1- vlad (10/10 as a lord - 7/10 for faction 2- mannfred (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction 3- isabella (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction 4- Heinrich kemmler (8/10 as a lord - 8/10 for faction 5- Hellman ghorst (7/10 as a lord - (5/10 for faction 6- red duke (8/10 as a lord - errr
Vlad is 10/10 lord because his lore is cool as and his skill for xp across the faction is so good as well as him being able to have a load of ward save -- faction is 7/10 because he doesn’t start in drakenhof and other than that movement range his bonuses aren’t the best. Mannfred is 9/10 lord because he can go very very heavy into magic as well as having a dragon on standby -- faction is 9/10 because of drakenhof as well as the movement increase and you can’t go wrong with a little upkeep deduction on the best unit in the game ;) Isabella is 9/10 because those vampire hero buffs are insane and she can buff monsters like no tomorrow -- faction is 9/10 because of that weopon strength buff for vampires is super if you like to play the game properly by putting in a vampire for extra winds as well as a flanker and replenishment Heinrich is 8/10 because he can summon krell and has plenty of unique items -- faction is 8/10 because he reduces upkeep for necromancers by 50:/: and with the lamian bloodline you can have free necromancers- also starting in brettonia is a nice change of pace Ghorst is 7/10 because yeah he is basically a mortis engine but he is slow as and gets shot to hell but the reduced WOD casts does help him --5/10 for faction because corpse carts and mortis engines aren’t very good (in my opinion) but that research is nice - and that replenish buff becomes redundant when you get the Von carstein bloodline which you wanna rush for that public order Red duke is 8/10 because he is a mad lad in melee but no arcane conduit ability really let’s him down
Morathi isn't a basic caster. Sure she is at the start of the game, but almost all the casters are basic casters at the start. She becomes one of the best casters as the game goes on. She's amazing. Her campaign is not necessarily easy though.
I like that this video series is more about how mechanically powerful a character is / how easy their campaign is than "which one is most fun to play," since it means there's no disappointment to seeing your favorite character at the bottom of a ranking.
Thanks for the video! I do heavily disagree with your view of Morathi though. She becomes significantly more durable that most of the other lords when she gets leveled/gear. It's not unreasonable to get like 30%ward save and 40% physical resist, with a regeneration that isn't dependent on being in combat like Lokhir. She has bonus vs Large that helps her a ton with fighting other lords. You are right about the Chaos Corruption and enemies, but Morathi is a great lord in battle, arguably the best of the 6 LL.
I was very surprised. She’s extraordinarily strong, probably a top 5 faction across the entire game. You seem to be overlooking A LOT of her strengths but great video overall!
I hate that he completely glanced over all the auras she gets that reduce enemy melee attack and defense. Plop her in a big gang of foot troops, drop soul stealer, and watch as your troops butcher everything while she flies away unscathed.
Thank you! I was so baffled: "poor battle performance" what?? It is true though, that her performance in the very beginning of the campaign is indeed bad. Very squishy and no remarkably good spells. You need to rush Pit of Shades and Greater Arcane Conduit. Sulephet is essential as well. Then (with the next 20 or so level) her performance gets incredible. I mean, why does she need armour when she can reduce the enemies melee attack by -18 (enchanting beauty + the item effect) and gets a ton of resistences. She can kill everything in Melee and can dish 100th of kills with overcasted Pit of Shades or put a fire sorceress in her army. She'll benefit from Morathis Greater Arcane Conduit. She is one the best Lords in battle and the best hybrid in the game. Period.
Malakith is one of the best but boring LLs in the game. He has an animation while on foot that knocks other LLs down giving him freebies on damage. He lowers upkeep on low and high level units, his magic isn’t the worst, and his lore is pretty cool.
Morathi rank 5? What? Morathi could easily compete for the title of THE BEST caster in the game. She can obliterate half of an army before it even gets close with spells alone. Not to mention she has 2 great unique skill lines. One makes it easier to field more armies, other buffs the literal god unit of dark elves, Shades (with great weapons). She is by far the best Dark Elf lord there is. The fact that she spreads chaos corruption is also awesome cause it is a defensive mechanic that you get for free.
Hi Colonel, respect for being brave enough to put your opinions in front of a large audience. Sadly I have to disagree with the way you measure lord strength. You do keep track of faction and lord traits, as well as starting armies and starting positions. However you completely ignore any unique lord skill points each of the LLs have. This is making your ranking obviously wrong and frankly does a disservice to any newer player watching this.
You can literally suicide Malus/black ark and recruit him back on top left of the map with insane upkeep bonus from the territory u can snowball pretty damn fast,
Malice Dark blade can be no.1 depending on your play style because you can make 2 powerful armies early in the game and go on total rampage. Also you can build only growth and income related buildings in your settlements because you'll recruit armies from black ark. You can also do it with other lords but with malice you'll be able to do it early.
Morathi Malekith Crone The kraken dude Dino guy Malus Morathi has good faction bonuses don't see why she'd be so low has 2 lores of magic. I don't get it. Lots of these lists differ from what I think but to each their own.
@@jumiric again I said to each there own. He's giving his opinion I'm giving mine. A lot of people seem to disagree with his opinion. But it's all good whatever works.
I mean, have you seen Morathi's power level!? My top 6: 6 - Malus Darkblade: Starting position and the constant back and forth between him and T'Zarkan without free elixir like in Eye of the Vortex. 5 - Lokhir Fellheart: Lustria is like Davy Jones' locker. 4 - Hellebron: Blood Night is both a blessing and a curse 3 - Rakarth: Sure, monstres are cool, but he can be taken out easily in the early game. 2 - Morathi: Best Capital Period, great magical abilities, so many options, but a _very_ rough start. Also, do not confederate her if you want to avoid Chaos Corruption! 1 - Malekith (of course): Great starting position, awesome fighter, easy to use, faction buffs are quite good. What more would you want?
Play vampire counts to learn basics of gameplay and getting used to the use of magic. Play Empire or High elves when you want to learn to control a more diverse army.
@@upthevilla9505 Yeah, vampire counts don't have ranged units. Or they kind of do, but you can only have a max of 2 i belive in the form of Sylvanian crossbowmen. Who are no different from normal crossbowmen. Vampire counts focus heavily on the use of heroes to win their fights, their army units are literally just there to die... Again. Vampires are hard to kill since they all have a lot of HP and the ability to use magic, and i'd highly recommend learning all the forms of magic before anything else since magic can singlehandedly win a fight.
Morathi shouldn´t be 5th by any means. The start is difficult for sure (but you still start in one of the best provinces to stack slaves) , but she is one of the best LL in combat. She can buff melee units by a lot thanks to its aura debuffs, has good spells such as pit of shades (super cheap also) and soul stealer and her items are amongs the best in the game.
The question is do how much should a lord effectiveness over the starting position? Imrik is another lord like morathi. Powerful as hell, but takes a long time to get going, and has one of the worst starting position.
Yeah, I think that a lot of people see Morathi as nothing but a buff/debuff support caster, but the reality is that she can go toe to toe with basically anything in the game once she has the right skills and she can do it whilst flinging out super cheap spells at a very high rate.
Put Lokhir in last place, and bump up the last two once In fact it's slightly different for me: Rakarth 1, Morathi 2 ( great faction bonuses) , Malekith 3, Hellebron 4 ( Best LL for Vortex ), Malus 5, Lokhir 6
lokhir doesn't deserve last place. The bonus to black arks and the unique black arks he gets is good. He has good buffs for early game units, but mainly his bonus to slave markets and slave pens makes an already rich faction, insanely rich. There's no way that malus in particular can match that.
@@sympunny8636 the reason why i put Lokhir last is that even though he has those buffs, he starts in Lustria, and doesnt have any interest on it. you'll need to kill off Lord Skrolk for the landmark and Teclis for the islands, but besides that, you dont want to be in lustria. Then you get a quest, that you have to control Karond Kar, i've been told today that you get another one that you can confederate them so its a bit better. But effectively, bad start, for no reason.
@@Razielts1 honestly lustria is better than malus's start and morathi's start. Malus starts next to one of the factions with very strong early game AI buffs, clan eshin. He also doesn't have access to the proper sea, just a small one, so his black arks are far worse. Th region is also awkward for malus, because it's very awkward to traverse without underway stance, which most of the other factions in that area have. Whereas morathi just starts surrounded by enemies, lizardmen and high elves. Lokhir starts in a corner of lustria so enemies come at him from fewer directions. There's honestly a bunch of territory near him that he wants, as you said his start territory is good, with the gold mine, and the high elf islands. But also the awakening, all 3 settlements having ports is really invaluable. Normally at around that point, you can confederate karond kar, so more nice territory for you. Then aiming for either izta or hexacoatl or both is pretty nice. Both are special cities, so 10 slots, with gold mines and hexacoatl even has several port cities and gives you access to eventually confederate morathi. While I'm doing that, i often send a black ark out to sack the desert settlements across the sea for money, and eventually another one to do the same to the high elves. Funnelling the money and slaves back into more armies to take over lustria itself, confederate the other dark elf lords and launch a joint attack on the high elves. He buffs the black arc corsairs with handbows enough to have a good and cheap early game army, and later on you can afford shades or hydras etc very easily, with the extra money from his slave bonus. It's a pretty strong start, and you can get so much money if you use the black arks and the slave economy right.
@@Razielts1 Lustria is a great starting location. Especially for a pirate in ME. NO enemies venture down there so you can create a great income base without having to have any defenses at all. He is much safer in Lustria than even Noctilus is in Galleons Graveyard. Both Skrolk and Teclis are pushovers and are EASILY destroyed both by turn 10-12. The Awakened will be very easy pickings for a Corsair and Darkshard or Shade stack in Lokhirs Black Ark. You can leave just a single army in Lustria with any AP Missiles (Darkshards, Shades, or Corsair Handbows with either Lokhir or a Krakenclaw Lord). That one army will kill all the Lizardmen in Lustria on its own while you can go focus on dominating the seas with Black Arks. By the late game Black Ark spam is broken. A player with Black Arks can easily out recruit even the Vampire Count AI. The Vampire Counts were the most difficult enemy I faced in my campaign but they couldn't handle the insane number of Shade Stacks that I could put out every turn. I got to where I just Auto resolved most of their battles even if it destroyed them and I could have won the battle because it was just easier to recruit a new stack and send it in.
most of the issues you listed are only ever a problem with inexperience lmao. I got like 1000 hours in and i have no prob with Maluses campaign legendary very hard even. Its just that ya never build walls first...
it was a breeze playing malus i dont think its last place getting full health after transformation is a big help it was almost like an emergency button for me whenever i had to fight a diffucult battle. You know what deserves last place ? of course morathi. now i dont care if she gets better as game goes on im just gonna say this play her on legendary diffuculuty and get to 50 - 60 turns. she gets sandwiched between lizards and high elves. and not just regular high elves no for some reason it had to be alith anar. to top of it all there is chaos corruption good luck having a positive state of public order. forget about positive good luck having more than -10.. i really dont understand all these comments going on about. there is literally a video of legendoftotalwar showing how to get your shit together as morathi its 100+ minutes long and has 130k views. that should tell you something..
Was rakarth nerfed since this video? I find that the entire doughnut declares on me immediately and constantly sends 2-4 stacks of Lothern sea guard + silverin guard to shred my poor monsters, which gets me stuck in albion/corroune and not really having the bandwidth to move on the empire.
If you are playing on legendary this is completely false. Power ranking of the factions: 1: lokhir fellheart, all his campaign bonuses are simply insane, he boosts slave income by a huge degree, slaves should constitute 90% of your income. Black arc mechanic allows for an insane snowball because each major port gives another almost free black arc which allows you to obtain more ports, repeat, loot and occupy and you will swim in slaves, plus you can migrate to lothern and tor yvresse to negate the start position and obtain the best province for slaves in the game 2: malekith, no faction bonuses, except you don't have to confederate him, so you will be able to have a strong start after going for tyrant, easier confederations as well 3: malus, you can try to confederate malekith turn one or you can simply abandon the isles, they are not worth it compared to nagarond, strong faction bonuses, most important is public order, if you go full conrol 4:rakarth, not a bad faction, but shitty start, difficult to leave albion early on, the beasts are cool but inneficient, you should only recruit dark elves monsters because you can't provide the others bonuses, starts at war with marienburg 5: morathi, too bad of a public order problem due to corruption, having to get one to two public order buildings in each provinces is a pain which is rough for dark elves, one of the better starting provinces and can invade ulthuan , but definitely more difficult than with lokhir, plus each confederations is a massive pain because you have to maintain provinces with low corruption 6: hellebron, buffs bad units with her unique mechanic, and encourages rituals to khaine and sacrificing of labourers, which is counterintuitive with the objective of the dark elves to have as high as a forced labourers number as possible. Only interesting effect is public order Ranking of the lords individually: 1:malekith, almost a must have thanks to tyrant and his slave bonus, plus he is a good melee lord and a mediocre caster, and he makes darkshards very cheap for his army 2 : morathi, the better caster of the dark elves, really good in melee with her items, can debuff ennemy army by -20 melee attack when nearby, good faction bonuses with the added flexibility that you can go for either one of her unique lines 3: lokhir, good factionwide bonuses, an insane +5 lord recruit rank, black arks growth, boosts corsairs handbows enough to make them viable in his army for very cheap, good duellist or infantry killer if not shot to death on his dragon 4: rakarth, good fighter, boosts good units, no factionwide bonuses 5: malus, the strongest melee lord with ward save stacking, able to beat armies by himself with sword of khaine, but not recomended to pick it up with dark elves 6 : helebron, good melee fighter, boosts bad units for legendary, no faction bonuses
1- vlad (10/10 as a lord - 7/10 for faction 2- mannfred (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction 3- isabella (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction 4- Heinrich kemmler (8/10 as a lord - 8/10 for faction 5- Hellman ghorst (7/10 as a lord - (5/10 for faction 6- red duke (8/10 as a lord - errr
Vlad is 10/10 lord because his lore is cool as and his skill for xp across the faction is so good as well as him being able to have a load of ward save -- faction is 7/10 because he doesn’t start in drakenhof and other than that movement range his bonuses aren’t the best. Mannfred is 9/10 lord because he can go very very heavy into magic as well as having a dragon on standby -- faction is 9/10 because of drakenhof as well as the movement increase and you can’t go wrong with a little upkeep deduction on the best unit in the game ;) Isabella is 9/10 because those vampire hero buffs are insane and she can buff monsters like no tomorrow -- faction is 9/10 because of that weopon strength buff for vampires is super if you like to play the game properly by putting in a vampire for extra winds as well as a flanker and replenishment Heinrich is 8/10 because he can summon krell and has plenty of unique items -- faction is 8/10 because he reduces upkeep for necromancers by 50:/: and with the lamian bloodline you can have free necromancers- also starting in brettonia is a nice change of pace Ghorst is 7/10 because yeah he is basically a mortis engine but he is slow as and gets shot to hell but the reduced WOD casts does help him --5/10 for faction because corpse carts and mortis engines aren’t very good (in my opinion) but that research is nice - and that replenish buff becomes redundant when you get the Von carstein bloodline which you wanna rush for that public order Red duke is 8/10 because he is a mad lad in melee but no arcane conduit ability really let’s him down
Malus is actually the best Dark Elf legendary lord, and here's why ; 1. he can gain super overpowered buffs to growth, and pretty consistently too by the time you have ten provinces. 2. being surrounded by enemies on all sides just means you'll have more slaves. being surrounded just means you can fight and sack in all directions ! 3. with or without Tzarkan, Malus is a one-man army who consistently tips the balance of power in his own favor My only complaints is that they need to tweak the victory conditions and make Tzarkan's whispers more consistent and less random. It doesn't make any damn sense that Malus needs to defeat Reikland in order to win, they are a world away from the badlands and darklands and Franz will likely be a number one superpower by the time Malus defeats Snikch, Thorgrim, and Grimgor.
also, the ritual that gives you a free high level hero and the one that gives you a cool army full of monsters are both pretty useful. one of my favorite things is summoning the monster army in the beginning of the campaign, grabbing a few cool late game units that I think will be useful and then disbanding the rest of the army.
You should definitly play a bit more. Morathi is way stronger than Rakath, Lokhir and Hellebron. Rakath is good, slighty better than Malus; he should be max 5.
You didn't quite give Lokhir his just due. I just finished a ME Campaign with him and I think his faction is the most powerful in campaign. The mechanic for spamming Black Arks is so powerful. They are powerful cheap stacks more than capable of sacking or taking any port. But their most powerful ability is their recruitment capacity. My Campaign lasted 174 turns so other DE factions would only have 6 Black Arks if they were diligent with the Rite. But I had 15 I think. That meant I could recruit 5 full stacks filled with Shades, Corsairs (if Krakenclaw trait), or witch Elves or more. And I had the income to do so because of slaves and Lokhirs buff to the slave economy. My faction could out recruit the AI Vampire Counts, Greenskins, and Skaven at the same time. The problem with the campaign was the Campaign Objective to build the Landmarks because there were only 6 settlements that had them and I needed to control 5 of the Settlements... But Naggarond owned 4 of them and I couldn't confederate them (because of my own bad decision to Ally with the Awakened before betraying them like a good DE on turn 100.
I know that most people consider Lustria a detrimental starting location. But it is by far the safest location on the map for a pirate home base. Even safer than Galleons Graveyard once you get the Lizardmen under control. Any single stack of Darkshards or AP Corsairs is more than capable of killing every Lizardmen stack and settlement on the continent on its own. I did it with ease in turn 35ish while I started exerting my dominance on the seas with Black Arks. I didn't even build walls in any settlement or leave any stacks to defend it and I never once saw an enemy come visit
Have you played Rakarth? You are able to stomp the elves early and then only have lizard men to contend with late game. He is incredibly strong and you can make instant armies with his beast pens.
@@Citylifesteve I started three Rakarth campaigns. ME and Vortex restarting the Vortex one back at turn 3 or so when I controlled the first province. In ME I controlled the entire east outer coastline but then I got really bored of early game HE fights with the only one stack I could afford. It was too boring to continue controlling the rest of Ulthuan. So I started a Vortex campaign thinking 2 Black Arks could defend Albion and the west side of the map should be able to be controlled by the DE AI factions after I got rid of Alith Anar. But then I got embroiled in fight after fight because Morathi was struggling to handle Clan Rictus and Sisters of Twilight. By turn 60ish I got really bored of fighting off wave after wave of High Elves and I still couldn't set off on what I wanted to do. I had too many Feral Manticores and Wolves and not nearly enough of any other monsters. I got bored so I restarted to see if rushing the Shrine of Asuryan really works. It did and I saw how I'd be able to kill HE one at a time without being swarmed by invasions. But by this time I was very bored with Rakarth so I quit him again. Moved on to play a Lokhir campaign and that was so much more fun.
@@toddwittie4421 hmm I didn't feel it was really boring overall but I agree that once you break through the HE the threat level is almost non existent. I build fast and reckless early and it paid off with me baiting and killing Tyrion. Most of the other HE lords were aggressively defending his provinces and I was having to fight them one by one. After that I smoked Tretch and Alith Anar and used my insane income to force confederate malikith. It was over by turn 60 as I was too big to fail. This is on hard though.
Eh. This was made by someone who lacks the experience required to properly vet these LLs. Sure there's some element of subjectivity at play, but... uh, Morathi being a basic spellcaster? Executioners are great infantry units with MA and MD below 40 despite being tier 5? The analysis in this video consisted of brief faction summaries followed by generalizations and handwaving around the abilities that actually make lords good. Like Hellebron's cauldron shoves _through_ infantry units, meaning she doesn't get stuck easily and does more damage to surrounding units. Why didn't you discuss items? Or heck, their skill trees?!? Those aren't exactly gritty details. These low-quality explanations ignore all the aspects of the lords and the accompanying details that actually matter.
This is faction ranking not LL ranking. If you play as Malekith you wont benefit from faction mechanics like Monster pens or Blood nights. The real ranking would be Morathi Malekith Lokhir Rakarth Crone Malus
Im guessing its too late for him to change the title from "lord" to "faction", since he already titled his 1st high elve ranking with the same title. I agree though, this is kind of a misleading title
@@ColonelDamneders Custer had an opinion. Some opinions are less informed than others. In strategy games, guess what, opinions matter. I'm really not trying to hate, you are likable enough. It's just you kinda don't really know what you are talking about. Own it.
What's your ranking for the Dark Elf Lords?
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1- vlad (10/10 as a lord - 7/10 for faction
2- mannfred (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction
3- isabella (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction
4- Heinrich kemmler (8/10 as a lord - 8/10 for faction
5- Hellman ghorst (7/10 as a lord - (5/10 for faction
6- red duke (8/10 as a lord - errr
Vlad is 10/10 lord because his lore is cool as and his skill for xp across the faction is so good as well as him being able to have a load of ward save -- faction is 7/10 because he doesn’t start in drakenhof and other than that movement range his bonuses aren’t the best.
Mannfred is 9/10 lord because he can go very very heavy into magic as well as having a dragon on standby -- faction is 9/10 because of drakenhof as well as the movement increase and you can’t go wrong with a little upkeep deduction on the best unit in the game ;)
Isabella is 9/10 because those vampire hero buffs are insane and she can buff monsters like no tomorrow -- faction is 9/10 because of that weopon strength buff for vampires is super if you like to play the game properly by putting in a vampire for extra winds as well as a flanker and replenishment
Heinrich is 8/10 because he can summon krell and has plenty of unique items -- faction is 8/10 because he reduces upkeep for necromancers by 50:/: and with the lamian bloodline you can have free necromancers- also starting in brettonia is a nice change of pace
Ghorst is 7/10 because yeah he is basically a mortis engine but he is slow as and gets shot to hell but the reduced WOD casts does help him --5/10 for faction because corpse carts and mortis engines aren’t very good (in my opinion) but that research is nice - and that replenish buff becomes redundant when you get the Von carstein bloodline which you wanna rush for that public order
Red duke is 8/10 because he is a mad lad in melee but no arcane conduit ability really let’s him down
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Morathi isn't a basic caster. Sure she is at the start of the game, but almost all the casters are basic casters at the start. She becomes one of the best casters as the game goes on. She's amazing. Her campaign is not necessarily easy though.
Man, I just love the swagger in the way Malekith walks. My favorite LL, most definitely.
The exaggerated swagger of a druchi edgelord?
I like that this video series is more about how mechanically powerful a character is / how easy their campaign is than "which one is most fun to play," since it means there's no disappointment to seeing your favorite character at the bottom of a ranking.
Rakarth is so much fun but his campaign is rather quick as destroying the Empire is really easy.
He's in a prime position to decapitate the order tide by wiping out Brettonia and the Empire
I got all the requurements for long campaign victory by turn 70 where I had to wait for Archaeon to finish it
altdof is surprising exposed and poorly defended
Thanks for the video! I do heavily disagree with your view of Morathi though. She becomes significantly more durable that most of the other lords when she gets leveled/gear. It's not unreasonable to get like 30%ward save and 40% physical resist, with a regeneration that isn't dependent on being in combat like Lokhir. She has bonus vs Large that helps her a ton with fighting other lords.
You are right about the Chaos Corruption and enemies, but Morathi is a great lord in battle, arguably the best of the 6 LL.
Indeed, seeing her in 5th place did make me laugh
Still my nr. One lord to confederate when playing a different lord... Or i just play her 👻
I was very surprised. She’s extraordinarily strong, probably a top 5 faction across the entire game. You seem to be overlooking A LOT of her strengths but great video overall!
I hate that he completely glanced over all the auras she gets that reduce enemy melee attack and defense. Plop her in a big gang of foot troops, drop soul stealer, and watch as your troops butcher everything while she flies away unscathed.
Thank you! I was so baffled: "poor battle performance" what?? It is true though, that her performance in the very beginning of the campaign is indeed bad. Very squishy and no remarkably good spells. You need to rush Pit of Shades and Greater Arcane Conduit. Sulephet is essential as well. Then (with the next 20 or so level) her performance gets incredible.
I mean, why does she need armour when she can reduce the enemies melee attack by -18 (enchanting beauty + the item effect) and gets a ton of resistences. She can kill everything in Melee and can dish 100th of kills with overcasted Pit of Shades or put a fire sorceress in her army. She'll benefit from Morathis Greater Arcane Conduit.
She is one the best Lords in battle and the best hybrid in the game. Period.
So which faction is next?
Malakith is one of the best but boring LLs in the game. He has an animation while on foot that knocks other LLs down giving him freebies on damage. He lowers upkeep on low and high level units, his magic isn’t the worst, and his lore is pretty cool.
Morathi rank 5? What? Morathi could easily compete for the title of THE BEST caster in the game. She can obliterate half of an army before it even gets close with spells alone. Not to mention she has 2 great unique skill lines. One makes it easier to field more armies, other buffs the literal god unit of dark elves, Shades (with great weapons). She is by far the best Dark Elf lord there is. The fact that she spreads chaos corruption is also awesome cause it is a defensive mechanic that you get for free.
this series is dope i love this.
Morathi turns into an absolute powerhouse once she gets to high level.
confederation be like
Commenting for the algorithm
Hi Colonel, respect for being brave enough to put your opinions in front of a large audience. Sadly I have to disagree with the way you measure lord strength. You do keep track of faction and lord traits, as well as starting armies and starting positions. However you completely ignore any unique lord skill points each of the LLs have. This is making your ranking obviously wrong and frankly does a disservice to any newer player watching this.
You can literally suicide Malus/black ark and recruit him back on top left of the map with insane upkeep bonus from the territory u can snowball pretty damn fast,
Great Content!
i stoped when i saw morathi rank.
Malice Dark blade can be no.1 depending on your play style because you can make 2 powerful armies early in the game and go on total rampage. Also you can build only growth and income related buildings in your settlements because you'll recruit armies from black ark. You can also do it with other lords but with malice you'll be able to do it early.
Morathi
Malekith
Crone
The kraken dude
Dino guy
Malus
Morathi has good faction bonuses don't see why she'd be so low has 2 lores of magic. I don't get it. Lots of these lists differ from what I think but to each their own.
Morathi has a more difficult start and he is very vocal about hating chaos corruption
@@jumiric again I said to each there own. He's giving his opinion I'm giving mine. A lot of people seem to disagree with his opinion. But it's all good whatever works.
I think he's mainly going from the view of a new player?
I mean, have you seen Morathi's power level!?
My top 6:
6 - Malus Darkblade: Starting position and the constant back and forth between him and T'Zarkan without free elixir like in Eye of the Vortex.
5 - Lokhir Fellheart: Lustria is like Davy Jones' locker.
4 - Hellebron: Blood Night is both a blessing and a curse
3 - Rakarth: Sure, monstres are cool, but he can be taken out easily in the early game.
2 - Morathi: Best Capital Period, great magical abilities, so many options, but a _very_ rough start. Also, do not confederate her if you want to avoid Chaos Corruption!
1 - Malekith (of course): Great starting position, awesome fighter, easy to use, faction buffs are quite good. What more would you want?
This seems like the more correct list but never tried Morathi will have to do that now and see if she still are strong.
Commenting for the algs
Cool
just got into the game.Any tips?Today i watched a lot of your guides :)
I have a tip - play vampire counts
Play vampire counts to learn basics of gameplay and getting used to the use of magic.
Play Empire or High elves when you want to learn to control a more diverse army.
@@bluntlyhonest6803 Alr lad thatd be m y first playthrough then.I heard they dont have archers thoo
@@upthevilla9505 Yeah, vampire counts don't have ranged units. Or they kind of do, but you can only have a max of 2 i belive in the form of Sylvanian crossbowmen. Who are no different from normal crossbowmen.
Vampire counts focus heavily on the use of heroes to win their fights, their army units are literally just there to die... Again. Vampires are hard to kill since they all have a lot of HP and the ability to use magic, and i'd highly recommend learning all the forms of magic before anything else since magic can singlehandedly win a fight.
@@upthevilla9505 good choice vampire counts are superior
Morathi shouldn´t be 5th by any means. The start is difficult for sure (but you still start in one of the best provinces to stack slaves) , but she is one of the best LL in combat. She can buff melee units by a lot thanks to its aura debuffs, has good spells such as pit of shades (super cheap also) and soul stealer and her items are amongs the best in the game.
The question is do how much should a lord effectiveness over the starting position?
Imrik is another lord like morathi. Powerful as hell, but takes a long time to get going, and has one of the worst starting position.
Yeah, I think that a lot of people see Morathi as nothing but a buff/debuff support caster, but the reality is that she can go toe to toe with basically anything in the game once she has the right skills and she can do it whilst flinging out super cheap spells at a very high rate.
So are we all just gonna commenting for the algorithm? Cool
Put Lokhir in last place, and bump up the last two once
In fact it's slightly different for me: Rakarth 1, Morathi 2 ( great faction bonuses) , Malekith 3, Hellebron 4 ( Best LL for Vortex ), Malus 5, Lokhir 6
lokhir doesn't deserve last place. The bonus to black arks and the unique black arks he gets is good. He has good buffs for early game units, but mainly his bonus to slave markets and slave pens makes an already rich faction, insanely rich. There's no way that malus in particular can match that.
@@sympunny8636 the reason why i put Lokhir last is that even though he has those buffs, he starts in Lustria, and doesnt have any interest on it.
you'll need to kill off Lord Skrolk for the landmark and Teclis for the islands, but besides that, you dont want to be in lustria.
Then you get a quest, that you have to control Karond Kar, i've been told today that you get another one that you can confederate them so its a bit better.
But effectively, bad start, for no reason.
@@Razielts1 honestly lustria is better than malus's start and morathi's start. Malus starts next to one of the factions with very strong early game AI buffs, clan eshin. He also doesn't have access to the proper sea, just a small one, so his black arks are far worse. Th region is also awkward for malus, because it's very awkward to traverse without underway stance, which most of the other factions in that area have. Whereas morathi just starts surrounded by enemies, lizardmen and high elves.
Lokhir starts in a corner of lustria so enemies come at him from fewer directions. There's honestly a bunch of territory near him that he wants, as you said his start territory is good, with the gold mine, and the high elf islands. But also the awakening, all 3 settlements having ports is really invaluable. Normally at around that point, you can confederate karond kar, so more nice territory for you. Then aiming for either izta or hexacoatl or both is pretty nice. Both are special cities, so 10 slots, with gold mines and hexacoatl even has several port cities and gives you access to eventually confederate morathi. While I'm doing that, i often send a black ark out to sack the desert settlements across the sea for money, and eventually another one to do the same to the high elves. Funnelling the money and slaves back into more armies to take over lustria itself, confederate the other dark elf lords and launch a joint attack on the high elves. He buffs the black arc corsairs with handbows enough to have a good and cheap early game army, and later on you can afford shades or hydras etc very easily, with the extra money from his slave bonus. It's a pretty strong start, and you can get so much money if you use the black arks and the slave economy right.
@@Razielts1 Lustria is a great starting location. Especially for a pirate in ME. NO enemies venture down there so you can create a great income base without having to have any defenses at all.
He is much safer in Lustria than even Noctilus is in Galleons Graveyard.
Both Skrolk and Teclis are pushovers and are EASILY destroyed both by turn 10-12. The Awakened will be very easy pickings for a Corsair and Darkshard or Shade stack in Lokhirs Black Ark. You can leave just a single army in Lustria with any AP Missiles (Darkshards, Shades, or Corsair Handbows with either Lokhir or a Krakenclaw Lord). That one army will kill all the Lizardmen in Lustria on its own while you can go focus on dominating the seas with Black Arks.
By the late game Black Ark spam is broken.
A player with Black Arks can easily out recruit even the Vampire Count AI. The Vampire Counts were the most difficult enemy I faced in my campaign but they couldn't handle the insane number of Shade Stacks that I could put out every turn. I got to where I just Auto resolved most of their battles even if it destroyed them and I could have won the battle because it was just easier to recruit a new stack and send it in.
Well i did something wrong: i took Ulthuan with Rakarth and now the Empire keeps knocking on my door
"Huge charms". Yeah, right. Marathi ain't got shit on my wife
For the code!
Vampire counts
most of the issues you listed are only ever a problem with inexperience lmao. I got like 1000 hours in and i have no prob with Maluses campaign legendary very hard even. Its just that ya never build walls first...
Hello young man xd
it was a breeze playing malus i dont think its last place getting full health after transformation is a big help it was almost like an emergency button for me whenever i had to fight a diffucult battle. You know what deserves last place ? of course morathi. now i dont care if she gets better as game goes on im just gonna say this play her on legendary diffuculuty and get to 50 - 60 turns.
she gets sandwiched between lizards and high elves. and not just regular high elves no for some reason it had to be alith anar. to top of it all there is chaos corruption good luck having a positive state of public order. forget about positive good luck having more than -10.. i really dont understand all these comments going on about. there is literally a video of legendoftotalwar showing how to get your shit together as morathi its 100+ minutes long and has 130k views. that should tell you something..
Hey u know that Malus also owns a Capital near Naggarond right??
Was rakarth nerfed since this video? I find that the entire doughnut declares on me immediately and constantly sends 2-4 stacks of Lothern sea guard + silverin guard to shred my poor monsters, which gets me stuck in albion/corroune and not really having the bandwidth to move on the empire.
Yeah I found he is the squishiest of the DE LL. Only one that can't really hold his own in melee.
are all the dark elf lords distant (or not so distantly) related?
If you are playing on legendary this is completely false. Power ranking of the factions:
1: lokhir fellheart, all his campaign bonuses are simply insane, he boosts slave income by a huge degree, slaves should constitute 90% of your income. Black arc mechanic allows for an insane snowball because each major port gives another almost free black arc which allows you to obtain more ports, repeat, loot and occupy and you will swim in slaves, plus you can migrate to lothern and tor yvresse to negate the start position and obtain the best province for slaves in the game
2: malekith, no faction bonuses, except you don't have to confederate him, so you will be able to have a strong start after going for tyrant, easier confederations as well
3: malus, you can try to confederate malekith turn one or you can simply abandon the isles, they are not worth it compared to nagarond, strong faction bonuses, most important is public order, if you go full conrol
4:rakarth, not a bad faction, but shitty start, difficult to leave albion early on, the beasts are cool but inneficient, you should only recruit dark elves monsters because you can't provide the others bonuses, starts at war with marienburg
5: morathi, too bad of a public order problem due to corruption, having to get one to two public order buildings in each provinces is a pain which is rough for dark elves, one of the better starting provinces and can invade ulthuan , but definitely more difficult than with lokhir, plus each confederations is a massive pain because you have to maintain provinces with low corruption
6: hellebron, buffs bad units with her unique mechanic, and encourages rituals to khaine and sacrificing of labourers, which is counterintuitive with the objective of the dark elves to have as high as a forced labourers number as possible. Only interesting effect is public order
Ranking of the lords individually:
1:malekith, almost a must have thanks to tyrant and his slave bonus, plus he is a good melee lord and a mediocre caster, and he makes darkshards very cheap for his army
2 : morathi, the better caster of the dark elves, really good in melee with her items, can debuff ennemy army by -20 melee attack when nearby, good faction bonuses with the added flexibility that you can go for either one of her unique lines
3: lokhir, good factionwide bonuses, an insane +5 lord recruit rank, black arks growth, boosts corsairs handbows enough to make them viable in his army for very cheap, good duellist or infantry killer if not shot to death on his dragon
4: rakarth, good fighter, boosts good units, no factionwide bonuses
5: malus, the strongest melee lord with ward save stacking, able to beat armies by himself with sword of khaine, but not recomended to pick it up with dark elves
6 : helebron, good melee fighter, boosts bad units for legendary, no faction bonuses
What about the lizardmen and high elves and the other factions
1- vlad (10/10 as a lord - 7/10 for faction
2- mannfred (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction
3- isabella (9/10 as a lord - 9/10 for faction
4- Heinrich kemmler (8/10 as a lord - 8/10 for faction
5- Hellman ghorst (7/10 as a lord - (5/10 for faction
6- red duke (8/10 as a lord - errr
Vlad is 10/10 lord because his lore is cool as and his skill for xp across the faction is so good as well as him being able to have a load of ward save -- faction is 7/10 because he doesn’t start in drakenhof and other than that movement range his bonuses aren’t the best.
Mannfred is 9/10 lord because he can go very very heavy into magic as well as having a dragon on standby -- faction is 9/10 because of drakenhof as well as the movement increase and you can’t go wrong with a little upkeep deduction on the best unit in the game ;)
Isabella is 9/10 because those vampire hero buffs are insane and she can buff monsters like no tomorrow -- faction is 9/10 because of that weopon strength buff for vampires is super if you like to play the game properly by putting in a vampire for extra winds as well as a flanker and replenishment
Heinrich is 8/10 because he can summon krell and has plenty of unique items -- faction is 8/10 because he reduces upkeep for necromancers by 50:/: and with the lamian bloodline you can have free necromancers- also starting in brettonia is a nice change of pace
Ghorst is 7/10 because yeah he is basically a mortis engine but he is slow as and gets shot to hell but the reduced WOD casts does help him --5/10 for faction because corpse carts and mortis engines aren’t very good (in my opinion) but that research is nice - and that replenish buff becomes redundant when you get the Von carstein bloodline which you wanna rush for that public order
Red duke is 8/10 because he is a mad lad in melee but no arcane conduit ability really let’s him down
6:00 What?! You don't like Lustriabowl?
Do you heart every comment?
Except this one >:D
@@ColonelDamneders :(
i got to reikland in TURN 20 WITH RAKARTH
TIME TO RAID THE ALTDORF ZOO LETSS GOO
Malus is actually the best Dark Elf legendary lord, and here's why ;
1. he can gain super overpowered buffs to growth, and pretty consistently too by the time you have ten provinces.
2. being surrounded by enemies on all sides just means you'll have more slaves. being surrounded just means you can fight and sack in all directions !
3. with or without Tzarkan, Malus is a one-man army who consistently tips the balance of power in his own favor
My only complaints is that they need to tweak the victory conditions and make Tzarkan's whispers more consistent and less random. It doesn't make any damn sense that Malus needs to defeat Reikland in order to win, they are a world away from the badlands and darklands and Franz will likely be a number one superpower by the time Malus defeats Snikch, Thorgrim, and Grimgor.
also, the ritual that gives you a free high level hero and the one that gives you a cool army full of monsters are both pretty useful. one of my favorite things is summoning the monster army in the beginning of the campaign, grabbing a few cool late game units that I think will be useful and then disbanding the rest of the army.
All of you will submit under my command or suffer the might of the druchii
Legend of total war put morathi first
You should definitly play a bit more. Morathi is way stronger than Rakath, Lokhir and Hellebron. Rakath is good, slighty better than Malus; he should be max 5.
Morathi 5 and Malekith 2nd?
Wtf did you smoke
Malekith is easily number 1 and Morathi is easily number 2
You didn't quite give Lokhir his just due.
I just finished a ME Campaign with him and I think his faction is the most powerful in campaign.
The mechanic for spamming Black Arks is so powerful. They are powerful cheap stacks more than capable of sacking or taking any port. But their most powerful ability is their recruitment capacity.
My Campaign lasted 174 turns so other DE factions would only have 6 Black Arks if they were diligent with the Rite. But I had 15 I think. That meant I could recruit 5 full stacks filled with Shades, Corsairs (if Krakenclaw trait), or witch Elves or more. And I had the income to do so because of slaves and Lokhirs buff to the slave economy. My faction could out recruit the AI Vampire Counts, Greenskins, and Skaven at the same time.
The problem with the campaign was the Campaign Objective to build the Landmarks because there were only 6 settlements that had them and I needed to control 5 of the Settlements... But Naggarond owned 4 of them and I couldn't confederate them (because of my own bad decision to Ally with the Awakened before betraying them like a good DE on turn 100.
I know that most people consider Lustria a detrimental starting location. But it is by far the safest location on the map for a pirate home base. Even safer than Galleons Graveyard once you get the Lizardmen under control. Any single stack of Darkshards or AP Corsairs is more than capable of killing every Lizardmen stack and settlement on the continent on its own.
I did it with ease in turn 35ish while I started exerting my dominance on the seas with Black Arks. I didn't even build walls in any settlement or leave any stacks to defend it and I never once saw an enemy come visit
Have you played Rakarth? You are able to stomp the elves early and then only have lizard men to contend with late game. He is incredibly strong and you can make instant armies with his beast pens.
@@Citylifesteve I started three Rakarth campaigns. ME and Vortex restarting the Vortex one back at turn 3 or so when I controlled the first province.
In ME I controlled the entire east outer coastline but then I got really bored of early game HE fights with the only one stack I could afford. It was too boring to continue controlling the rest of Ulthuan.
So I started a Vortex campaign thinking 2 Black Arks could defend Albion and the west side of the map should be able to be controlled by the DE AI factions after I got rid of Alith Anar. But then I got embroiled in fight after fight because Morathi was struggling to handle Clan Rictus and Sisters of Twilight. By turn 60ish I got really bored of fighting off wave after wave of High Elves and I still couldn't set off on what I wanted to do. I had too many Feral Manticores and Wolves and not nearly enough of any other monsters. I got bored so I restarted to see if rushing the Shrine of Asuryan really works. It did and I saw how I'd be able to kill HE one at a time without being swarmed by invasions. But by this time I was very bored with Rakarth so I quit him again.
Moved on to play a Lokhir campaign and that was so much more fun.
@@toddwittie4421 hmm I didn't feel it was really boring overall but I agree that once you break through the HE the threat level is almost non existent. I build fast and reckless early and it paid off with me baiting and killing Tyrion. Most of the other HE lords were aggressively defending his provinces and I was having to fight them one by one. After that I smoked Tretch and Alith Anar and used my insane income to force confederate malikith. It was over by turn 60 as I was too big to fail. This is on hard though.
Rakarth is one of the hardest
Eh. This was made by someone who lacks the experience required to properly vet these LLs. Sure there's some element of subjectivity at play, but... uh, Morathi being a basic spellcaster? Executioners are great infantry units with MA and MD below 40 despite being tier 5? The analysis in this video consisted of brief faction summaries followed by generalizations and handwaving around the abilities that actually make lords good. Like Hellebron's cauldron shoves _through_ infantry units, meaning she doesn't get stuck easily and does more damage to surrounding units. Why didn't you discuss items? Or heck, their skill trees?!? Those aren't exactly gritty details. These low-quality explanations ignore all the aspects of the lords and the accompanying details that actually matter.
This is faction ranking not LL ranking. If you play as Malekith you wont benefit from faction mechanics like Monster pens or Blood nights.
The real ranking would be
Morathi
Malekith
Lokhir
Rakarth
Crone
Malus
Im guessing its too late for him to change the title from "lord" to "faction", since he already titled his 1st high elve ranking with the same title.
I agree though, this is kind of a misleading title
The legendary lords lead those factions. and once I get to factions like the empire they have multiple lords with the same start but different effects
No agree with you at all...
Algorithm
Be careful listening to this guy. He's somewhat charming, but doesn't really know much about the game. Rating Crone over Morathi is kind of crazy.
Gimme an O!
Gimme a P!
Gimme an I!
Gimme an N!
Gimme a I!
Gimme a O!
Gimme an N!
What's that spell?
@@ColonelDamneders Custer had an opinion. Some opinions are less informed than others. In strategy games, guess what, opinions matter. I'm really not trying to hate, you are likable enough. It's just you kinda don't really know what you are talking about. Own it.
This isn't a lord ranking, its a faction ranking
It’s almost like the legendary lords lead those factions😱