Cleric run.