Which unit is best bang for your buck?

[Seryna]

So I think everyone can agree that dragons are the best unit to try and get since it's the unit with the best attack/defense stats you can get for gold. But what's the next best unit to boost your stats for the least amount of gold?

Right now I am going for basilisks/high priests since I spent the time and gold to upgrade my wizard's spire to 7 since reading the forums, it made it seem like high priests were worth it to get for the high defensive stats. But now that I've had more time to analyze I've gone back and it seems like the best units to get are the ones where the cost to attack/defense are the lowest, ie you can get the best stats for your level for the least amount of gold. Of course, the best cost to stats ratio is for lower level units like the archer (which has a cost/stat ratio of only 4) but then you end up wasting more gold overall because in the end these units need to be replaced with higher units. So here's the table I put together of the highest stat units after dragons:

Unit Stat Cost Cost/Stat

Death Knight 33/29 2000 32.26
Wyvern 34/34 2500 36.76
Trebuchet 40/19 2200 37.29
Necromancer 19/11 1200 40.00
High Preist 16/51 2800 41.19
Flaming Catapult 51/26 3500 46.75
Lich 49/28 3700 48.05
Basilisk 55/34 5000 56.18
Flaming Trebuchet 60/31 5400 59.34
Hydra 60/58 7600 64.41
Steam Tank 52/60 7500 66.96

Since your most valuable resource in the game is upgrade time, it's worth it to take a look at what units you want to shoot for before dragons so that you don't waste time and gold upgrading a unit building unnecessarily. Based on this table it seems like the unit with the best bang for your buck might be death knights. As long as you could get BD10 on your stats from them alone so you didn't waste any gold replacing these units with higher units later.

Another thing to consider is the boost buildings. Since you know you ultimately want dragons for your end game, you will eventually want to upgrade your beast warren to 10. In that case, the best unit to go for might be wyverns. However since a lot of the LTQ indestructible units are infantry, if you upgrade your blacksmith to 10 then death knights still might be the way to go. Even though machines have a good cost/attack ratio, you hardly get any LTQ machine units. The worse thing you can do I think is to just upgrade all your unit buildings to 10. You want to focus on just the few you need to get the units you want and with the rest of your time upgrade money buildings instead to boost your IPH.

I wish I had thought about this before upgrading my wizard's spire to 7. Especially since the casualty rate on the high priests is higher too.

Any other thoughts on what's the best unit after dragons to go for would be appreciated since if you want to get dragons you're going to need the best stats you can get before you do your BD10 run. I think this would be very helpful for new players starting out so they don't waste their time the way I did.

[Jixx]

The casualty rate on high priests and death knights is the same, both very low, and the Death knight might be more cost efficient but it wont raise your defence high enough to withstand excessive raiding when people find you overvault.

[Seryna]

The casualty rate on high priests and death knights is the same, both very low, and the Death knight might be more cost efficient but it wont raise your defence high enough to withstand excessive raiding when people find you overvault.

On the table, I see death knights as very low (0.5%) and high priests as low (0.63%). I know when I raid, I lose a lot more high priests than other units with very low casualty rates. I might need to buy other units with higher attack so my priests don't go into battle when I attack. But I feel like this is not as cost effective as I need to buy two armies...one for attack and one for defense. Thoughts on having two armies versus one army for attack and defense? I figure this is another question I will have as soon as I get BD up to 8. To buy hydras or still stick to the high priest/basilisk combo?

[Jixx]

On the table, I see death knights as very low (0.5%) and high priests as low (0.63%). I know when I raid, I lose a lot more high priests than other units with very low casualty rates. I might need to buy other units with higher attack so my priests don't go into battle when I attack. But I feel like this is not as cost effective as I need to buy two armies...one for attack and one for defense. Thoughts on having two armies versus one army for attack and defense? I figure this is another question I will have as soon as I get BD up to 8. To buy hydras or still stick to the high priest/basilisk combo?
ah yes, my mistake the casualty rate is low on the priests. None the less, they still get good def for their price. Maybe you should attack people with at most half your attack as Def, i do that and i hardly ever lose units.

[Battle Mage]

As a general observation, don't take magic units into battle. They die easy. Use them for defence only.
If that means having a D team and an A team, then so be it.
It's still worthwhile having the beardy guy on your team , as for a while after getting dragons, when you're all excited and levelling up, you'll need a strong D for quite some time that your number of dragons won't cover.
Unless you camp until you're full strength before progressing.
But that'd just be boring...!

Seryna, as Jixx wrote you just need higher absolute stats.
I know where you're coming from but bang for buck doesn't really come into it.
If you want to upgrade 1 building and get an amazing unit, that is also really rare (only seen one player with it and cant remember the name) that will take you straight through to dragons, then go the steam tank.
That was it. That was all that player had. And at L50 he was untouchable!

That said, if you want to stick with attack units that can benefit from the same boost that your long-term ultimate unit will, you could stick with Basilisks and, when you get to BD8, a few Hydras.

[Zenobia]

Until I got dragons, I made good use the "A team / D team" strategy as you put it. Actually until I got hydras that is. But I digress. And for the D side of that, high priests rock. Especially if you build up your temple. For the A team, machines are much maligned but it is not hard to upgrade to flaming stuff: catapults and even trebuchets, and they are relatively cheap to buy. They will die. Fast. Very fast. But only if you need to use them. Which, if you are trying to keep your level low until you have dragons, should only be during PvP LTQ's that are worth the expense of them. I know many disagree with me on machines having any worth, but my high priest D team and flaming A team got me to very strong pre-dragons stats that helped me with my over-vault BD runs.

[Battle Mage]

Zenobia +1.

The 'standard A team/D team combo' would be the flaming cats/HP's.
It DOES require two upgrade paths, but its tried and tested. Will serve you well.

[Seryna]

Zenobia +1.

The 'standard A team/D team combo' would be the flaming cats/HP's.
It DOES require two upgrade paths, but its tried and tested. Will serve you well.

Ok that's good to know that my time and gold upgrading wizards spire to 7 wasn't completely a waste. So you think it's worth the time to upgrade my siege workshop to 10 to get the flaming catapults now? I was thinking of just doing basilisks for my attack team since I had to upgrade that on my way to BD10 anyways. And the basilisk has better stats than the flaming catapults.

It's so expensive to have two armies. I barely have enough gold to buy enough units for all my allies...let alone 2 units. I guess I will hold off on attacking then until I've got 2 armies though. The high priests are too expensive to lose and they die fairly easily.

[marko101]

I didn't waste time upgrading for high prist I went straight from flaming cats to dragons!!!