AoEM | Rank 1 Tactician Swordsmen Guide - From early to late game

[gray kite]

In today’s video, I will introduce you to the Tactician swordsmen lineups and help you build and upgrade them throughout the game.
These heroes, even if some are harder to upgrade as F2P, can be played either as a F2P or as a spender and just like Tactician archers; this formation revolves around its commander’s active signature skill.
They will do pretty decent early game thanks to Sun Tzu’s fast charging commander skill and will scale well later on thanks to the synergy he has with rings and with supports like Theodora.
While tactician swordsmen are good, I believe they will be better at some point when new heroes are introduced, as some heroes like Philip lack a bit of depth to really make Sun Tzu shine.
Let’s see how to build them properly through hero combination, ring pairings, skills, gems and synergies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OzK_rNc2Ug

Feel free to ask any questions!

[tall swallow]

would you prefer this line to the suleiman line ?

[lavish stratus]

@gray kite Hi. Do you have any information about an opportunity to buy Tribhuwana for those who missed here while she was available with the wheel?

[gray kite]

Hi, sadly nope. I hope she'll be available for future seasons, maybe we can hope for the current season wheels + an older looking wheel with old heroes later on

[dusky siren]

@gray kite in your video you showed how to build and evolve the line, but did not talk much about its position in the meta and performance comparisons vs others lines (like vs musashi build)

it looks like swordsmen's line are having an terrible game start because of archers (Mulan) being very popular.

Sun Tzu line vs Miyamoto Musashi line or Yodit line, I have the impression Sun Tzu is cheaper to build, but less flexible and doesn't have as much healing/durability.

One other point is that strategy heroes overall looks stronger than might heroes, might heroes lack strategy defense, in which they fell like they have disadvantage vs strategy heroes.

the exceptions are on heroes like King Arthur and Constantine, they have high scaling on all attributes and have no weakness on strategy or armor.

how would you rate this sun Tzu line with Theodora and Philip right now in comparison with all other lines from other videos?

You think this Sun Tzu line can beat easily cavalry and other swordsman lines ?

[gray kite]

Hi. You're right.

While a well and fully built sun tzu army is very efficient, it suffers from multiple issues:

• Lack of armor and weakness to archers, which makes him very vulnerable in pvp early on despite his kit being decent early.
• Vulnerable to silence and requires some time and sig skill activations to start dealing big burst
• Philip is mid at best
• Philip and Theodora are mostly store-locked and are therefore hard to rank up for most
• High cost for rings, he needs a good amount of legendary rings to really be optimal

He has some good perks tho:

• Good burst and quick commander skill cast
• Decent tankiness thanks to Theodora and good synergy with rings that will not overlap other lineups (despite their cost ofc)
• Does even vs warrior swords but require higher investment
• Obliterates pikemen which will bring trouble to your Lu Bu(s) later on

[tall swallow]

sun tzu line has the most healing capability while thedora can trigger signature skill faster cus of sun tzu cost of commander skill and has good damage reduction, but thedora has to be 5 stars.

[tall swallow]

I think through thedora signature skill silence wouldnt be problem

[dusky siren]

@gray kite Many thanks for your response, I got a few more notes to discus.

You think Sun Tzu line requires higher investment than the might warrior lines?

in my view they look way cheaper to build compared to strong version of Musashi and Yodit lines

Sun Tzu is the only really expensive hero (Legendary advant roulette hero), Theodora and Philip are way cheaper to buy medals, since they are at "Heroic expedition" pass, "hero rally" at store (you can use empire coins to buy medals) and will be at "Kingdoms Hoard" too in future, and also many game rewards events give chests that usually have heroes like them to redeem.

Philip is only really valuable at 5 stars where his signature skill will double and will increase a lot the strategy damage taken by the enemy (will be close to 20% at max lv), before that he can easily be replaced by Cleopatra (she is super underrated, very good for medium/low spenders/F2P), making the line very cost benefit.

For comparison, Mushashi, Yodit, Tribuwana, Mehmed II and Constantine are all on Sun TZu Level Price or above.
Making a full paid yodit/Mushashi line is way more expensive in comparison to a full paid Sun Tsu line.

One thing that I did not pay attention and you have a good very good point is at signet rings, it really require some good investment, but has the benefit of not overlapping that much.

I fell like Sun Tzu line is very underrated now, but has a bright future ahead once this super archers meta reduce or gets crushed by cavalry meta

I just need more performance test on Sun Tzu line, specially vs strong cavalry lines (Lu Bu, Hannibal and El Cid) and at rally, he fell very promising

I would say that Sun Tzu line is very star hungry to get to optimal performance, but overall a bit cheaper to max than usual full paid lines

[gray kite]

You're kinda right with the heroic expedition and hero rally features, something I tend to overlook. I also agree that Sun Tzu is underrated, and I have yet to try him with Charlemagne (which I will 5 star next week).
One benefit of this lineup too is that you can actually do very very decent with 2 epic skills (Maneuveur on Theo and Boulder Trap on Sun Tzu) which are way easier to max out (alliance glory / vip shop, and 270 less scrolls)

[dusky siren]

Your videos and notes helped me a lot to see the potential on this line especially for a medium spender like me, many thanks!

[gray kite]

No worries. With S3 there are many things I'd like to try to perhaps avoid anything linked to a single expedition pass for instance. SunTzu Charlemagne Cleopatra would be on my testing list for instance

That'd make a late, but good F2P fully build

[dusky siren]

Charlemagne is on my list to observe, he is the core hero to make ramesse II work too, I'm just waiting to see if ramesse II can take over the game meta

[gray kite]

I've 5-starred him, and Charlemagne will be 5 next week. Ramesses has serious bugs right now so I cannot test him to the best of its ability, but I love the concept

[tall swallow]

If you can also share your thoughts after charlemagne test with sun tzu that would be awesome I may invest him.

[gray kite]

I'll make a video with all S3 lineups I tested like the previous ones, with my thoughts, skills, rings recommended, foor both F2P and spenders 👍🏼

[dire aurora]

Salut,
Est-ce que tribhuwana peut remplacer philippe ou il vaut mieux oublier ?

[proud hill]

@gray kite I have seen in one of your latest streams that you use Ramessess with Lagertha and Theodora. How does that compare with the Ram/Charlemagne/Theo combo? In your opinion, is it worth investing in Charlemagne or wait for Lagertha (I want to use Ram in s4 rather than s3).

Or use Tribhu instead of Lagertha? Currently I run Miya 5/Tribu 3/yodit 4 and thinking to complement or replace with a Ram sword line-up against those nasty Cyrus lineups… 🤧

I have Mehmed 3* and Charlemagne 2* as well

[gray kite]

Hello! That's one of the things I'll try to compare this week (I'm in the middle of testing S4 lineups thoroughly).
For now this would my "analysis" or at least how I feel with each:

• Charlemagne: You'll have more damage for every signature skill, so it's way better when your commander skill is active. You will have higher spikes of damage but if you are unlucky you will activate your commander skill not "too late" which is not ideal against whales. More damage but more random.

• Tribhuwana: She's better vs other whales as you are sure to charge your commander skill fast. You do less damage per signature skill activation but ensure quick commander skill activation.

• Lagertha: If you're unlucky, you will activate your commander skill a bit late (same problem as Charlemagne) because she only "forces" Ramesses to duplicate his signature skill, she doesn't really activate it. So if Ramesses is asleep not activating his skills, she won't provide anything (and even be a disadvantage since because of the cross-military specialty you are less tanky).
  However, once your commander skill is activated, you do very good damage because you will basically have a good chance to replicate (or "echo" as I like to call it) every single Ramesses signature skill, effectively doubling the activations, which means more damage and an infinite amount of rage generation.

Basically they all have their ups and downs

[proud hill]

Thanks for the quick and insightful reply. Looking forward to the tests. Seems like numbers might be the best judge!

I neglected warrior pikes so far and focussed on marshal pikes. But as I see warrior pikes are a force to reckon with in s4 and if I want to build them from scratch now, I would need to focus my investment.

Sad to see that marshal pikes are nowhere in s4…

[gray kite]

I think good marshal pikes could be a pain for warrior pike. MArshal pike have a good anti-armor quick burst thanks to the way turn-based skills work, and that allows for quick damage without any possibility for warrior pike to retaliate through counter attacks

Marshal pikes are very good 1v1 comps which is where warrior pike fall short. Unsure how it is with Cyrus in the equation now

[proud hill]

My cav march is not where it should be. LuBu 3/ attila 3/ rani 4. This march is dying so fast that the damage I deal is negligable. And since pikes are coming to rule in s4 I decided to focus on pikes and anti-pikes. Not sure though how marshal pikes do against lu bu in s3? I have a caesar 5/ram 3/octavian 5 combo

I will start to upgrade my second troop type mercenary tech now and thinking of redirecting my cav gear into pike gear.

So maybe I could run 2 sword and 2 pike lineup in s4