What is the purpose of the Elephant Archer? It’s basically a giant, high-dps skirmisher. Because it has 1 less range than other ranged units, it automatically takes a front position and tanks unbelievably well against everything but halbs, which it has bonus damage against, plus the Indian superior hand cannons.
EAs are pretty decent now, but I think they need one more little push to take them over the edge.
I think that change could be bonus line of sight. The trouble with them is, they move pretty slowly, so their shorter range ends up not having the effect it should, since they don’t have time to move to the front before the enemy arrives.
By giving them more line of sight, they could see approaching enemies and take the front position automatically, the way they’re supposed to. Plus, it helps defend archer type units against siege by warning you before they arrive.
I’d like to see their LOS buffed from 7 to 10, the same as the Hussar. This makes them a powerful utility unit that will help most army compositions, even with small numbers of them.
Nothing, you’re better off spending resources on other units. It has a lot of weaknesses and just doesn’t have anything to make up for it. It has cav archer, archer, cavalry, and elephant armor classes, so it just gets massacred by counter units. It is also not very fast, so it can’t run away easily from them.
Here’s the problem with OP’s suggestion: It’s too reasonable.
We won’t attract enough forum prowlers with the title to come in and tell you you’re wrong. You should change the title of the thread to something like “Give Elephant Archers a Laser Cannon” so that you’ll bait clicks.
for the record I agree with the premise and fear it’ll just drift harmlessly to the bottom of the forums.
I like the proposal a lot. And I aslo would decrese the price of elite upgrade a bit, so you can add few elite elephant archers to your army without shame
That would never be used.
They are not supposed to be a defensive unit, but a slow pusher, like a Ram, but with an arrow attack instead of melee.
This is why they have Bonus Damage vs Buildings.
EAs are actually good against Archers, Skirmishers and Halberdiers.
People think that, because they are Elephants and Archers, and that they do take Bonus Damage from a lot of sources, they are weak, but with their impressive Armour and HP stats, they are one of the most survivable units in the game, and they actually do kill off a lot of their counters, by virtue of having a Ranged attack.
The Bonus Damage vs Buildings is just a cherry on top, that helps EAs with providing DPS to siege those Barracks, Archery Ranges and Stables down.
The issue with EAs is that you can never efficiently mass them, but in a good composition with Hussars and ESkirms, they are actually a great unit.
Not at all, and the Ballista Elephant actually has more counters than the Elephant Archer, because it is a Siege unit, so BBCs and Rams actually counter them, far better than Skirms and Halbs counter EAs.
I’ve never had anyone respond when I send rams after their ballista elephants, it’s almost hilarious to watch, they die in 3 hits from ram and ram takes very little damage - I think a lot of people don’t know that rams annihilate them so they don’t try to run away
I mean, “Siege units” is not only what they are, but also the optimal counter. Ballista elephants have it worse against siege than practically any of the other siege options and that’s saying a lot.
And when “practically any” is used in a statement involving AOE 2, it usually refers to the Siege tower.
Why they are still even in the game? I man they were built to counter rams. Now rams destroy them and vs every other unit they are basically useless, you just ignore them.