00:00 Intro 04:30 Why Materium sucks (?) Tier 1: 05:40 Tome of Alchemy 19:18 Tome of Enchantment 32:33 Tome of Discipline 41:35 Tome of Rock Tier 2: 52:20 Tome of Artificing 1:04:07 Tome of the Construct 1:11:41 Tome of Shades 1:20:25 Tome of Winds Tier 3: 1:27:51 Tome of Transmutation 1:39:36 Tome of Terramancy 1:43:13 Tome of the Dreadnought Tier 4: 1:52:17 Tome of the Golden Realm 1:58:50 Tome of the Crucible 2:07:38 Tome of Severing Tier 5: 2:14:04 Tome of the Creator ------------- 2:20:40 Tierlist and closing thoughts Looking forward to a 3.5h video for Chaos and 6h for Astral. ;)
To this day I am still shocked Materium is the only Affinity without a Major Transformation. They didn't have one on Launch unlike the others, and they still don't have one now.
@@bakaky0... Come back, Just like order and nature transformations, BUT only once per battle, with half hp, one turn later, and your corpses can be accidentally destroyed by your own spell. IMO elemental transformation, if it would exist, would still be worse than others
I will say that playing Reaver and using the Tome of Discipline's Focus Aim, it allows you to make a pretty devastating initial play where you are way more free to move in your Magelocks and unleash an absolutely devastating first salvo. With larger, ranged-focused army setups it pretty much lets you select a handful of enemy units to delete. That said, I do agree that it should have a cooldown instead of once-per-battle use, probably because I absolutely love my magelocks.
Same with Seeker Arrows + Focus Aim since you can negate that ranged penalty and have a huge early alpha strike and still be out of range on the next charge
I really hope my coughing didn't ruin this video, my nose sometimes just gets super upset when I talk too long. Also please leave feedback on whether or not you liked the vibe of the video. I know some people don’t like “complaining.”
guiltily looks at his still open half-watched video of hash complaining about some league patch from like two years ago, despite last playing in like season 8 and seriously playing in 6,maybe. Yeah, I sure don't like "complaining", heheh, totally, not... Then again, complaining for complainings sake is in fact not healthy for you or your environment, nothing wrong with complaining about things that in fact are wrong
Coughing doesn't screw the video. But if you could put a time stamp to when you stop your 5 minutes explanation of the discussion format that you did in all previous videos, that would be appreciated. And maybe divide into chapters for each tome.
A Tier list for each affinity makes Not that much Sense. You compare T1 tomes with t4 ones. You should make Tier lists for each tome tier. Compare Tier 1 tomes for example and rank them
I agree with most of you said, my main objection is about tome of the rock; - central quarry is awesome, the industrious racial quarry being similar doesn't matter, you can only build one per city anyway. building both unique quarries next to each other gives 40 production. not to mention other cultures like mystic can nab it from the start of the game. it is never not going to be strong. - rock blast in a melee fight is basically a free kill on spears with your phantasmal wardens/fighters with 0 damage taken, great for lord focus fire strats as well. - gargoyle early game spam healing itself every fight in the first 3 turns before front lines collide is an even stronger version of herbivore, clearing camps early is a breeze. - transformation is good on every single unit of the faction, you'll never not want more armor. definitely a decent tome
Keep up the videos! As a single-player-only low difficulty scrub myself, it is very interesting to see tomes that I enjoy against bad AI that are actually quite bad in competent environments.
45:00 Rock Blast is actually pretty good as a counter to spears by getting rid of their retaliations and canceling shields defense zone. it just makes it way easier for melee units to punch above their weight.
I think all the worst tomes have one thing in common, they don't have any longterm benefits, they are just units and spells and not even particularly good ones either, if you aren't using those units and spells for the entire rest of the game it isn't giving you the value of a transformation or enchantment ongoing for every battle you take for the rest of the game.
i really like to put this long videos on the background when im playing something chill, really cool videos to listen. Probably on the past i would use it too as a video to listen to until i fall to sleep but now i cant do that XD
I think you are hyping up tome of zeal way too much. Tome of enchantment is roughly on the same power level as zeal. The sunmon is on the same power level, zeals buff is slightly better (only because it applies to more unit types), awakened tools is definitely far better than fanatical workforce. Your math is wrong because you are assuming that there is only 1 city in your empire. Putting awakened tools on 3 cities gives 60 production a turn. Meanwhile you cant put fanatical workforce on more than 1 city at a time usually because you have other spells to cast as well. Enchantment gives materium affinity, which is worth much more on the empire dev tree. The Early order empire trees is terrible. With the recent removal of rulers being unable to give affinity, early tomes that lets you dip your fingers into key empire trees such as dark 1 (for the 150 knowledge per unit kill), astral 2 (the one that reduces research roll cost) and materium 1 (outposts build faster). Therefore, tome of zeal is a tome that only makes sense for order builds, but tome of alchemy/enhancement/discipline/rock can be picked in more situations to give you the material affinity you need for materium 1 if you picked a race that does not naturally start with materium affinity. Tome of enchantment with 2 materium affinity could be better than alchemy for the simple reason that it is better to unlock materium 1 at turn 8 rather than turn 15.
I was on a work trip this week and spend a lot of time in a bad hotel room. I had trouble sleeping, but letting this video play even after i got too tired to listen, actually helped me fall asleep. However, i rememberd the last tome i paid attention too and rewatched from there in the morning. This is the best AoW4 Content for me, can't wait for the next video!
Abducting Cyclone stun ain't useless at all. With the spell you can get an enemy unit in range to set up a kill indeed. OR you can also get the dangerous target in the opposing army out of the field while you massacre the rest of the army, avoiding casualties
About focus Aim. I was thinking of using it for Reavers, allowing you to move up and fire your muskets with 100% accuracy once in combat sounds quite huge for them, after they are well positioned they generally don't need to move again anyway. Plus you could potentially move up, focus, fire, refresh AP, aim, fire again for crazy alpha strikes early game. Of course, Reavers aren't very good in multiplayer, and I doubt autocombat would use it properly.
thing with afflictor is that within certain builds you can 3 or 4 types of damage on ranged attacks early on with low commitment - like by picking high culture, and lets say lightning arows, but there other options available. with lightning, poison, and light damage you get 3 debuffs, 2 of which is DOT, applied by attacks of the single unit. early on it is incredibly good for focusing targets, as you indirectly deal a shitton of damage. get something like primal culture, that has shitty archers and built in cold damage if you go mammoth - and now your archers apply slow when they hit target on miasma. later it is worse, stats on the unit are quite bad, but early to mid game it is strong
Love the extended tome discussions so far! Regarding shades, I've run them combined with mark of misfortune from Tome of Mayhem and achieved great results in PvE - they completely shut down ranged units (developed the build to deal with accursed tricksters, man do these things annoy me). I think spamming shadow dagger is mostly the best way of using shades, blinded - as opposed to the Inquisitor's stun shot (that also has cooldown, not sure whether you mentioned) - does not stop the enemy from *trying* to attack you, albeit with way lower hit chance. Combine that with the two *guaranteed* stacks of misfortune per hit, enemy ranged have an extremely low chance to hit you - and a good chance to fumble, damaging themselves on their own turn. The AI doesn't understand this and will keep going at you, wasting their turns. With swift and slippery, shades can perfectly maneuver to the ranged and avoid too many attacks from stronger melees (worst case shadowed escape triggers). This improves the units damage potential, gives it a defined role to fulfil AND functions as a hard counter to ranged units! (On a more exploity side, blinded seems to mess with ranged AI to the extent that they also stop using some other abilities effectively, for example Accursed Trickster's getaway.)
There's a reason all of the OG material has been so badly power-crept beyond the usual newer-is-stronger tendencies that games have. Unit ranks used to grant +2 HP. Then they overhauled ranking and, among other changes, had each level grant +10 HP instead. Everything that came before that overhaul was balanced for a game that had much less HP, and everything that's come after has been balanced for a game with much more HP. Even before this overhaul T2's had dubious value. But after it they are completely buried by T1's. Even T3's are, if you're using the over-stat-ed Mercenary or Honor Blade. Spawnkin + Mob Camp + Fury of the Horde (all from Tome of the Horde) + Chaos Bolstering Matrix will auto-resolve to victory, you don't even need to pile on with Mighty Meek. They REALLY need to cut rank HP bonuses to +5, and give everything that deals or effects damage a balance pass.
Just came to say, I really enjoy your content and i learn alot about AOW 4 while i work and travel. So yes, as an old nerd i enjoy the discussion and longer format. The "podcast" format works. Hope to catch your stream one day. 🙂 keep up the good work!
I play AoW4 when it was a free weekend recently, and I loved it. Can’t get it just yet, watching these videos to scratch the itch it left and to prepare myself for when I eventually get it
It's been very interesting to me to see how many of the issues you've pointed out in the weaker tomes (or odd changes) were actually in the game originally, but caused problems at the time. For Artisan Armaments, crit chance used to be calculated before hit chance on ranged units and would always hit, so if you stack enough crit chance, all your ranged attacks would basically ignore accuracy. At this time, there was a ton more ranged unit support, so it was a pretty domineering strategy. It'd be nice for them to walk back some of these old changes now that the broken systems around them have been fixed.
Isn't Alchemy good for helping ensure you are able to snowball in the early game by preventing early game stuns/freezes on you while boosting research speed?
I actually have your video's playing on my second screen while I play the game. Then I jump around to different videos when I have to make a game decision.
Tome of Discipline? I'm playing a lot with Reavers, Tome of Discipline is the best tome for them If You want to use magelocks. It's very strong, because magelocks deal high per shot damage (34 physical base ignoring 50% defence), and you can buff it like crazy. With high morale you can get absurd crits. Tomes I use are Discipline (true strike), Zeal (+4 spirit damage), winds(+1 range) . With experience magelocks get another +1 range, and because base is so high damage increases also mean more. Its only Tier II unit, and deals 41 physical damage + other enchantments and with tome of winds and veterancy - 7 range, and they have one auto-hit per battle they can use after moving or Take Aim ability using 1 action. Any melee unit from roster can apply "marked" status which is core mechanic for Reavers (additional +10% damage per stack added to your usual -10% evasion). I am easily beating brutal difficulty with that. I'm using heroes defenders to protect my backline, and replace some frontline units with summons, Because frontline is really weak in early stages of the game. For this build tome of discipline is like 11/10 tome.
As a new player, I appreciate these in-depth guides and they've been a massive boon to me. The late game became a struggle for me and I didn't really know why until I started watching your explanation videos and realized that the tomes I've been picking have left me weaker than even the AI. My latest build is an Materium-Order build and it's been a hell of a lot stronger!
Hey, just dropping here to say thank you for your tome 's video. It geniuinly interest me (not for sleeping or other stuff). I just play single player AoW 4. And watching nerdy stuff about it. Is "cool" in my book. There's other AoW 4 videos outhere, but right now your Tome ones are the most interesting for me. Then, uff, 2 hours. Still, worth it.
Very educational. Tome of rock I had a single player situation where using the underground spider primal's/mounts had captured a large town above early & alongside huge underground magic site excavation and forest spread so very poor gold but construction/mana/research rich and needed to get back into unconnected underground for entrance cities. The two summons were so complementary as could reinforce with a fast colonial city unit not needing gold maintenance and a direct summon and spread/reinforce quickly whilst building and allowing Transmute tome access & to keep 2 armies rolling. I guess it was a case of the sum of 2 bads synergising ended up average then good due to luck.
On the shade, if nothing else fatal strikes should either scale faster, or scale harder. Should also have a higher bonus from flanking, cause the whole point of it is to slip behind the enemy and assassinate an enemy that already got chunked by something else.
23:49 good point on purging arrows needing to also affect mages and supports, never even noticed that because it was pretty good before. I guess that’s because it only applies to physical to go with the materium theme but that’s style over substance this deep into the games lifecycle.
I miss the days where Eternal Earth used to revive your Gold Golems since they were tagged as Elemental at release haha I do agree that the tome of creator needs some tweaking and honestly being able to build the Titan of Earth would be awesome haha I’d love to have the giant guy around more often
Great video as always @Shinshinvariety ! After you are done with the tomes, would you consider making some build videos for this game? I'd love to see the tome progression for that Construct + Pyre Templars build!
Since you've asked I've played 2 shadow magic and 3. Played 4 on a recent free weekend and idk about buying it. Theres a lot I like from what I played but also a lot I moss from 3, the quantity over quality approach in customization in 4 just dissapoints me. Being a goblin or an elf means nothing, whereas in 3 it was fun too look for class/race synergies especially since in some cases whole unit variants would come from it my favorite is the halfling war rorbot being party robots instead that can also heal allies. So I watch these vids to see if I want to get the game or not, im not in a rush
I can't disagree more with your take on Sundering Blades. It's true that magic damage increases as games go on, but in a state-of-the-game where melee units dominate, the majority of damage dealt is always still physical. Almost nothing helps you focus opponents down faster than running Vessels of Chaos and Sundering Blades together. I also don't see much value in Adaptive Armor. If you're playing PvE, maybe. But PvP, units getting focus fired are not going to benefit much at all from gaining one (MAYBE two) Bolstered Resistance before they die. Completely agree on Shifters. Compare them to Strife's / Righteous' Sealbearers (T2 units!) and it's lol, lmao even.
Ironclads are OP. Not THAT OP like Dwar nuclear launchers in AoW:PF, that can wipe whole enemy army in a single turn, but still. Your whole army can be 50% IC as a frontline with support casters in the back. Overcharge is a free action that gives massive damage boost and stun is removed by letting your machine drink a tonic (lol), which is also a free action. Barrage is an aoe damage ability, that compensates for its damage and single shot moves enemy units, meaning it is hard to lock IC line in melee. And IC are produced at higher rank. And you don't need transformation for linked mind spells. P.s. Your forgot to mention 10 (!) Status res when talking about gold golem.
Monastery is a great way to counter Domain stability debuffs in the opening build if you are planning to, say, web 2-3 cities into one giant mass. Come kid game when you have bars and bath houses and more specialized high Tome provinces. Monks are just nifty because they get self healing, which can cut down on Guard time healing after battles. If you have the Command action in a hero, you can run, leap, punch, get commanded, and then pop out a full combo.
I think fortification health should be tied to City stability in these games. It's one of the issues where defensive buildings just don't have much value. Plus it is also realistic in that people prefer to live in safe places. An actual empire with undefended cities and planets would not work
Build idea of Earth Archmage: A Wizard King with Mystic Culture of potential. An Army of Spellweavers with Couple Soothiers Both the Lord and the Culture maximize the damage of spells. Army of culture battlemages, 1-2 soother, spamming 2 overcharged,boosted and amplified tectonic shatters per turn for 78 physical damage each. Key trait - gifted caters to not kill your economy after each serious fight. Combat casting cost of spells is reduced by 45%, while mana-cost by another 20%, and both can be reduced further by 20% with victory age. Summoning well would allow to summon earth titan for free every turn while defending. Enjoy!
Honestly, the worst part about the transmitter is that actually petrifying your opponent as in casing them to stone isn’t in the game like if you gave it actual turn your enemies to stone Ability and then gave it shatter from the previous game on its regular attacks where it would do like +4+5 if target is petrified frozen or gilded. To be honest, I really really miss the ability to like Medusa people to death like basilisk ,Gorgons Like I would love a faction that can like a walk away from a battlefield with a full art gallery 😂.
I think some people use the Ironclad simply because coupled with reaver's cannons its pretty much the only thing warmachine power fantasy the AoW 4 can offer you, sort of like Empire's steam tanks in TTW WH. If we got more tanks/heavy artillery or battle machinery in general the people would probably go for those instead.
What about doing deep dives/tier lists on the affinity branches and which ones are worth focusing. Also the value of focusing on tomes vs the buffs from affinity branches.
To me it would be cool if they reworked the Transmuter to be a Melee Mage; perhaps give her a damage buff/defense buff and maybe even some percentage of ignore armor on her attacks. I think that would still be within the theme of the Materium tomes.
If i may ask, could you perhaps at some point go over the imperium skill tree and say which things are how good, especially in the comtext of which tomes they most likely benefit the most?
I'm commenting before finishing the video so you might've mentioned it when talking about bronze golem, but copper golem actually evolves into bronze at legendary which is pretty impactful imo
1:21:58 man, the range-to-accuracy scaling is so counterintuitive and full of player traps and anti-synergy it’s crazy it’s been that way since like the first or second patch.
True. Noone usually noticed it because extra range was usually played with reavers, who rely on marks which buff accuracy and damage. And magelocks have either 100 acc at any range or 0 at anything smaller than a skyscraper almost in melee 😂. Or ironclads that shoot barrages "in the general direction of the target", where who cares, 1 scatter more, 1 scatter less.
The tome of enchantment and most other materium tomes that do that benefit really well from the culture feature thing that reduces the knowledge cost to research unit enhancements by 60% and decreases costs of mana i think. I run that and great builders and basically just build a stonewall
I think you underestimated rock blast. It's cheap and if you want to alpha strike a unit getting rid of its defense and retaliation can be very strong. Late game I've faced enemy front lines with infinite retaliation attacks removing that and getting chip damage is good allowing me to kill a hero or high tier unit and avoid massive retaliation damage.
Sorry if I'm wrong, but isn't Conjure Spellward (from Tome of Severing) only placeable on neutral provinces? I really don't see what is so good about a mobile spell jammer when it's extremely situational when you can even place one. Anyway, great video as always. I've been thinking for a while now that the devs need to do a serious balance pass before they put in new content, and your videos are really reinforcing my thoughts.
I would argue that Tier 2 units are secretly the best tier of units in the game, because they come online early, not turn 1 of course, and make a difference during the most important phase of the game. You could stick with tier 1's but the time before unlocking tier 2's your economy just isn't strong enough to make that much of a difference. Late game yeah it falls off, but if it has an impact early on, that can be VERY worth it.
2:48 I watch warhammer rules analysis because British people saying “D3+3 hits” and 5+ feel no pain type save” just really quiets my absolutely roiling anxieties.
Didn't test it, but are you sure that commands ( both of them ) from Tome of the Construct cascade to regular, linked, units? I always presumed it works as written, that you can target construct or linked unit but cascade procks exclusively to constructs.
I have a potentially dumb question regarding the overcharge ability. Please forgive me as I am really new to the franchise as a whole. Can the stun effect from the ability be removed by cleansing effects in a meaningful way? I know this is one of those "it is stupid to consider" but for a 50% damage buff you can attempt to mitigate it by working in order cleansing abilities, even alchemy single debuff removal, and if it works in such a way that the unit that would be stunned can actually do things, it might make it work. Again, this would be potentially wildly inefficient, but if theme overrides "correctness" maybe there is a playable option there?
I really wish Tome of Artificing gave a Heavy Arballester at Tier III. The Iron Golem is very redundant for Industrious, and an extra tier 3 ranged wouldn’t be too overpowered
One thing you should mention, is how many useless things the tome has, not only, how many useful. Because a tome with 4 useful items of 4 and a tome with 4 useful items of 6 aren't equal. The last one means you'll get 2 shitty choices put into your research options forever.
I wanted these tomes the most! When i was still playing this game regularly, i prefered those. Thanks! Yea, I use videos for sleep too. Yours are too interesting for first watch for it, it suppresses desire to sleep too well, activates my brain too much Joke about "this unit will seduce your girlfriend" was very funny for me
Tome of Rock is not that bad, it gives you a lot of stuff that works best in the early game, while enchantment is basicly a 2 spell tome, 1 spell if you are mystic culture.
Battle mages get most of their buffs in chaos and astral tomes don't they? As a mostly order/nature/shadow player you might just undervalue them? They do a ton of magical damage afterall. I get it that melee units are more meta than ranged but I personally haven't noticed that archers are better than battle mages.
so we need a love from devs to: constructs, elementals, overal T5/mythic units (like they spent their resources to design a really nice animated beings, but with 0 utility in actual games... we need some way to buff mythic units- they are are a goddamn T5!) And... of course nerf Pyre Templar :D Even though its so fun to play it!
Counter steady fast, counter cc, alchemist lab + Materia refinery for consistent tech up, 6 spells T1 for tech rush, a free dispel for suppor early game (not at late game when nobody care about support), a good ranged unit that is viable for early and mid game for some cultures (that dont go glade). Yeah, good effort for this video but I agree to disagree. If you get to T4 faster, you win.
Im surprised you dont like +1 range that much, it really trivializes the AI. Sure it wont be as useful against a human, but its a really nice dip if youre making an archer build. Plus favorable winds is really nice on island maps. Still not a great tomb but I think those two things are quite useful for a late game dip
After watching all your AoW4 videos so far, I have to say you seem really biased toward melee units and transformations, as if they’re the only right way to play the game. But that’s not the case. You can focus entirely on summons, battle mages, archers, etc., without relying on melee units or transformations at all. For example, you dismissed Siege Magic as useless, but I couldn’t disagree more. If you heavily focus on battle mages, it lets you skip several turns of siege preparation, creating great momentum. With your build, you’re stuck with three full stacks standing idle, waiting for a breach, while a mage army could already be marching to the next town.
A surprising amount of people like to sleep to vids. Ive had this my self, both as the sleeper and as the content creator. I was so curious that this is a common thing i decided to do some research. It turns out its very normal human psychology - it boils down to hearing an adult male voice in the background makes us sleep peacefully, because ultimately there would have been a man to shoo the tiger out the cave.. yes it goes back to our tribal/animal roots. Studies show that its deeper male voices that people like to sleep to.
It's baffling to me how AoW 4 messed up so many things that were amazing in AoW 3. Prime example: Seeker Arrows. In AoW 3 it was one of the best spells in the game as it completely removed range and line of sight penalties, which normally only High Elves can do with their racial governance buffs. Oh and it affected all ranged units, including supports(which is included both support and battle mage in AoW 4 terms).Early game ranged units are very powerful and late game you can use it on say a Juggernaut or Shrine of Smiting for terrifying results, so it actually scales very well into the late game, though at that point you might have other spells you'd rather be casting. Compare that to AoW 4 and you only get +1 range, which is actually more of a penalty than benefit due to the range penalty, I mean what the hell... Similar deal with the White Witches from the Shadow tome, from an amazing support unit, 1 of the best in the entire game, to a pathetic unit you rarely ever want to use. I get it, AoW 4 is a completely different game than AoW 3 and many things didn't carry over. Things like the Shrine of Smiting are still great in AoW 4, though less powerful than it was in AoW 3 but that's still fine, however why carry over Seeker Arrows, White Witches, etc, if you're going to make them a pathetic version of their old self? Just use new names as there's nothing similar between the AoW 3 and 4 variants, and buff these things while you're at it to make them less useless. Regarding Steel Skin, that's perhaps the best usage of those form traits in your form trait videos that you glossed over: the 'inner x' ones. In the case of Steel Skin the obvious synergy is with inner lightning, negating the negative of the transformation while also negating the situational nature of the 'inner x' forms. So with inner lightning all your racial units have +2 defense, +2 blight resist and +1 lightning resist, which suddenly seem very very good and reduces the amount of options your opponent has to effectively deal with your units. Of course the inner lightning form isn't free so there is an opportunity cost but it's certainly a powerful synergy worthy of consideration at the very least. Especially since the Transmutation Tome as a whole is very powerful so you'd often pick it for other things so instead of avoiding the minor racial transformation because of its drawback you can now safely take it and enjoy the quite significant benefits it brings.
I am amazed how AoW3 messed up so many things that were amazing in AoW2 Shadow Magic. Prime example: Haste. In AoW2 it was one of the best spells in the game, it made units move twice as fast on the global and combat map and you could enchant it on all units and paid some upkeep for it it wasn't just a lowly and irrelevant "combat only" spell as in AoW3. Seeker was introduced in AoW2, btw. AoW3 just copy pasted it. Not very amazing. AoW2 is the first and only game where magic was really strong, AoW4 combat magic is strong/deep too, but has lousy spell animations and lacks many of the global spells AoW2 had. A 22 years old game is still better in many areas than any of the modernized games, like spell effects, global spells and elemental magic. AoW3 had a fraction of elemental magic AoW2 had, and AoW4 has just a few tomes and no affinities covering elemental magic. Haste and Seeker where the reasions, why the old Air Sphere was quite strong, but haste more than seeker, because haste works on all units not just ranged ones.
@@zeusapollo6504 Well played good sir. I started with AoW 3 so I have no knowledge at all of AoW 2 or 1 for that matter. Thank you for further reinforcing my point.
I don´t listen to your discussions to fall asleep to happend the other day anyway =) also I don´t understand your judgment to the Pandemonium Tome. And Battlemages in general. Randomly stunning enemies is awesome and happens quite a lot also at around 15min you talk about mismashot and that the archer doesn´t even have a poison dot. If I understand you right you are wrong about that. The Miasmashot applies poison cause it`s the green stuff But I agree over all, this unit should be buffed, cause I´d like to like it
Shinshin: Oh, that wind unit it's actually not that bad, let's talk about it later. Some minutes later: Oh this unit is a disappointment, entire tome is a disappointment.
Regarding the Tome of Shades: Oathsworn - Righteousness T3s have 100% aoe blind when at max devotion. This has a great synergy with this tome and the Shadow Blades enchantment. Also, the Living Shadows transformation procs pretty reliably, especially when your tanky heroes are being constantly attacked for zero damage. Also also, mage heroes can get Aethermancy on their evoking abilities for easy aow blinds. The unit enchantment and minor transformation make this tome pretty good (and fun) in the right build, you don't even need the unit or the building.
Eh I wouldn't worry much about the youtube side of things you mention in the intro. Just keep sharing your knowledge about the game, it already sets you apart from basically every other channel. And if you don't worry about the youtube bs you get to have some peace of mind instead of adding another thing to worry about. Channel will grow naturally based on a good reputation, it's not a race.
Tome of creator is the worst t5 and most of the time not even viable to be taken over half of t4 books. Summon shit elemental fight only, siege project which you will never use, undying to t3 units in t5 book, tectonic is good but very expensive. Crucible is the best magic poke tome. Andf if we talk cleansing flames what stops you from using it yourself? burn everyone and set ground on fire. Or just get the eldritch which applies debuffs on spells or take mage hero that has overcharge and just nuke people. If we talk: what if... then tome of cleansing flames is one of the worst ones just because you give free cleansing to anything that has zeal which is super easy to get.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Just letting you know, your content coinciding with the free weekend on Steam got me into AoW4. Thanks for all you do!
00:00 Intro
04:30 Why Materium sucks (?)
Tier 1:
05:40 Tome of Alchemy
19:18 Tome of Enchantment
32:33 Tome of Discipline
41:35 Tome of Rock
Tier 2:
52:20 Tome of Artificing
1:04:07 Tome of the Construct
1:11:41 Tome of Shades
1:20:25 Tome of Winds
Tier 3:
1:27:51 Tome of Transmutation
1:39:36 Tome of Terramancy
1:43:13 Tome of the Dreadnought
Tier 4:
1:52:17 Tome of the Golden Realm
1:58:50 Tome of the Crucible
2:07:38 Tome of Severing
Tier 5:
2:14:04 Tome of the Creator
-------------
2:20:40 Tierlist and closing thoughts
Looking forward to a 3.5h video for Chaos and 6h for Astral. ;)
I see someone beaten me to the playlist. Thank you. :D
To this day I am still shocked Materium is the only Affinity without a Major Transformation.
They didn't have one on Launch unlike the others, and they still don't have one now.
Not like it'd be a difficult idea for one either, just turn everyone into robots. Easiest transformation you can think of.
@@christianrounds85 or elementals(but then your entire race would be able to come back to life lol)
@@bakaky0... Come back, Just like order and nature transformations, BUT only once per battle, with half hp, one turn later, and your corpses can be accidentally destroyed by your own spell. IMO elemental transformation, if it would exist, would still be worse than others
@@pharoahman475 to be fair, materium and astral don't need race transformations as you will be hardly using any racial units at all.
@@Adoffka Astral has 3 Major Race Transformations though, Materium not having any is just weird.
I will say that playing Reaver and using the Tome of Discipline's Focus Aim, it allows you to make a pretty devastating initial play where you are way more free to move in your Magelocks and unleash an absolutely devastating first salvo. With larger, ranged-focused army setups it pretty much lets you select a handful of enemy units to delete. That said, I do agree that it should have a cooldown instead of once-per-battle use, probably because I absolutely love my magelocks.
Same with Seeker Arrows + Focus Aim since you can negate that ranged penalty and have a huge early alpha strike and still be out of range on the next charge
I really hope my coughing didn't ruin this video, my nose sometimes just gets super upset when I talk too long. Also please leave feedback on whether or not you liked the vibe of the video. I know some people don’t like “complaining.”
guiltily looks at his still open half-watched video of hash complaining about some league patch from like two years ago, despite last playing in like season 8 and seriously playing in 6,maybe.
Yeah, I sure don't like "complaining", heheh, totally, not...
Then again, complaining for complainings sake is in fact not healthy for you or your environment, nothing wrong with complaining about things that in fact are wrong
Ur human bro, if people complain, screw them.
Coughing doesn't screw the video. But if you could put a time stamp to when you stop your 5 minutes explanation of the discussion format that you did in all previous videos, that would be appreciated. And maybe divide into chapters for each tome.
@@Adoffka I agree with this, the explanation is nice, but having a timestamp for when it ends would be awesome
A Tier list for each affinity makes Not that much Sense. You compare T1 tomes with t4 ones. You should make Tier lists for each tome tier. Compare Tier 1 tomes for example and rank them
I agree with most of you said, my main objection is about tome of the rock;
- central quarry is awesome, the industrious racial quarry being similar doesn't matter, you can only build one per city anyway. building both unique quarries next to each other gives 40 production. not to mention other cultures like mystic can nab it from the start of the game. it is never not going to be strong.
- rock blast in a melee fight is basically a free kill on spears with your phantasmal wardens/fighters with 0 damage taken, great for lord focus fire strats as well.
- gargoyle early game spam healing itself every fight in the first 3 turns before front lines collide is an even stronger version of herbivore, clearing camps early is a breeze.
- transformation is good on every single unit of the faction, you'll never not want more armor.
definitely a decent tome
Keep up the videos! As a single-player-only low difficulty scrub myself, it is very interesting to see tomes that I enjoy against bad AI that are actually quite bad in competent environments.
There are actually 0 like rly bad tomes. Some are way more broken then others though.
45:00 Rock Blast is actually pretty good as a counter to spears by getting rid of their retaliations and canceling shields defense zone. it just makes it way easier for melee units to punch above their weight.
I think all the worst tomes have one thing in common, they don't have any longterm benefits, they are just units and spells and not even particularly good ones either, if you aren't using those units and spells for the entire rest of the game it isn't giving you the value of a transformation or enchantment ongoing for every battle you take for the rest of the game.
i really like to put this long videos on the background when im playing something chill, really cool videos to listen. Probably on the past i would use it too as a video to listen to until i fall to sleep but now i cant do that XD
I think you are hyping up tome of zeal way too much. Tome of enchantment is roughly on the same power level as zeal. The sunmon is on the same power level, zeals buff is slightly better (only because it applies to more unit types), awakened tools is definitely far better than fanatical workforce. Your math is wrong because you are assuming that there is only 1 city in your empire. Putting awakened tools on 3 cities gives 60 production a turn. Meanwhile you cant put fanatical workforce on more than 1 city at a time usually because you have other spells to cast as well.
Enchantment gives materium affinity, which is worth much more on the empire dev tree. The Early order empire trees is terrible.
With the recent removal of rulers being unable to give affinity, early tomes that lets you dip your fingers into key empire trees such as dark 1 (for the 150 knowledge per unit kill), astral 2 (the one that reduces research roll cost) and materium 1 (outposts build faster).
Therefore, tome of zeal is a tome that only makes sense for order builds, but tome of alchemy/enhancement/discipline/rock can be picked in more situations to give you the material affinity you need for materium 1 if you picked a race that does not naturally start with materium affinity.
Tome of enchantment with 2 materium affinity could be better than alchemy for the simple reason that it is better to unlock materium 1 at turn 8 rather than turn 15.
I was on a work trip this week and spend a lot of time in a bad hotel room. I had trouble sleeping, but letting this video play even after i got too tired to listen, actually helped me fall asleep. However, i rememberd the last tome i paid attention too and rewatched from there in the morning. This is the best AoW4 Content for me, can't wait for the next video!
Abducting Cyclone stun ain't useless at all. With the spell you can get an enemy unit in range to set up a kill indeed. OR you can also get the dangerous target in the opposing army out of the field while you massacre the rest of the army, avoiding casualties
I use it sometimes to get an enemy off of my mage or range units 😃
Earth Shatter should allow us to destroy unbreakable rocks underground tbh.
I think it does let you dig the already diggable regions, however
About focus Aim.
I was thinking of using it for Reavers, allowing you to move up and fire your muskets with 100% accuracy once in combat sounds quite huge for them, after they are well positioned they generally don't need to move again anyway.
Plus you could potentially move up, focus, fire, refresh AP, aim, fire again for crazy alpha strikes early game.
Of course, Reavers aren't very good in multiplayer, and I doubt autocombat would use it properly.
thing with afflictor is that within certain builds you can 3 or 4 types of damage on ranged attacks early on with low commitment - like by picking high culture, and lets say lightning arows, but there other options available. with lightning, poison, and light damage you get 3 debuffs, 2 of which is DOT, applied by attacks of the single unit. early on it is incredibly good for focusing targets, as you indirectly deal a shitton of damage. get something like primal culture, that has shitty archers and built in cold damage if you go mammoth - and now your archers apply slow when they hit target on miasma. later it is worse, stats on the unit are quite bad, but early to mid game it is strong
Also I think their miasma shot always hits, that’s huge against those annoying elusive types hiding in bushes.
Love the extended tome discussions so far!
Regarding shades, I've run them combined with mark of misfortune from Tome of Mayhem and achieved great results in PvE - they completely shut down ranged units (developed the build to deal with accursed tricksters, man do these things annoy me). I think spamming shadow dagger is mostly the best way of using shades, blinded - as opposed to the Inquisitor's stun shot (that also has cooldown, not sure whether you mentioned) - does not stop the enemy from *trying* to attack you, albeit with way lower hit chance. Combine that with the two *guaranteed* stacks of misfortune per hit, enemy ranged have an extremely low chance to hit you - and a good chance to fumble, damaging themselves on their own turn. The AI doesn't understand this and will keep going at you, wasting their turns. With swift and slippery, shades can perfectly maneuver to the ranged and avoid too many attacks from stronger melees (worst case shadowed escape triggers). This improves the units damage potential, gives it a defined role to fulfil AND functions as a hard counter to ranged units!
(On a more exploity side, blinded seems to mess with ranged AI to the extent that they also stop using some other abilities effectively, for example Accursed Trickster's getaway.)
There's a reason all of the OG material has been so badly power-crept beyond the usual newer-is-stronger tendencies that games have.
Unit ranks used to grant +2 HP. Then they overhauled ranking and, among other changes, had each level grant +10 HP instead. Everything that came before that overhaul was balanced for a game that had much less HP, and everything that's come after has been balanced for a game with much more HP.
Even before this overhaul T2's had dubious value. But after it they are completely buried by T1's. Even T3's are, if you're using the over-stat-ed Mercenary or Honor Blade. Spawnkin + Mob Camp + Fury of the Horde (all from Tome of the Horde) + Chaos Bolstering Matrix will auto-resolve to victory, you don't even need to pile on with Mighty Meek.
They REALLY need to cut rank HP bonuses to +5, and give everything that deals or effects damage a balance pass.
Just came to say, I really enjoy your content and i learn alot about AOW 4 while i work and travel. So yes, as an old nerd i enjoy the discussion and longer format. The "podcast" format works. Hope to catch your stream one day. 🙂 keep up the good work!
I play AoW4 when it was a free weekend recently, and I loved it. Can’t get it just yet, watching these videos to scratch the itch it left and to prepare myself for when I eventually get it
It's been very interesting to me to see how many of the issues you've pointed out in the weaker tomes (or odd changes) were actually in the game originally, but caused problems at the time.
For Artisan Armaments, crit chance used to be calculated before hit chance on ranged units and would always hit, so if you stack enough crit chance, all your ranged attacks would basically ignore accuracy. At this time, there was a ton more ranged unit support, so it was a pretty domineering strategy.
It'd be nice for them to walk back some of these old changes now that the broken systems around them have been fixed.
I really enjoy your longer video to fall asleep to its interessing and the tone never goes too loud so it's perfect :) I get a couple of tips as wells
Isn't Alchemy good for helping ensure you are able to snowball in the early game by preventing early game stuns/freezes on you while boosting research speed?
ofc it is
I actually have your video's playing on my second screen while I play the game. Then I jump around to different videos when I have to make a game decision.
Tome of Discipline? I'm playing a lot with Reavers, Tome of Discipline is the best tome for them If You want to use magelocks. It's very strong, because magelocks deal high per shot damage (34 physical base ignoring 50% defence), and you can buff it like crazy. With high morale you can get absurd crits. Tomes I use are Discipline (true strike), Zeal (+4 spirit damage), winds(+1 range) . With experience magelocks get another +1 range, and because base is so high damage increases also mean more. Its only Tier II unit, and deals 41 physical damage + other enchantments and with tome of winds and veterancy - 7 range, and they have one auto-hit per battle they can use after moving or Take Aim ability using 1 action. Any melee unit from roster can apply "marked" status which is core mechanic for Reavers (additional +10% damage per stack added to your usual -10% evasion). I am easily beating brutal difficulty with that. I'm using heroes defenders to protect my backline, and replace some frontline units with summons, Because frontline is really weak in early stages of the game. For this build tome of discipline is like 11/10 tome.
As a new player, I appreciate these in-depth guides and they've been a massive boon to me. The late game became a struggle for me and I didn't really know why until I started watching your explanation videos and realized that the tomes I've been picking have left me weaker than even the AI. My latest build is an Materium-Order build and it's been a hell of a lot stronger!
Yeah it's Materium time! Probably my favorite set of tomes. Can't wait to see what you have to say.
Hey, just dropping here to say thank you for your tome 's video. It geniuinly interest me (not for sleeping or other stuff). I just play single player AoW 4. And watching nerdy stuff about it. Is "cool" in my book. There's other AoW 4 videos outhere, but right now your Tome ones are the most interesting for me. Then, uff, 2 hours. Still, worth it.
Tome of Artificer used to be incredible when Golem Assistant was a thing, that thing got all enchantments and made auto resolve so easy with crow bow.
Enjoying the videos, would love to see a multiplayer 101 video from you just breaking down lobbies, culture, etc.
Very educational.
Tome of rock I had a single player situation where using the underground spider primal's/mounts had captured a large town above early & alongside huge underground magic site excavation and forest spread so very poor gold but construction/mana/research rich and needed to get back into unconnected underground for entrance cities. The two summons were so complementary as could reinforce with a fast colonial city unit not needing gold maintenance and a direct summon and spread/reinforce quickly whilst building and allowing Transmute tome access & to keep 2 armies rolling. I guess it was a case of the sum of 2 bads synergising ended up average then good due to luck.
On the shade, if nothing else fatal strikes should either scale faster, or scale harder. Should also have a higher bonus from flanking, cause the whole point of it is to slip behind the enemy and assassinate an enemy that already got chunked by something else.
23:49 good point on purging arrows needing to also affect mages and supports, never even noticed that because it was pretty good before.
I guess that’s because it only applies to physical to go with the materium theme but that’s style over substance this deep into the games lifecycle.
I miss the days where Eternal Earth used to revive your Gold Golems since they were tagged as Elemental at release haha
I do agree that the tome of creator needs some tweaking and honestly being able to build the Titan of Earth would be awesome haha I’d love to have the giant guy around more often
I have to get some materium every build just for their empire development tree
Great video as always @Shinshinvariety ! After you are done with the tomes, would you consider making some build videos for this game? I'd love to see the tome progression for that Construct + Pyre Templars build!
Since you've asked I've played 2 shadow magic and 3. Played 4 on a recent free weekend and idk about buying it. Theres a lot I like from what I played but also a lot I moss from 3, the quantity over quality approach in customization in 4 just dissapoints me. Being a goblin or an elf means nothing, whereas in 3 it was fun too look for class/race synergies especially since in some cases whole unit variants would come from it my favorite is the halfling war rorbot being party robots instead that can also heal allies. So I watch these vids to see if I want to get the game or not, im not in a rush
I can't disagree more with your take on Sundering Blades.
It's true that magic damage increases as games go on, but in a state-of-the-game where melee units dominate, the majority of damage dealt is always still physical. Almost nothing helps you focus opponents down faster than running Vessels of Chaos and Sundering Blades together.
I also don't see much value in Adaptive Armor. If you're playing PvE, maybe. But PvP, units getting focus fired are not going to benefit much at all from gaining one (MAYBE two) Bolstered Resistance before they die.
Completely agree on Shifters. Compare them to Strife's / Righteous' Sealbearers (T2 units!) and it's lol, lmao even.
Ironclads are OP. Not THAT OP like Dwar nuclear launchers in AoW:PF, that can wipe whole enemy army in a single turn, but still. Your whole army can be 50% IC as a frontline with support casters in the back. Overcharge is a free action that gives massive damage boost and stun is removed by letting your machine drink a tonic (lol), which is also a free action. Barrage is an aoe damage ability, that compensates for its damage and single shot moves enemy units, meaning it is hard to lock IC line in melee. And IC are produced at higher rank. And you don't need transformation for linked mind spells.
P.s. Your forgot to mention 10 (!) Status res when talking about gold golem.
Monastery is a great way to counter Domain stability debuffs in the opening build if you are planning to, say, web 2-3 cities into one giant mass. Come kid game when you have bars and bath houses and more specialized high Tome provinces.
Monks are just nifty because they get self healing, which can cut down on Guard time healing after battles. If you have the Command action in a hero, you can run, leap, punch, get commanded, and then pop out a full combo.
I have 100% fallen asleep watching your videos.
discipline allowing never miss shoot + wind allowing more range can be fun
I think fortification health should be tied to City stability in these games. It's one of the issues where defensive buildings just don't have much value. Plus it is also realistic in that people prefer to live in safe places. An actual empire with undefended cities and planets would not work
That’s an interesting way to try and address some of the systems of the game disfavoring static defenses so much.
Yay! A new nerd podcast about tomes, cheers.
Build idea of Earth Archmage:
A Wizard King with Mystic Culture of potential.
An Army of Spellweavers with Couple Soothiers
Both the Lord and the Culture maximize the damage of spells. Army of culture battlemages, 1-2 soother, spamming 2 overcharged,boosted and amplified tectonic shatters per turn for 78 physical damage each.
Key trait - gifted caters to not kill your economy after each serious fight.
Combat casting cost of spells is reduced by 45%, while mana-cost by another 20%, and both can be reduced further by 20% with victory age. Summoning well would allow to summon earth titan for free every turn while defending. Enjoy!
i played something like that and it felt crazy powerful
Can you do hero types tier list?
Honestly, the worst part about the transmitter is that actually petrifying your opponent as in casing them to stone isn’t in the game like if you gave it actual turn your enemies to stone Ability and then gave it shatter from the previous game on its regular attacks where it would do like +4+5 if target is petrified frozen or gilded. To be honest, I really really miss the ability to like Medusa people to death like basilisk ,Gorgons Like I would love a faction that can like a walk away from a battlefield with a full art gallery 😂.
I think some people use the Ironclad simply because coupled with reaver's cannons its pretty much the only thing warmachine power fantasy the AoW 4 can offer you, sort of like Empire's steam tanks in TTW WH.
If we got more tanks/heavy artillery or battle machinery in general the people would probably go for those instead.
What about doing deep dives/tier lists on the affinity branches and which ones are worth focusing. Also the value of focusing on tomes vs the buffs from affinity branches.
Yknow guys, i think that shinshim might have strong opinions on the cleansing flames tome
I didn't sleep on your vids yet, but i do put them on second monitor when i play AoW
To me it would be cool if they reworked the Transmuter to be a Melee Mage; perhaps give her a damage buff/defense buff and maybe even some percentage of ignore armor on her attacks. I think that would still be within the theme of the Materium tomes.
If i may ask, could you perhaps at some point go over the imperium skill tree and say which things are how good, especially in the comtext of which tomes they most likely benefit the most?
And again thanks for the vid hash.
I'm too broke to support, but atleast i can show my appriciation xD
Just put this video up for sleeping so yeah ! People do use this to fall asleep !
I'm commenting before finishing the video so you might've mentioned it when talking about bronze golem, but copper golem actually evolves into bronze at legendary which is pretty impactful imo
I love these vids man!
I played AoW 4 like over a year ago but I watch tier list for almost every game.
1:21:58 man, the range-to-accuracy scaling is so counterintuitive and full of player traps and anti-synergy it’s crazy it’s been that way since like the first or second patch.
True. Noone usually noticed it because extra range was usually played with reavers, who rely on marks which buff accuracy and damage. And magelocks have either 100 acc at any range or 0 at anything smaller than a skyscraper almost in melee 😂. Or ironclads that shoot barrages "in the general direction of the target", where who cares, 1 scatter more, 1 scatter less.
The tome of enchantment and most other materium tomes that do that benefit really well from the culture feature thing that reduces the knowledge cost to research unit enhancements by 60% and decreases costs of mana i think. I run that and great builders and basically just build a stonewall
I think you underestimated rock blast. It's cheap and if you want to alpha strike a unit getting rid of its defense and retaliation can be very strong. Late game I've faced enemy front lines with infinite retaliation attacks removing that and getting chip damage is good allowing me to kill a hero or high tier unit and avoid massive retaliation damage.
Somehow I perfectly skipped forward and landed on you shaming me for skipping your rant.
It was a real Truman Show moment.
Sorry if I'm wrong, but isn't Conjure Spellward (from Tome of Severing) only placeable on neutral provinces? I really don't see what is so good about a mobile spell jammer when it's extremely situational when you can even place one.
Anyway, great video as always. I've been thinking for a while now that the devs need to do a serious balance pass before they put in new content, and your videos are really reinforcing my thoughts.
I would argue that Tier 2 units are secretly the best tier of units in the game, because they come online early, not turn 1 of course, and make a difference during the most important phase of the game. You could stick with tier 1's but the time before unlocking tier 2's your economy just isn't strong enough to make that much of a difference.
Late game yeah it falls off, but if it has an impact early on, that can be VERY worth it.
from inting top to mid tier aow 4 content, keep grinding my dude.
I don’t play age of wonders 4 I just watch you play strategy games
We're back to 2.5h, let's goooo
2:48 I watch warhammer rules analysis because British people saying “D3+3 hits” and 5+ feel no pain type save” just really quiets my absolutely roiling anxieties.
Lols this one is even longer 😂 love it 😆
Don't worry about repeating some statements of other videos. It's okay, helps to learn stuff anyway
With reference to my previous comment I mean which skills in the affinity branches are worth the imperium cost.
Didn't test it, but are you sure that commands ( both of them ) from Tome of the Construct cascade to regular, linked, units? I always presumed it works as written, that you can target construct or linked unit but cascade procks exclusively to constructs.
Can confirm it works as described, used it it my last game.
I have a potentially dumb question regarding the overcharge ability. Please forgive me as I am really new to the franchise as a whole.
Can the stun effect from the ability be removed by cleansing effects in a meaningful way? I know this is one of those "it is stupid to consider" but for a 50% damage buff you can attempt to mitigate it by working in order cleansing abilities, even alchemy single debuff removal, and if it works in such a way that the unit that would be stunned can actually do things, it might make it work.
Again, this would be potentially wildly inefficient, but if theme overrides "correctness" maybe there is a playable option there?
you can cleanse most things, including a self stun
hashinshin is looking way better since he quit league of legends
I really wish Tome of Artificing gave a Heavy Arballester at Tier III. The Iron Golem is very redundant for Industrious, and an extra tier 3 ranged wouldn’t be too overpowered
Do u think well get updates to help worse tomes and affinities
At the next big balance update. Maybe
One thing you should mention, is how many useless things the tome has, not only, how many useful. Because a tome with 4 useful items of 4 and a tome with 4 useful items of 6 aren't equal. The last one means you'll get 2 shitty choices put into your research options forever.
Does this mean you watch d4 deep dive by any chance? I'm so behind because I watch him while walking and haven't needed to walk anywhere in a while
I wanted these tomes the most! When i was still playing this game regularly, i prefered those. Thanks!
Yea, I use videos for sleep too. Yours are too interesting for first watch for it, it suppresses desire to sleep too well, activates my brain too much
Joke about "this unit will seduce your girlfriend" was very funny for me
Tome of Rock is not that bad, it gives you a lot of stuff that works best in the early game, while enchantment is basicly a 2 spell tome, 1 spell if you are mystic culture.
Battle mages get most of their buffs in chaos and astral tomes don't they?
As a mostly order/nature/shadow player you might just undervalue them?
They do a ton of magical damage afterall.
I get it that melee units are more meta than ranged but I personally haven't noticed that archers are better than battle mages.
so we need a love from devs to: constructs, elementals, overal T5/mythic units (like they spent their resources to design a really nice animated beings, but with 0 utility in actual games... we need some way to buff mythic units- they are are a goddamn T5!) And... of course nerf Pyre Templar :D Even though its so fun to play it!
Counter steady fast, counter cc, alchemist lab + Materia refinery for consistent tech up, 6 spells T1 for tech rush, a free dispel for suppor early game (not at late game when nobody care about support), a good ranged unit that is viable for early and mid game for some cultures (that dont go glade).
Yeah, good effort for this video but I agree to disagree. If you get to T4 faster, you win.
Im surprised you dont like +1 range that much, it really trivializes the AI. Sure it wont be as useful against a human, but its a really nice dip if youre making an archer build. Plus favorable winds is really nice on island maps. Still not a great tomb but I think those two things are quite useful for a late game dip
I’ll give it some more thought. If it makes sense for a build I’ll probably bump it up in the future
@@Shinshinvariety it combos well with that 30%+ dmg -1 range event is all Ill say, situational pick overall for sure
After watching all your AoW4 videos so far, I have to say you seem really biased toward melee units and transformations, as if they’re the only right way to play the game. But that’s not the case. You can focus entirely on summons, battle mages, archers, etc., without relying on melee units or transformations at all. For example, you dismissed Siege Magic as useless, but I couldn’t disagree more. If you heavily focus on battle mages, it lets you skip several turns of siege preparation, creating great momentum. With your build, you’re stuck with three full stacks standing idle, waiting for a breach, while a mage army could already be marching to the next town.
A surprising amount of people like to sleep to vids. Ive had this my self, both as the sleeper and as the content creator. I was so curious that this is a common thing i decided to do some research. It turns out its very normal human psychology - it boils down to hearing an adult male voice in the background makes us sleep peacefully, because ultimately there would have been a man to shoo the tiger out the cave.. yes it goes back to our tribal/animal roots.
Studies show that its deeper male voices that people like to sleep to.
hell yea
Oh yeah, if you're a fellow post-irony Man Of The Cringe, look into the band "Beast In Black" for some good outro music
It's baffling to me how AoW 4 messed up so many things that were amazing in AoW 3. Prime example: Seeker Arrows. In AoW 3 it was one of the best spells in the game as it completely removed range and line of sight penalties, which normally only High Elves can do with their racial governance buffs. Oh and it affected all ranged units, including supports(which is included both support and battle mage in AoW 4 terms).Early game ranged units are very powerful and late game you can use it on say a Juggernaut or Shrine of Smiting for terrifying results, so it actually scales very well into the late game, though at that point you might have other spells you'd rather be casting. Compare that to AoW 4 and you only get +1 range, which is actually more of a penalty than benefit due to the range penalty, I mean what the hell... Similar deal with the White Witches from the Shadow tome, from an amazing support unit, 1 of the best in the entire game, to a pathetic unit you rarely ever want to use. I get it, AoW 4 is a completely different game than AoW 3 and many things didn't carry over. Things like the Shrine of Smiting are still great in AoW 4, though less powerful than it was in AoW 3 but that's still fine, however why carry over Seeker Arrows, White Witches, etc, if you're going to make them a pathetic version of their old self? Just use new names as there's nothing similar between the AoW 3 and 4 variants, and buff these things while you're at it to make them less useless.
Regarding Steel Skin, that's perhaps the best usage of those form traits in your form trait videos that you glossed over: the 'inner x' ones. In the case of Steel Skin the obvious synergy is with inner lightning, negating the negative of the transformation while also negating the situational nature of the 'inner x' forms. So with inner lightning all your racial units have +2 defense, +2 blight resist and +1 lightning resist, which suddenly seem very very good and reduces the amount of options your opponent has to effectively deal with your units. Of course the inner lightning form isn't free so there is an opportunity cost but it's certainly a powerful synergy worthy of consideration at the very least. Especially since the Transmutation Tome as a whole is very powerful so you'd often pick it for other things so instead of avoiding the minor racial transformation because of its drawback you can now safely take it and enjoy the quite significant benefits it brings.
I am amazed how AoW3 messed up so many things that were amazing in AoW2 Shadow Magic. Prime example: Haste. In AoW2 it was one of the best spells in the game, it made units move twice as fast on the global and combat map and you could enchant it on all units and paid some upkeep for it it wasn't just a lowly and irrelevant "combat only" spell as in AoW3.
Seeker was introduced in AoW2, btw. AoW3 just copy pasted it. Not very amazing. AoW2 is the first and only game where magic was really strong, AoW4 combat magic is strong/deep too, but has lousy spell animations and lacks many of the global spells AoW2 had. A 22 years old game is still better in many areas than any of the modernized games, like spell effects, global spells and elemental magic. AoW3 had a fraction of elemental magic AoW2 had, and AoW4 has just a few tomes and no affinities covering elemental magic. Haste and Seeker where the reasions, why the old Air Sphere was quite strong, but haste more than seeker, because haste works on all units not just ranged ones.
@@zeusapollo6504 Well played good sir. I started with AoW 3 so I have no knowledge at all of AoW 2 or 1 for that matter. Thank you for further reinforcing my point.
Love yah
I don´t listen to your discussions to fall asleep to
happend the other day anyway =)
also I don´t understand your judgment to the Pandemonium Tome.
And Battlemages in general. Randomly stunning enemies is awesome and happens quite a lot
also at around 15min you talk about mismashot and that the archer doesn´t even have a poison dot.
If I understand you right you are wrong about that. The Miasmashot applies poison cause it`s the green stuff
But I agree over all, this unit should be buffed, cause I´d like to like it
Shinshin: Oh, that wind unit it's actually not that bad, let's talk about it later.
Some minutes later: Oh this unit is a disappointment, entire tome is a disappointment.
Materium, not shadow :р
Shadow?
Regarding the Tome of Shades:
Oathsworn - Righteousness T3s have 100% aoe blind when at max devotion. This has a great synergy with this tome and the Shadow Blades enchantment. Also, the Living Shadows transformation procs pretty reliably, especially when your tanky heroes are being constantly attacked for zero damage.
Also also, mage heroes can get Aethermancy on their evoking abilities for easy aow blinds.
The unit enchantment and minor transformation make this tome pretty good (and fun) in the right build, you don't even need the unit or the building.
I would like this better if you instead focused more on situations and combos where they would be useful rather than just dumping on them.
Eh I wouldn't worry much about the youtube side of things you mention in the intro. Just keep sharing your knowledge about the game, it already sets you apart from basically every other channel. And if you don't worry about the youtube bs you get to have some peace of mind instead of adding another thing to worry about. Channel will grow naturally based on a good reputation, it's not a race.
Tome of creator is the worst t5 and most of the time not even viable to be taken over half of t4 books. Summon shit elemental fight only, siege project which you will never use, undying to t3 units in t5 book, tectonic is good but very expensive. Crucible is the best magic poke tome. Andf if we talk cleansing flames what stops you from using it yourself? burn everyone and set ground on fire. Or just get the eldritch which applies debuffs on spells or take mage hero that has overcharge and just nuke people. If we talk: what if... then tome of cleansing flames is one of the worst ones just because you give free cleansing to anything that has zeal which is super easy to get.
why do you often look like you don't actually want to make these videos? :)
I think on your tier video you need to focus more on strength and weakness and not why to go order instead lol