Conversations with Stitch
Defense is a huge topic within Rise of Firstborn. Many players want to know how to successfully be able to defend against all types of players. What is the best gear to wear in certain circumstances and what is the best way to set up your account?
There are many different important things you need to know when it comes to defense and how to set up your account. In our Line and Discord, we often see questions of how can I successfully defend or successfully be a trap. For Iron Throne that looks a little different than other games. One of my favorite people to talk to about Defense within the game is Stitch from the alliance FAM. This guy has a ton of knowledge surrounding the game and we wanted to take some of the pearls of wisdom we have him dropping and make sure they were available for you here.
What are your current thoughts on Defense/Offense in the game? This is probably the most balanced defense/offense matchup I can remember in Iron Throne thus far. Defenses have the capability of holding their own against solo attacks but rallies can overcome great defenses. This is how it should be. Everyone wants a defense that can hold itself up but when 6 of the strongest castles in the game come together to rally a mid-size player, there is a problem if the defense isn’t relatively vulnerable.
What would you say is the best gear set to wear for defense in PvP? Why? Although every defense has a counter, the best defense in ideal circumstances is still double single type (e.g. archer guard captain and archer guard deputy). The next best would be double majestic, but there are more advantages to double single type, such as killing off more of the attacker’s march which makes it more expensive for them to keep hitting you.
What would you say is the best gear set to wear for defense in ADM? Why? With the resurgence in dark lord gear as of late, it is difficult to say. The best way to handle defense in ADM is to balance attackers and fillers within your team. Those strong enough to set rallies on enemy big players tend to have a weaker defense because their best gear is not on their guard captain. Rally setters tend to use some variant of dark lord and majestic. Rally fillers should usually wear double majestic so that they are difficult to burn while they fill the rallies set by their teammates. Not everyone fits in those two roles, but understanding your role is the best chance of winning. Not everyone can be a lone wolf on attacking sprees.
What is the best defense set up in your mind? Why? Short answer: Double single type with over 20m+ t6/t7 of that matching type and over 100mil+ t3 of that matching type. Versatility is key and this setup allows for a rotation of gear in different situations.
Long Answer: With double majestic, you focus on debuffing the enemies troops rather than buffing your own. You could theoretically fully debuff the attacker’s stats as they hit you, but that results in your weak troops fighting their weak troops. You may do well in the hit, but oftentimes the attacker has a large portion of their march returning alive.
Double majestic defense is effective against a double majestic rally because it generally results in attacker and defender both being fully debuffed. That means the defender with only base stats remaining will usually have more than 100mil troops vs the attacker with only base stats remaining with maybe 6mil troops. It becomes a base stat slap fight with the advantage going to the bigger troop count.
With rallies, the attackers get a unity buff from rally joiners making it nearly impossible to reach the stats with defense that the attackers can reach with offense. As a result, most attacking setups can surpass the debuffs provided by a double majestic defense so the defender is relying on a large troop count to protect them.
With double single type, you focus on buffing your troops rather than debuffing the attacker’s stats. Usually means the attacker will try to counter with a way to debuff you.
Worst case scenario: The attacker rallies you with 6mil+ troops using double majestic to debuff your stats. The attacker hopes to fully debuff your attack stats and your HP stats to do real damage.
Think about it this way: If you are a double majestic defense, the attackers are trying to build enough attack to surpass the debuffs you have. If they manage to make that happen, your weak troops fight their strong troops because your troops never got buffed since you focused your defensive efforts on debuffing the enemy rather than buffing your own. Ouch.
If you are double single type defense, the attackers are trying to build enough debuffs to fully cancel out your stacked attack and hp stats. If they succeed, it is your large troop count in your base vs their small rally that didn’t bother to largely buff themselves since they focused on debuffing you instead.
Double debuff defense or double attack defense is your best chance on getting your stats high enough to survive a large rally coming your way. Anything in between is just too easy to counter with rally unity buffs.
Best Troop Build: The best troop build you can do is build your troops in a layout conducive to a single type. That would mean a bottom layer of troops corresponding to the gear choice (e.g. no t1s, no t2s, millions of t3 archers, no t3 of inf, cav, or siege). This would support single type defensive gear but more importantly will still work if you switched to double majestic to trick the attacker. It’s the most versatile troop setup you can build at the moment.
How can players successfully set up to defend if they are on a low budget? Most important thing to keep in mind is to remember to fight within your weight class. The best defense in the world doesn’t help a 5bil account survive a rally from max castles. With that being said, the least expensive way to defend at the moment is with high t3 troop counts and the highest debuff-centric defense you can muster, such as double majestic or guardian and majestic. You can train about 40mil t3 troops for around 3bil of each of the two main resources it requires (e.g. t3 infantry consume wood and iron) and a small amount of silver and food. Other things you think are important to know regarding combat in the game currently? Battle right now works in sort of a turn-based system. Because of this, t7 and t6 are undoubtedly the most important troops to have large amounts of. They both contain a skill known as preemptive strike. This gives them a priority chance to attack at the beginning of battle. Understanding how to read your reports helps you determine if you had enough t6 and t7 for defense.
In the orange battle, the defender’s t5s managed to get kills, which means the defender did not have enough t6s to kill off the entire march of the attacker so they relied on lower tiers to clean up the mess later on in the turn-based exchange. This results in greater losses for the defender in doing so (25k losses).
In the blue battle, the defender killed off the entire attacking march before their t5 had a chance to swing so their t5 got 0 kills. This means the defender had enough t6/t7 to defend effectively (only 8k losses).
Use large t3 meat shields to absorb the blow from the attacker while having enough t6/t7s to finish killing the entire attacker’s march early on. That’s the goal. T3 are the least expensive method of sponging damage while t6 and t7 have preemptive strike to attack back, making t4 and t5 not as important in ideal situations. With the cost of t6s and t7s, some cannot afford this build which is where t5s and t4s come in handy. They are your last line of defense and should still be built to support your defense. You may not have enough t6/t7 for defense, but if you don’t have t5s to pick up any leftovers, consider yourself zeroed.
What’s your Defense Setup?
As a player have you decided on a defense setup? Or are you still working to build your way up? Every player has the opportunity to create something unique and find their way to play PvP in Iron Throne. One thing I often hear is, is this stat high enough? Well, it depends on who you are going up against. Go to Golden Moon and test against players there without the risk of losing troops.
Go to the Blood Moon and get half off your healing. Be brave enough to go out and have some fun and maybe drop a shield on occasion. You might surprise yourself. For more on the go information regarding Defense in Iron Throne make sure you join our Line and Discord chats.
Line: Just add thatcinder and request an invite to the Elite Room
Discord: Just Click Here