Disciples Overnerfed?

[Inst]

Has anyone had any success stories with disciples after the EP patch, or are disciples only worth it in the context of Colonial White Pagoda for an all-in?

[Inst]

That is to say, Disciples got nerfed pretty heavily. The most broken thing about them was disciple spawning; i.e, they should not have had an effectively 100% spawn rate. Then there was the villager harassment issue. But the other nerfs were unjustified; nerfing them from 12 to 10 cap means that you can't even send the 5 card disciple shipment anymore. Then the 17% base damage nerf, in combination with other factors, makes them useless unless you're doing a colonial all-in.

[deleted_user]

Disciples weren't touched in EP. What makes you think they were?

[Mitoe]

What are you talking about?

[Inst]

Sorry, should that be RE instead? Were disciples overnerfed? Are they actually usable in game, or are they just a gimmick these days?

[TheInvincibleJannisary]

Take a time machine to go back in time to when disciples were OP when AOE3 TAD was originally released

[Inst]

I think the general conclusion is that disciple rush is no longer an issue. But are disciples still usable?

[TheInvincibleJannisary]

Getting more units on the field is sometimes a good move but by itself I wouldn't just train disciples.

[Mitoe]

Disciples were nerfed in an official patch a long time ago. Don't know which one, I wasn't around. Disciples are still great, but not overpowered. You should definitely be training them in fights; but definitely don't rush with them unless your name is Aizamk and you know the way.

[deleted_user0]

I think the general conclusion is that disciple rush is no longer an issue. But are disciples still usable?

disciples are great for their cost, and you should pretty much always make them in a fight or just before a fight.

[Inst]

For cost, disciples are roughly equivalent to a hussar in Colonial and Fortress, and in Imperial they remain competitive if you buy the monastery upgrades. So I'm not sure if great is a word I'd use.

[Mitoe]

Hussar are great though. Also disciples have crits and convert other units to disciples, which is fantastic.

[gamevideo113]

Like the spanish dogs, mixing some of them in your army can be really useful as mitoe and umeu were saying. They are not underpowered, but it's a cheap unit and you shouldn't expect it to wipe the floor.

[Inst]

It's about 10%, right? That's equivalent to 10% extra damage (since in 90% of attacks, the damage is normal, and in 10% of time, it's the normal damage + bonus damage). Not sure about how to calculate the disciple conversion, however.

[gamevideo113]

You should be able to get a tooltip for the conversion rate if you hover your mouse on the UI while having a disciple selected.

[deleted_user0]

Hussar are great though. Also disciples have crits and convert other units to disciples, which is fantastic.

not to mention that you can train them on the spot and they have a short training time. also the fact that they cost just one resource is great as well.

[momuuu]

I think disciples might be pretty underrated atm. They're one of the driving forces behind the china attack move army that randomly wins anything I think.

[jesus3]

I'd like to speak out for a general disciple buff, I would much rather right click stuff while doing a disciple rush than having to be cautious and microing stuff. Thanks in advance

[zoom]

Disciples are situational, but they have their uses if you have the spare resources at hand in a battle and your opponent doesn't have too much anti-cav.

[Hazza54321]

disciples really add to the hand inf fisting combo and will be mixed in nicely with pike sword hero + china cav

[Kaiserklein]

Disciples are good. The Chinese hero in cover mode is just unkillable, so you will have a hard time stopping China from making disciples in fights. So China will always be able to bring in small reinforcements very quickly. Plus, their stats are very decent for their cost, and they get auto upgraded with every age.
When defending a rush, it's also a way to get units out without needing a military building, which is very nice when ffing.

[deadrising78]

Do disciples have a chance to convert killed units to disciples or is that just the hero? Sometimes it says they convert and sometimes it doesnt

[Hazza54321]

disciples do i think yea

[momuuu]

starting in age 2 only.

[Inst]

What about cover mode disciples? China has issues with having good meat shields, until Age 3, but Disciples, as pseudo-hussars, have a high HP line that's further extended once they enter cover mode. For cost, they resemble Hussars with 550 HP once put into cover mode.