UNDERSTANDING / GRINDING WINTER ITEMS 2023

[Tim619]

Min-Max Your Winter Event usage with this subjective table!

Spoiler: You may purchase these Items with Winter Points

[table=nohead]
Items|General Thoughts|Civilization Interactions|Available Gear Slot

|They have the same DPS as other Legendary Javelins vs Buildings! It's essentially a generalist Javelin gear but all Javelin users are situational!|

• Greek Peltasts: See Persian Takabara.
• Greek Sarissphoroi: Too short range to effectively use the snare even when considering its Advisor and Champion Upgrade.
• Egyptian Scout: I would not recommend this gear for them considering they have a more appropriate gear for them.
• Celtic Carpentom: Their AoE Attack (from Champion Upgrade) does not apply snare on area damage, and their population space is too much for the snare.
• Persian Takabara: Acceptable if Curse of the Archer is not within your budget.
• Roman Centurions: Do not need it, given they have a decent ranged snare and they would rather have raw damage stats on their Javelin.
• Babylonian War Chariot: See Celtic Carpentom except they get their AOE damage from an Advisor.
• Norse Skirmisher: See Persian Takabara.
• Indian Ranger: See Persian Takabara.

|

• Greek: 2
• Egyptian: 1
• Celts: 2
• Persian: 1
• Roman: 1
• Babylonian: 1
• Norse: 1
• Indian: 1
• Total: 9

|In this event, the Spear has gotten a significant snare resistance buff, possibly aiding some cavalry to breeze through some enemy snares.|In addition to Spearmen who might use it if they want to snare more...

• Greek Prodromos has a lot of snare in its Champion Upgrade.
• Egyptian Camel Riders: They are often fast enough to not need the snare resistance or snare.
• Celtic Horsemen: No opinion.
• Persian Cataphract: Despite being slow... they often will kill whoever is snaring them quickly enough.
• Roman Gallic Horsemen: See Persian Cataphracts.
• Babylonian Lancer: If desired, since they are often used as a base-rushing unit and a charge-on-snare sounds nice.
• Norse Horsemen: See Celtic Horsemen.
• Indian Turanga: No opinion except their identity might reflect an inverse Egyptian Camel Rider (but still being fast to match with Cavalry might have the same Egyptian Camel Rider comment).

|

• Greek: 2
• Egyptian: 2
• Celts: 2
• Persian: 2
• Roman: 2
• Babylonian: 2
• Norse: 2
• Indian: 2
• Total: 16

|A MUST-HAVE. INCREASE SPEED AND HEALTH? CONSIDER UNITS THAT DO NOT NEED THE DAMAGE INCREASE. BEST-IN-SLOT CONSIDERED BY MANY ON THE PROPER UNITS.|Just think of units that only need to survive due to them having way more damage or they have some other unit providing damage, I will mention some but not limited to:

• Greek Hoplite
• Egyptian Spearman (with Sobek)
• Egyptian War Elephant
• Egyptian Elephant Archer (full damage on the rest of the gear)
• Celts Champion
• Persian Sparabara
• Roman Aquifier/Primus Pilus (they only need to survive to grant damage buff)
• Babylonian Shieldbearer
• Norse Berserker
• Norse Harjars
• Norse Chief (only need to survive to grant HP buff)

|Potentially 73 Soldiers' Gear Slots in the game for you!
[/table]

Spoiler: You may craft these items with an Ice King's Heart

Two thing to note about Ignore Armor stat: It affects aoe damage normally and stacks additively. 2 +15% Ignore Armor will equal +30% Ignore Armor not +32.5% Ignore Armor.
[table=nohead]
Items|General Thoughts|Civilization Interactions|Available Gear Slot

|A MUST-CRAFT. The Ignore Armor effectively translates into bonus damage against some cavalry (as many have base pierce armor) siege, buildings, and ships due to their already high existing pierce armor. This arrow in terms of DPS will lose to other Legendary Arrows easily in the early game but if you like taking your time when the enemy starts getting armory upgrades, this arrow starts seeing value! I recommend at most 2 per civ since you can switch them when you're on a different quest to save Winter shards. Example: Switch this arrow on my Trireme for water quests and back to my ranged units for land quests| There are so many options for this arrow, if you don't know what to craft, just craft this! You'll always find a buyer! Most if not all ranged units can use this arrow effectively! I have made special mentions.

• ALL ARROW SHIPS
• All towers(but preferably Greek or Celts who have the better Tower synergies)
• Greek Toxotes/Gastraphetes
• Egyptian Chariot Archer/Elephant Archers
• Celts Bowman
• Persian Bowman/Mounted Archer
• Babylonian Bowman/Mounted Archers/Chariot Archer
• Norse Bowman
• Indian Bowman/Blade Chariot/Elephant Archer

|Potentially 69 Arrow Slots in the game for you, but you won't be putting it in every Arrow Slot anyway!

|GOOD ON TOWERS AND MAYBE FORTS, NOTHING MORE. Don't say you want to put it on a Town Center or some other building to reduce build time because there are completely better options for that.|Greek and Celts Tower benefit hard.|Potentially 16 Slots.

|The Sword of Piercing Frost is considered to me as the Sword of Tiberius but with more offensive stats. It is a great item to craft otherwise. However, I am wary of putting it on Cavalry Sword units since there are little melee-cavalry armor aside from spearmen and anti-cavalry cavalry to worry about (but maybe you can justify a case there)|The developers recommend using them on

• Celtic Champion
• Persian Immortals (can match with Kaveh+Arrow of Piercing Frost
• Roman Legionary(match with Caesar)+ Roman Centurion
• Babylonian Royal Guard
• Indian Juggernaut

I also recommend:

• Can also use Norse Milestone (Sunder) granting infantry +8% Ignore Armor.
• Celts Longswordsman

|

• Greek: 3
• Egyptian: 0
• Celts: 3
• Persian: 3
• Roman: 6
• Babylonian: 2
• Norse: 2
• Indian: 2
• Total: 21

|Great item mileage, can't go wrong with it. On spearmen, it makes them more effective at killing cavalry and anti-infantry infantry units while on cavalry, I consider it an anti-cavalry cavalry spear.|

• Greek Prodromos: Cheap and replaceable, they'll love it.
• Egyptian Camel Riders: See Greek Prodromos.
• Celtic Horsemen: Good as a generalist item.
• Persian Cataphract: Let their high base damage break through cavalry's ranks.
• Roman Gallic Horsemen: Let their high base damage with the ignore armor breaks spearmen easily.
• Babylonian Lancer: Charge damage with Ignore Armor works well. See Greek Prodromos.
• Norse Horsemen: See Celtic Horsemen.
• Indian Turanga: No opinion.

|

• Greek: 2
• Egyptian: 2
• Celts: 2
• Persian: 2
• Roman: 2
• Babylonian: 2
• Norse: 2
• Indian: 2
• Total: 16

|This event gave them a significant buff from +20% Ignore Armor to +30% Ignore Armor! Very huge, good generalist stats damage-wise.|

• Greek Hoplite: They have high base damage as well, that'll work well.
• Egyptian War Elephant: Also great considering their splash can benefit from Ignore Armor as well.
• Persian Sparabara: No, the damage is too low to wear.
• Roman Eques: Very good, helps fix some of Eques' weaknesses in trying to fight more dedicated anti-cavalry cavalry units.
• Babylonian Shieldbearer: See Persian Sparabara.
• Norse Ulfhedinn: Somewhat good, but weird? Considering not many cavalries have melee-infantry armor in the first place.
• Indian War Elephant: A MUST-CONSIDER FOR THE NEXT RELEASE DUE TO THEIR TRAITS.

|

• Greek: 1
• Egyptian: 1
• Celts: 0
• Persian: 1
• Roman: 1
• Babylonian: 1
• Norse: 1
• Indian: 1
• Total: 7

|I have no opinion on this gear.|-|-
[/table]

 

[NeoXist]

I really need to mention this because I don't want new players to read this guide and buy those items and then putting them on the unit without realizing it's not optimal for the unit.

Heavy Spear of the Ice King

Snare resist can be useful on the cavalry units if they're used to snipe buildings around the map, you really should mention that. Especially prodromos who are weak combat-wise but great at sniping buildings.

Greaves of the Ice King

Don't build this on elephant archers. Chiton of the Wolf + Master Assassin's Gauntlet gives you a grand total of ~75% HP and 25% damage, whereas Divine High Vizier Robe with Ice King Greaves gives ~33% damage and 30% HP Not sure why you're recommending them here.

Arrows of the Piercing Frost

Arrowships can use them but really only if youre using them to kill buildings, otherwise Commontorios arrows are much better. Towers don't use them that well if you consider they're mainly for the earlygame where the enemy doesn't have upgrades yet, you're solely relying on the fact that they'll have base pierce armor. In that case, Arrows of Darkness or Ice King are much more beneficial. You can use these arrows on the towers if you are meaning to spam them for midgame+ defending and not earlygame.

Blueprints of the Piercing Frost

See above, same reasoning. Earlygame? Go for -cost, midgame+? Go for the blueprints. I wouldn't suggest going for blueprints on fortresses, it really doesn't do much at all. How do celt towers benefit more than other towers btw? It's essentially the same benefit.

Sword of the Piercing Frost

Please note that the more you stack IA, the worse the effect. With the centurion upgrade that gives 60% IA, the sword is absolutely unnecessary. At that point you're sacrificing a lot of health for damage that you already have. Also don't go for the Kaveh advisor for Immortals, you're sacrificing 25% damage and 25% range or 50% melee crit from the Esfandiyar upgrade for only 10% ignore armor.

Heavy Spear of the Piercing Frost

Don't recommend this on the Prodromos unless you are actively using them for combat. See my comment on the Ice King Heavy Spear. For the other cavalry, this is pretty much the strongest item since you're actually fighting units with them.

Light Spear of the Piercing Frost

Not sure why you mentioned the lack of enemy cavalry armor at the Sword of the Piercing Frost but didn't mention that here. War Elephant & Eques are good targets but for the same reason with the Sword of the Piercing Frost, enemies just don't have cavalry armor that often and you're better off going for Set Spear or Zahhak's spear. Recommending it as a must for the Indian War Elephant BECAUSE of the ignore armor champion upgrade is really bad. You don't need that much! It's really overkill at that point. Ulfhedinns & Hoplites with a damage build are the best cases to make use of this spear. For the War Ele & Eques they're very situational.

Horse Armor of the Ice King

Why do you make a guide if you don't know what to say on some of the items/units? This can be good if the unit doesn't use the Heavy Spear of the Ice King but still wants the snare resist for some quests where spearmen very often get in the way. Eques or War Elephant for example, obviously with the intent to snipe buildings.

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The rest is OK, ultimately up to what the player wants for their favorite units.