Sniper training and Unstoppable Charge

[Flubbervius]

Hi all I'm hoping that some more experienced players can give me a bit of insight into these two skills:
- sniper training (increase longbow & regular marksmen min attack by 45/85/130% and max by 5/10/15%)
- unstoppable charge (increase swift unit max damage by 1/2/3 and give 33/66/100% chance of splash damage) I think this is cavalry, knights and mounted marksmen?

I've just hit level 50 (yay!) so I'm trying to skill my generals in a 'future-proof' way and make them useful for the Evil Queen chain / Ali Baba adventures whilst still being helpful to me now on the normal adventures. I've done a few Valiant Little Tailors but none of the other fairytales yet.

I've looked at a few set-ups that people have posted on the forum (thank you for these btw, they really help guide those of us who are not too clued up on the combat systems) but very few put books in these two skills. Based on my current level, I would agree as I rarely use longbows or cavalry but obviously have no experience of using elite troops yet.

Which (if any) generals would these skills work on? Do they need to be coupled with other skills to make them effective? Will I regret not picking them if I follow the general consensus of set-ups on the forum?! Or am I missing an obvious reason (most likely ) that most of the guides seem to be ignoring them?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Amazony]

Unless you use a lot of LB suicide waves stay away from sniper training, it is one of the less useful skills in the tree.UC it is more useful , enabling splash damage for c and K and adding a minor damage bonus to MM. Here one of my Majors :


Just finished another go of the Evil queen series and I found it is amazing how many troops are saved and how many suicide waves are now not needed, Major 285 MM plowing a lot of enemy camps. I use UC on all my killer generals ( 2 Majors and the 3 CoA).

[numa]

I use unstoppable charge on my suicide MMAs, because there are camps in more difficult adventures where it's better to sacrifice C, than R or B.

[sparkz]

I use UC on all my killer generals ( 2 Majors and the 3 CoA).

Anslems trait makes him more usable for longer fights plus doesnt provide any kind of special protection against Attacks Weakest, meaning that this bonus will rarely be used for MM and due to low capacity its unlikely you will be able to leverage it for knights (althouth you can probably use a combination of knights and besiegers in some situations, knights soaking the damage and doing a little bit extra dmg themselves due to 100% chance for splash).

Id rather go for max on battle frenzy + maybe 2 points in the bonus for heavy units (which I would not recommend for other generals).

Which (if any) generals would these skills work on? Do they need to be coupled with other skills to make them effective? Will I regret not picking them if I follow the general consensus of set-ups on the forum?! Or am I missing an obvious reason (most likely ) that most of the guides seem to be ignoring them?

Flat damage increase for normal units is worthless in most cases since none of them have splash damage ability by default. The notable exceptions :

- Nusala with bowmen (pretty much the only general where its worth to use both bow skills)
- one point in bowmen damage increases their max to 45 meaning it takes 2 bowmen to kill a 90hp unit instead of three. Should make noticeable difference in some sac waves

[Flubbervius]

So sniper training seems to be of limited use "Flat damage increase for normal units is worthless in most cases since none of them have splash damage ability by default" so no matter how much it increases it's still only going to kill the same number of enemies. Hadn't considered that! With regards to bowmen damage that's useful to know, I may use rapid fire/sniper training on tavern generals for the bowmen waves on Valiant Little Tailor. Not sure about using it on Nusala, I know it's her speciality but I never seem to use her with bows!

Yes for Anslem I was thinking focus on heavy units too so use weekly maintenance. I was also thinking of using this on my Major so it's interesting that both Amazony has used Unstoppable charge instead and that Sparkz doesn't recommend using that for anyone other than Anslem. Think I may use UC instead on Major but keep WM for Anslem.

What would you suggest for Vargus? I know he's supposed to be the most useful of the champions on the Ali Baba adventures

[sparkz]

So sniper training seems to be of limited use "Flat damage increase for normal units is worthless in most cases since none of them have splash damage ability by default" so no matter how much it increases it's still only going to kill the same number of enemies.

Thats oversimplified.

Enemy units HP falls into several categories that you can call breakpoints. Increase in your units damage does not matter unless it allows you to reach a higher breakpoint (either for a single unit or multiple units).

Ie. (assuming 100% accuracy for simplicity) longbowman does baseline 60 dmg, majority of units you will use them against is 40/60/90/120 hp (some exceptions like 50 hp units on alibabas but I dont remember whether those are Fast and Attacks Weakest, in which case you would never use bows against them anyway). This means that :

- you need 1 LB to kill a 40 hp unit
- you need 1 LB to kill a 60 hp unit
- you need 2 LB to kill a 90 hp unit (30 damage lost)
- you need 2 LB to kill a 120 hp unit

With 3 points into sniper training skill LB does 69 damage (or at least it shows that way for me). That means :
- you still kill 40 and 60 hp units with 1 LB
- you still kill a 90 HP unit with 2 LB (48 dmg lost)
- you still kill a 120 hp unit with 2 LB

If you consider regular bowmen bonus, when +5 max damage (40 -> 45) allows killing 90HP units with 2 B instead of 3 and thats pretty much the only gain you get from those 2 skills long as there is no splash damage involved.

Funny thing is, same kind of logic is also apliable for all other damage bonuses like battle frenzy and maintenance, where depending on situation you might not get anything from as high as 30% bonus.

[Bluesavanah]

These are my skills for my MG


sniper training is fairly useless in my opinion because it's so situational in it's use, the dilemma for you is does Unstoppable charge add enough use to your general to out-weigh having other skills. I think in their own way 3 in Navigation crash course, Hostile takeover or Fast learner all have more merit than unstoppable charge but it's just an opinion.

Just for reference my 1 in Juggernaut was to save Tomes.

[numa]

My MG setup is quite similar, but I have 2 books in Weekly maintenance (I have none in Confident leader and 1 less in Battle Frenzy). I chose that because I often use heavy units like cannoneers in my MG attacks and I didn't regret it. I find this setup very useful, at least for my playing style, and have already had a lot of benefits from it (significantly lower losses).