How to Play Undead

Hey guys, I've been trying to make a decent Undead build for myself but I either leak early game or I don't get a good income.. I haven't been using the "hero" tho. Is it because I'm not using the hero? Can someone help me out ?

its hard to not leak with undead in early game, so IMHO, it's ok to have minor leaks.
About using the heroes, yes, they change the whole game for undead. In the future I guess everybody will be using heroes, so don't worry too much about not playing with them (unless HuanAK creates a game mode which disables heroes, which would be kinda cool i guess).
I don't really have a guide for undead, so I'll share my thoughts about it. Hope it helps. As you asked, I'm not taking heroes in consideration.

Undead is a hard race, because probably you'll have leaks in early-mid game(which can be very frustrating), but in late game, Undead is really a top class.
Heartstopper aura works pretty much like having a bunch of ToK's. Even if you leak, your leaks won't have full hp, thus making easier for your team/king to deal with them. Shows more efficiency at late game.
Your main-tanks have disease aura and life-steal, which is great against demons! One more positive point for Undead in late game!!
Also Undead has access to all types of dmg/armors, which is cool.

Leaks will be a part of your game, so best positioning your units can help mitigating those leaks.

I can tell you that the Necromancer/Necrolytes received great buffs in 3.5 beta (they are great against lvl 10 boss), so I guess they are the way to go with undead.
In early game, you can use Frenzy ghouls or Necrolytes (Necrolytes can do their own tanking, pretty much like Hades/LoD, so it's your choice) and some Zombies (early-mid game) to tank for you. Remember to sticky close to value (you will have some spare gold to income anyway, the game is "designed" that way. I would say "get 7/2 before lvl 10 boss", but that won't always be true, specially for undead).


About income progression:
- get first 6/0~7/0, and then start lumber upgrades. This works for every race and almost every game. Sometimes you will need those 3 income you miss getting x/1. Also, 60 wood is half a dino, and a dino can hurt many builds in almost every level.
- memorizing the bounty table can also help a lot your income skills.



Ghost unit have a very valuable aura, but I only use them in late game, which IMO is when undead show their full power.

Guardians are hard to pull of in early game, so unless you manage to pass lvl 4 with the same value you did lvl 3, forget about them until mid game.
Death dragon is a bad-ass DPS machine and can tank when necessary, and needless to say, he's the strongest dragon in the game.

Zombies are good meat shields, but they fail at killing, be aware!
The Butcher is fine (although he's a bit expensive for early game), their life steal is strong, but alone they can do much, so I would advice saving them for mid-late game.

Meat Wagons/War machine are your siege dmg, they hit hard and don't have much hp, I've seen some people using them in early game, but i'm not sure about it's efficiency. Anyway, they are a must for lv 28 and lv 30.

in case you are wondering:
early game - until lvl 10
mid game - until lvl 20(maybe lvl 17 for some races)
late game - the rest of the game.

Thank you for your help, but I'm still having some problems.. does the Undead race need to be 7/15 like most races ? because I feel if I try to get 7/10 I'm already pushing too hard and I won't be able to keep up with the levels value.. and which is the best hero for this class? I feel like the zombies are weak tankers early in the game, they can't hold on very much.. and do the Heartstopper aura stack?
I'm sorry I'm being so annoying but it's because I still can't pass lvl 25 and on..

Lufurt wrote:Thank you for your help, but I'm still having some problems.. does the Undead race need to be 7/15 like most races ? because I feel if I try to get 7/10 I'm already pushing too hard and I won't be able to keep up with the levels value.. and which is the best hero for this class? I feel like the zombies are weak tankers early in the game, they can't hold on very much.. and do the Heartstopper aura stack?
I'm sorry I'm being so annoying but it's because I still can't pass lvl 25 and on..

NO race needs to get to 7/15. Don't feel that you ever NEED to get to 7/15. I often have to stop 7/9 - 7/12 and go straight value because going any farther with lumber would only negatively impact my final value. You simply can't earn back that gold used on lumber upgrades at a certain point and your income won't scale up for awhile because you are using lumber on those lumber upgrades as well.

I generally try to stay with or above the recommended value and ~6500 is a really good value going into 21. Undervalueing a level by ~200 is fine depending on your build, but know when to stop. I see a lot of people keep pushing lumber upgrades and then they end up leaking because they let thier value fall behind. On the other hand it's even more annoying to watch people over value early levels significantly and income very slowly. I've heard that 23 is the proper level to stop lumber upgrades, but I generally won't do any passed level 21. I've also heard that anything more than 4 upgrades after level 20 is detrimental, which would not surprize me. 3 - 5 upgrades after lvl 20 ends is my usual limit.

As far as heros go, the ranged heros are definately the best late game options since their aura can survive a long time with 500 range, while melee heros die. I try to only use ranged heros if I can. The melee heros can be used to help income early game, but are less effective late game. The dark ranger is one of the strongest heros early game with how it lowers the attack damage of the waves by 1. This aura alone has allowed me to use builds that otherwise would definately leak. Don't upgrade it very much, if at all, early game to avoid wasting resources on farms and position it where it is least likely to die. The ability to change to other ranged heros for lvl 11 upgrade is really nice.

Edit: Heart stopper does NOT stack. That would be broken if you could just stack them. I wouldn't make more than 2 ghosts. Is it ONLY late game that you are having major issues? Undead has been one of the more difficult races to use, but the change to necrolytes in 3.5 should help. In 3.41 undead, beast, ghost, and element were my least favorite races to work with.

Lufurt wrote:Thank you for your help, but I'm still having some problems.. does the Undead race need to be 7/15 like most races ? because I feel if I try to get 7/10 I'm already pushing too hard and I won't be able to keep up with the levels value.. and which is the best hero for this class? I feel like the zombies are weak tankers early in the game, they can't hold on very much.. and do the Heartstopper aura stack?
I'm sorry I'm being so annoying but it's because I still can't pass lvl 25 and on..

Nortan wrote:
NO race needs to get to 7/15. Don't feel that you ever NEED to get to 7/15. I often have to stop 7/9 - 7/12 and go straight value because going any farther with lumber would only negatively impact my final value. You simply can't earn back that gold used on lumber upgrades at a certain point and your income won't scale up for awhile because you are using lumber on those lumber upgrades as well. I'm not sure, but I think most people doesn't even realize that.

I totally agree. He speaks with the voice of reason and truth.

After lvl 20, you should invest more in dragons and less in income. As Nortan said, 6500ish is a good value to start end game, and by that time you should be finishing your lumber upgrades.

The zombies are just meat-shields for units that actually kills stuff (like necros/wagons/guardians if you got them), if you think about it, you are paying 190 gold for a unit with 880 hp, which is less hp than most tier 5 units. His aura does little help in early game, but still counts towards the price. Avoid having more than 1 zombie on your troops at the same time (unless you're playing with heroes, then you can boost their abilities and have a nice zombie rampage!).


About heroes, well, it's just about on what you want, some will do better at early game, some will show more efficiency at bosses or later levels.
You can always make an army of butchers and get lvl 10 endurance aura...
Devotion aura from Paladin is really great for any build/race, but needs a lot of hero points to be effective...
Priestess of the moon will make your Death Dragons became almost Doomsday Machines...
Death knight gives a nice mobility boost, which can help a lot in range levels, but his regen is only noticeable in early~mid game...
and so on...

It all depends on how many hero points you have available, and what you have in mind. =)



Edit: For level 25, idk what you could do, I almost never experience problems in this level (except sometimes with element ), but for lvls 26 and 27 death dragons will clean everything for you. For level 28, make sure you have wagons and you'll do fine.
Level 29 is tough. Those dragons will eat everything you have, only high value can save you from them. Same for lvl 30 boss.


If you did your income right, at level 29 you should be 1000~2000 above recommended value, and you need even more than that for lvl 30.

Thank you guys! you've helped me a lot! I'm now playing undead decently and trying to improve.. your tips helped me with other races as well! Thanks