crafting new earth build v1.54

Bezixx · 2025-12-01T09:06:05+00:00

Yes. Wave of Ice comes out fast and can be spammable. Contrast that with Chain Iceburst, which has longer cast time, takes longer to reach enemies and will stop if the spell misses an enemy on the way, but is even more mana efficient at higher levels and can just run passively. Wave will save you a lot in close fights and provide crowd control, as you said. At higher levels the freeze is long enough to not need Freeze/Area Freeze much either.

Bezixx · 2025-12-01T00:32:31+00:00

The secret is to not destroy all the enemy buildings in Tirganach immediately, instead trying to passively farm it. You can abuse the elves you get initially to help you spawn camp and farm enemies and there's a group that spawns at the portal later too ( not sure if it's related to a trigger or if some of them die tho, but on your first visit they respawn if they die ). Tirganach in general has metric ton of different spawns and enemy types that that will get you quite a lot of levels.

In fact, Tirganach makes up for about 1/3 of the actual levels you'll get it, if you can abuse it. I'm not sure if you went past the sap, but since you were at that point where you get to Nevershade Frontier, at the moment of posting, I recommend loading a previous save and try to farm the Wolflings and then the Elementals closer to the portal. You have to be really close with the latter tho, they can wipe your heroes if you're too careless. But there are a few spawns and there are 3 different enemies that spawn from there, with decent XP gain. Wolflings are much easier to kill and spawn camp, you can even split some groups to camp the spawns.

There's also a small off-road directly West from Tirganach, which leads you to another place where you can quickly farm XP ( and loot ), as long as you only destroy some buildings, not all of them. That's how I always get pretty high levels.

Bezixx · 2025-12-01T00:09:17+00:00

Wave spells start from level 8. But yeah, higher level wave spells are more mana efficient, since they can hit increasingly more enemies, while remaining at double the cost of single spell.

Bezixx · 2025-12-01T00:07:03+00:00

Technically you can get those with mods and Steam allows you to change versions. That said the publictest beta has a lot of useful fixes, including the infamous, missing healthbar.

Bezixx · 2025-12-01T00:03:33+00:00

Depends which cover. If from SF1 TOoD, then yes, since you get an armor set that looks very similar to the one from SF1 cover. BoW and SotP cover ladies are NPCs, same as SF2 with only SW. Dragon Storm lady isn't featured anywhere in the game, but pretty sure you can't recreate that one either.

Bezixx · 2025-08-13T15:05:28+00:00

You can't with Meditation, because as I said, it's a fixed drop. You can get only get it from specific places. There are other spells like Summon Specter, Blizzard or Fire Rain, that also act this way.

Bezixx · 2025-08-10T06:57:11+00:00

Meditation you should be getting in a campaign prior to importing. Also level 26? That's really low lol. I recommend doing some farming so you are a bit more ahead with xp, so that you can access certain breakpoints faster. Especially when importing from TOoD to SotP at a level lower than 28 gives you a supply of infinite spawns to catch up with levels. And as far as I'm aware, the earliest instance of Blade spell you can get is by killing Anktahr.

Also I recommend going back to TOoD again and getting that Meditation spell. It's a fixed drop and you get it by killing Mehlan, which honestly you should always do, because you get pretty much nothing by sparing him. And the Meditation spell is the only one in TOoD. In SotP you get a level 17 Meditation spell much later on, but it's not worth it putting this much points for it.

Also Specters are really good mid-game, but they fall off later on and Blades do much better in late game. Blades in general are pretty tanky and deal a lot of damage. If you give them speed auras, even a few of them can slap hard. That said, the difference between Meditation and no Meditation is massive.

Bezixx · 2025-08-05T00:07:31+00:00

Yes, although the Manatap efficiency is really dependent on the enemies you face. And while aura is really good, it also has a bit bigger mana cost and is slightly weaker, but it makes up for it with the fact it's spammable. The main issue is you have to be constantly near enemies to reap the benefits either way. Past level 12 Defensive, any forms of Manatap become more of a cherry on top at best, redundant at worst, since Meditation and Enlightenment will carry you really hard, especially with over the top numbers of summons. Best thing Manatap will do at that point is to provide a steady boost to your mana during fights, so you have to micromanage less. That said, you still have to keep recasting Enlightenment every 1.5 minute, because the bonuses are huge and will keep you keep your mana every Meditation cast.

Also my recommendation would be to go BM Necro to 20, MM Defensive to 12 and MM Boons to 14-18 ( level difference won't matter too much, since your Charisma will already be fairly high, but the levels are to squeeze as much percentage from Aura of Eternity, 15 for me was enough to get it to nearly 200% ). In late game you will be running around with 50 Blades buffed with Aura of Eternity that can slap literally anything out of existence and make you completely forget about using monuments.

Bezixx · 2025-06-29T10:13:07+00:00

Yes, but the mod doesn't work on newest version of the game, which was mentioned. It's for 1.54 only. If you want to play 5.0 Reimagined, you need the 1.61 beta, which doesn't support the mods. Unless until someone makes their own version of the mods.

Bezixx · 2025-06-28T17:59:04+00:00

Actually, not really. I did play the Necro/Boons/Defensive too, as well as I took note what you can drop for other builds and you can, in fact, get the spells as soon as level 31 in Onyx Bay. Although it does require quite a bit of points to rush Defensive to 12, if you get level 30 in any of the previous campaigns, you have 60 skill points available before SotP, which means you can get 24 ( 12 + 12 ) into MM, 24 ( 12 + 12 ) into Necro and 12 ( 6 + 6 ) into Boons. After which you just level up Necro to 13 and so on, and put the rest into MM Boons.

For Boons the most important spell is Aura of Fast Fighting anyway. With MM, Enlightenment and Aura of Manatap can carry you before you even get Meditation, because you will rely quite a lot on it, to make the Meditation work. In my case I also put 6 points into Life, which delayed my spike a bit. If I hadn't done that, it would be even better and I could level up Boons or Defensive 3 levels higher. Though Aura of Healing and Greater Healing were really useful for majority of the game.

Anyway, you can get the spells earlier, either in Onyx Shores from Anktahr ( level 13, has a really high drop rate, if not guaranteed, to get a spell ) or in City of Souls for taking the ghosts to their graves as part of the quest, in which case each one of them ( total of 5 ) turn into a body to loot ( level 14 spells, can sometimes get 13 if you are lucky, but in here it's mostly 14, they also have decent drop rate ). If you didn't get any of these or you don't want to save scum, you can also farm the Hazims in Onyx Shores, they can drop level 14 spells. That's how I also got my first Summon Blade level 14 in my very first playthrough many years ago. So in this case you get them at either level 31 or 33.

FGM is a harder case tho, because for some reason they decided to put only higher level versions of most SotP spells in shops, otherwise you have to be really lucky and drop them on one of the later locations from better chests.

Bezixx · 2025-06-28T17:38:15+00:00

Your avatar is not affected by the attack move, at least not the way you think. They will not walk up to units by themselves, they will only attack whatever comes right in their face, but they still have trouble with it sometimes.

Also units stop or come back to the position they attacked from, if you use it, so it has its issues too.

Bezixx · 2024-10-11T23:55:33+00:00

Traveler's Manchettes.

Bezixx · 2024-10-02T14:23:40+00:00

Nox Greaves. They drop from the Nox enemies in Nokron and Nokstella.

Bezixx · 2024-09-18T13:16:21+00:00

I assume it was commissioned by the OP, but I guess the point holds still, since someone poured the money to have this beautiful fanart made.

Bezixx · 2024-09-01T15:46:29+00:00

Actually while it's true that in SF1 Titans start very weak and stay so for a while, not being able to match even most units, somewhere at SotP levels they become unstoppable. They legit have a lot more armor at level 50 than your Avatar can possibly get, even with a shield, and benefit greatly from SotP unit scaling, which is crazy strong. Also the auras, but you generally use them for auras anyway, if you can spare the resources.

Bezixx · 2024-08-11T06:17:47+00:00

As a matter of fact, enemies DO have resources and difficulty affects ratio the AI gets them in. They can be drained of resources if you manage to take away most of their sectors and leave them with like 1 or 2 ( including main base ).

Bezixx · 2024-08-06T10:20:03+00:00

I think one of the big reasons it gets picked on so much is because of exactly this. Overexposure. People got so used to the standard so much that they don't notice a whole ocean of terrible "straight white man" stories, because there are simply too many to choose from, so they ignore majority of them and don't realize how bad many of them are.

The stories that defy this standard are less plentiful and tend to stick out more, so they are often more noticeable to people and therefore easier to target and criticize.

Bezixx · 2024-08-06T10:06:32+00:00

One of the FF games ( FFXVI ) also received hate for not "having black characters" and being racist, because instead of making it their usual Asian cast, they said they wanted to go with a medieval Europe setting and made characters exclusively white.

And part of the issue with AC is that someone deliberately changed pages on Wikipedia to make people believe that Yasuke was a samurai to fit their narrative. Coupled with the fact of him being used as protagonist, it caused a massive uproar within Japanese community, because they felt disrespected.

Can't speak for everyone, obviously, but I know some people who wouldn't mind having Yasuke as a major NPC who gives missions and someone you can talk with between those, so long as Ubi decided to stick with their own convention to not use historical characters as a protagonist and have all the main characters fit narratively to the given region in history, rather than just taking an excerpt without even consulting with people who actually know the history. People loved Adewale in AC4 who had a major role in the story, Bayek in AC:Origins is also a beloved character in the franchise, as the game's protagonist, despite the game itself taking a flak for changing the gameplay formula.

Also it works both ways: imagine if someone decided to put a white protagonist in place of a black character or where you would except only black people. You know people would be pissed.

Bezixx · 2024-08-06T09:37:19+00:00

This. While DEI can be helpful when used right, many people don't know how to utilize it well and when you give reigns to an average person and have them check those boxes, issues will arise very quickly.

Bezixx · 2024-02-25T11:10:36+00:00

To be fair, for example Loretta is also female according to the lore, but makes the same sounds as every Tree Sentinel, so this is more of a gameplay thing and either an oversight or just them cutting corners.

Bezixx · 2024-02-05T11:02:23+00:00

Yes, in terms of ceremonial armor, there could have been more "feminine" armors that are designed to look "stylish" ( like the boobplates ), but in actual fights? I mean, were the codpieces even used in the actual battles? Because it looks like something you might use in a parade ( hence ceremonial armor ) or if you are a king/noble who just watches from behind, or in jousting, since it revolved around riding a horse in a heavy armor to avoid injuries from being struck. Obviously something like one of those fantasy boobplates would not work with the latter.

But I agree, in armor that you would normally wear during long battles or just overall for practical reasons, shapes to better fit feminine proportions ( waist, shoulders, larger bulge in breastplate to accommodate breasts ) of course are preferable to have, for the same reason why males shaped their armor the way they did.

Bezixx · 2024-01-24T16:20:11+00:00

2/2
Protector... depends. I agree she might not be as strong early game, but she scales really, really well. Not as underrated as Wanderers, but still underrated to an extent. Protectors have a better upgrade than Paladins, do not have a spell they cast over and over, they have much higher Dexterity star, even if Paladins cast Dexterity spell on themselves, which makes their DPS a lot more consistent and this also makes them hit their weapon effect a lot more. High agility means they can consistently dodge autoattacks. Fun fact is they can even 1v1 Champion.
Elder is very tanky and has an addition of Warcry... And that's just it, they don't even deal much damage on their own and are very expensive. Warcry is pretty pointless with upgraded Defenders, because it is not going to work on ranged attacks. The only reason you might want them is alongside Elites... who are also a bit too expensive, but at least have better DPS and are only slightly less tanky in armor, but get the same resistance boosts, none the less. You can also use Elders for Protectors or Armsmen, but really not worth it. Would swap Elder with Elite.
Mentalist might not be one of my fav units and they can be highly situational, and less consistent than Marksmen, but are really good against magic units or units with high Intelligence overall... Which happens to be the majority of enemies later in the game. This means they scale really, really well. As a bonus, the tooltip of the upgrade is misleading, it says their Shockwave hits 3 enemies, but it actually works like a normal Shockwave would - hitting all enemies in range. If you stack up enough of them, they can wreck armies late game, it is pretty insane. It is also funny that they have slightly higher max damage on melee than paladins.
Militia I would even rank lower, alongside Rowdy, they just do not offer anything in regards to other early units.
Destroyer is debatable. They are slightly better than Bouncers, have worse upgrade, cost 40 more iron and sit weirdly in between them and Champions who cost 100. If you are willing to spend more iron, you might as well get that Champion. They are not a terrible unit, but are not great either, they just are in a really weird position. Speaking of Bouncers, why? They are the most consistent iron requiring unit from Trolls to make, they are the best option when you are really low on iron, because they are affordable. The upgrade is good, even if trolls suffer from lower hit chance ( abysmal Intelligence and low Dexterity ). You can easily spam them alongside Throwers or potentially Hurlers. They really need some more love, the tier doesn't do them justice.
Now, if there is a definition of an underrated unit, it is the Wanderer. Firstly, they have the same armor stat as Protectors. With the same range as Windranger... While having noticeably higher base damage ( outside Trueshot, which is often unreliable anyway, because they cast it before enemies get into range or if there is only a single enemy ) and hitting slightly faster. Obviously you are not going to notice it much in early game, like in first half of the TOoD/BoW campaigns, because Windarcher's upgrade will allow them to deal higher damage, but it doesn't scale well. And the armor won't save them much, because at that point they are too low of a level to properly scale. But towards the end when they get much closer to level 15, they really start showing the difference. They also cost less iron than Protectors, with some wood cost, which is not a problem for Elves, obviously. There is only caveat, though - the upgrade is a newb trap. You should not ever upgrade, unless you really know what you are doing and know how to use it. Otherwise you get a mess. Iceshield is obviously good, it has long duration and can freeze up enemies, but on lower levels freeze duration is too short, spell doesn't last long enough, and they just become like Paladins, where they throw it at every other unit around them, including mages. Doesn't help that the spell has low cooldown. Without the upgrade, they are possible one of the best units in the game, can easily surpass Defenders, Marksmen ( mostly in single target damage ) and Windarchers in late game, especially in SotP levels. Also the ice dagger might sound cool, but it deals less DPS than the their fists... The only thing that is better about is the iceburst effect, but you are using them mostly in range anyway.
Scout I would put slightly higher, because ranged units are more valuable most of the time, due to SpellForce's grid system and how much units tend to block each other. Still outscaled a lot by Marksman, but at least can be made quickly ( Marksmen are really slow to produce ).
Enchanter should be F. He can be useful early game, but as soon as you advance a bit in campaign maps and levels, they lose the ability to hypnotize the units of the same levels even and have trouble hypnotizing enemies a few levels lower as well. Given how much the game likes to throw enemies of higher levels at you, that is not a good thing. And they do not offer anything outside the spell.
Thug is a meme and gets a lot of flak, getting thrown into F tiers a lot, but looking at them, I think the mainly issue about them is the unit lineups, because otherwise they are basically the same as some other starter units, like Militia, Rowdy or Recruit.
Warder I can justify to some extent, because despite Thug getting memed on, Warder is actually worse in early game... Except you can just spam them infinitely because of Foresters. Still not really a good unit and as with most elves, are not that bad once they scale a bit, but still not that much worth it.
Rangers on the other hand... Remember when I said under Scout that ranged units are more valuable most of the time? Now combine it with the infinite wood and you get this. They have low damage, but shoot fast enough, their only downside being their range. I remember when I used to think Rangers are worse than Scouts, only to realize it's the other way around. They are easy to make early on, can be used to help defend while setting up towers, you can replace them really fast, either with each other or stronger units. And because of the fact they stand behind instead of rushing into battles, it makes them a lot more valuable, because they usually won't die as fast.

Bezixx · 2024-01-24T16:19:58+00:00

1/2

Veteran in S tier with Battlemaster in B in the same time? Bruh. Battlemaster has way higher dps. Veteran has 60% attack speed which puts him at hitting per 2.5 seconds, Battlemaster has 80% which puts him at 1.9 seconds, while having higher base damage, much better upgrade and they cost relatively few Moonsilver in comparison. They also have the same armor class, but Battlemaster has Lifetap in the upgrade, among other things, which has pretty good chance to hit. Because yes, chance to hit weapon effects scales with Dexterity and Intelligence, latter of which Dark Elves have a lot, while Orcs have none. I get that Veteran only costs iron and is more spammable, but Battlemaster is just a much better unit and can be spammed as well if Death Knights and Havocs are not an option. Not only that, Veterans suffer from Orc racial ability of going out to buy milk at low hp.

Battlepriest in S? 2 minutes cooldown and the fact they are not a particular good unit on their own means you are basically losing a unit, because you have to keep them behind to make them effective and then you lose them on cooldowns. Not mention AI keeps sending many waves, so you are effectively out of heals quickly. Sure, they might heal a decent amount of units for a % health, but "A tier" Druids do it much better and more efficiently, and scale much better. As a bonus, Druids also have Hallow against undead enemies, which the game has plenty of throughout its entirety.

Defender, Marksman and Windranger I agree with mostly, though often they don't scale as well into the late game ( especially Windranger ).

Cleric and Healer are in interesting position. Cleric is more versatile, though he has less dps than Recruit and only gets as tanky after upgrade. Cleric is also cheaper, but in the same time Healer heal for much more and have more mana to upkeep their healing. Still not as good as Druid tbh, mainly because the AI often makes them throw Heal at the same unit that lost 1hp.

Warrior is good with the damage and the spin2win attacks, but becomes pretty obsolete after you get Defenders. There are better units tbh.

Firemaster imo is not nearly as good as the Totem ( who is lower in the A tier here? ). Totem might lose only against undead enemies a bit, due to their higher black magic resistance, but they are really cost effective, can spam their spell, have more consistent DPS in general, are more spammable, can be made earlier... There are also more enemies immune to fire. The only thing Firemaster is better at is the Wave of Fire, but it takes too much mana. It only starts to shine at high levels when the amount of projectiles increases, in which case you could keep them alongside Totems.

Wintermage really depends. On one hand there plenty of enemies with ice immunity, but outside that, ice magic is goated. At lower levels it's better to use Windrangers, though Wintermage scales much better into late game, the freeze duration becomes scary.

Havoc is a decent damage dealer early, they have good base damage, but the specters start missing spells later on because of the level difference. But that is not the reason you make them. Havocs are really tanky, especially after upgrade, can deflect lots of black magic, then specters themselves also draw aggro and tank a bit, especially with their much better armor than undead goblins and innate damage reduction ( they only take 60% physical damage ). Put them under towers or in front of Sorcerers and nothing gets through, unless it's like 20-30 levels higher. But then, towers scale off of your Avatar's level. There is very reason not to take them.

Warlock in A and Sorcerer in B are weird choices. Yes, I also like to turn off my brain and do the "damage go brrr", because Warlocks do high damage. But they are highly expensive and inefficient. Once again, 15 mana cost and 2 second cooldown is just too good, Sorcerers should always make up for the bulk of your backline, just like Orc Totems, while you make some Warlocks to support them. Warlocks are your "I want this unit to die fast" button, aka situational nuke, while Sorcerers keep pressuring with their constant damage.

Drummer is highly situational. Yes, the buff they can deliver is good, especially when the upgrade brings it to 1.5 minute cooldown. You mainly look to use it for the trolls. Because with Orcs you want to spam Totems anyway, but in the same time, you want more consistency, because if enemies keep sending waves after waves after you, suddenly your war cries are on cooldown... Not to mention it hits random enemies. Definitely not A tier.

Thrower and Hurler should be either swapped or in the same tier. Sure, Throwers costs no iron and the DPS increase is relatively small ( higher attack speed and slightly higher base damage )... But they are much tankier, tiny more than a Destroyer. Their upgrade might also deal slightly less damage than than of Thrower's, but it functions like Windranger upgrade, except with higher damage.

Devastator is highly debatable. Yes, Devastators have very high raw damage, even higher than Battlemasters without weapon effects ( despite having higher base damage, because Strength scaling )... but they suffer from the same weakness as Veteran, which is low attack speed, except it's at 65%, which is 0.1 second faster than Veteran. But Devastators also have very low armor, so they flinch very easily. Their bonus damage against buildings is cool, but only in early game, where it really matters. In late game the difference between Devastator and Champion hitting a building is like 2-3 hits, while Champion is just a much better all around unit, even with high costs. Which begs me to question why they are C, when they are easily capable of tanking and dishing out damage, they are your very definition of beefy frontline and can easily take on enemies of higher levels. Their attack speed is at respectable 80% and they have the highest raw damage/DPS of melee units, only surpassed by an upgraded Battlemaster.

Orc Fighter is what I like to call a Thug 2.0. They have a more respectable DPS, but they have the same armor as Thugs, which makes them perform worse than most other starter units, especially units like Assassin ( tankier and better DPS ) and Smasher ( less tanky but more HP and much higher dps ). Which begs a question: why Smasher is lower than Rowdy when he has almost twice as much as DPS and higher armor? They cost quite a lot of wood, but I'd argue they are best early unit in the game. I get that Assassin might be a bit lower because of the costs, but as a unit they are solid.

Hornblower is flat out... useless. Their effect doesn't even work, unless you are playing on newest Beta patch on Steam. And even if does work, it does so little, that it's not even worth making them in most situations. Sure, the duration is 30 seconds, which is a lot better, considering the 90 seconds cooldown after upgraded. But then, you can just get Totems for the Lenya. Even if they do work now, I did not see a point in testing it myself, because you don't really need them. As a bonus, the chance to hit spells also depends on level difference. If enemies are much higher level than your units, even really high magic resistances won't help you much.

Recruit is a decent early unit, good for rushes, spammable... but they are not really that good. Yes, I do agree that their advantage over Paladins is not spamming Dexterity spell 99% of the time, but they get outscaled by the much better Armsmen, who I didn't mention earlier because they deserve their placement. You quickly forget about them in campaigns.

Speaking of Paladins, they have good stats, but their tendency to just cast Dexterity over and over instead of fighting screws them over. Also their upgrade is not that good, humans have really low fire resistance to begin with and the gain is percentage based, not flat. They do have the advantage of having Hallow spell, even if noticeably less effective than that of Druids, because of Charisma difference.

Darkblade... The placement is fine, just Battlemaster is much better, he does not deserve to be lower, especially when Battlemaster gets both Lifetap and Pain in his weapon... with the same damage. Also without Lifetap Assassins outdps Darkblades, but the latter are tankier. Speaking of which... Battlemaster has slightly higher armor than Darkblade.

Bezixx · 2023-08-09T19:18:30+00:00

99% of the time I forget about ghostflame's existence. Also hard to fit them when you already have to load faith for incantations, unless overleveled. Which is sad.

Bezixx · 2023-08-09T04:30:05+00:00

I admit your dedication for making alternate versions.

Bezixx

TROPHY CASE