Quote from Saegon

Personally, I don't think ninja mass is great idea.
Magikill + Giants and hiding the magikill would effectively defeat ninja mass, right? Theoretically, if you were to turtle then ninja mass would be ineffective. I actually don't know because I've never faced a successful ninja masser.

No... I don't think so. Ninjas have shinobi. With shinobi 2, one can kill a Mage in 1 hit, so bringing a Mage to a ninja mass is not wise. You'd have to use albowtross to successfully counter a ninja mass, because it's the hard counter to it.

ninjas tear through giants and mages, so giantmass+mages aren't gonna be an effective counter to ninjas.

How do you get a ninja mass from a mid-game army though? I tried that once, but it took me a whole minute to even get shinobi level 2.

On the other hand, an allbow/giant mass requires very little time; You'd probably have a meric for the giant already, and up until your giant is max-leveled you can use leftover spears from the midgame to use as meat shields for your allbows.

It just seems like the smoothest transition to go:

Archer-sword > Spearton-Archer > Allbow-Spearton > Allbow-Giant > Giant + Mage > Magikill mass or giant mass

Ninjas are great and all, but up until the really end game phase (mage/giant) they're pretty useless except as scouts.

A techswitch to ninjas takes more time than a giant+magemass? If you say so.

To switch to ninjas mid game you have to put a lot more into mana than you would just continuing a Spearcher. It's still fairly easy as long as you get the mana income needed for it, which you won't have from a Spearcher setup alone.
Unlike Spearcher, which switches fairly easy from Sword + Archer because you already have the gold flow, you just have to change the ratio of gold to mana a bit (not saying you stop buying miners, but you'll be too slow if you're getting surplus gold and not enough mana)

Im pretty sure 1 shadowrath>1 spearton, and 10 shadowrath>about 12 speartons so shadowalbow could beat spear-albow

nah...i dont think so...spears just in shield wall/shield bash for tank and albows gonna do everything. Also, it CAN also be spearton > shadowrath...either one on one or whatsoever...spears have shield wall + sheld bash, less pop then shadows and less training time. They also dont die faster then shadows.
But thats only in an over-all-decided-battle without escaping/micro etc...with micro and with mid-long, long maps shadowrath mass would rule over spears. But if ya combine spear-albow, it would definitly beat shadalbow...shadalbow cost so much mana...thats why a spear-albow army would be faster built then a shadalbow army...
Also, I personally dont like shadalbow strat...ok, they both are awesome units, but they dont really fit each other (imo)

Nah. Ninjalbow > Spearalbow. Though it depends on which side has more Albows, but if there's the same Albows it would just be ninja vs spear, in which ninjas will win, every time, with shinobi 2, run and hit trick.

About building from scratch, Spearalbow. It's faster to build, takes less time.

Quote from Wyrmspawn

Ninjas are great and all, but up until the really end game phase (mage/giant) they're pretty useless except as scouts.

What do you mean by 'the really end game phase'? Shadows are great from mid game to end game. They kill merics, archers, ninjas, swords. Their speed is the greatest ovo.

If you are saying you don't need merics mid game then I have nothing to say.

Quote from _Ai_

Nah. Ninjalbow > Spearalbow. Though it depends on which side has more Albows, but if there's the same Albows it would just be ninja vs spear, in which ninjas will win, every time, with shinobi 2, run and hit trick.

About building from scratch, Spearalbow. It's faster to build, takes less time.



What do you mean by 'the really end game phase'? Shadows are great from mid game to end game. They kill merics, archers, ninjas, swords. Their speed is the greatest ovo.

If you are saying you don't need merics mid game then I have nothing to say.

What you're saying is partially true.
Ninjas are great and all, but from my personal experience spearalbow > ninjablow.
It depends on the micro of the player, and like the others mentioned the spears can always just go into shield mode and the ninjas will be decimated.

No. A bunch of ninjas ERADICATE any and every ground unit. They're like, the strongest ground unit.

Spears on shield mode can reduce damage, but they cant attack in that state. Ninjas only needs to focus hit one spear, and run away. That one spear would SURELY be dead.

nah..they have great speed and great dmg (if they are able to stack it up) but...they have a very low attack rate with low health. There first attack is also very low. The best things to do with them are quick assassination (shinobie), speed and 1on1 battles. (and scout...) The only problem is there hight pop, hight training time, lower health plus low attack rate, and at least, to use their "focus" (or whatsoever) ability they must attack one unit and keep attacking him. If they change target and always attack other units they gonna do low dmg.
Thats why in generaly spear army > shadow army....one on one: shadow > spear
Spears have so much highter attack speed plus highter health, lower training time and lower mana cost. They have shield wall plus shield bash.
But actually, a good shadow user, who knows how to ultimatly control the shadows, could turn it into shadow army > spear army....but actually. its also depending on map size. Short, short-mid spear army > shadow army. mid-long, long:
Shadow army > spear army...as Ai already said: Hit'n'Run for fun :3

EDIT: Without Hit'n'run:

1 shadowrath > 1 spear
10 shadowrath > 10 spears
20 shadwrath (...) 20 spears
20 shadowrath < 26 spears

But well...the problem would just be how to get a fast shadow army...faster then spear army...so pressure pressure ressure...and dont get yurselve pressured ^_^

The easiest way to settle that would be an experimental battle.

Quote from _Ai_

No. A bunch of ninjas ERADICATE any and every ground unit. They're like, the strongest ground unit.

Spears on shield mode can reduce damage, but they cant attack in that state. Ninjas only needs to focus hit one spear, and run away. That one spear would SURELY be dead.

Haha yea you're right.
Its just that at my level people don't know how to micro so its safer for me to do spearalbow.

On short maps (and sometimes on med maps) the game is usually over at the Spearcher stage, otherwise I rather like Wyrmspawn's hierarchy of tech-ups. (Although personally I would get a few magikill when I transition to Spear+Albow, especially if they have lots of archers/albows.)

Quote from Saegon

Haha yea you're right.
Its just that at my level people don't know how to micro so its safer for me to do spearalbow.

Get fire arrows when you can. They're crazy strong.