Answered SORCERESSES

[DeletedUser]

Ok, ok, I posted on golems and treants. why not sorceresses. All you experienced players at the top of the heap, you fighter's fighter, step up. I am training the initial sorceresses. Now...how do I use them? What are they good at and poor at? What do they chop up and spit out. Jeez, my humble army needs some "killers." Are sorceresses my need?

 

[DeletedUser]

Come on , guys and gals ? Does the silence mean ruin for my sorceresses?

 

[DeletedUser195]

I have not reached the sorceress yet in my Elf city, I do have the priest in the Human city on the other server. I love my priest, may be wrong with my thinking, he is just a little fragile when used against armies that outnumber his fellow members in battle. I have had him destroyed by war dogs, granted I took on an opponent that was larger than my forces. When my forces were equal, somewhat smaller than the opponent, he is a big help. He kills a few, and makes it easier for his fellow troops to destroy their opponents by putting the spell on them. Treants, I and II may cause a problem, some are not affected by his spell until they are hit with the spell a couple of times, then again I have not promoted him, but he will stand his ground with others and can be a force to have to deal with.

Sorry to not help with your question on the sorceress, just thinking the priest and the sorceress may be in the same league when in battle.

I also only use one squad, two at the most, because of the amount that I can train. They are valuable and are a big help against the right opponents, just be aware of the amount of forces you put him up against.

 

[Jixel]

I have some experience with Sorceresses.

What I've found so far :
There is one specific case where Sorceresses can wipe the field of the opponents - if you field all Sorcs against 5 or fewer stacks of ranged (light/heavy) opponents, with no melee.
Specific case - I put 5 stacks of Sorcs against 3 stacks of Bandits, plus one of Cannoneers - normally a terrifying combination, because 40+ Cannoneers can take out a single stack of Sword Dancers in a round, depending on luck, and if the terrain blocks my way, I may have to survive 2-3 rounds just to get to them.
In this case, the Sorcs started out of range of the Bandits, and the Cannoneer didn't kill too many with their first attack. After that, each Sorc unit attacked a different enemy stack - their -60% defenses against ranged attacks stacked with the Broken Valor power (-60% to attack), and none of the enemy units could hit any of mine. I wiped out a challenging group with no further losses.

However ! This doesn't work if the enemy has more than 5 stacks - in that case, in every round one of the enemy stacks will be able to attack, and in sufficient numbers they will quickly whittle down your army. (I learned this one the hard way, just after the previous encounter )

Also, Sorceresses don't seem to combine well with Treants - e.g., depending on the sequence of attacks, something like this might happen :
Sorceress hits nearest enemy stack, they now have -60% on their attack.
Treant II hits the same stack, the Daze effect applies and overrides the Broken Valor, now they only have -20% penalty !
Then the enemy stack gets their attack, at -20% (not -60% or -80%, as you might hope for).

Finally - the Broken Valor icon which appears on the enemy units seems to last longer than the effect - i.e. I've had units with the icon still present attack, but the hit/damage figures show no -60% effect on them.

So, in summary:
They can be useful, they work best when mixed with your Sword Dancers, assuming the SDs can block any melee units from the Sorcs.
Obviously you need to keep them protected, especially if there are Cerberuses in the enemy army - they can wipe out Sorcs very quickly.

 

[DeletedUser]

Jixel...great answer! Thanks. I have slowly come around and am now a huge fan of treants II , they rock. Even using golems some, hard to kill. Now I see some use for soceresses, I hope. Will try is some.

 

[DeletedUser247]

Thanks for this jixel. I did try Sorceresses in combo with 3 treants and 1 golems and had a good results in weakening the back row of opponent archers on 5 or more stacks .