Age of Mythology Retold: Are Slingers Broken?

[@ZazeH]

POV: Eggy has a single playable strategy with Ra... And looking at the data: Egypt in general and especially RA have terrible winrates because every other faction is just better in a lot of circumstances. Top places at every rating are almost entirely norse major gods. And now they crying about some boys throwing rocks? Kinda funny Meanwhile 3 broken Upgrades for one of the strongest cav units for atlanteans after several buffs for the faction: Nah, not broken (not even speaking of Chaos compared to locustsswarm, and not even mentioning the weak myth units u get from those minor Egypt gods)

[@engetsuren1702]

Do you have the same opinion now seeing that the one ra buff made him better than everyone but Gaia

[@houtamelocoding]

Something clicked me about competitive games on this patch vs the old one: Egyptians are actually allowed to leave their bases and dispute the map on the classical age now.

[@matthiasvancauteren3107]

Counter-argument: This requires you age up with 2 sub-par god powers/myth units. Keep in mind in the heroic age the Toxote user can just turn all your slingers into pigs with one click.

[@philipp561]

Regardless of whether Electrum Bullets is actually broken (it seems to me that it is), I agree with this and Boit's comment. We should not make the mistake of comparing everything in isolation. If the devs design and balance the game so that e.g. all late game compositions are equally powerful, they are severally limiting the design space and variety of strategies in AoM. It's okay if in a match up one civ is on a timer, has to avoid certain types of engagement or just do something unconventional to win. It's also okay if a minor god has a shitty myth unit and god power but a very strong tech. There's different strengths like immediate payoff (e.g. ancestor eclipse or meteor), long term benefits or flexibility.

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

@@philipp561 yes, its ok for variety like that to exist. But timers should be on mythic age, not an a 7-8 min heroic age. Also those timers are the reason Greeks late game is powerful, but nowdays, Slingers lategame is rank1, thoth lategame is rank 2, and tjen there is everything else

[@thehumanity3324]

Exactly, people need to observe this tech in the package that a minor god offers, not on its own. Wadjet is weak, although shifting sands is quite strong. Then citadel is imo the weakest god power in the game, and scarabs arent exactly stellar either.

[@konekopawa9039]

The counter-argument is built based on the balance philosophy of combining useless elements with overpowered elements to create balance. While this balance philosophy may work, it often leads to over simplified playstyle: e.g., one unit comp for all situations, one minor god path most of the time. My impression is that top players like Mista and Magic did not complain the slinger techs because they cannot win against the comp, but because it over-simplifies the game. They want Egyptian to be balanced in a way where every unit/god power has value under specific situation, and to create a more reactive playstyle.

[@Sam-es2gf]

and you can print a whole new stack of slingers in seconds so who cares. i'd rather lose 9 units i can immediately replenish than 6 i can't. people are memeing that these are bad minor gods, theyare just stuck in their ways. they can wrap their head around printing slingers = success but anything else is mind blowing. ptah synergises well with both ra and set. sekhmet is underrated, especially in mirrors because Egyptian REALLY struggle to deal with scarabs. Norse struggle too when divine slingers shred both Hersir and Godi (natural counter anyway) too. Force of the west wind allows heroic age catapults (that are stronger) and you can't get near them with busted ass slingers. The power of the techs should be split among the barracks units at different ages, having "full strength" slingers in heroic while the rest of your units suck is daft.

[@qcop4921]

Ptah has sht myth unit, at least leave him a bone.

[@ruludos1977]

wadjet is good in my heart ;~;

[@useraccount333]

Wadjets aren't bad. It's just your other two choices, Anubite and Sphinx, are WAY better.

[@qcop4921]

@@ruludos1977 they are pretty 😍

[@Verdigri]

But they beat Fafnirs guys !

[@ffarkasm]

@@useraccount333 If Wadjets aren't bad, show me a myth unit which is - other than the Automaton which is a complete joke. :D

[@jvy012896]

Egypt is already behind the curve on win rates. Give them something to be proud of.

[@grottoguru6473]

Yeah, exactly. Any time Greek and Norse have anything busted no one bats an eye but suddenly attys or eggys get some slightly strong and everyone grabs their pitchforks and torches.

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

​@@grottoguru6473 you are calling this slightly strong? Slingers at the moment have the second best dps against infantry only behind the toxotes. So, they completely melts down all infantry/archer compositions. That leaves you only with cavalry, but just a few spearmen or camel riders will take care of them. Even against cavalry, they slingers are doing ok actually. Also, they are ok against myth units and sieges as well. So they are good against everything, and they require no micro at all. Thats not slightly strong my friend. Thats a god-like unit and you have available from classical age too. Slingers outdps chariots at the moment....

[@itswakkowarner]

@@MrLakislazopoulos Wrong information all around.

[@GARGANTUANMASKEDFISH]

@@MrLakislazopoulos You need to attach a great big asterisk to your comment followed with *if you research Slings of the Sun. Yes, Slingers become good against Archers *and* Infantry if you research the tech designed to make them good against Infantry. It's not like they're coming straight out of the gate in Classic Age immediately ready to sling Hoplites, Toxotes and Hippeus to death.

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

@@itswakkowarner Full upgraded slinger: 5.7 pierce damage, 1 divine damage (1.75 multiplier Vs infantry) Full upgraded athena hoplite: 46% pierce armor. Dps of slinger to the hoplite: (5.7*1.75)*54%+1.75= 7.13 damage per second. Peltast dps on hoplite: 3.6 damage per second. Toxotes dps on hoplite: 8.4 damage per second Arcus dps on hoplite: 6.65 samage per second Dps of 2 chariot archers on hoplite: 17.1 damage per second Dps of 3 slingers against hoplite: 21.4 damage per second (Its 2 chariots vs 3 slingers because they need to be same population) So slingers completely outperform the chariot archers against everything. They only lose to toxotes in terms of dps, although they have +5 range. Numbers do not lie. *Against anything thats is not infantry or acrher,.slingers are performing better than all other too.

[@houtamelocoding]

6:16 - "When you have 40-50 slingers shooting at a siege tower it's going to go down pretty fast" Have you thought about how your example has 80-90 pop and 3400-4250 resources of units attacking a single one? Yes, it's going to go down pretty fast, and it fucking should.

[@jackskellingtonsora]

When you have "FOURTY TO FIFTY SLINGERS." LOL

[@aprenderTecnologia]

yeah, change it for 40 toxotes, 40 arcus and see the result. 6 units vs more than 50, oh, I lost my six units, unbeliable.

[@TombstoneThe]

@@aprenderTecnologia i guarantee 40-50 slingers would work faster than the equivalent pop in arcus/toxote for sniping siege (especially once toxotes get their planned nerf of -10% attack speed), and even if they did have the same TTK the issue is that if slingers have the same/better matchups vs. non-ranged units as other equivalent archers, then once they wipe out the frontline units they also have multipliers/ranged resistance vs. other ranged units and wipe them out too. it's like if we gave Toxote the defensive stats/multipliers of a Peltast, it's overkill

[@houtamelocoding]

@@TombstoneThe Instead of just speculating I went into the editor to check: Mythic age toxotes (with shafts of the plague) kill a siege tower around 30% faster than a slinger. (the siege tower doesn't get poisoned) Heroic age toxoes kill a siege tower 30% slower than a slinger.

[@GoldenRoyal5]

The chariot + camel scenario is more about how weak migdol units are without valley of the kings

[@aprenderTecnologia]

If you change slingers for toxotes, same result

[@jlima5509]

Honestly tired of norse players yapping about something being unfair.

[@liamwilson7812]

THIS I agree with.

[@ivantamayoromero1668]

Preach

[@spikygamer987]

Meanwhile, they're the only civ that can build military stuff and TC with their foot soldiers, meanwhile the other civs has to move vulnerable villagers IN FRONT enemy lines, not to mention their own villagers can go BERSERK.

[@mr.z413]

Do you mind to elaborate? I am a new player tryna learn ropes. What can norse do against it?

[@ivantamayoromero1668]

@@mr.z413 suffer as they should

[@codyestes6596]

It’s literally fine. Thank god Ra has something finally. Also.. why would the Greek not break off some of those horses to attack the back line? And if it’s Isis vs slingers, Migdol units have a mobility advantage and can raid the slinger player before taking any serious damage. Mobility is a weapon and not featured in these examples.

[@The-Golden-Oak]

Fun fact, this is pretty historically accurate. Slingers were busted IRL as well during historic warfare.

[@RondallaScores]

Yeah, one critical hit on a giant called Goliath.

[@neworldfool9625]

Blunt weapons have always been secretly OP. Slinger is just blunt high velocity projectile. Cute skull cap, what if I put a dent in it causing multiple fractures while you lie on the ground in agony as your brain hemorrhages. 🙂

[@The-Golden-Oak]

@@neworldfool9625 There's also armour that's been found to have been blasted straight through from slinger bullets. Imagine just cilling with ya homies, you hear a strange whistling noise and next minute, you've got a lump of lead lodged in your chest, despite the fact that you were wearing armour.

[@DouglasDoMetal]

Greeks, Norse and Atlanteans complaining it's too hard to beat meanwhile 90% of high tier replays is Egyptian getting stomped LMAO

[@itswakkowarner]

Are slingers overtuned? Of course. What buff could they give Egypt instead? Better Myth units? If they nerf slingers, then their barracks units will go back to being pretty weak. Buffing the Migdol might just make Egypt too one dimensional, so there's gotta be some alternative.

[@Arcodus]

Seems like I have to play some Egyptian before Electrum bullets are needed. No one will be hurt, I only play against the computer 😅

[@tomblack2064]

😁😁😁 the AI is pretty chill af. They will hurl other insults at you though. "Walls are for keeping children in, not for keeping me out", that one always makes me sad about my life choices 😣

[@Arcodus]

-Made a goof: before Electrum Bullets are NERFED

[@markvanderwerf8592]

Key interaction being missed here i think: Slingers do double bonus damage with Slings of the Sun vs throwing axemen because they are infantry and ranged. That makes Spears and Slingers vs Norse very busted. Norse basically has to try and win the game early because if Horus kicks in you're doomed. Before that with mostly cavalry play Norse can do stuff (because spearmen are not a very hard counter to cavalry). Also another thing to note, if you do these tests in editor it's important to use heavy upgrades. Slingers do lose some ground because the divine damage does not scale with upgrades medium/heavy/champion slingers. Thor still has a good matchup i think because his broken economy can end the game early. Loki can do okay i think with raiding cavalry and TA because of his own extra bonus damage. Oranos and Gaia can deal with this easily right now by spamming Theia Contarius and Turma/Arcus. But that's a bit weird as that tech is bugged.. Greeks have options against this. They can rush with hypaspists with Ares that have no counter in classical. Or for poseidon Hypaspists+Hippeus. Hades can go tox/peltast + hippeus. Zeus has issues but can go hoplite/hypaspists+hippeus. There are many broken things in the game right now (Thor, Theia Contarius, Electrum bullets slingers) which make it hard to gauge everything balance wise. Pro community is also slow to catch onto stuff (why did Recon not use this Red Bull final game 3 with Ra?). So it's hard to see exactly where it stands. It's probably broken yes but Egypt does need something. I think slingers need baseline buff and this tech to go away or severely reduced. Slings of the sun interaction against throwing axemen also need to be fixed to not give 3 x 1.75 =5.25 multiplier but 3.75 only. Also migdol units probably need something for that playstyle to work.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Nice post!

[@miketacos9034]

Please just let us Slinger enjoyers have our moment 😭

[@houtamelocoding]

The counter to slinger-spearmen is Aoe Myth units, they get absolutely shreded by chimeras, cyclopes, fire giants, trolls, etc. Poseidon has another (hidden) counter which is the hetaroi, the AOE makes them fight head-on against spearmen, though this requires reaching the mythic age and having free castles. And egyptians (especially Ra) doesn't have good heroes, priests got nerfed last patch, they also are weak and expensive, using pharaoh requires sacrificing your economy which brings you to a disadvantage since egyptian villagers gather slower than all other civs.

[@joshuanaumann3739]

Egypt is super weak to anti-cav and high tier units, as well as crowd control myth units. There’s a reason Egypt is at the bottom of the ladder. Egypt has a hard transition to high tier units and is extremely gold sensitive.

[@simonesgheiz3039]

Remember that to go through Electrum Bullets slingers, you need to choose Ptah and Sekmeth. Theese two gods have a useless myth unith (wadjet) and pretty weak god power (citadel). Scarab is also a myth unit with only antisiege cabability. The techs are also pretty expensive. No one consider this things analizing the unit.

[@kalorathekau]

What an excellent video!! I was already in for hearing you share your thoughts and test results on the Slingers, but collating the opinions of other top-level players really takes this video to another level. Thank you for putting this together!

[@niki8280]

AHH! So this is why Boit was kinda adamant trying to prove slingers arent OP.

[@webbowser8834]

I think you kinda glossed over a significant part of Avely's argument: Slingers without Electrum Bullets are *bad*, like really really bad. There's a reason why no Egypt player actually used rax units despite being basically their only option to stave off age 2 aggression (which is a major weak spot for all Egyptian players) before Electrum Bullets got added. They just kinda lost to other civs unless the Egypt player made some very hard reads about the player comp or just completely outmaneuvered them in battle (it's pretty hard for slingers to actually attack enemy archers unless the front line is down, at which point you have basically won the battle anyway). Should Electrum Bullets get reworked (and they probably should, it's an absurdly powerful age 2 tech), the base slinger unit should receive some pretty noticeable compensation buffs in return. Whether or not Chariot Archers are too weak is a separate conversation (they very well may be).

[@banana_hammock11]

I think the devs went a bit overboard on the divine damage to be honest, it can be even better than a chariot archer under many circumstances

[@Thenewcure]

Egypt prior to this buff was barely playable in classical age. Now theres an alternate way of playing Egypt other than fast heroic..Norse / Greek mains post videos like this with their 60-80% win rates because they can’t win their games in under 20 mins. Egypt still sub 45% win rate against all other civs. the only way to play eggy is fast heroic. Oh wait A/E is getting nerfed too 🎉

[@simonesgheiz3039]

Egyptian needs a unit like this. Totally not broken, Norse in general seems unstoppable and the winrates speak enough.

[@Cyclopsided]

I think the real solution to give egyptian army a bit of a buff is this: Make barracks units slightly cheaper and train a bit faster. Cheap but abundant/fragile counter units. Rework electrum bullets to not be divine damage.

[@AMDGBananaBen]

Solid points, I think that's fair since their designed as specific counters and stat wise are squishier than every other civ (minus their Minor God techs of course like say Horus' Infantry HP boost)

[@HelalAndre]

Agreed!

[@devangnivatkar2649]

It should be around +0.5 Divine, no more than that. +1 Divine for an unit otherwise designed to do 3 Pierce is a bit too much Against a 40% PA cavalry unit, that's 1.8 + 1 damage. A 50% increase in DPS Against a 10% PA infantry unit, that's 2.9 + 1 damage. A 33% increase in DPS Most upgrades at this stage give +10-15% damage to their beneficiary units, not 33-50%

[@markvanderwerf8592]

Note that with medium and heavy slingers these numbers drop: Vs 40% PA cav. 2.3 + 1 a 43% increase. Vs 10% PA inf. 3.5 + 1 a 29% increase. It's too much now. Although it also has to be said that the slinger is awful without it. Turma and Peltasts outclass vanilla Slingers. The concept of the tech isn't bad by basically turning a counterarcher into more of a generalist archer. It makes slingers an interesting alternative to chariot archers as backline. It's just way too good right now :) you get slingers that outclass Turma and peltasts as anti-archers. And Slingers will even outclass Arcus against infantry (with Slings of the sun) and do just slightly worse vs Cavalry/MU. I would really like the tech if it did what it did now but it would lower the anti-archer multiplier from 3x to 2x or 1.5x. It would basically turn your slingers from a pure counter archer, to a generalist with soft counter to archers. You would then have to rely on camels to really counter counter-archers.

[@GARGANTUANMASKEDFISH]

I had a feeling we'd be seeing something like this regarding this tech. It's clearly a strong tech but I'm not convinced at all that it's broken - Slingers still have extremely low stats and get melted by most forms of incoming damage. They still require good micro and intense focus-fire in order to kill things like Cavalry - sure, if you task 20 Electrum+Sun Slingers on a unit they'll eventually kill it but realistically if you're having to make most of your army out of Slingers to accomplish this then you're constantly losing Slingers. Not to mention that getting this combo requires going through two Minor Gods who are otherwise extremely weak competitively and you're basically sacking all Migdol utility to go all-in on Barracks units. Your Myth Units are going to suck, your God Powers are both awful (Sands can be okay but Slinger-comps don't need it) and it's going to be very predictable to your opponent what you're planning as soon as you pick Ptah. Honestly it doesn't really feel like they do anything that massed Toxotes don't already do other than kill Siege Units a little better.

[@theowlogram888]

Ra and Set don't get ancestor and eclipse at the same time so the opportunity cost isn't even that high for them. For the rest of what you wrote, just keep in mind that Magic, who is better than like everyone else in the comment, couldn't make the Egyptians "constantly lose slingers"

[@KOSOVOisSERBIA222]

I've lost every match against this strategy - at least 4 times with Greeks, and once with Atlanteans. The main problem, I think, is that the upgrade is available as soon as you hit the Heroic Age, and those units just get spammed so fast. They’re cheap but now brutally strong. Even when I manage to beat them in a fight and try to counter-attack, it’s impossible to push through because the enemy just quickly spams more of those units again. There’s no breaking them, if you are noob like me around 1400 ELO, it's just hard to manage eco and macro, while eggy player can easy chill.

[@lemonbuttterlobster]

all the top players still just play norse/atty maybe slingers are "broken" but egypt as a pantheon doesn't seem to be just because of that

[@rG1vZ]

let's nerf it and make Ra have sub 40 win rate again Personally i would like for norse & greek to dominate with 55% + win rate again

[@IamMagicAOM]

We need buffs in other areas, Egypt def needs help

[@itswakkowarner]

Toxotes, Throwning Axemen, and even Turma can be so strong against Egypt. Slingers give Egypt an edge they desperately need. I don't think nerfing slingers and buffing Migdol units is the answer. It will just lead to fewer strategies for Egypt and a stale fast heroic meta. It's a good thing right now that Barracks and Migdol units are both relevant, instead of Egypt relying too heavily on the Migdol. If there was a buff to Migdol units, it should be Camels. They could get a higher damage multiplier vs cavalry and archer or maybe even buff Dark Water.

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

Slingers defeat toxotes, throwing axemen and turma even before the divine damage. Now, they are beating everything

[@markvanderwerf8592]

They didn't beat Turma and they don't do now if you give Turma their myth tech too.

[@XbobSector]

This is exactly what I was wondering. IAmMagic does it again with a perfect video

[@IamMagicAOM]

❤

[@jackroper1848]

42% winrate Ra cough cough

[@dominteflorin-iulian7427]

For future reference: watching the slow mo videos was really jarring. If you are familiar to SOTL from AOE2, what he does is that he shows the unit in a vaccum (1 v 1 or just dps) and then in a normal fight with decent numbers. Maybe try that for future videos. Check his videos too so you can see what I mean

[@minimcune]

And there Ra is at the bottom, desperately needing something good to keep him alive and people are calling it too much? Naah

[@theowlogram888]

You don't buff a civ by giving it a unit that outclasses everything else. Ra's focus is supposed to be Migdol units btw. And on top of that if you rely on this tech to make Ra good you doom him to be Set without free units and without meteors.

[@minimcune]

@@theowlogram888 Fair enough. Any suggestions on what could be done?

[@theowlogram888]

@@minimcune Maybe they could give it an active ability

[@aprenderTecnologia]

​@@theowlogram888 focus on migdol units, now all its cavalary and receive bonus damage as is, prodromos, katapelts

[@AMDGBananaBen]

Good timing Magic, mass slingers are pretty nuts especially against Inf with the burning slings tech

[@thehumanity3324]

If there are no counters to this composition, why arent the winrates for Ra and Set insanely high? Also I cant believe were having this discussion before talking about Rock Giants lol

[@et34t34fdf]

What are slingers? I don't see them in my migdol stronghold. Jokes aside, good content!

[@linkingwithnaz1295]

Honestly I don't see the problem with Slingers being strong. Why should a mixed Midgol units inherently be superior to barracks units? Gods are different. So what if it turns from a anti-archer unit to general unit? Maybe make it so that it it doesn't receive multiplier effects and that's it.

[@itswakkowarner]

Exactly. Besides, a migdol army does beat a barracks army anyway.

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

Sure, without multipliers it wont be a problem, but that would be a huge nerf to Egyptians, since they already have a general archer called chariot archer.

[@theowlogram888]

That's the whole point of the civ that its age 3 units are better than it's age 2 units. If you want to spam age 2 units the Greeks are right there.

[@ChiRonChiaren]

I'm not a top player or anything, but I was watching your Eggy mirror against Kimo and agreed that the slingers seemed pretty egregious in that match. Being able to shred camel, then tower, then siege tower front-lines with a CA back-line, so cheap and with almost no micro demands is pretty indefensible. Some of the counterpoints I saw that stream focused on: 1. You didn't properly target his slingers. A lot of your units were focusing his frontline towers instead of the slingers 2. Kimo himself said that there isn't really any other way to prevail in an Eggy mirror, save the slightly overpowered barracks units from an economic disadvantage. And what I noticed: 1. Kimo was focusing your frontline too. And you had a lot more of it. The army cost just doesn't add up in that circumstance. He also didn't have that many upgrades. 2. I'm not sure what to say about this, but I don't think that a single upgrade should tip the scales this hard as an answer. Anyway, I appreciate that you went further into this as I learn the game too. As controversial this might be, there are a lot of exploits running around that make the game feel pretty unfun sometimes and it benefits all of us to have these conversations.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Good points!

[@itswakkowarner]

Egypt barracks units are notoriously weak. The Slinger buff gives Egypt so much more versatility. The fast heroic Migdol meta of prior iterations of AoM were just too predictable. I watched the game vs Kimo too. He made too many chariot archers and not enough elephants/camels. He was also pinched against a woodline which made it difficult to surround the slingers. Had he flanked around the woodline with camels and attacked from the front with a few elephants + ca it would have been a different outcome. Better micro and army composition would have killed Kimo's slinger ball. Slingers are terrible against elephants, however I do think camels should get a slight buff. If you really think slingers need a nerf, then nerf their range.

[@ChiRonChiaren]

@@itswakkowarner While I definitely agree that better micro could have tipped the scales in Magic's favor at that point, I feel the effort-to-cost ratio was heavily skewed in favor of mass slingers. The argument isn't that there's no counterplay, but that you have to significantly and consistently outplay your opponent on top of dealing with the resource differential. Additionally, both sides were continuously producing units, and Magic would have needed to consistently execute flanks just to get an effective approach. Kimo initially had a fairly competent frontline with scarabs, but it eventually devolved into just one or two siege towers behind 40 slingers, quite consistently. Meanwhile, Magic, despite having a sizable number of frontline towers and rotating between camels and elephants, couldn’t break through Kimo's frontline nearly fast enough to keep up. I do agree though that Egypt has such a hard time with versatility outside of the slingers though.

[@itswakkowarner]

@@ChiRonChiaren Magic misplayed it.

[@ChiRonChiaren]

@@itswakkowarner I don't think that was disputed. But that's also not the point.

[@potatoflys]

Oh snap, he put the video in the discord and put the discord in the video, you have created a time loop Kronos would be proud of!

[@mattyIce42E]

Well presented I think. I think very obviously Slingers are overtuned. But on the other hand, goes to show how bad Ra actually is at the moment. He needs some major buffs and, as you said, Eggy in general are lacking a bit at the moment. But hey, gotta enjoy the ride and abuse some of the broken shit as long as it lasts. Part of the process 😅

[@CsDeathshadow]

oh booohooo egypt gets a good combo, cry me a river. how about the devs fix the completely broken norse and greek gods first?

[@stuartmacaulay5761]

Norse with the weaker rag and worst anti-cavalry unit in the game you mean? Norse are around the middle if I'm not mistaken. Eggy need some buffs but in return the slingers should also be changed

[@1raider234]

Audio balance seems great on the intro

[@BVasquezp]

Slingers are... an option. Not OP, just viable. Compared to some other all in combinations, they are still quite vulnerable.

[@Yoshii894]

We had the same issue in the DM community in EE. Slingers were buffed in a similar way to this to give a boost to Ra and Set. Suddenly they traded way too good against alot of gods, especially isis and greek. It makes more sense to buff something else if these gods need a boost. Slingers are already a good counter unit, and buffing them encourages campy play.

[@botvinikk1]

I think this buff is only temporal. The dev need something to improve civ like ra fast enough...but they 'll find more logical options like better stats in other units in the next patch....and really nice video like always

[@davideprincipato1471]

I think it is safe to say that slingers with electro bullets and sling of the sun are better than toxotai. Not only they do more damage but they also have more range. But overall i think it is a way to make slingers viable, otherwise it was an useless unit.

[@impacts6362]

Nice job on the video aye I have a suggestion can you make a video on the Gaia bugged tech "Poseidon's Secret" this tech says the cavalry reduction is supposed to be 15% but Instead in the game it's 30% and if you pair this tech with "Lance of Stone" it makes the Contarius very strong and cheap enough to be able to Spam, also reduces Cost on Turmae, the surprising part is me and my friend did a test and found out Contarius Beat Egypt Camels With Theia and the bugged tech researched

[@voodoodummie]

maybe a small nerf would be to reduce base damage by one with the upgrade, so the tech 'switches' one pierce damage to one divine damage.

[@itswakkowarner]

A lot of players on the Retold subreddit are complaining that walls, fortresses, town centers, and towers aren't strong enough. That they need more hp or even more damage. Can you please talk some sense into them and make a video about why they are off base. Mista used walls efficiently in the finals of Redbull that helped him win. Walls are not useless at all, they just take more decision making to use in Retold. Buffing buildings would probably ruin the game.

[@erjoaqui]

I completely agree with you. This is one of the main problem in AoE4 , the static defenses. I hate them.

[@NamerGaming]

If structures get buffed Loki and Odin become busted inmediatly due to Heimdall's 50% gold discount (which is already super strong).

[@entropicentropic1317]

What's the point though, casuals will believe whatever they want to believe. I don't think any complaints about "walls being weak" or whatever will actually result in a static defense buff

[@matthiasvancauteren3107]

Towers are in need of some love though. When have you ever seen anyone build a tower besides the 4 you start with at the start?

[@QuangNguyen-ep6mx]

@@matthiasvancauteren3107 I think towers are pretty overstated its just 100 gold, 4 of them deal way more damage than a fortress and ahve more HP together

[@gunesturkmen]

I think the problem here is power budget going into a single unit and in an unhealthy manner (divine dmg). Imho divine damage should be given sparingly or at very small levels. +1 divine dps in classical that can be spammed is just broken (means hard to make it fun and balanced). Here are my suggestions (some or all can be done): - Swap the effects of EB and SotS - Make EB give hack damage instead - Buff Son of Osiris (nerf slings) - Make tornado controllable like particle cannon in Generals (nerf slings) And some stuff for the Norse: - Separate military and civilian buildings. Infantry builds military buildings, civs build civilian ones (houses, farms, TCs, Markets, basically anything that doesn't shoot or makes military units) - Fix burning pitch working with TA - Make forest fire actually useful

[@NakamuraRTS]

I'd love for Egypt and any civ in general to not just have a handful broken things, but rather for them to have several good options, and no blatantly broken things. This upgrade completely warps the role of the slinger, which is a terrible way to balance the game.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Hey naka, agreed completely

[@aprenderTecnologia]

Prodromos countering all migdol units in hard way, so Ra get a way to get a toxotes/peltast in a unique unit so its is so terrible, remembering its necessary two god choices without power spikes and you lose mobility, and be vulnerable to area attacks. If someone got a 40 toxotes you know how deal with it, just do the same against this.

[@BigDomDefoort]

Everyone has their own opinion on balancing. I personally think certain things are broken, but it could just be a skill issue on my part.

[@IWestrada]

I ran into an issue with this in campaign mode. Isis chariots just got smoked by spearmen + slingers. Had to spam elephants, and even those were getting smoked

[@logicftw7700]

The loss to Kimo yesterday cut deep but it’s a good exposure to this broken combo. I love how you do the matchups in the editor but I didn’t like how slowed down they were.

[@bytor75]

In theory, can Jarl/TA slow down Slingers enough if micro'd well enough? Jarls HP gets super tanky with the line upgrades, which slows down the Slingers focus fire DPS on them and gives them staying power. Obviously Jarls solo would be killed pretty fast by Spearmen so it'd require TA behind it too.

[@quecobpt]

This and many other balance issues derive from the fact that the game's armour system is solely percentage based. Attacks who do divine damage ignore that. But If you remove this kind of damage, the game's units roles will become limited again. This kind of damage game different purposes to different units. Instead, I'm in favour of implementing a mixed armour system. Flat numbers + percentge. This is something that will increase a lot the units variety, enabling units of one class (exemple: archers) to be good against different units of the same class (exemple, infantry) in different ways. To give a concrete exemple: it can make gastraphetoros better than toxotes against highly armoured infantry while toxotes is better against low armour infantry.... while now gastraphetoros has no use and in order to implement that you would have to give multipliers against specific units

[@todosimpsonslatinohd1555]

Hey Magic! Great video, I was really looking forward to one that talked about how the game isn't balanced. I noticed you mentioned certain units being unbalanced, and something similar happens with the Norse Hersirs. These units seem too strong in the first two ages, as they can consistently defeat any Greek unit, like Hoplites, Toxotes, and Hippikons. I am not in favor of only 1 Nordic unit being able to counter 3 Greek units during the first and second ages. This imbalance gives Norse players a significant advantage in the early stages, which affects the game's flow and strategies. It would be interesting to dive deeper into how these imbalances could be adjusted to create a fairer match-up between civilizations throughout the different phases of the game. Thanks for the great content!

[@IamMagicAOM]

Interesting, ill have to take a look at that later

[@markvanderwerf8592]

Uh Hersirs don't? They get killed by toxotes easily...

[@apodani1576]

And also they are super expensive for the early stages of the game

[@SH4D0WBattousai]

If the +1 dmg scales multiplicatively with other upgrades it's a serious problem and it should be addressed so it's just a +1 no scaling.

[@bruvkek4629]

They could give wadjet some ability and make slingers weaker. Maybe some kind of disengaging attack where he attacks something close then slithers away.

[@roflBJ]

I have a gameplay idea for eggy. Much more skilled based than mass slingers which kills everything and without need of micro. What if egyptians obelisk's "SLOWS OPPONENT'S UNITS BY 10%" ? They would be great during whole game not just for early scouting and change the thinking as egyptian even during combat. Usually eggy's army has few priests anyway and it can have potential and raise the skill ceiling. Even try to help defend and spam those around the base. It make sence i guess. What do you think? Now the bonus for cheaper obelisk could be even more meaningful. You can use them as scouting, as prevention or even during combat. Only your mind and APM are the limits and could be not overpowered but significant enough to players use them and opponents to counter them. Or even step further and idea of different obelisk power. Set could give 5-10% extra dmg as agro god. Ra could have 5-10% eco boost and Isis a slow for opponent's units? And because Isis has already bonus for monuments she can recieve a special base tech to even 20% boost of radius? It has good potential i think. What are your opinion?

[@itswakkowarner]

You need to drop a a video about buildings. They just buffed building hp and armor. Retold could be in serious trouble.

[@Schmuutzigg]

never had more fun with ra and slingers in retold, if it's nerfed ill make sure to get plenty of games in haha

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

Yeah, i am sure abusing your way to victory is fun

[@raynightshade8317]

Biggest issue is slinger is super cheap easy to mass. That and the upgrade is in classic age to you get it really early

[@aeonstar293]

I dont understand these changes to Egyptian units and powers. They already felt so much weaker than the other 3, which as someone who enjoys Isis the most, is just depressing.

[@Catatafish420]

I think maybe in the lower elo it’s seems like the only strategy before was Migdol units any time anyone was using Egyptian I knew to just go counter cav. I also remember slingers being very strong in the original and when I tried them in retold before the buff they felt very underpowered.

[@QuangNguyen-ep6mx]

I see it the same as magic though as long there is no reasonable patch that makes everything baseline better in eggys and remove electrum bullets, I find it fair for the time being, seeing Ra and Set being lowest winrate

[@michalanz2612]

Games get boring if you religiously stick with "that unit is supposed to only do x." Special upgrades which allow units to do more roles than previously is good. We can argue about the bonus value, but having more than one unit option (ie Chariot Archers) to fullfil a role is necessary for fun decision making. I'm general I think AOM leans too heavily into counter units bonus damage rather than general base damage. I disagree with you, but still another great video. Keep up the good work! Thanks

[@lorenzovrolijk]

The only thing I get from this is, once again, that chariot archers need to be buffed. Like that we don't need these weird slinger buffs and they can be reserved for what they were supposed to do: counter archers poorly (compare them to peltasts or turma lol). I think we should just remove the cavalry tag on chariot archers so you can actually win against prodromos + any ranged(esp centaur) back-up. I mean, Magic probably remembers his game against Vortix in red bull, Ra vs. Zeus with prodromos/centaurs just a-moving him under migdol at 2nd gold and it's not even competitive.

[@IamMagicAOM]

I absolutely agree, hi lorenzo

[@webbowser8834]

So if they're supposed to be bad at countering archers and they're supposed to be bad against everything else, what should be the purpose of the slinger? Chariot Archers are not available until age 3, and I feel like having no usable age 2 ranged units is just asking to get raided.

[@lorenzovrolijk]

@@webbowser8834 you are supposed to fh, not stay in classical

[@webbowser8834]

@@lorenzovrolijk So opponent shows up in classical with Ajax and a Centaur and you just take it? Cmon mate, you can't just ignore your military while rushing heroic. Personally, while I don't like all of slinger's power being concentrated in electrum bullets, the current meta of people actually using barracks units is infinitely preferable to the previous meta, where Egypt just rolls over if you apply any amount of classical era pressure. There's a reason why Egypt's win rate was so low.

[@lorenzovrolijk]

@@webbowser8834 yes, you just take it. Mind sharing your 1v1 elo (in numbers)?

[@AvengerNk]

This is seems fine. The counter is the same for all divine dmg, high HP/cost units. Figure out which one that is for each pantheon, and give it a try.

[@Tomil4444]

its funny how literally ONE DIV DMG make so much diffrence

[@webbowser8834]

It is a solid reminder that in a small numbers game, a change of 1 damage makes a big difference. Especially when you account for the fact if you're investing in slinger tech, you're not just gonna be building 1 slinger. You're massing those boyos. So that 1 extra damager per shot actually becomes 10 or 20. Slingers also attack fairly fast, making that 1 damage even stronger. I just hope they don't nerf Electrum Bullets without giving slingers some hefty compensation buffs. Base slingers are real bad.

[@quecobpt]

Maybe instead tweak slingers of the sun. Chariot archer and axemen are already 2 anti-infantry units. Why not let the slinger be anti archer but also be a generally good archer? Maybe let slinger of the sun go more damage in general but no infantry multiplier. This way slingers will have higher attack in general but won't destroy infantry. Egypt has got nothing at classical age.

[@TheWintersDragon]

You know, you would think that with all the nerfs that Eygpt are getting(meteors, ancestors + Eclipse, Vally of the kings and now, no doubt, this slinger-broken build), you would get the impression that Egyptians are the top civ, but that could not be further from the truth. Their win rate is still bad. Even before all these nerfs, they weren't top dogs at all. While yes, this slinger build is broken, but just barring in mind to get it, you have to go with subpar gods with crap god powers and myth units. I know people will say that the Wadjet is ok, but from all the games I've seen, it seems ok only in the early ages, then gets faded out, which is a shame cause it is such a cool unit, but it is way to slow and lacks that damage, also feels like it needs way more micro to get the most out of it. If I'm playing, Ra wants my build. If I'm against Posiden or Gaia, that is not broken, and it does not take twice as much effort to win compared to these two. I don't really have one, so I don't think this build should be taken away, at least not until the civ gets the changes it needs to feel good to play. People will point to hardcore/pros winning matches at tournaments such as Ra and Egyptians to show that they are fine, but that does not prove anything hardcore/pros can make anything work. It's their job technically, but just like, wow, raid, just because the top players can beat it does not mean it is poorly designed or unbalanced. This also leads to my worry that the devs will listen to the hardcore/pros too much and start balancing the game for pros/esports, focusing more on balance instead of what's fun and casual-friendly. After all, one of the reasons why the RTS genre died out was because of selection bias on the part of the devs to listen to hardcore/pros and balance the fun out of the game. I agree with you that over buffing a single unit to balance a civilisation is not a good balance, but as I said earlier until they get buffs that make them more fun (like making elephants more viable), they should keep this build-in.

[@lothar3073]

Divine damage upgrade is fine on melee units, but on ranged units it becomes a problem.

[@francescosolinas9670]

I really like the tech (I am a Loki main btw). But it definitely feels a little bit too strong... Maybe reducing the damage would be good (?) I don't like when devs take good toys away

[@Chris_Ru]

Are the Greek Toxotes not broken? Is the Argus squad not broken? Are the Greek prodromos not broken?The author is funny, calm down. There's nothing wrong with the slingers.

[@Juliano1taps]

they all get divine bonus maybe ? stay neutral please haha you play eg for 20 years maybe but it's broken actually bro

[@aprenderTecnologia]

Egypt needs two upgrades and god choices to get a toxotes

[@Sam-es2gf]

let me know when toxotes counter other archers too

[@aprenderTecnologia]

@@Sam-es2gf peltast+toxote sounds better? I mean it get a toxotes status also, but there is a cost for that

[@YeenMage]

They reduced the Slinger's anti-archer damage from x4 to x3, and they removed their x1.25 damage against Throwing Axemen and Axemen. How is that unfair?

[@AnputVT]

I find it shocking that tbe devs add more food on the map and make buildings paper while nerfing static dps and then get surprised when the turtle civ is underperforming. Just give Egypt their turtle back instead of trying to push them into other playstyles.

[@ManchmalGaming]

I would increase the research time for Electrum Bullets to 300s!

[@dezeze6]

Strong but prob not broken. Having that said they should tune down the upgrade as it can be obnoxious in some matchups

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

Zeus mythic losing to slingers means that they are indeed broken

[@itswakkowarner]

@@MrLakislazopoulos This literally does not happen.

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

@@itswakkowarner test their dps and find out yourself if it's happening or not

[@itswakkowarner]

​@@MrLakislazopoulos Yeah I have. It's not. Prodromos/Myth/Peltast will destroy a sligner ball.

[@MrLakislazopoulos]

​@@itswakkowarner you didn't test it enough. Slingers are also beating all of them back. For you to win that, you need to micro your peltasts on all 40 slingers of your opponent which is impossible in a big fight. While he doesnt need to micro at all. Peltasts dps against anything else other than archers is trash. Slingers dps on infantry is huge, and even against cavalry, siege and myths their dps is about ok. They only need to alternate between spearmen/camel riders as meat shield and they will beat you

[@Lostpancake1111]

Great vid

[@IamMagicAOM]

Thanks!

[@TomorrowWeLive]

Egyptians need all the help they can get.

[@jackskellingtonsora]

Egyptian in this game is just absurdly weak right now. Nerfing them further when they're already losing all the time doesn't seem like a good move. Migdol units, that are supposed to be powerful and expensive, lose to everything while barracks units still lose to everything despite the slingers buff. You can't do anything as Egyptian except die.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Agreed, they need buffs elsewhere

[@jackskellingtonsora]

​@@IamMagicAOM What would you buff instead then? Migdol units given how weak they are?

[@MeanMan444]

I have an easy counter to this. I'm very bad and play in low elo, so most strats don't matter, since matches are mostly decided by who screws up less Although to be fair this still fells like they should try to buff egypt's roster instead of giving one minor god an OP upgrade, since it feels like they are forcing the players who can take that God to always take him, so in a way they are heavily limiting options (or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, since i lack experience, which is likely)

[@IamMagicAOM]

I agree!

[@jeremyrourke376]

Slingers of the sun - so now there's a minor god picked for it's tech instead of GP or MU. A bit more of a serve of variety. AOM knows where it's bread is buttered compared to the other franchise offerings. I don't mind it.

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

I must say I both like a buff to slingers and think the Ptah tech is overpowered. It reduces god choice viability in Classical for Ra/Set, really makes Isis look sad. I much preferred if Electrum Bullets stayed at 15% like the other two Ptah techs, and the base slinger gets additional damage to be more viable without such an insane tech, and quite good with it. But not as broken with it, nor as bad without it. Also regarding Isis, I feel the timing attacks she can do really hold her back in the long run. Everyone sees A/E and screams, but once it's over Isis really falls off. Barracks units are so trash compared to Ra/Set, and Migdol units are not really better either. You can go Hathor + Thoth, but it's not really much better than what Ra/Set can do, and just gets wiped by Ra/Set's barracks army anyway.

[@georgetibbitts6025]

I wonder if range units across the board should have their attack speed slowed down to like 1.2

[@thehumanity3324]

What putting the contents of electrum bullets with Sekhmets tech, rather than the multiplier? Then the upgrade would come in later, and be packaged in with the weakest god power in the game.

[@SigilSC2]

Boit pointed out something you didn't mention - rax units being used. I initially started eggy and was a bit disappointed in how strong migdol units were in comparison. Most of the games I see is just spamming migdols and taking map control with them also being your production. It's kind of boring so I started looking more into other civs. Back up from balance, think of design - what makes a fun game? Slingers being amoved vs everything probably isn't fun. Slingers being used instead of the same camel/chariot every game? That's great. Balance around that.

[@IamMagicAOM]

I agree

[@liviokalemaj619]

For many many years i've been playing egiptians and trust me the strugle was real. Every civ was stronger especialy in classical age. You had to suffer until that midhgol is build and by the time you go heroic you opponent can gold starve you very easy, kronos, oranos, poseidon zeus and every norse god. Now the slingers are good, way to goos actually but this didnt happen by mistake of course they thought about this and suddenly everyone is crying and complaining and still wining. If not the slingers nerf them do smth else whatever, egiptians are shit against greek and norse on all aspects

[@xDBooN]

What kind of nerf would you like? I was wondering if something crazy like having Electrum Bullets reduce their range could work, so they'd become worse at countering archers but better as a more generalist damage dealing unit.

[@IamMagicAOM]

Just half the divine damage should be ok

[@teo9619]

Egypt is trash anyway early game (which is all the matters in 1v1 sadly since the meta is very aggressive and early game harassment focused). Edit: It is true that this tech is really strong but they should defenetly get a compensation in other areas if this gets nerfed (which it maybe should).

[@Leinadarcher]

It is overtuned, Electrum bullets should be 0.5 divine damage, rather than +1. Currently, slingers are better than chariots in every way except speed. Electrum bullet + Slings of the Sun -- 3 Slingers vs 2 Chariots are: - Better DPS vs all unit types - archers, infantry, cavalry, heroes, myth units, buildings - Better cost (3 Slingers = 6 population + 255 resources, 2 Chariots are 6 pop and 280 resources) - Don't require expensive Migdols to train - Less counterable than Chariots (not considered Cavalry) and also harder for opponent to micro slingers compared to Chariots. - Better pierce armor, same hack armor. - More HP than Chariots (3 slingers have slightly more HP than 2 non-Ra Chariots) So whilst full slinger armies may be 'counterable' in some situations, they are still a bit overtuned currently, where Migdol units are not being encouraged in the slightest. I refuse to make slingers out of principle, I should be able to play Ra with actual strategy, rather than 'hur dur grab TC's and make 40 slingers with some mixed army'

[@Cronas1201]

If only we had some kind of op age 3 god powers to make the slingers attack each other or turn into pigs....

[@simonkapadia7582]

Just buff the wadjet, nerf electrum to 0.3-045 divine damage, buff the slinger and spearman baseline a little and change their costs. My argument would be the spearman goes to 60-15, 5.2 speed, 2.0 coefficient vs cav. Slinger 70-20, coefficient from 3 to 3.25-3.5. The goal is to shift further from just 'cheap but weak' to 'gold cheap, slightly more total cost, slightly less weak'. Onboarding a bit more power into base units makes minor god balance disparities less problematic, and rax units more consistently effective in their core roles. Anyway, Egypt needs changes. After the Nephthys and Thoth nerfs the whole faction is likely to be weak. And not without cause. We should also nerf electrum bullets but other changes are needed. Egypt needs to be a competitive baseline civ, with good minor god balance. That has to be a holistic drive going forward. These extreme, polarising factors are not great design, whether it's valley of the kings, electrum bullets, or particular god powers.

[@IamMagicAOM]

I agree with most of this! Thanks for the write up

[@Sam-es2gf]

I agree with everything you've said. Maybe 2 of those Spearman changes rather than all 3. They would be kind of nuts if those were standard stats. Maybe a myth tech adjustment/addition for spearmen in the classical/heroic ages is needed.

[@Angels-Haven]

as long as norse don't like it I am for it

[@IamMagicAOM]

Haha

[@thedude6473]

Counter arguement Huskarls

[@alessandrodellanno948]

I'll be brief. It needs nerf, but they have to adjust it. I dont wanna see a buff to chariot because prior to this,people were already spamming chariots and from design perspective is boring. I wanna see the buff split in different ages maybe so it has to an actual commitment to the tech. If they nerf it they should do something specifically for ra because he has crap gp and at this point almost crap tech ( compared to the broken one of the mighdol that spawns 2 units). So either they give him something unique or i dunno, split the tech in different ages seems the most correct thing. Otherwise we'll always be a rush to age 3 for Egyptiam which is boring tbh.