User talk:Xoduzz

Please post this guide:

February 2018 Ascendant Guide

Hello!

I go by Catholocate. I started playing this game back in 2003; and the game has evolved heavily since then. I took a 5 year hiatus after not fully understanding the game, played sporadically, then another 10 year hiatus until getting back into it heavily in the beginning of 2017. I have been playing consistently since then and have routinely placed between ranks 15-50 @ Armaggedon on Blitz since then. I am by no means a master of this game, but I understanding how jarring and confusing it can be at first. I also routinely experience the wonderful nature of a fresh server start, and the absolute enjoyment of determining new stacks and new builds for new adventures.

I am unfamiliar with proper stacking on over-summoning servers. I am unsure if this guide will be useful there - I only play on non-oversummoning servers such as Blitz and Solo.

So let’s get right into it! I’ll keep it short and sweet. I’ve split this into: _________________

Beginning (including researching skills) Buildings Spells Items Stacking Units Barracks units including heroes Attack and Defend! _________________

Beginning:

Research! Build those libraries. I like about 1000 libraries. Get Concentration first (blue), cast it, recast every 100 SL. Also: Choose a skill to research passively. I will only be talking about the ones that aren’t completely useless for white.

Ascendant automatically researches:

Legendary Artificer

Which increases item effectiveness. Frankly, I don’t like this. Here’s why: it increases effectiveness of items, which are going to get blocked by barriers… 75% of the time. Nearly everyone runs 2.5% barriers, and this equates to roughly 75% item blocks when attacking.

Spell Penetration

This is one of my favorites, this and Legendary Commander. It’s great because it increases your chances of barrier penetration on spells.

Augment Summoning:

Could be very useful, but I don’t think it’s worth the points. Basically it’s great because it allows you to get that extra over-summon allowed on non-oversummoning servers.

Legendary Commander:

This is my current go-to. Buff whites are just fun. This in conjunction with items and spells that are Damage focused like Sword of Light, Potion of Valor, Candle of Sleeping and others really add up over time.

Grand Enchanter:

Honestly never used it. Not gonna pretend like I know of the benefits.

Barrier Proficiency:

I like this because it reduces the amount of barriers you need for 75% resistance, OR it increases your max resistances - making it harder for people to penetrate your shields.

Grand Conqueror:

Once again, I am sure it is very useful but not for my play style. For someone who micromanages and scouts their targets (sending 1 unit to determine an enemies stack, then building their stack around their target) I could see this being very useful. But I think scouting is cheap, and I don’t do it.

Buildings:

White is a MP heavy speciality. You’ll want to run 44.99% nodes. Anything above this and you’ll be receiving huge diminishing returns. The rest is going to be: around 200-300 libraries for item generation, 100-200ish barracks depending on how much you’ll be recruiting (more on that below), 2.5% barriers at all times, .5%-1% forts (lower forts = lower less power, which means you can get more of an upper hand against your opponents because you’ll have a lower power ceiling with more units).

Spells:

You’ll want to keep The Holy Light, Love and Peace, Weather Summoning, and Concentration up at all times.

Assault / Defense spells:

Assault: Sword of Light… is all I use. It in combination with The Holy Light is just wonderful.

Defense: The best success I have for defense is Blinding Flash + Satchel of Mist if you are unfamiliar with solid stacking. This makes it so no one can hit anyone, and so you probably won't lose the fight. A more difficult stack to use is Sword of Light + a Damage item like Candle of Sleeping, Bubble Wine, or Potion of Valor.

Play around with the other spells, read into them. Basically you want to keep this in mind: Don’t combo defensive spells with offensive items, and vice versa. For instance - don’t use Sword of Light and Satchel of Mist. That’s just a waste.

Items:

This guide is primarily focused on damage, as that is the most fun for me and I’m sure is probably the most fun for new players.

My favorite items are:

Bubble Wine: This is like Potion of valor on Steroids, great for offense and defense against all color mages.

Potion of Valor: This is great, cheap, and effective. 20% extra damage!

Candle Of Sleeping: This is Potion of Valor on crack. Reduces enemies resistances a huge amount.

Missile Shield: This is absolutely wonderful for hitting a lot of Black, Red, and Blue mages. If this passes on a Blue mage, you will probably win the fight.

Scroll of Protection from Fire: Eradication mages, like Verdant, will eat you up. These are expensive, but if they go through you are protected from most reds. Carpet of Flying: I-WIN button. Makes it so all of your units are flying. There’s a reason they are so expensive. Frankly don’t focus on items like this and Ash of Invisibility - learn to play the game first.

Ash of Invisibility: I-WIN button. Gives all of your units 6 initiative. Makes it so all your units hit first. Not as much as an I-WIN button as Carpet of Flying, but still very effective.

Pixie Dust: Good against people who mono-stack units. That’s about it.

Javelin of Lightning Bolt: Cheap and very effective in the early game (below 3.5k land) on defense and offense. Also reduces enemy counter attack by 25%.

Staff of Illusion: A cheaper version of Javelin of Lightning Bolt

Figurine of Ice Queen: Great against Reds. Can typically kill atleast 1 Fire elemental with this.

Flask of Holy Water: Effective in the early game in combination with Holy Word against Nether mages. Not really that great in the late game.

Head of Medusa: Great against mono-stacked ultimates like Red Dragons and Dominions. Really only good up to about 4k land though.

Vial of Venom: An extremely underrated item. This is my go-to item if I’m hitting Blues or Whites. Both whites and blues are weak to poison.

Web of the Spider Woman: Something in this game which is very… obnoxious to play around is Initiative. If a unit has 1 or 2 initiative, using Web in conjunction with Slow can make it so your units don’t attack. This is kind of the reverse of Ash of Invisibility.

Stacking

I thought I would put stacking here because then the units section would make more sense. This is how stacking works (in order)

Soakers Heavy Hitters Hitters Mid-Range Fodder, Ranged Fodder, Land Grabbers

You want your soakers up top, your heavy hitters behind your soakers, your hitters behind them, the mid-range hitters / fodder behind them, and your fodder / ranged fodder near the bottom - unless it’s Knight Templars, then you can put those up near the top depending on what color you are assaulting.

Units can overlap. For instance, Unicorns and Dominions are great Heavy Hitters and Soakers. Naga Queens are also great soakers and decent hitters. Titans are great mid-range and hitters, but they are also horrible soakers. Titans are glass-cannons. Great examples of fodder are Preachers (they dont die, you get them passively from Love and Peace), Soul Speakers, and personally I like Astral magicians when you run a balanced “deep stack.”

A deep stack is whites speciality. A deep stack means that your army is relatively similar in percentage distribution, and is ten stacks deep. If you’d like some more information on stack setups, please read the other Ascendant guides. They are still relevant in my opinion.

You’ll want to determine what works for you in terms of stacking. Personally I find the most fun with either a top-heavy stack spread, or a 10% across the board 10-stack-deep. This means running 10 different units at roughly 10% strength for each unit. 10% across the board is the most rewarding for me.

Units: (the good stuff! I’ll only be mentioning units I believe are worth summoning as white)

Ascendant Units:

Angels:

I have tried so hard to find a viable place for these units. Sadly, I have concluded they are just not that great due to their frequency of dying in droves and just not hitting hard. They are only useful against black mages. I’d avoid these.

Archangel:

ABSOLUTELY the best soaker in the game, right up there with Liches and Dwarven Shamans. This is going to be your top 1-3 stacks most of the time.

Astral Magician:

Ranged mid-hitter. Great initiative so they hit fast, but can die in droves. I keep these towards the bottom in high numbers.

Dominion: Archangel on Roids. Great soaker and heavy hitter. I run these towards the top.

Naga Queen:

I really like these. They are the absolute best top-ground stack to run versus verdant, pretty much negates their amazing melee attacks. This is a soaker/hitter stack.

Pegasus:

I don’t use these. I think all flying stacks are a gimmick and… I don’t have problems fighting against them.

Soul Speaker:

This is an absolutely great ranged fodder unit. Hits hard, can take a decent hit due to healing, and you can get tens of thousands of them. They grab land for you. Don’t let them get high in your ranks though! They will get destroyed.

Spirit Warrior:

It’s not bad. It’s not great. These are great mid-range units.

Titan:

The ultimate glass cannon. Honestly I’m not sure if I like these. In huge numbers, they are great, but risky. I like to run these below AA, Dom, Unicorn, and Naga Queen, and sometimes Spirit Warrior. DO NOT run these as a top ground stack. They will cost you a fight.

Unicorn:

One of the best units in the game for it’s power level. One of the better top-stack ground units as long as you aren’t fighting green.

Preacher:

These you get passively from Love and Peace. These are just as good soakers as Arch angels - they have 75% resists and have healing. They do absolutely no damage and have a high upkeep though. If you can amass them, they are great. If not, they can be taxing on your economy.

Eradication Units:

Salamanders:

Glass Cannons with scales. Scales reduce all damage by 25%. This is a bottom stack, great because they are a gold-heavy unit and white is a mana-heavy race. They get absolutely melted sometimes, so keep that in mind.

Verdant Units:

Nymphs:

Nymphs are great ranged fodder! Ranged fodder is the best because it can’t be counter attacked. Soul speakers and Astral Magicians are better ranged fodder, though.

Dryads:

Dies in huge numbers, can cost you a fight. But they attack fast and hit hard. Once again, I think white’s Soul Speakers are better.

High Elf:

These are great for white! They cost gold, which is great because we always have a surplus of that, they hit hard, and can take huge hits.

Phantasm Units:

Djinni:

Blue Archangel that actually hits hard. Frankly I don’t run these because resummoning them is a pain and expensive. But, truly, they are an amazing unit and I recommend running them. They are great anywhere in your stack. Only downside is that they are a mana intensive unit.

Medusa:

I’ve tried to run these, but they always die super hard and cost me fights.

Mind Ripper:

Like Unicorns, one of the best units in the game. They get obliterated by poison and lightning though, so be careful about them. They hit very hard! Only downside is that they are a mana intensive unit.

Psychic Wisp:

It’s like a Blue Nymph. Great for other colors, but with white we’ve got Knight Templar (I’ll talk about those later), Soul Speakers, and Astral magicians so they don’t really have a place with white.

Nether Units:

Goodluck summoning any of these!

Barracks Units including Heroes:

White gets arguably the best barracks units: High Priests and Knight Templar. You can only recruit 1 type of unit at a time, so Knight Templar it is! These are AMAZING versus ranged units, but will get destroyed by heavy melee hitters like Treants. They tank all range with their large-shield very well. I run these in the middle somewhere, unless I’m going to be hitting Blues then I just let them get as high as they get from recruiting.

Knight Templar: Basic guide with KT’s: Has healing. Great versus ranged. Gets slaughtered versus non-ranged.

High Priests: It’s like a Soul Speaker with a stronger punch. If you want to juggle these with KT, go ahead, but it’s too much of a headache for me.

Catapults: I’ve tried using them, but once again - why try to juggle when you get KT’s?

Heroes:

On color heroes are great, and if you deep-stack - you will get stack-wiped. I don’t invest heavily in heroes; what I mean by this is: I buy a crap ton of heroes with Valor. It stacks, so that’s great. If you run short stacks, you can get some nicer heroes because you probably won't be stack wiped.

Attack and Defend!

So now we talk about attacking. That means Regular and Siege.

Your attacking stacks are what matters most. I typically have a few different stacks I run:

KT as top ground stack when hitting blues. Unicorns as top ground stack when hitting other whites. Unless you are certain that the verdant you are attacking has an IQ of Potato, do not attack verdant. It will only end in bloodshed. Red is a different specimen. If you can get a scroll of protection of fire through the barrier, you’ll do fine. If you don’t, you’ll get stack wiped. Hitting reds is difficult. With nether mages, you just want to pour on that Damage. Sword of Light, Bubble Wine, Candle of Sleeping, all great items.

You can pretty routinely siege Blue with a missile shield and win. You can routinely siege Nether and as long as they aren’t Deviling or running Carpet of Flying (and you don’t have carpet of flying) and win.

Regular vs. Siege

White is a speciality that sadly does not accel in sieging - unless it’s against a Blue, Black, or White mage that you are certain isn’t too gifted, or you are certain you have a good stack at the moment. That being said - you can win nearly all of your Regular attacks as a white by playing to your strengths and your opponents weaknesses.

Defend

As a white, you will quickly find out: Reds, Greens, and short stack Whites will attack you. For me it’s about 75% green, Greens weakness is Naga Queen. Naga Queen negates Green’s powerhouse: Treants. Put these as your top ground stack and you will no longer have a problem against green. As for red, good luck - have fun! They are just hard to defend against because of their huge damage. Unicorns are great up top against them, but we really don't have much protection from them. Bubble Wine will help negate your losses a bit with it’s 30% health boost. Short stack whites (read: 4 stacks of soakers/hitters) also benefit from Bubble WIne.

Have Fun! Play around, see what you like. Really what the goal of any guide should be is: Here is how you can play the game, now go create and have a blast.

Thank You, Catholocate