Form Traits Explanation and Tier List - Age of Wonders 4

[@kulovicz3152]

0:00 Introduction 2:40 Form traits explained 4:22 Adaption traits 7:22 Adaptable 8:46 Cheerful 9:45 Cold Blooded 12:03 Elusive 16:20 Hardy 17:30 Mount masters 20:23 Sharp Eyes 20:55 Arcane focus 22:47 Bulwark 25:50 Ceaseless cacophony 27:47 Empowered by magic 29:35 Fast recuperation 32:48 Ferocious 34:55 Herbivore 36:51 Inner Fire/Frost/Lightning 38:22 Keen-sighted 41:10 Light footed 42:44 Quick reflexes 43:57 Resilient 45:57 Resistant 48:49 Sneaky 50:21 Strong 51:57 Tenacious 53:43 Tough 54:56 Defensive tactics 58:06 Overwhelme tactics 58:20 Pack tactics 59:22 Athletics 1:02:25 Hideous stench 1:04:35 Dire bear 1:06:34 Blessed dragon + Flying mounts explained 1:08:12 Death beetles 1:10:30 Dread spider 1:11:23 Eagle 1:11:36 Elephant 1:13:27 Graceful judge 1:15:33 Mammoth 1:17:24 Nightmare 1:19:22 Pegasus 1:19:26 Swiftfoot Raptors 1:20:42 Unicorn 1:21:36 White wolf 1:23:08 Overall ranking

[@trixie2558]

As someone who loves adaptation traits for singleplayer rp purposes, I know all too well that they are terrible. Getting info on what's actually good is a great help though. Thank you!

[@Xezarious42]

Not sure if this is mentioned in the video (haven't watched this one yet), but Arctic Adaptation has its use to speed up turning the world snowy in the "Tome of the Cold Dark" build, which gives you a ton of ever-precious Knowledge. It's a tempo play, but one that can be useful.

[@Solus749]

alot of his bad traits/tomes are actually decent with the right setup. Remember that most of his streams are MULTIPLAYER and multiplayer 4x have alot of rush which is why he do his calls as he does them. I get where he is comming from but I disagree with a number of his calls, I love medival culture for some of its buffstructures and cheaper upkeep. Another call is I don't mind losing and replacing units so tier 1 spearmen and a bunch of culture units he talked less well about I have gotten alot of use out of. That said medieval isn't my most used culture, I prefer barbarian, reaver, dark or industrial. I don't like high that much, they do have a everything unit setup that is solid but I rather use the more focused ones. Same can be said of traits universal ones will be decent more often but a more specialised one can carry supringly hard depending on map. I played a free for all/coop map + water with my mates and a few AI and we had regular underground size. Me having a underground adopted culture gave me alot of space to develop more or less uncontested and I could use underground tunnels to avoid sea battles entirely. Ofc with a small underground it is less useful. I have a faction that my mates hate fighting that is Primal flaming sabretooth with raider trait. Why do they take steps around it? My cities mean so little to them ( terrain are scorched ) and I burn cities rather than fight over them mid game to feed economy/bonus population thanks to chaos traits...which extends the reach of the scorched terrain around my cities. You could theoreticly do something similar with primal spider and underground or crocodile and marches.

[@carsonnesbit1178]

Yea I take underground adaptation a lot because I like playing dwarves, it’s nice having the underground passages as strategic choke points and it seems like there’s more resources down there. The only issue is that even on large underground, the maps tend to not generate large enough caverns to settle cities other than your capital unless you get lucky.

[@voxkine9385]

100% play single player and 100% use random maps, so I love the adaptation traits. Getting stuck underground next to the sea is terrifying, which is why I take traits that make me more of a universal colonizer. Nothing I hate more than getting an underground start map and being instantly destroyed by it. It may not be optimal, but it’s fun! Same with the seafarers pick, not great, especially on non-water maps, but my economy isn’t devastated when it is. It’s honestly why I have 0 interest in mp strategy games. It so quickly kills variety and turns the game into a spreadsheet… that’s just me though, to each their own.

[@kottylion6302]

@@voxkine9385 That's why you play MP roleplay sessions! :D

[@NumbingDisasterAnon]

I am definitely more of roleplayer than a competitor. If I play pure competitive MP with these games, I’ll only be allowed to play like…1 or 2 playstyles and that’s it. It would ruin 90% of the fun of the game. But these vids are still interesting to watch

[@Shakon95]

Dwarf must be underground ( Warhammer) orc barbarians always Myes. Love roleplaying

[@Skittlez1123]

@@Shakon95 and ratkin dont exist.....yes yes

[@AlexanderTheGoodEnough]

Just got into this game watching Legend of Total War, who was my guru for years for that franchise (from Rome to Warhammer). Subbed to you now for this one, thank you so much for putting all this info, thoughts, and opinions out there for the newbies like me. this is exactly the kind of content I was looking for and you've delivered in spades.

[@Xezarious42]

Loving the Age of Wonders videos! You are the best channel for this game right now.

[@Shinshinvariety]

Glad you like them!

[@marvinellis7221]

One thing about the flying mounts. It NEGATES the embarked debuff!!

[@emilsoderman3691]

Sharp eyes is one of those things that is immenseley hard to actually judge: +1 vision range is actually a pretty big increase in number of tiles uncovered, and scouting the map earlier means you know where to go earlier and that acn help you snowball earlier etc. These kind of scouting bonuses can be very handy but they're just about impossible to quantify.

[@ruukinen]

Yeah, vision range is better the more of it you have, until you already uncover everything you need to instantly. Generally the better the players are, the more important information is, so it's probably one of the better traits in MP.

[@HobGobMob]

41:15 Poisonous is very strong, because what did poison counters? Regeneration! So if you immune to poison and use regeneration enemy will have to work harder to dispel it, also it threatens to remove regen from melee enemies. Also poison is very common debuf, and can be even more common in some realms with wild life traits (etc. Overgrown Realm, Wildlands, Rampant Flora and some others), helps in map swiping. Just pity other traits don't give immunity for other common debufs, like burning or electrified. Also inner skills not only can counter enemy, they can counter cons of your builds, for example inner lightning would help astral builds or those who take iron skin, inner fire helps your umbral demos or plant transformations. I suppose it something. Also keen-sighted very strong for maglock builds, heroes or units.

[@spacesui-t]

I am addicted to athletics. Cant create a race without it anymore pls send help

[@philipcorpuz6237]

honestly same without it I feel so slow 😭

[@MutatingManiacGarr]

Inner fire is really good when you know you wanna go undead with wightborne tho. S tier if you're going for that

[@lege3018]

Similarly, Inner Cold and Inner Lightning are good if you're going for Angelic Transformation and Astral Attunement, respectively.

[@afalling0bject178]

Adding in Poisonous for Gaia's chosen to complete the square

[@volodymyrboitchouk]

​@@lege3018 personally, i think poisonous is better if going celestial because tome of warding gives you frost resistance and is, imo, an excellent starting tome for a high into celestial build. Also, for some reason, it gives poison immunity as an additional benefit.

[@HobGobMob]

10:40 Played feudal two days ago, and when I used CALL TO GLORY on my units with cheerful, they got +8 morale instead of +5, as the spell says. So I suppose cheerful works. If you're wondering why I played a feudal with cheerful, I wanted to see how much you can push tome archers in a solo game. I didn't care for cultural archers, but feudal gave me +20 dmg from stand together, overwhelm tactics gave another +20 while they stand together, but this time for my critical, I also took keen sighted for accuracy and cheerful for additional morale and crit procs. At last took Tome of Alchemy as starting tome for afflicators as starting archers. I was pleased with the end result.

[@Mythraelis]

Hideeous Stench combined with arcane focus, a mystic origin, a dragon lord with debuffing, 2 spellshield front-units is, in my eyes, an absolute killer combo. I love this trait.

[@okonkwojones]

1:08:52 Death beetle also has the issue where when you jump away it doesn’t turn you to face the enemy ball you just escaped from-so if they can chase you, they’ll get flanking attacks on your exposed backside, making entering defense mode kinda a false friend.

[@postapocalypse0763]

45:30 The backstory for Guthuk is amazing 48:05 Peak fiction for Holuf-wyn

[@MrJudexus]

Wow, man. you did a great job on those guide videos, they are super helpful for newbies (not only). And in my humble opinion you underestimate "Keen Sighted", i woul put it in "Requires a specific build" category. My explanation from my experience is that when you shoot for a 7 to 9 distance and sometimes even 11 distance, this small trait can literally double your chances to hit. From lowest 20 to 40 which makes a huge difference, especially when you can take out 1 enemy unit on turn 1 from half of the map.

[@simplythecat4068]

You gave me exactly what I was wondering about under your shadow tomes video, thank you!

[@HotelVice]

Would love a video on build order, or how to make such decisions. Just got the game and really appreciate your videos!

[@jagerbudansew4291]

Ferocious makes itself a STRONG niche with bulwark in righteous oathsworn builds with knight warrior heros you can have extremely dangerous honor blade and hero stacks as early as your first or second tome. Of course any build can make anything good in this game I just wanted to add that there is a new niche for ferocious races that did not exist before ways of war dlc.

[@zakharpolikarpov2525]

Personally I think Adaptable is actually a good trait, considering it is just 1 point. Reaching higher levels 1-2 maybe even 3 fights faster would get you 2 more hp than Hardy for that duration. Since I've been playing Reavers in Campaign lately, I noticed that getting that Champion Rank on your magelocks really improves your clearing potential (on manual). You have good multiplayer experience, so I'll trust in Hardy being generally better, though I think there are some arguments for adaptable depending on your setup and that it should be very good on ranged focused builds (that apparently aren't meta)

[@simplythecat4068]

Adaptable is probably also just a crutch for Feudal to be a little less terrible, since you get to convert your peasants into defenders faster. But why would you do that?

[@rafaelyamano2661]

@@simplythecat4068 I did that with my dragon build. The idea was to get build stuff around the Tome of Evolution, so it helped that I could spend 50 gold to get what in two fights would be a tier 2 unit (prolific swarmers + the blacksmith upgrades). I also played with autoresolve most battles, and had flying eagle trait, so the defender could get to the frontline as quickly as the dragons, the pikeman could not. It's a niche build, but I think it works to get dragons to work, which is what I wanted. I wanted to fight with dragons, that's all.

[@justincronkright5025]

I wonder if you have it set up with 'Draconic Vitality' or something too, you can be getting something like +6 H.P. per unit early on too. Essentially giving you hardy for 'Just' playing the game.

[@dragonflame4990]

Right but, it’s not how good something is, but how good it is compared to what else you could have. And that’s why it’s bad.

[@luka188]

You can just take Adaptable, Tough and Resistant, where you take Adaptable instead of Hardy, which can probably work out very well with the extra EXP you get, but hardy might just be better anyway as the up front HP helps a lot and Adaptable might not get you levels as much faster as you expect. Hardy helps your units survive auto battles (MP is generally played Auto only against the map), which gives them more XP, and it also allows them to fight more since they'll have more HP in general, so they can fight more and get more XP that way as well. The biggest upside for Adaptable is faster leveling on your higher tier units, which will be comparatively kind of weak when you first get them, but it only works on those of your race, so it isn't even always that useful.

[@abagofkittens-z8w]

Really appreciate your videos. I’ve only been playing AoW for about a week and I’m loving it. I’m a TWH3 convert so I’ve appreciated your explanation of the mechanics as well as discussions around some of the past meta and current meta. No MP yet, been really enjoying the campaign as I get used to the game.

[@abagofkittens-z8w]

P.S. - do race transformations overwrite each other or do they stack?

[@ryamano]

Minor transformations stack, you can have only one major.

[@volodymyrboitchouk]

I think that of the blood/poisonous traits you might be undervalueing poisonous. On top of making the unit imune to poison it works well with defensive wards in the tome of warding. Ive been messing with a High/Pyre Templar build where i take the poisonous trait, some other defensive traits, and start with tome of warding. This gives me resistance to every elemental damage type except spirit. But, eventually, with the celestial tag, all my units just end up getting every elemental resistance. Poisonous also halps dawn shields be better at killing enemies early and contributes to pyre templars and daylight spears being unattackable in melee.

[@NopeNopenope-y6u]

In defense of Quick Reflexes. That trait + a ring with "windbarrier" (-60% to be hit by ranged) makes your heroes almost immune to enemy ranged attacks. There're countless times, when enemies surrounded my deffender-heroes and then their archers shot their own troops in the back, because they were missing. Also, enemy range units have to come closer to get a good shot, which makes them easier to reach with mele units and they clump more to be blasted by aoe.

[@earlkoh216]

A big problem with herbivore is that the ai likes to run away from a melee fight to go eat a tree, which can trigger a retaliation attack. For that reason, i usually go herbivor only if i picked swiftfoot raptors/ elusive. Another synergy with bulwark is tome of the construct. A chain defensive mode is bonkers. Mammoth/elephant mounts can combo with supergrowth, making all your units single model entities who always do full damage. Personally i think that the entire form trait should be reworked. Double the amount of points to 10, and double the number of points that the majority of traits give. Better traits can cost a point more, and worse traits can cost a point less, making it much easier to balance. Personally, i also think that the swamp adaptation etc should just cost 0 trait points

[@trixie2558]

I really like your idea with the trait point changes. The adaption traits would be much more impactful if, say, the terrain of the world was close to an even split on all types, and there was a grasslands adaptation trait that you would need to settle farms on it. It wouldn't be a massive balance change, but it would help to make terraforming more potent.

[@pharoahman475]

Arctic Adaption I think has a use, and that use is Tome of Cryomancy. Using Arctic Adaption can help a lot with getting their Schools of Cryomancy Research Stations to also provide a hefty Mana Income early game. While Cold Dark might not be as important do to having better tools for making Arctic Terrain, getting Frostspires without needing to use Marching Winter is I feel is still worth it a lot of the time.

[@Se7a]

I think that Fast Recuperation is on par with the other best traits you've listed. Does the same thing as them early/late game, allowing you to fight more. I've found it even more useful with the hero/3 units compostion for XP boosting than 2 defense/resistance because some times you fight mostly against magical, other mostly against physical, plus it's better when you are getting from one zone to build an outpost to another.

[@creepyfellow]

I went through multiple games stacking ceaseless cacophony and hideous stench traits with tentacle tome to make really sticky debuffing constrictors with a very damaging magic ranged support or miasma from alchemy for massive dots. Cacophony stacks with misfortune so it makes enemies even more useless.

[@ruukinen]

I wish paradox in general would take note of this dev teams work. Multiplicative scaling for modifiers that reduce something is the only way to go in a game. Otherwise 10 defence would make units invulnerable, like it would in Stellaris for example. To counter that you need to have caps, which are usually just a bandaid on what is really easily solved with this 13:00.

[@AshenVictor]

The one mild synergy for Ferocious is that you can use the Taunt ability to force enemies to walk off of one unit to try and get at another, eating an opportunity attack from the unit that came and thumped them last turn. Bonus points if they can't actually reach the unit that taunted them (but have a technically valid path to it so they have to try).

[@patrickhickey4047]

You're probably a better player than I so I'm curious about your thoughts on these ideas. The first is what I call a "split" build. The idea is that you use form units for one role, and then something else (summons, constructs, animals) for the other. So you optimize your form for the chosen role and don't worry about the other. Maybe your front line will be form, and your back line fire elementals. Or your front line will be summoned creatures, and your back line form spellcasters. That could power up the value of ranged accuracy or magic damage bonuses. The second is that if you're good at healing, defensive traits become more valuable because the effective HP you get from the heals grows as defense or resist grows. Defense is always good so I don't know if this needs said, but it's a thing. I also think that if feudal was better certain traits would instantly become more valuable, but that's kind of it's own issue. Feudal is good at bunching up, good at morale, and good at experience. And everyone rates poorly traits that boost bunching up, morale, and experience. But feudal is kind of bad, and its tome paths are kind of weird, and it just doesn't work out.

[@Kyman73]

Took me 2 tier list videos to find this one where face cam was active. I knew I recognized the voice, what up hashinshin! Seeing you makes me feel 10 years younger

[@pawzom2564]

For elephants they should drop the health by 5 and give them 2 spirit and 2 fire resist. Elephants are often associated with royalty and being noble creatures that care deeply about their fellows could explain the spirit resist while they also often live in hot areas where elongated ears that can be flushed with blood help them cool down from the heat so maybe just think of it like that?

[@GamerSerg74]

For Bulwark, you can forge a shield for heroes that makes you always end in defense mode with two haste berries.

[@HobGobMob]

1:15:20 This one is important Graceful Judge Mount is actually very cool, yes it's not a dinosaur, but it is even better: it is based of Kirin - Japanese (asian) unicorn, with sometime described as dragon, stag and some other animal (like tiger or horse) hybrid and hi is considered as protector of the forest. Also in Japanese giraffe is called kirin. It's not a good choice in a game, but he looks and sounds cool enough to take this trait anyway.

[@LordDevanator]

Tier 1 traits that I have played with/have an opinion on. 1. Desert is worse than you made it out to be. Starting cities usually have 3 cleared resourse nodes adjacent at the start. (iron, gold, and pastures) Desert doesn't start with pastures and doesn't get replaced with oasis(10 food is not a lot, but you're nerfing your start) Undergound on the other felt good to use(only 1 game, so grain of salt). You start with excavation(100 Imperium). Whenever you excavate a resource node is created in that province(can be magic material, but unlikely). Industrial pioneer can exploit and extract in the same turn(need to position corrrectly), which also creates more places to exploit. Adaptable is worth 2hp early game. First two rank ups is 10 hp each, 20% of 10 is 2. Will make more comments later.

[@ruukinen]

"Adaptable is worth 2hp early game. First two rank ups is 10 hp each, 20% of 10 is 2" that's not how you would calculate the benefit, since you'd get it anyway at some point, you have to calculate it in terms of time spent in that higher XP bracket, either turns or fights. It's also worse than it sounds due to how levels are discrete steps of power increases instead of continuous power increases. If leveling up only takes one fight, there is no benefit until you jump an entire level ahead. Obv that's not how leveling works but that's the most illustrative example I could think of.

[@origamiknife7556]

Mount damage scales with the tier of the unit, so tier 3 mount abilities deal more damage than tier one and your heroes mount does even more.

[@dmitrylitovchenko8472]

pack tactics actually has a decent benefit for the early game - it allows to kill strong high tier units more easily, if at all, so you can clear infestations and wonders earlier than you would otherwise. like, all you need to do is to surround enemy on your turn and then attack with every unit, everyone would have 40%-60% more damage, which is a game changer. combine with sneaky and that one spell that applies distracted and suddenly you can fight battles you normally would lose.

[@jan3381]

one thing to mention about the environment adaption skills: "Desolate Adaption" is the worst because of the Lava rivers....

[@ItWasSaucerShaped]

Fumbles do not apply on hit effects at all. That's why Cacophany can be good with a misfortune build - opponents will just not be able to stick their on hit effects to you, which can strip a huge amount of damage off of their units.

[@blackleon1708]

Yea, I thought you will do these after tomes, it needs it. You did it earlier, than I thought. Great aow4 content!

[@emilsoderman3691]

Also, IIRC Mammoths/Elephants reduce the model count more than regular mounts, I want to say it's actually possible to get down so that regular units are single model by stacking Mamefants+supergrowth?

[@luka188]

Yes that is in fact possible, and very strong for that reason.

[@noneofyourbusiness3288]

Something people need to keep in mind is "Is the juice worth the squeeze?". Yes you can build around whacky traits, but is it worth it? If you are just there to have fun and beat up AI (as am I), then the "squeeze" is the fun part, but going into multiplayer without the "juice" is a different story.

[@GamerSerg74]

Regarding Arcane Focus being good for Mage Rulers, keep in mind Wizard King rulers do not get form traits (even if they are the same form) so you would have to be a champion mage to make that work.

[@millerrepin4452]

Keen sighted and sneaky on reavers is really good Over all though I do agree you generally don't need keen sighted for most other factions Cheerful and overwhelm tactics work really well together as high morale nets better crit chance. The tome of zeal gives extra morale and your zealous barbarians turn into monsters early on. Ferocious seems like it's one tome away from being really powerful. One attack getting extra damage per retaliation is laughable. But if you could give multiple units extra retaliation strike and buff their defense with bulwark it suddenly seems way better. Not to mention if a culture has additional retaliation strikes built into their units (industrious polearms or high culture polearms for example) you get three strikes. One last thing I did try resistance with empowered by magic for my oath of strife oathsworn. They did pretty well despite being a random map on brutal. My thought processes is that they are always getting hit by magic attacks anyway so minimize the damage and offset the casualties by getting strengthen stacks instead of getting tenacious.

[@afalling0bject178]

Arcane Focus/Hideous Stench for Dragons is always fun. Bull Charge Heros who end their turns in Defense mode, add in Charge Resistance and your hero just becomes unbelievably brutal

[@vladimirkiselev6066]

Gotta to check if Dragon Lord's Dragon breath counts toward Empowered by Magic, since it has Magic tag. Could potentially get Strengthened for your entire army. Unfortunately, need level 12 to opt for breath not doing damage to allied troops before checking out. As a side note, already ascended my High Dragon lord via tome of Goddess of Nature, now his twin awakening innate free action and dragon roar provide himself and allies with additional stacking regeneration.

[@ryamano]

On hideous stench and sneaky: Try reavers with it. Let the enemy alpha strike your mercenary. Then use something to immobilize or freeze the enemy (harrier / ice witch). Then try to mind control it (overseer / nymph). There, one unit taken out of combat, maybe fighting for you. With nymph if it it's not mind controlled it's distracted. One or the other. Now the not mind controlled unit suffers 50% more damage from the magelocks and magecannons. It's dead. Mind controlling like this can make you have an 18 unit army very, very quick in the early game. So you snow ball from that, not from having units heal more, from stealing other people's units.

[@hypercasual6788]

Looking forward to this after work soon. Its nice to get another perspective that is different than mine on the game.

[@amera35]

The accuracy one is probably best for a ranger hero with an army of mage locks. They can really do insane damage

[@matthev24-7]

👏below👏the👏two👏hours👏let's👏goooo!

[@z-rossi3672]

Id say fast recup should be in the best ways to build as well, just on its own its so powerful and lets you fight so much more often

[@halfblood3182]

Great video as a big player my self with tons of hours the oathsworn works super good with bulwark. I do find if u are using swamp, it combos seafarers, gives u a guaranteed river or an ocean start witch combos very nicely. Other than that, the others are a no-good for the most part. I do strongly agree wirh everything else u have said in n general. Keep up the great videos.

[@johnolson6537]

man this guy is my kind of guy so detiled welll deep thought. thanx worth the extra time

[@ItWasSaucerShaped]

imho, arctic adaptation is an extremely interesting pick because of marching winter it means you save money on roads, get bonus production and food and can be extremely quick on the map if you focus on mounted units i'm always surprised at how much i miss arctic adaptation's bonus movement when i'm not playing with a marching winter build

[@afalling0bject178]

Inner Fire, Resistant, Tome of Warding and Pyromancers into Cleansing Flame=Free Strengthened and Cleanses and the glory of Anarchy!

[@somenonsense7997]

A way to better describe defense and resistance: each stack of defense/resistance multiplies incoming physical/magical damage by 0.9 Or in shorter terms, stacks of defense/resistance scales multiplicatively. Notably, each stack of defense/resistance is a consistent effective HP increases of x1.111.... , which is equivalent to 10 HP on a 90 HP hero.

[@samueledwards211]

I honestly really like underground adaptation if I don't run primal with the spider boon. I feel like it allows you to have a bit of a stealthy throne city. I also ran cheerful on a race that had no crit chance but they kept criting so I think it does work the way it implies.

[@igncom1]

Buffs to vision range are exponentially good, as it reveals tons more tiles per +1 tile range. Of course how powerful the information you get is, can vary a ton.

[@GrayWolf1192]

@13:30 think youre looking for the term Effective HP.

[@adrienwarad]

im kind of maniac: - i always take "hardy", love more hp (and adds up to mounts traits) - i always take underground adapt because i love underground (i replace by elusive when i get primal culture) + i havent met players bothering me underground ^^ - i always take a mount trait (love 80% of them ^^, i got rare exeption where i replace by elusive + resistance) => i havent tested "cheerful" but i always take doomherald tome + celebration tome, i wonder how it would impact them (but i dont have points for this trait anyway) side note: you gain a lot of movements with desolation adaptation and underground adaptation, while you slow enemies if you paint grounds with primal cultures or abyss society

[@znail4675]

Keen sighted should really be in the "good for the right build" as 20% damage increase in a ranged focused build is not bad in any way. Keen sighted and Strong, Reaver Magelocks tends to get rid of enemys. Keen Sighted and Arcane Focus, Astral may also be worth it by going for Battlemages in addition to Mage heroes. While it doesn't help with the area effect attacks so are there still some base shooting being done. They are very focused on doing that specific thing, so obviously not a generic good trait.

[@Fervus-e5b]

I love how the Graceful Judge looks! It's the best looking mount in the game in my opinion.

[@ciscoytube5352]

Great content bro.

[@ciscoytube5352]

I have played this game for way over 300hrs, and just now learned the following: Adaptable doesn't effect summoned units. Cheerful now gives you morale (maybe?) How defense stacks (10% of remaining damage per stack) Calvary reduces the number of models you have. Cacophony only actually mitigate 7% of damage Thanks for this.

[@PraetorianMan]

Hideous stench is so close to being good, like I could easily see it suddenly getting a perk like "It makes enemies distracted" and then suddenly it becomes broken BS.

[@klodpraisor]

the defense/res formula is dmg taken = 0.9^x, x being the actual stat.

[@seb4sti4n666]

Bulwark you really need to see Potatowhisky gameplay... This is a very very strong trait when you use it the right way

[@georgesvetlozarov8797]

I believe the point of ceasless cacaphony is to go for tome of mayhem and make the enemies take damage

[@justincronkright5025]

The Realm World-Map Spellcasting should count towards some pool that buffs your civ in some way (e.g. if you have a specific society trait or something the more you use it the more the buff stacks - or more snow, swamp, etc. = 1 coin per turn). But Swamp out of the other terrain-traits seems like the most useful generally with river movement. I know I picked the wrong game for it, but I don't like casting 50 spells. I want a comfortable & defensible position & maybe to use my terraforming spell aggressively to inhibit enemy growth for example. - I really don't like the number of games that just add in terraforming spells randomly in on the side. They make it too quick & easy & you barely play with it apart from random run-throughs where you're Role-Playing some Terraforming Robots just following their protocol or an invading horde like how most corruption from another dimension works in W.C. III & Warhammer, etc. *Thinking for Keen-Sighted - that taking the Longer Range High Archer units, this becomes more useful with that +1 Awakened Range. - Still new, but trying out Keen-Sighted + Strong + (just put Cheerful on) - this is with High Units & wanting to get a feel for critical chance and such. Was thinking of going hardy, but trying to maximise it - take out retaliation with distracted or just flanking & crit with lots of base damage. - Playing Warframe & learning/figuring out from builds & on my own, that damage is maximised when you balance the growth of each stat. So 100% crit chance from 1 great & 3 okay traits isn't as good as 1 great trait in damage, crit chance, crit damage & attack speed. So I try to replicate that here - 50% damage (awakened + strong) with 30% increased (Crit Chance Hero & Cheerful). Was thinking of Joy Siphoners with 'Tome of DoomHerald', just 9 moral taken in a 3-shot volley which I think should be boosted by cheerful & if you Crit it's even more.

[@uBaH0B]

Regarding Hideous Stench I like it with Discipline where my melee units can stun on a low chance and with this it is better.

[@mneri82]

Woah less than 2 hours?!?!! What sorcery is this?

[@emilsoderman3691]

Pretty sure Grazes (not sure about Fumbles) do *not* apply on-hit effects. They just deal damage (though there might be some weird interactions)

[@wi8231]

You are right, grazes do not apply status effect. Some attacks cannot graze. Fumbles convert hits into grazes, and grazes into miss.

[@Adoffka]

Can ceaseless cacophony turn a crit into fumble? And while 20% range accuracy is mediocre, reavers get a huge benefit from it. It enables magelocks, who are the staple of the army, reposition and still somewhat reliably land huge hits.

[@krzysztofkalinowski2998]

Cheerful is working pretty well. High morale = +20% crit chance :)

[@dependent-ability8631]

how the hell did this become an hour?

[@Shinshinvariety]

Started recording and didn’t stop until it was over

[@PraetorianMan]

If you wanna keep this madness going on *forever*, you should start doing these kind of deep dive videos about AOW Planetfall lol

[@jesperengelbredt]

How about adding a bonus against other mounted units to elephants? Maybe a morale debuff? Historically, elephants were used as anti-cavalry units due to horses being afraid of them. I get that all mounts are not horses in this game, but it seems reasonable enough and a bonus that only works against mounted units is not as powerful.

[@mercb3ast]

Echoing other sentiments here. Most of these traits are for RP/theme purposes. It would be cool if everything could be balanced perfectly, but that could never happen. There is basically only 1 combo or variation of that combo you should ever pick if you want optimal. Tough, Resilient, and Enduring. The other combo is, drop 1 of the 2 pointers and the 1 pointer and take elephants or mammoths. That's it. For MP that is SSS tier, nothing else comes close. In fact, the combo of tough and resilient is so blatantly better than everything else, many, if not most MP house rule them as mutually exclusive. If you don't care about hyper sweat competitive MP, of all 15 of the people who play that way in the community, the adaptation traits are absolutely fine. You can win on any level of SP difficulty with any build you want to play with.

[@austinquinn476]

Don't sleep on Elephants! You basically ignore obstacles because you bulldoze through them and you get more health. They're actually good and they cant make even weak tier 1 unite not useless in the late game.

[@badcactus819]

The only culture I feel like gets any real benefit from Keen Sighted is Reavers with a magelock hero. It is less about keen sighted being good and more about keen sighted being weirdly good at negating the major weakness the devs gave magelocks to compensate for them hitting like a freight train. I ran a sneaky/keen sighted/elusive reaver build and while not exactly optimal it did accomplish the goal of doing big stupid damage with the big stupid guns

[@TheMagicalPinata]

Ceaseless Cacophoney + that tome with all that misfortune is lols

[@jamiesullivan6602]

Graceful Judge is a Kirin, an east asian mythological creature

[@crunkers_]

I agree on the terrain traits except isnt underground just a little better than the rest of them? Based solely on the fact that you can snag up some of the underground early.

how do you feel about a tenacious + dragon tranformation + spawnkin combo? it *feels* pretty good in single player but i didn't have the chance to try it in multiplayer yet. how would you fill the build up?

[@giacomomasi8718]

In truth unless someone wants to go for flavor the best trait is the one about surviving more... Is kinda Universal in all games

[@wolffrdu6463]

White wolf mount for hero give 2 frost resistence, but it do not give it to the racial unit, that meant only hero get it when we get the trait, so i get it with inerfrost, to give the hero 4 frost resist but the unit only get 2, even on white wolf, i think it’s an over sight

[@mathrick9442]

First game i ever played i went artic walk, dark culture swung into undead from the get go and reimagined my take on Game of thrones, where the night king wins

[@e-rankluck2594]

I find it so hard to play without fast recuperation

[@letartarugasouza811]

Timestamps for every trait? You are too good

[@sebastjankosec]

Defensive tactics+bulwark go brrrrrrrrr

[@thefakerking51]

I would say tenacious is a great take if you plan on using spawnkin.

[@wegielek3]

I don't think being a Large Threat is that bad. As you have said, archers and battlemages aren't that common in army so the only units who would benefit from it are pretty scarce. And since you are Cav unit anywa, you will receive bonus damage from polearms anyway. What I do wonder about is "why use mounts when Athletics are a thing?"

[@noxusguy9735]

elephants + hardy + supergrowth from tomb of vigor? would this full max health build work

[@vickent2475]

Tomes please🎉

[@SoulRuninFree]

I’m just picking quick reflex’s bc I hate dealing with ranger units. I also wish that Ceaseless Cacophony was better.

[@kn1v3z2k]

is it possible to use elephant or mammoth with growth to turn shield unit into a single entity?

[@strawberryshower1175]

Hey man, by that "anime with bugs", did you mean Black Bullet, perhaps?

[@ho8ojoe8]

I have learnt that if i build for it it can be good

[@Puggerton007]

I thought the Judge was going to be a bull of some kind and not a reindeer lol

[@Someone-lg6di]

For fire thorns I used it with a zombie build so I was only weak to spurit

[@syrathegreat]

Bulwark Honor Blades 😍😍

[@JessePeterson-vk4qi]

Bulwark -> Oath of Strife -> Chaos Bolstering Matrix -> Counter Stance -> Win

[@codyksp]

I think you didn't mention that Flying mounts all reduce your model count to 2 (just like Elephant/Mammoth). This (obviously) makes them far more valuable than the other mounts, which are actually quite bad tbh.