Most people know the Phoenix as the fiery bird who rose from the ashes and was born again. A symbol of immortality and life after death.
In Age of Mythology, we know the Phoenix as a slow, expensive, loud, Norse killing flying unit that is killed easily by ranged units.
I have always been interested in Phoenixes as soon as I encountered them in the game. They are one of the more "interesting" units because of the ability to be re-born from an egg wherever the Phoenix dies.
But I think there are more to Phoenixes than just MUs that attack ground units and die to ranged units.
I have done a few tests to show how to use Phoenixes to their full potential, and more importantly, how NOT to use them.
First, let's look at their stats:
Phoenix
Cost: 200 gold, 30 favour, 5 pop spaces
HP: 400
Speed: 3.60
Hack Armour: 15%
Pierce Armour: 55%
Hack Damage: 30
Crush Damage: 30
So in general, quite slow, good attack, nice armour, but expensive in favour and population.
The small unit window shows it's main attack as crush damage. I found this strange since it says nothing about doing well against buildings in it's description or details.
I decided to do some tests to see how well they did against an un-upgraded Greek house.
Test 1: 1 Phoenix vs 1 Greek house
House stats:
HP: 450
Hack Armour: 30%
Crush Armour: 5%
Phoenix deals approximately 50 damage each hit.
Phoenix takes 27 seconds to destroy the house in 6 hits.
So what does this mean? The Phoenix has an attack of 30 hack damage and 30 crush damage, but then why does it do around 50 damage to a building?
Does this mean that Phoenixes have a secret bonus against buildings? Or is it a bug? To find out, we need to test the Phoenix against a human unit.
Test 2: 1 Phoenix vs 1 Spearman (un-upgraded)
Spearman stats:
70 HP
7 Hack damage
40% Hack armour
20% Pierce armour
Phoenix deals approximately 28 damage each hit
Phoenix take 10 seconds to kill spearman in 3 hits. (This is because spearman tries to avoid the attack by moving to a different position)
So the Phoenix is strong against buildings and human units. But in time/HP ratio, it is stronger against buildings. But why?
Because we have not been told about any bugs or bonuses with the Phoenix, I wondered if the Phoenix does both Hack AND Crush damage to a building.
The logic works like this:
Hack attack (30) + Crush attack (30) = Final attack (60)
Final attack VS Greek house
Final attack - Greek house's final armour (35%) =
60 - 21 = 39
So why was the final attack against the house 50?
I am coming to the conclusion that there must be a bonus against buildings that we haven't been told about that, either that or my maths is terrible Anyway, back to the Phoenix compared to other units. Because they can only be attacked by ranged units, they seemed to be the best units to test it 1 on 1 using the basic ranged unit for each culture. Test 3: 1 Phoenix vs 1 Toxote Toxote deals Phoenix 3 damage per hit Phoenix kills toxote in 3 hits Quite obvious really, 1 toxote isn't going to harm the Phoenix too much. Add in a ranged hero though and it's toast for the Phoenix Test 4: 1 Phoenix vs 1 Chariot archer Chariot archer deals Phoenix 5 damage per hit Phoenix kills chariot archer in 5 hits. Again, not really a surprise, but the CA was better than the toxote. But they are more expensive. Have them massed though and a Phoenix would be easy for them Test 5: 1 Phoenix vs 1 Throwing axeman Throwing axemen deals Phoenix 5 damage per hit. Phoenix kills throwing axeman in 6 hits Best of the three. Cheap, easy to mass and high in hack armour. So then why do the Norse have such a problem with Phoenixes? One thing I haven't mentioned about the Phoenix is the fact they have Compared to the other Mythic MUs, the Phoenix may not seem the ideal unit to have. Avengers do VERY well against human units, quite well against MUs and Mummies speak for themselves with their special attack. Compare the Avenger to the Phoenix against buildings however, it's a different story. Test 6: 1 Avenger vs 1 Greek house Avenger deals 20 damage to house each hit. It's attack is MUCH faster than the Phoenix (1 attack per second!!!), but it is no where near as good as the Phoenix is at destroying buildings. But then again, Avengers were designed to attack melee units, which it excels at, and the Phoenix was designed for......everything except ranged units and ranged heros I suppose. Conclusion: Expensive, loud, slow, no upgrades. As Isis, waiting until Mythic to cast Eclipse could let you destroy a whole forward base if cast with some massed Phoenixes. Although this strategy would be expensive and risky, it would be extremely useful, especially against the Norse (until the X-Pack comes I hope you've learned some new information about the Phoenix, and if you haven't, I'm very sorry about wasting 5 minutes of your time for making you read my article And if anyone can answer the question why Phoenixes do so well against building without a bonus, I would love to hear it EDIT: I have used damage per hit because it is way too hard to calculate damage per second. Like with lots of units in AoM, the Phoenix doesn't attack every second (unlike the Avenger) so I've used damage per hit as a rough guide on their attack. Creator of the Egyptian Myth Unit Guides - Phoenix, Wadjet, Scorpion Man, Scarab [This message has been edited by ArtemisChimera (edited 08-29-2003 @ 05:19 AM).]
Phoenix deals toxote 27 damage per hit
Phoenix deals chariot archer 22 damage per hit
Phoenix deals throwing axeman 21 damage per hit.
Because they have no ranged heros and weaker buildings basically. The only things the Norse can attack Phoenixes with are attack buildings, TAs and ballistae.
Avenger takes 23 seconds to destroy house in 23 hits.
All true, but then look at the pros.
Great building killers, only attacked by ranged units, can be summoned from an egg in the middle of a battle.
And that I hope you'll use Phoenixes more in games on ESO (just keep them away from ranged heroes!!!)
Also, thanks to some help from the mind people here, and a "Eureka" moment, I realised what I did wrong when calculating the armour and attack. The armour and attacks are seperate, so it does do the attack I said - the armour. Hooray
ESO user name - ChimeraArtemis
Rating - 1662
Favourite Major Gods - Isis, Gaia, Hades, Loki
And the Atlantean Myth Unit Guides: Stymphalian Bird, Satyr, Lampades Heka-Gigantes, Man O'War