Ilves's KF General Guide to the Forest- Updated with DoE runes!

[ilves]

(EDIT by HCaulfield: For the time being and in attempt to clean up the look of the KF forum, I am merging all the guide threads. After expansion, I will be updating mine, and hope to have ilves and scrampy do the same, and will then clean them up in a far better form than this. Hope this does not cause undue confusion for anyone.)


So I've put together a little general guide for KF from my personal experience. It doesn't include specific builds, but rather general roles and characteristics of all KF runes. If you'd like more specific information, please let me know and I'll try to add/update.

Rankings 1-3: 1 = useless, 2 = optional, 3 = highly useful

Champions
Ambling Frond - Ranking: 2. Although slightly buffed in previous expansions, the main advantages of this champion, shatter and hidden: vegetation, are overshadowed by its low speed and damage. It is, however, useful as a plant in wood decks for shatter as it also buffs surge: plant units like the Wood elemental.

Apprentice Mage - Ranking: 3. Currently, alongside the Treant Launcher, the most efficient ranged champion in terms of cost. Low cost, good mobility, and decent damage make him/her a good choice in any BG. Only downside to this rune is its HP.

Avenging Angel - Ranking: 2. Can be useful depending on upgrades. Divine favor is situational and can be useless as a first turn draw. Without deflect she is a fragile melee champion, but healing abilities are the main use for her. Personally I like Spirit Singers and Garu Shamans over her.

Centaur Archer - Ranking: 1. Used to be KF's #1 ranged champion. After a nerf to Farshot, his 2x2 size, which lends to a lack of mobility, has made the Centaur less useful. In BGs needing far-range, Menelaus and Treant Launchers tend to outshine the Centaur.

Centaur Interceptor: Ranking: 1. The interceptor, on first glance, is by no means a bad champion. It is merely outdone by nearly every other KF melee champion.

Elder Garu - Ranking: 2. Can be highly useful. High HP and damage, alongside pummel, make this champion something to be feared on the battlefield. His large 2x2 size makes him slightly unwieldy, but if you need a large, high HP, damage dealing tank melee unit, he's the guy to go for.

Elven Archer - Ranking: 3. Good range, low HP. The archer is very fragile, but has far reach at range 7. She has further range and less mobility than the apprentice mage and elven mage, but less range and more mobility than the treant launcher. Barrage can be deadly, but most people do not upgrade it past level 1. Very good unit to keep behind a melee meat shield to keep enemies at a distance.

Elven Artisan - Ranking: 1. Does have nora miner, shatter, and craft. Nora miner is useful, but the return of nora miner versus her cost is minimal. Craft, excluding any future expansion equipments, is not very useful as KF equipment is not very strong. Shatter is useful, but again, the blademaster outshines her in this role.

Elven BladeMaster - Ranking: 2. Cheap, but semi-fragile melee champion. Very versatile in upgrade options and KF's best disarm/anti-equipment champion. I would classify him as a skirmisher but not a front line heavy trooper.

Elven Druid - Ranking: 2. Versatile, but not heavy hitting. Eagle form is one of the best detection units for KF, and the ability to change from wolf to druid shape is a good balance of ranged and melee damage. His 2x2 size is a hinderance, but if you need flexibility over sturdiness in a detect champion he might be the champion for you.

Elven Fury - Ranking: 1.5. Slightly overcosted in my opinion. Inspire works well with KF's ranged units (like Menelaus), but does take time to develop. The Fury's fighting ability versus other factions than Underdepths is limited, and her role is usually limited to BG's that focus on buffing a single champion.

Elven Illusionist - Ranking: 1. Although his stats and abilities are not bad, he is overshadowed by more efficient range champions. Deception is useful in many situations, however, as a cleansing ability as well as a diversion.

Elven Mage - Ranking 3: formerly KF's best ranged option, still in the top 3 or four. Still the fastest and most mobile of KF's ranged units, which can be run cheaply in the 70 nora range or as an expensive, deflection 13 speed unit in the 90s. Builds are very versatile for different styles. If you need a range 6, fast moving yet slightly more expensive champion, the elven mage is for you.

Elven Prodigy - Ranking: 2. Purely a defensive unit, will attack any enemy making a ranged attack on your champions if it is within 1-8 squares of the Prodigy. Will not react to Shrine attacks. Can be highly effective or highly useless depending on the situation, but is never a bad addition to a BG.

Elven Strategist - Ranking: 3. One of the most useful units in KF's arsenal. Although not a powerhouse by itself, the Strategists Relocate: Ally and Relocate: Foe abilities, alongside Battlemaster (which is a highly useful ability in itself), improve upon every other unit in your BG with increase mobility. Highly effective with lumbering tree based decks as well as regular units. Although fragile, the Strategist makes the opponent adjust their strategy whenever they come on the field. Highly valuable in tree decks, solid in all others.

Enraged Grizzly - Ranking: 2. One of the four detecting champions available. High Hp, although low defense, makes him formidable. Enrage gives him up to 17 damage if the opponent does not kill him outright when attacking. If you need a tanking unit with decent damage along with detection, he is the rune to go for. His only downsides are this 2x2 size and low defense, which ends up dealing him more damage per attack than usual.

Falconer - Ranking: 2. Not bad, but there are better choices for detection and range and melee. More useful when paired with a Ranger Elite due to her Commander: Ranger and surge: ranger abilities. (falconer is a ranger as well)

Forest Dragon - Ranking: 2. Heal plus cleanse in one ability (healing breath). Highly useful for that ability alone, but his 2x2 size plus fragile HP due to being unable to heal himself makes him vulnerable. If used wisely can be a huge assets, but is sometimes overshadowed by the spell Herbal Antidote for versatility in cleansing
.
Forest Giant - Ranking: 2. KF's cheapest hard hitting tanking melee unit. His only downfall is Elf Bound, which gives your opponent control of him if you have no other elves deployed.

Garu Cub - Ranking: 1.5. With pounce getting a minor nerf, he is usually overshadowed by other melee units in KF. Although his stat boost from enemy rare and exotic champions is useful, his damage output usually isn't great enough to exclude other melee champions like the Gnarlwood Grappler and Rangers.

Garu Hurler - Ranking: 1. Good when used in Shrine Rush BGs. His low range, coupled with high cost when upgraded make him a poor option in regular BGs. His high HP does work well in certain situations, but usually not enough to take over spots from other ranged units.

Garu Shaman - Ranking: 3. Excellent unit for his high HP, high damage (with poison), and healing abilities. With heal champ 3, poison 2, 7 speed, he runs around 69 nora, which is a very good cost level to run KF champions at. His only downfall is that his attack is poison, which Forsaken Wastes are completely immune to. A good cheap, high damage champion, but one faction is completely immune to his damage.

Gnarlwood Grappler: Ranking: 3. Good, cheap, decent Hp/damage melee champion with constrict. Nothing too fancy, but nothing wrong about him either. Just watch out for fire damage, or run a Nature's Balance relic.

Gnarlwood Patriarch: Ranking: 2.5. Pros: Halves ranged damage to all 1x1 champions in 2 squares. Cons: Lumbering (2 ap per movement), 2x2, other abilities aren't that great. The Patriarch is great in BG's that use mostly 1x1 units with strategists for additional movement. Also good for boosting other tree units like Treants or Grapplers. In BG's without 1x1 units or trees he can be a little useless. Situational depending on BG, but can range from great to mediocre.

Great Eagle - Ranking: 1. Overshadowed by Druid in everything he does.

Lifegiver - Ranking: 1. Mostly useful for healing. Since he is immobile his range is not very long, and is usually unable to participate in battle. I would go with a Spirit Singer, Garu Shaman, Nectar Fairy, or any other healing unit before him.

Menalaus - Ranking: 3. Kf's Hero unit and our best range unit. Range 7, 15 damage, with option regeneration and heal mass makes him almost vital to any competitive KF BG. If you can get him, use him, he is probably the best range unit in the game even with his high cost.

Mountain Garu - Ranking: 2. Cheap, decent damage, and has iniative for quick engagement. His downside is his low defense, which usually ends up killing him quickly than other melee champions. Rangers with block/riposte or other higher defense champions like the Gnarlwood Grappler usually outshine him in pure melee roles, but as a iniative shrine/font defense he is king.

Nectar Faerie - Ranking: 2. Highly fragile, but highly effective short range healer. I personally feel he is too fragile, but if you are adjacent to another unit, there is no other unit that can match her healing abilities.

Nymph - Ranking: 1. Highly attractive, but highly useless. She's been used in many combinations, but she doesn't have the stats to pull her weight.

Oaken Defender - Ranking: 2. The defender is lumbering, which uses twice as much AP per movement as regular champions. His high defense makes him good at defensive roles but highly ineffective at offensive roles. When used in Treefolk BG's accordingly, either as defense or with 'Light as a Feather' or 'Butterfly Wings' spells he can be useful.

[ilves]

Pox Harbinger - Ranking: 2. Not as useful in Kf as other factions as KF has decent iniative and ranged. If you have one, I'd still run it, but not as crucial as Harbingers in Underdepths.

Ranger - Ranking: 3. One of our better melee champions. Highly flexible in terms of upgrade path. Cheap versions run with just 9 base speed, other versions range from melee specialist 2, to 11 speed versions with dodge and other upgrades. My personal favorite is the 9 speed, melee spec 2, 10 damage version for under 80 nora.

Rascal Fairy - ranking: 2. Highly deceptive due to stealth, but highly fragile after reveal. Good for font stealing, font contesting, or shrine rushing, but does not stand up well in regular combat. Specialized but not highly useful in a regular non-rush BG.

Sapling - Ranking: 1. Cheap, fragile. Too fragile. Not very useful. But, good for surging other tree units when obtained from a relic like Greenhouse or Germinating Engine.

Snake Charmer - Ranking: 3. Drive alone is worth her ~55 nora price. Upgrade drive, have her at 7 speed as she is worthwhile running for the +1 AP +2 damage each unit gets from her drive ability. Summon Snakes is also highly effective when used as roadblocks for enemy units.

Spirit Singer - Ranking: 3. One of KF's better healers. Flying, range 6, heal champ 3, nora sheld 1 Spirit Singers for ~75 nora can help in combat, nora accrual, and healing of champions. Very versatile exotic rune. Most players find nora shield 1 more cost effective than Nora Shield 2 as Shield 2 is very expensive. Nora Shield gives the owner player the equal amount in nora that the target champion gets deal in damage. Good for casting on a tank champion that the opponent is going to focus on.

Sporegill - Ranking: 1. Like Communism, good in theory, but the having him spend a few turns at his deployment AND his death as a relic makes him a bit too slow in action to be a useful champion.

Sprite - Ranking: 2. One of my favorite champions of all time. Force barrier and Stun are two of the most useful skills in the game, with Force Barrier probably being the most useful of the two. Unfortunately, her 1-3 range has been converted to 2-4, and her low starting HP of 28 makes her cost a little over 80 nora for a decent 40 HP model makes her a not very often used rune. Against melee centric BG's the Sprite is absolutely deadly. Against ranged decks she is definitely vulnerable.

Treant Launcher - Ranking: 3. One of the more underrated KF runes. Can be easily upgraded to deal high damage at range 9 for decently cheap (a little over 70 nora for 13 damage with no stone bomb). His main downfall is his lumbering ability (2 AP for movement per square), but is you are running any Elven Strategists this deficit can be overcome. Cheap, high damage, HUGE range, makes this champion highly effective in well designed BGs. I'd recommend giving him a try, but his flavor works for some and not for others, so it is a very subjective call on whether to include him.

Wild Elf - Ranking: 2. Incredibly cost effective for a melee detection champion. He is also decently low on HP and damage, making him more of a scout/detector than a frontline melee troop. Depending on need, I would include either him, the Elven Druid, or the Enrage Grizzly for detection purposes.
Winged Lerper: Ranking: 1. Don't use him. Just don't.

Woodland Ambassador: Ranking: 2. Not bad, but has been overshadowed of late by other melee champions. But, his decent damage, 1-3 range, good HP, and decently cheap cost never make him a BAD choice. He is a toss-up in my book, could include him or not, depending on the tactic/strategy I'm going for in my build.

Spells
Brambles - Ranking: 3. One of KF's most useful spells. Delays opponents movements for one turn. Be careful when deploying against Protectate factions with cleanse, as they can remove it and waste your spell.

Butterfly Wings - Ranking: 2. Grants mobility and flying. Removes lumbering and allows tree units to move normally. Good when used in shrine rush BG's or treefolk/lumbering BGs, but otherwise mediocre.

Call Serpent - Ranking: 2. Can be cast at a distance, and a highly effective font contesting spell. Cast it behind enemy champions to contest their font and make them move their champions to destroy it while allowing your units to move it.

Carnivorous Vines - Ranking: 2. Like brambles, but unlike making movement cost more AP, it restricts units from moving at all. Single target vs area of effect however, so most people prefer Brambles for the ability to his multiple units at once.

Clairvoyance - Ranking: 1. Usually not used in full faction KF decks. Allows you to reveal more cards in your deck. Highly useful in KF/UD decks using Darkness, but otherwise not recommended.

Cultivate The Earth - Ranking: 1. Not really worth using. Creates grass and does some minor nora accrual, but it isn't really worth using a rune slot for this over the other champ/spells available.

Devolve - Ranking: 1.5. Cuts opponent champions stats in half for a few turns. Effective single champion control spell, but wears out quickly and can usually be overshadowed by Vortex. It does prevent the opponent from dealing damage to you, but does not prevent them from moving around you or running away.

Grimlic's Bane - Ranking: 1. Only effective in highly situational battles. Mostly useless.

Grimlic's Mirror - Ranking: 2. Copies a champion you've already deployed for 80 nora. Better in 10/10 decks than FF. I'd give it a poor score in full faction, but high scores in half and half decks using powerful high cost runes.

Herbal Antidote - Ranking: 3. One of the best spells in the entire game. Cleanse is highly underrated and can basically remove any negative condition or statistic the opponent casts on you. I run two sometimes, but most times I only have room for one.

Invisibility - Ranking: 1. Great for rush decks, otherwise mediocre as it wastes a decent amount of nora for an ability that most competitive BG's have an answer for (detect of some type).

Lifeshield - Ranking: 1.5. Directs enemy single target spells (not AoEs) as healing to your champion. Not very useful as you would have to guess exactly which champion is being targeted ahead of time, plus most people do not use single target spells anymore.

Light as a Feather - Ranking: 1. Good for lumbering treefolk decks, not useful on non-lumbering units at all.

Nature's Wrath - Ranking 3: Reduces enemy defense by 50% and deals 10 damage. Awesome vs SL, useful versus all factions. Use before attacking with champions.

Recall - Ranking: 1. Reduces cooldown on all your spells. Good for spell heavy decks or trick decks. Usually not run as it is more useful to run a champion/spell than a spell that helps you re-cast spells. Also pretty high nora cost makes it semi-useless for most full faction decks.

Spontaneous Growth - Ranking: 1. Meh.

Swiftwind - Ranking: 1. Horrible. +1 AP is ok, but unstoppable is usually pretty pointless. There are few and far between situations where this would be highly useful, but not enough to warrant a spot.

Thorn Collection - Ranking: 3. Hard to get (crafted off polymorph), but very cheap, deals 10 damage, and creates grass, which is good against terrain control factions like ST.

Truce - Ranking: 1. Not very useful as the Truce ends on your opponents turn.

Vortex - Ranking: 2. Good, not essential. Basically removes an enemy champion to behind his shrine. Depending on size of the map it might remove it from combat from anywhere between 2-5 rounds. Situational, highly effective in 1 on 1 font battles.

Relics:


Elven Statue - Ranking: 1. Useless. I don't believe its working properly, would have to check in once it is.

Germination Engine - ranking: 1. Useless, Saplings generate after 3 turns of having it running, which is a looong time in game time to wait for a low end unit.

Grimlic's Eye - Ranking: 1. Useless. Extends casting distance, and detects around the unit, but not useful enough to warrant a spot.

Grimlic's Portal - ranking: 1.5. Can be used to contest fonts as it is immune: physical. But overshadowed by Call Serpent now-a-days.

Nature's Balance - Ranking: 3. Highly useful when playing any units with vulnerabilities as it removes those vulnerabilities. Also negates amplification from UD or ST and negatively affects summons, like SL's hatchlings or FW's Skeletons.

Pride of K'thir - Ranking: 3. Great in full faction for all its bonuses, do not run in 10/10 decks.

Prismatic Crystals - Ranking: 2. Great in campaigns, useless in actual player vs player.

Thorn Trap - Ranking: 2. Decent damage, but nothing amazing. Slot better used for a good champion

Wooden Scales - Ranking: 1. Useless.

Equipment:


Barbed Vine Leash - Ranking 1: Don't Bother. Although it can deal damage to an opposing rune, the low damage output usually does not impede the opponent. With more disarm/shatter options being run these days this equips usefulness is usually not worth a slot over another rune.

Burning Oak Seed - Ranking 1: Was good before Nature's Balance. Now, don't bother.

Oaken Mace - Ranking 2: Instant, surprise stun on ranged champion is GREAT. Optional though, but definitely KF's best equipment.

Shield of Thorns - Ranking: 2. A little too costly for its effect, but painful to deal with for opposing champions.

Withering Fern - Ranking 1: I personally wouldn't bother.

[ilves]

Nora Surge:!! Since I ran out of room:

Ancestral Avenger - Rank: 2-3. Well, I need to review him more after the corporeal ability was changed to 0 AP from 4. Could be much improved, but will have to see whether it falls in the 2 or 3 range.

Dryad - Rank 2. Great in tree decks, otherwise average. Good as a support healer unit, can be useful in battle when boosted by the patriarch (sort of).

Elven Bard - Rank 3. Great support unit. Motivate plus battle hymn can give you the slight edge you need in terms of AP and damage to pull of a defeat. His recent cost boost made him slightly less efficient but still useful.

Tree Spider - Rank 2. Solid melee unit. Web, cocoon, 1-2 range, climb make him useful, especially when contesting fonts or buffing your other units during a lull in battle. Not essential, but definitely no fault if you choose to run him in your BG.

Veasel Quillback - Rank: 1.5. Looks good on paper, but his low HP is a definite detriment to his usefulness.

Spells:

Combined Effort - 1.5. Good when using a cheap swarmer deck, useless if using a lot of expensive champs.

Regulate - Rank 1.5. Good vs UD and other high damage factions. Can be useless vs swarming, cheap decks like SP or FS.

Relics:
Woodland Portal - Rank 1. It's not that bad, but there's a lot of better tactical options for a slot than swap in your deck. When non-physical damage was rare (this relic is immune to physical) it used to be useful as a font contestor that the enemy could not easily destroy.

Crown of K'thir - Rank 2. This equip is either highly useful or utterly useless. Usually when its useless is when you're winning, so it comes in handy if you're losing. Even having 4 of your champs destroyed will lend this equip +4 damage, which can honestly be very effective depending on the champion. Menelaus, treant launchers, or tanking melee champs are highly efficient with this equip in the late game, but is a useless rune slot in early games. This rune is useful in cheap (cost wise) decks.

****************
Dawn of Elements Expansion:

CHAMPIONS:

Ghost Stalker - Ranking: 2. He isn't bad, but more a utility/support unit than frontline fighter. He can stealth from nora globes and create illusions of himself, but his low damage output and medium health do not give him a lot of survivability. The illusion ability is very useful as a self cleanse and font contestor/harassor/melee engager, but I'm not sure the one useful ability makes him necessarily worthwhile.

Ranger Elite - Ranking: 3. Mainly a three due to her ridiculous efficiency. Starting at 68 nora she can be run at that cost straight out of the box and give her 11 spd, init 1, arrowshot, and commander: ranger. You can also give her surge: ranger for ranger decks, but i'm of the general opinion that surge abilities tend not to be worthwhile (opinion call). Arrowshot also gives her a nice combo of range and melee ability.

Tireless Harvester - Ranking: 1. Not a bad idea, but too expensive and fragile for soulharvest to be worthwhile.

Wood Elemental - Ranking: 3. Great in tree decks, solid in non-tree decks. Everytime it is destroyed it takes the place of a deployed tree unit and stays alive. That is an extremely useful, or extremely bad, ability depending on your positioning and what unit you are replacing (treant launchers = bad, saplings = good). Plant Regen 2, Elemental Fortitude, resist: physical 2, and surge plant also give him good sustainability and attacking power. Also efficient nora wise.

Woodland Jester - Ranking: 1. Global mobility is nice, but the swap stat abilities tend to not be useful enough to warrant inclusion in a deck. A little too expensive for what he does. Even if he is a squirrel. An awesome squirrel.


SPELLS:

Crowded Forces - Ranking: 2. Since it was nerfed from a global spell to area of effect, it no longer de-stealths or does damage to everything on the board. It's overshadowed by nature's wrath and thorn collection, I would even say brambles.

Mend - Ranking: 2. Not bad since you get +2 AP per turn and +2 ranks of regen. If cost about 10 nora less I would use it much more often.


RELICS:


Giving Tree - Ranking: ?. A result of a charity drive, this tree does good and bad things at random... good for fun decks, wouldn't recommend for serious DOW play.

Greenhouse - Ranking: 2. I haven't played with it much since it received a longer cooldown, but I think its still worthwhile in Tree decks, especially when used to surge a Wood Elemental and contest enemy fonts with immediate sapling deployment.

Rejuvenatiion Ring - Ranking: 3. A lot more useful than it would seem off reading. Cheap (25 nora) and you're champion gains 3 HP per turn plus 3 HP per attack. A possible 9 HP per turn heal for a cheap cost that can be replaced. Won't turn the tide of battle, but used intelligently over the game can definitely contribute.

[jimmie1982]

ahh man, I'm sorry, want me to post it there?

[Giovachino]

You seem to have mixed up your 1's and 3's in some of the descriptions, giving 1's to runes who's virtues you were extolling, and the occasional 3 to runes you were panning.

I also disagree somewhat about Barbed Vine Leash and Withering Fern. Barbed Vine Leash + hit and run tactics wreaks havoc when done right. Withering Fern seems quite cheap for a source of ongoing damage (about equal to having poisoned the unit you equip it to) plus steadily lowering defense.

[jimmie1982]

Originally Posted by Giovachino

You seem to have mixed up your 1's and 3's in some of the descriptions, giving 1's to runes who's virtues you were extolling, and the occasional 3 to runes you were panning.

I also disagree somewhat about Barbed Vine Leash and Withering Fern. Barbed Vine Leash + hit and run tactics wreaks havoc when done right. Withering Fern seems quite cheap for a source of ongoing damage (about equal to having poisoned the unit you equip it to) plus steadily lowering defense.

I think what keeps these two equips such sandbag and kinda not worth it is the variety of disarm/shatter abilities out there. And not to mention a wasted rune slot that can be used for another herbal or your own disarm unit :)

[Chlindall]

Yes, but the 1's and 3's have been mixed up in some instances.

Elven Strategist being one of them.

Otherwise it would be a very good post =)

[ilves]

i double checked the numbers, should be ok.

When I get around to it I might try to post some good builds for units, but that might take a while for each one.

[oxbaker]

Great guide especially for a newb like me but what am I not understanding when it comes to the Strategist? You reference being able to relocate ally and foe but when I look at the Strategist in the rune store it doesn't show that ability. My guess is that it's an upgrade to the unit and the rune store doesn't show the possible upgrades. If thats the case, where is a good reference for units and thier full ability list? Or if it is something else then fill me in? Thanks!

[Kryptas]

Originally Posted by oxbaker

Great guide especially for a newb like me but what am I not understanding when it comes to the Strategist? You reference being able to relocate ally and foe but when I look at the Strategist in the rune store it doesn't show that ability. My guess is that it's an upgrade to the unit and the rune store doesn't show the possible upgrades. If thats the case, where is a good reference for units and thier full ability list? Or if it is something else then fill me in? Thanks!

It's an upgrade you use cp to get. You're guess was right. ^^ A good site to use is http://www.datachild.ca/ . It'll show you all the upgrades of a champ if you search it.