What Is the Arena Clowns’ Opinion on Dravidians?
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As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or beliefs. However, regarding the Dravidians shown on the map, it is important to recognize them as a significant ethnic group in southern India and parts of Sri Lanka with a distinct language and culture.
Arena clown here, c1750 elo. Just spent a couple days exclusively playing with them as I felt like they had potential. My take is that they have a surprisingly solid eco which people don’t appreciate but their lack of redemption monks, UU that doesn’t shine until the late game & exploitable lack of mobility precludes them from being top tier.
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On the eco, Spirit said their early eco bonus is strong but ‘falls off’ by late castle which I disagree with. The wood bonus yes, but consider after that you’re now getting 50% off pike/halb/squires which works out to a pretty monstrous early imp cost savings when you think about it. Also the 400 wood gets you off to a pretty scary 3-4 TC boom in early castle which helps later. They also have a far easier time going for an unexpected champ switch against certain civs which can be deadly. Their elephant archer is without a doubt the best in the game and very viable as a late game arena option vs certain civs (I will take it any day over Bengali ones), but it might be that players just haven’t learned how to respond to it yet.
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I think where I kept getting abused & why I decided they weren’t going to be S tier is vs early castle drops by the usual suspect civs, which seems to be the current arena meta. Against tower rushes you actually have a very strong set of options thanks to your 400 wood boost by early castle, which helps getting up quicker and dropping that siege workshop to stop the rush with mangonels or ram elephants. But without redemption or a bonus helping towards a fast imp into treb play you have a really tough time vs castle drop into UU & monk rush or castle drop into turk fast imp & BBC for example. Monks in general are very tough to deal given your own lack of mobility, mediocre monks and because they counter elephant archers & rams.
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Also late game, while you have very strong infantry/skirms, you do get abused by your lack of mobility in certain matchups. I lost an ultra late game battle against a portuguese player who went mass feitoria after a completely failed castle drop on me and eventually won in a long grinding game by just stutter stepping his mass of organs back whenever I went after it. I had a massive eco advantage but nothing that could jump on top of the organs. Infantry and elephants too slow, onagers lacked the range upgrade so got sniped, BBCs sort of worked but he’d charge them with his organs and snipe them out. Just felt like I was constantly fighting uphill vs a player I should have had a massive eco advantage over.
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Overall I felt they were definitely a strong option, felt good to play and I’d actually say one of the strongest eco bonuses on arena when you consider the halb tech savings. But didn’t feel top tier & when I saw I was matched against a portuguese/turk/few other strong clown civs I always knew I was in for what wasn’t going to feel like a fair fight.
I play a lot arena a despite not picking Dravidians that much they have a deadly army to get here (BBCs, ele archers, ignoring armor Halbs).
They’re at least A-tier on arena. The wood bonus is incredibly flexible and allows you to do basically any standard opening ~2 vils earlier.
Your trush is great, your boom is great, your light cav opening obviously doesn’t scale but you basically get 6 free farms on your FC if that’s what you’re doing.
In late game Urumis kill all melee units, mass ele archers are incredibly hard to beat and have insane DPS, you don’t just die to good siege anymore since getting BBC, also half price halb upgrade is a sick bonus for arena.
Pretty underrated arena civ imo. The wood bonus is great for light cav meta as you can put down a lot of farms to afford continuous scout production plus light cav upgrade and still add tcs pretty fast behind which not a lot of civs can do.
In my experience this often leads to getting map control and pretty good imp time which you can use to push with forward castle and ranged units and bbc.
Or you go 4 tc boom, play a bit more defensive and get those elephant archers out. One of the best skirms in the game, insanely strong infantry plus cheap unit upgrades makes them a well rounded arena civ imo. Not a top one for sure though.
Those complaining about Dravidians in arena, do you even try them? Or just complaining about their stats and techs on paper. They are one of my favorites civs no matter the map.
The +200 wood is helpful for fast castle, it means 3 vills working on extra food instead of wood.
Not everything is meta boys, I never try to get an early castle, if I am castle dropped I prepare armored elephants. They usually use Spanish/conquistadores Portuguese/organ guns , with just some few I can destroy their castle. With some few elephant archers to cover them, they resist a lot of arrows, they can deny the castle repair.
They also have a great late castle options, I don’t wait until imperial to attack, 6 armored elephants + 30 full castle age upgrades elephant archers (remember they fire 25% faster AND thumb ring available). This is enough to punish the enemy booming with 4 TC
For post imperial the ignoring armor tech FU (20 gold) champions spam and halbs + FU skirmishers (25% faster+ thumb ring) can deny most of the popular compositions in arena. To me, they have the best skirmishers in the game, some days ago I destroyed vietnamese elite skirmishers with equal numbers in a trash war with only skirmishers for both sides, I won easily and didn’t need to invest for a tech for that.
At least it works for me at 1300 Elo (100% solo queue). Not everything is meta in this game.
Not an arena clown but they kinda suck in arena because of an average boom, not very amazing monks, no fast imp potential and urumis aren’t fast enough for raiding and you have no bonuses for castle dropping.
You do have a great late game but malay or ethopians have similar options and better castle drops, fast imperial potential and monk rushing.
TG arena clown here
They are a decent civ, but I believe they are a bit too slow.
Arena meta just like Arabia meta is somewhat faster paced now and we see a lot of great eco civs, or civs with insane power spikes or UU take the lead.Civs like Bohemians are falling because they are too slow at times, not in movement but to get their comp up and running, which isn’t only about how much eco you can get to, but how costly your comp is.
For instance, poles are amazing not only because they have a great eco, but their cavalier doesn’t cost a lot to upgrade (no paladin upgrade, no last armor upgrade) and is cheaper after the unique tech
Now what I’m building up towards is the following, Dravidians have an insane late game unique tech
Technically speaking they have a pretty insane deathball no one uses, Urumi/Halb with Siege elephant.
FU Urumi swordsmen will kill anything they can reach, doesn’t matter what, I’m not 100% sure about Persian war elephants, but halbs will deal with this.I’ve had this comp before and unless you have mangudai there is no real counterplay imo.
However this comp is expensive, and it’s unrealistic that your opponent sits idly and lets you boom till minute 35-40 and allows you to get all your upgrades before rushing you down, even if you are the pocket.
So as pocket, what do you do as Dravidians in the midgame? And therein lies the problem imo.Perhaps I should try them more, as perhaps Halb/Siege elephants are enough that you don’t need urumi swordsmen, but I believe civs like Slavs, or Celts can do the same thing faster.
600 extra wood is great don’t get me wrong.
But it’s not as good as some of the other civs out there.In 1v1’s however they have like 54% winrate on arena? That should be more than enough of an indicator that they are doing really well
Nobody picks Dravidians on land only maps, and there is absolutely no reason to do so.
Bad monks, not poles eco = bad on arena
There’s cheese potential with the wood bonus but not a whole lot going for you otherwise til late game. Urumi are slow, monks are meh, and no quick power spike in Imp.
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