Please Buff Set Enough to Give us a Reason to Play Him

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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First of all, I want to preface by saying I don’t particularly enjoy playing as Set as a major god choice for Egyptian, and I didn’t in the original game.

Set was pretty weak in the original game at doing what he was intended to do, aside from Siege units and the very early Slinger builds (originally 20% more health for Slingers). But I’ve enjoyed a lot of the balance tweaks on major/minor gods to give you reasons to play certain things and not always follow the same path.

Isis and Ra always felt like generally better choices in terms of what Egyptians as a Civ were trying to do, because they are (generally) a Civ that gets better in late game.

Set was originally the “aggressive” Egyptian Major God choice in AoM, relying on the counter units from the Barracks. His passives in the original game were:

  • Starts with a Hyena of Set scout.
  • Priest can convert wild animals.
  • Pharaoh can summon animals at the cost of favor. The variety of animals the Pharaoh can summon increases with each Age advance.
  • Five animals are summoned at the Temple on each Age advance.
  • Slingers and Chariot Archers are trained 20% faster.
  • Slingers have 10% more HP and 10% less hack vulnerability.
  • Migdol Strongholds cost 25% less gold.

These were already relatively weak in the original game, compared to Isis/Ra passives. The passives Set has now are almost laughable in comparison both to what he used to have and what Isis and Ra have now.

In my experience with Retold, I’ve found that both Isis and Ra outperform Set in early game aggression simply by having better economy and passives. If Set is intended to be the early game Egyptian God choice, he should perform as such.

I think his passives as is are just simply too weak to be chosen over Ra/Isis when Set is played as intended (focusing on Spearmen/Axemen/Slingers). With myth units costing less population than they used to, playing the counter units feels even worse with a decreased focus on human units. Fully upgraded counter units (with optimal Minor God upgrades) barely manage to scrape by against the corresponding units they are meant to counter.

While I do think some of Set’s original passives (especially the original Slingers HP bonus) were a little excessive against certain strategies, it feels like Set doesn’t really have a place in the game from a tactical standpoint in Retold. I think his passives need to be reworked.

The 5% reduction in cost (especially early game) for Barracks units is almost irrelevant, considering the starting cost of the unit. You can outpace this cost reduction by simply having a few more villagers, or having an economic upgrade that is available to Ra/Isis.

I’d like to see some sort of bonus to Axemen/Spearmen in particular, since they feel dramatically worse than in the original game. I think some sort of micro play with bonus damage that scales with age would be interesting.

I was thinking something along the lines of getting an einherjar blast-style effect for bonus damage for attacking the correct counter unit would provide a bonus to OTHER counter units, to encourage balanced army building and not funneling one type of early game unit. This shouldn’t stack, because that would get out of hand way too fast with the cost of the counter units from the Barracks.

Example:

Attacking a Cavalry Unit with a Spearmen provides nearby Slingers with a Bonus Damage effect to Infantry (5% bonus in Classical/10 in Heroic, 15 in Mythic) for 5 seconds

Attacking an Infantry Unit with an Axeman provides nearby Spearmen with a bonus damage to Ranged Soldiers (5/10/15% bonus)

Attacking a Ranged Unit with Slingers provides nearby Axemen with a bonus damage to Cavalry (5/10/15% bonus)

I haven’t run napkin math on whether or not that’s actually good enough, but it makes an elegant little triangle of fun micro decisions that encourages balanced army building and gives you more of a reason to use the counter units in the conventional counter unit path beyond the Classical Age.

I’d like to see a rework of Set in general, I’m just spitballing things that could replace some of his current passives.

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Set is my 2nd favorite to play for the Egyptians. I wish you can make Animals of Set for cheaper because some of them are just too expensive in Favor cost.

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I think you are underestimating the god Set. Set has the power of vision which can be very powerful and a great advantage for any team such as in a rush (vision + Shifting Sands + Ancestors) or a surprise attack (vision + Tornado/Meteor). No other god has that kind of advantage.

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Set has been buffed. he has a tech to resue his vision GP for free!
and lowering its cooldown down to every 2 minutes. He also has the undisputed best scouting from any egyptian (they biggest weak point) and the priest can transform wild animals close to your enemy base so essetially you steal food to your opponent. And finally set has advantages to barracks units, being the only eggy adapted to classical fight
hell, i have even beaten minotaur rush with set’s barracks combo

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My brother suggested to me as a joke to age up with Anubis and only go Spearmen.
It may have been a joke, but it was very effective. Serpent Spear makes Spearmen a bit more wellrounded.
As Set their speed is 5.25 great for choosing which fights to take. With Monuments you get them at a small discount. As you don’t have to commit to any other units your eco is very easy to manage, allowing you to focusing your attention to co-ordinate with teammates and use your favour exclusively to make more Citedels (Reseach Necropolis and give some to your allies!). This stratedgy may only work in teamgames, but it was strong even before reaching Horus age 4.

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I will admit that the free Visions are very strong. It takes a bit of time to set up, and there is a lot of avenue to outplay your opponents. I suppose I thought initially that 200 Gold is a heavy price to pay for a Classical Age trick, but I could try redistributing my economy to do it earlier.

I’ve been experimenting with Set a lot more on the laptop over the holidays which is far from ideal for doing this type of thing, and I’ve been playing him more like I used to in the old game (funnel far too efficient slingers, etc).

I have also been playing a lot of 4v4s where admittedly Set struggles and he’s not set up to do these kinds of strategies without leaving your base open to be crushed easily.

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I think a big part of the problem is the simple fact that Ptah is a bit underpowered, especially if you want to go through the whole barracks all in build. There is no ultimate umph behind it and if you go Sekhmet, no real fallback tools if you feel like you’re losing until Horus comes into the picture.
The various barracks upgrades are nice and all, but they lack the push needed to bring them over the edge (especially since Electrium bullets has been nerfed), and the Wadjet, while sworn by certain pros, feels underbaked to basically everyone else, as its only real claim to fame is its ranged poison attack of questionable effectiveness- it isn’t fast, its rather frail, and it feels rather pricey. Shaduf is fine, but is the odd man out. Finally, shifting sands is very good in certain situations, especially in raiding or moving to counter an attack from an unexpected angle, but is clunky to use and is of little value mid battle, as it cannot boost your forces in a losing situation and no longer has the power to remove excess foes. the relatively high reuse cost is salt in the wound (especially since Helios’s version, while mythic age and Atlatean, is just better in all respects, including a free first time reuse)
Contrast with Anubis, who has the hit and run Anubites, which are further enhanced Via boosted stats, better monuments, and the poisoned attacks of spearmen act as the cherry on top. Finally, you have the Serpents god power, which, while not powerful, can push a battle just that little bit in your favor.

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