Faerie Dragons are too strong

General Discussion
1

They were never intended as a primary combat unit like Hippogryph Riders.
But they have 12 dps & 612 ehp for only 155/25/2. Contrast Riders with 23.6 dps & 1108 ehp for 290/10/4.

With spell immunity and phase shift they’re far more effective in direct combat and with that immunity combined with mana flare they can shut down a wide range of units/spells that would ordinarily be able to attack or directly counter light air like curse, cripple, wyrms, coil, nova, sleep, blizzard, storm bolt, banish, slow, polymorph, aerial shackles, gryphons, chain lightning, hex, purge, fan of knives, shadow strike, dott, faerie fire and all the neutral hero abilities like panda’s air hosing.

Its not like an army of ‘nothing’ but faerie dragons doesn’t have counters- bats, gyros, tanks, archers, hh, fiends, rifles, raiders and gargoyles all do a number on them- but for units that were supposed to be a niche counter to mass spellcasters, they’re oddly given stats that put them above primary combat units. Their only real weakness in such a role is their more awkward production building and higher experience bounty. And when supported in a standard NE army composition as a primary attack unit with other units to complement it, the inability of enemy heroes/casters to touch dragons really tilts the balance when a KotG can run around spamming roots on crypt fiends or whatever.

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2

lolwat?
Go sit in the corner.

3 Likes
3

Faerie dragons are more efficient combat units than hippo riders, wyverns or dragonhawks. That’s wat.

7 wyverns for 1855g/280l/28f resources have 171.5+4 dps & 5426 ehp. They would lose a fight to 12 faerie dragons for 1820g/300l/24f, who have 144.0 dps & 7344 ehp. About the same gold/lumber but less food. But the wyverns are vulnerable to spells and magic damage, the faeries are immune and have phase shift.

So orcs dedicated light air unit who does nothing but attack, is worse in combat than night elf’s niche counter to casters who is supposed to just mana flare next to them but is actually a magic immune flying primary attacking unit to form the backbone of a mid/lategame army.

4

Fun fact: out of his 1076-14 stats, Happy lost to mass faerie dragons vs s3xytime. He knew the strat was coming too since he knows sexytime does it all the time vs ud.

Here’s the video: Wc3 Sexytime VS Happy part. 2! - YouTube , happy’s viewpoint.

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6

Its not an issue of one game or one player. Its simple stats. Faerie dragons are way more efficient as light air units than they’re “supposed” to be. That’s just the numbers in the game’s data, a product of their HP, armor, damage, attack speed, range, movespeed, cost, food, etc.

What that youtube replay does illustrate well is the huge power of being magic immune. Even though “Guy doesn’t even have half an army”, he easily slaughters the archers with nova, coil, black arrow, etc. And then he’s left against a bunch of flying units he can’t coilnova and can’t attack with a destro. All he can build to counter it is fiends, and fiends are extremely vulnerable to his enemies spells like entangle and the faeries can just fight right through them, like TC stomping fiends while wyverns kill them. And if he wants a destro to remove the entangle, you can see how vulnerable that is to faeries. If he massed just a big army of fiends instead of riding his heroes/statues, the KotG could have ripped him apart by spamming entangle with moon wells, clarities, mana potions, moonstones and upgraded wells to keep the spam going.

7

Author c’mon make easy no more words.

9

If you nerf everything because of stats, then no one would want to play the game.

Faerie dragons are very weak nerf them and no one would even use them.

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10

gargs would rip through faerys, happy is the kind of ud that doesnt play gargs. with expo he could have gone triple rax gargs - elf could counter with hippos, but you need insane amounts vs triple rax gargs.

11

You clearly don’t know WC3’s meta, Hippogryphs dominate anything in the air, chimeras dominate everything on the ground. 1 chimera is worth 5 faerie dragons… do the math.

12

Gargs are 195g. Hippos are 160g with better dps/ehp. Sexytime also has thorns aura, but fair enough, a good ud would kite while nuking hippos.

13

If you’ve got 2-3 ancients of wind and upgraded beast armor/attack and see the opponent switching to gargs to counter your faerie dragons, then yeah, having a group of hippos in front of them to reinforce your air line seems a no-brainer. You’ve already got the infrastructure and upgrades to counter their counter. If the NE goes 2nd hero panda after KotG, it just ruins the gargs being able to fight into a ball of FDs+Hippos. Gargs are melee range with no movespeed advantage on FDs outside unholy aura and have to fully commit to a fight- at which point they obviously crush air, being dedicated anti-air units. You need unholy aura just for gargs to move as fast as hippos, and outside it there’s no running away. But that also makes them totally useless in scenarios where they haven’t reached critical mass to engage into an enemy since they can’t contribute chip damage, and easy to kite / hose down with heroes in a direct engagement.

16

The only race that really should have a problem with Faerie Dragons is Undead, because unlike Humans and Orcs, their basic ranged unit relies on a spell to attack air units.

Riflemen and Headhunters both have a hard type advantage over Faerie Dragons (piercing attacks deal double damage to light armor, medium armor takes 75% of the base damage of piercing attacks) but then you run into the real problem.

Your best counters for those druids of the claw the Night Elf player is going to have eventually are all magic based. The full kit of a Faerie Dragon just covers too many bases.

17

Web affects faerie dragons. Like ensnare, its a physical ability not a magical spell, and unaffected by magic immunity. If anything fiends are far better at punishing light air than rifles or headhunters because web’s immobilization just shuts down the mobility advantage of air, the ability to select your fire, and effectively disarms some dragons at the edges because fiends outrange them. This is a similar case with fiends vs wyverns. And its only the vulnerability of fiends to hero abilities that shifts the matchups. Fiends are ruined by entangling roots and war stomp, not by dragons or wyverns on their own.

18

This is the same person talking about mass gyro being too strong. Someones trolling :open_mouth:

19

They should nerf SCVs. They have 5 more health than other workers in SC2 and can repair each other.

20

yeah but nobody ever massed SCVs to rush an enemy base as legitimate combat units that doubled as building/repairing towers and fueling a lich’s infinite frost novas and skellington rods. Acolytes, on the other hand…

21

They did in SC2 when it was first released.

SCVs with 8 marines all in was a thing for quite a while until they nerfed SCV hp to the same as all workers. Im not sure exaxtly why this was effective in SC2 but not SC1.

22

And that’s why most undead players use fiends instead of gargs, they’re just better at dealing with hippos in every single way.