Pyromancer and Enchantress

[Drunken Dragon]

Has anyone found a good way to use the Enchantress? Ive only been able to effectively use her once or twice and that was against newbies who set them selves up perfectly for it. Her low movement really makes her difficult to use, if she could move 4 spaces it might be different...
On another note, does anyone else find pyromancers pretty worthless? For having a 3 turn recovery they deal very little damage, and unless your opponet is an idiot you never get to hit more that 2 targets. Seems to me they need a 2 turn recovery, or should deal more damage... Compared to the Dark witch their total crap.

[vermdrums]

I totally agree the enchantress is worthless, and the pyromancer needs a lower recovery time

[ABronsonM]

The pyromancer is good, you just haven't learned how to use it well yet.

[VX14]

enchantress is amazing if used correctly, but sux ass if u dont know how 2 use it

pyros are pretty bad, but if you use 2 pyros together, they can do tons, its like bishops in chess...

also a pyro, dark witch, and lightning ward attack can take down another lightning ward, i do that a lot, so a pyro comes in handy there too

also if u destroy the cleric, pyros do tons of damage with the splash

[Hashish_Scout]

Right. I usually put two pyros and a ward up front. first three turns, destroy the ward. Then, the enemy usually wants to destroy the ward, and so commits magical units that could be used to other purposes. Useful.

[Cragspyder]

Here's a bit on enchantress usage I wrote a little bit ago... I've used it like three times now to support enchantresses, heh....

"I don't know why most people don't use enchantresses. I find that most people are unprepared for them because of this and this causes them to lose late game when my enchantress takes two of their knights out of commission and either wins the game or leaves it to a struggling assassin or cleric in the back.

I think most people are hesitant to use enchantresses because they are a liablilty early game because of their short and awkwardly shaped spell radius. Plus it's easy for a spare scout or assassin to knock them out of focus (especially scouts). Most people choose the more direct winners like a second dark witch or a lightning ward, but I've won more battles then not using an enchantress, late game, even when I'm outnumbered."

The key to enchantresses is saving them to late game. Yeah, it does mean you are basically out a unit for the first half, but not really because the threat of paralysis is always there. I've used it a couple of times against a lone rampaging assassin in my rear ranks simply to keep her off my cleric and its always worked out for the best.

Once the scout and a few mages are gone, the enchantress really shines because her recovery is only two turns (i believe) and she can take at least one hit and maybe two if you heal her. Against late game melee most units will only have time to hit her once, and then she paralyses. And when a unit out of spell radius tries to rush her in order to take her out, you can reposition her behind a paralyzed unit and fire off the paralyze again. It's worked for me at least. You can also barrier ward her and keep her focused! The distance between units in late game playing makes it easy to disable a few units and take out the remainder for the win. Late game you shouldn't be using the paralyze unless you've got at least two people in the radius. Another strategy: lure your opponent's units in with a few 'giveaway' back attacks (make 'em look like mistakes :)) and then paralyze away. Even if you get your own units it doesn't matter as long as you get their's too, and her recovery makes her easy to reposition in order to free some of your own units for combat again. It does take some practice though, and if you just can't make it work you can always use your stupid lightning wards. :P. But that's just my opinion.

As for pyromancers, you're right, they usually don't cut it for me, which is why I love sacrificing them in order to damage three or four guys at once, or to draw lightning ward fire. Plus your enemy has to move forward in order to take him out and this often results in a back-attack or, considering his 1/3 block chance from the front, waste your opponent's turns and give you time to strike somewhere else.

Thanks for reading if you bothered :p

[Drunken Dragon]

Well it seems like everyone ( except for
ABronsonM who provided no reasoning for his statement) feels pyromancers need a 2 turn recovery. I hope some of the staff could take that into consideration, they could be very usefull after you have taken out a cleric.

Also does anyone feel Enchantress's are worth using if you have a frost golem? He can be useful during a knight rush, but he can only paralyze one unit at a time.

[Lone Wolf]

I find the pyromancers a good opening move against the newb formation. walk out on my first move and attack the assasin and the witch with him. Then the newb will either attack him with the witch hopin to hit the knight behind him, or move out his assasin. either way they become lightning foder, or Knight bait.

As for the enchatress i find that a barrier ward is more useful. Allows you to perserve an essential unit for the last fight.

- Lone Wolf

[KiDevil]

I think any piece is more then useful as long as you know what your doing with it. Esspecially an enchantress, she can easily dominate a game if given the chance. The last 3 games, at the end I had 3 or more of the pieces locked down. Most of them they will be a scout or a knight, being those two pieces take alot of work to take down normally, but with her she can locked them down easily. And if you can get barrier off on her right away, all the better, but its not nesserary. Again with the pryromancer, he doesn't do a whole lot, but he's got some ok range on him, and he can hit multiple people, the only other piece that can do that is the witch, and assasin. The witch and assasin are more limited in hitting multiple people. and the assasins isn't auto hit. So I think the mancer is more then usuable. Any way, thats just my 2 cents.

Edit: Oh, ya they also do have a decent blocking rate, 33%, 1/3rd of there attacks when attacked head on. When I use my mancer I try to not get to close to them, that they would be able to get to his sides for the half block.

[ABronsonM]

Pyromancers can be great in the early beginning of a game to quickly spread damage around. Since it takes 2 hits *besides the lightning ward* to take them out you can get them to wherever and hurt a group pretty bad. Its also useful for a dual team of pyromancers to take out your opponents spellcasters. I don't like enchantresses because they never seem to work for me *i never really liked paralyzing* Plus i always watch out for them and take them out when i can. A good deal of players also foolishly clump units together in the formation which easily provides targets for pyromancers.

Another thing about enchantresses is they aren't very useful if people watch out for them.

[KiDevil]

The most success I have with enchantresses is usually getting down a one pieces, and then maybe warding it if its in trouple, if not then I leave it be, and it takes the piece of out the game, whcih can be just as a good as a kill, because if they don't get rid of the enchantress its a 1 hit kill basically. Also alot of people make the mistake of going in for her when she is focused, and hitting her taking out of her focus, then I just recast her, and get another piece locked down, so just a tip to some people out there, if you can't take the ehcnatress out with the attack, or next attack, don't try to get close and take her down.

[trogdor_7]

Actually, I was just in a battle, and I saved my enchantress for the end of the game. I must have been playing a newbie, but in the end I had three of his units trapped, and that is how I won the game. Don't be afraid to paralyze one of your own units as long as you are trapping one or two of theirs. It's a good stratagey.

[Cleon]

The main problem that I have with Pyros is that they spread their damage... that's bad because Clerics spread their healing.

So if you damage four units for 10 damage with a pyro, and damage one unit for 20 damage with a knight, then a cleric heals.... the units the pyro hit have full hp again and the unit the knight hit still is down 18 hp. As long as there are clerics, pyromancers are fairly useless. It's aparent by the witch-cleric relationship that the makers took into consideration the other units when drafting each individual unit... makes you wonder why they overlooked this problem with the pyro. Maybe they meant for it to be this way?

[Ri'Orius]

Enchantress is one of my favorite units. I usually try to use her to get the Scout early, along with whatever units are nearby. Then, my strategy becomes a game of "protect the Enchantress", as I focus on moving Knights to block for her and targeting the other guy's Pyro's (ranged attacks are best for undoing the Enchantress' focus, hence the initial paralysis of the Scout).

Also, it seems that very few people have had any experience against Enchantresses--too many times have people attacked her with a Knight, only to have me immediatly use her again to ensnare the Knight as well as her previous catches. Follow it up with a Cleric heal so she'll survive the next hit, and just block to stall off her guys until she's refreshed.

It's also a ton of fun, looking to see which goobers are in range, who I can move to get in their way, etc. I highly recommend you give it a shot. I used to use a Lightning Ward instead, but I have not looked back since the switch.

[darkdelirium]

If your gonna play "protect the enchantress" heres a recomendation. Barrier ward. Not a thing better for enchantresses... if they dont spend the turn after the enchant para's to attack the enchantress, then you barrier ward, they spend a turn (probably two) to break the barrier ward focus, you spend your next turn doing whatever, they spend a turn to attack the enchantress and she's down to half health... then you have recovered enchantress and snag two units, and hopefully use a cleric heal at this point ;).

That's one of the few times I use one... if you can't see I break my own little rules and recomendations quite often.

[Garrison0300]

my enchantress protects my cleric, and does it well. She becomes even more useful late game. She wins me games frequently.

[gekigarion]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet, but:

Step 1: A neat way to put things out of commission is use decoys to lure them in, then use the enchantress to lock them down.

Step 2: Use a Barrier Ward to Barrier the enchantress. Now they can't do anything to her until they get the ward, which with its long range should be buried deep into your territory.

Step 3: Surround barrier ward with Knights to protect against Scouts.

[Legend Keiphus]

Originally posted by vermdrums
I totally agree the enchantress is worthless, and the pyromancer needs a lower recovery time

the enchantress is one of the best units in the game, and the pyro, if used along side another pyro/witch/scout/assassin, can be extra effective. These are both very useful units, it's almost an insult to call the enchantress useless.. Then again, when I see people here marching them up to my lightward on the first turn, I can see why they think they are useless, since they die right away.