hey guys Spirit of the law here in this video we're going to revisit an old topic with some
updates for Definitive Edition and look at the best and this time also the worst hero units in
Age of Empires 2. of course with every new DLC comes new campaigns and named characters to the
point Believe It or Not There are now over 160 heroes in the game we're gonna get to the 10
best though I thought it'd be fun to start off with the five worst in no particular order I'm
going to be ignoring the Kings and monks Joan the maid emperor in a barrel Etc as these are units
clearly not intended for combat and would make for a trivial list so these have to be actually meant
as combat units to include with that we'll start off the worst Heroes list with the archers of the
eyes they appear a few times in the campaigns twice in Saladin once in Barbarossa and two
or three times in the expansion campaigns with 55 HP 7 attack and no armor they're a slightly
better version of an arbalester with the added benefit of slowly self-healing they do have 100
base accuracy though and our blasters don't which is in reference to the historical archers of the
eyes who were Nubian archers allegedly so accurate they could shoot enemies in the eyes from a great
distance that also gave them the alternate name the pupil smiters so at least they have
a nice nod to that historical inspiration in their perfect accuracy next is the Sheriff of
Nottingham interestingly Robin Hood and little John are also heroes making me wonder if there
was an intention for a Robin Hood campaign at one point early on despite being in the game since Age
of Kings the sheriff has never made a campaign appearance as himself though he's had several
appearances under different names for example in the Longshanks campaign he's Gilbert de Clare who
breaks Edward out of prison his stats are arguably worse than a champion with 90 HP 9 attack and Zero
armor in terms of who I'd personally want to be broken out of a dungeon bite it's probably not
this guy and a couple of men at arms but Beggars can't be choosers third on our list is the hunting
wolf which makes 14 separate appearance fences in the campaigns it's a significantly worse version
of ornlu the wolf but is technically classified as a hero what makes them bad isn't just the 100
HP and 8 attack which admittedly isn't great but simply that they take all bonus damage
in the game spear and Siege units in particular benefit from that but many many units have some
sort of bonus damage making hunting wolves a lot weaker than they seem next up fourth on our list
is Aethelfrith the lone World Raider hero unit he's made one official campaign appearance in
Finland Saga where he lives on a small island and is simply named Bert he has 140 HP 8 attack and no
armor meaning he would struggle against even a castle age Knight the real Aethelfrith was
an Anglo-Saxon so what he's doing vacationing in North America here is a little suspicious
and finally rounding out the five worst is minamoto he makes one appearance in the kukikara
stand alone Japanese scenario and with 200 hp and 8 attack he would be a decent infantry unit
in other situations but as a hero he's not too impressive In fairness he shows up with 30 mounted
samurais though which have way more attack and armor so his arrival is a bit of a turning point
in that scenario even if his personal stats aren't that great so those are the weakest
Heroes but now let's get to the best I made a rudimentary formula to roughly score them that
at least somewhat informs the entries on the list and at least help to highlight units that stand
out above the others though things like having a ranged attack and extra speed were also considered
as well starting with number 10 we have Dagnajan this unit appears in the Ethiopian campaign with
the main standout feature here being the 930 base HP that's the most HP of any land or water unit
in the game the obvious reason why he has so much HP is he's the final boss of a particular Mission
and they really want you to have to work for it at the same time though he's an elephant Archer so he
takes a lot of bonus damage from many different sources and has relatively low attack so with
the right counter units he can be beaten without too much trouble next up at number nine is Tsar
Konstantin again defeating him is the goal of the mission this time in the Bulgarian campaign while
his base stats aren't exactly amazing Constantine is incredibly rare for dealing a hundred percent
trampled to all adjacent units so it's like he's directly attacking every unit around him at once
the real star he's based on was actually paralyzed from the waist down in a riding accident and did
indeed switch to writing a chariot taking it into his final losing battle against Ivaylo and his
peasant uprising Konstantin is in fact the only Age of Empires 2 hero unit to ride a chariot as
there is no ratha hero unit at this point next up at number 8 we have El Cid campeador that
is the version after he gets his horse bavieca his 430 HP gives him the highest HP of the fast
Cavalry units in the game so excluding elephants in contrast most Cavalry Heroes Have between 200
or 240 HP like Henry V up to 350 HP for Attila so El Cid is definitely a bit of an outlier
especially considering you lose if El Cid dies in any of his missions that's a nice feature and he
actually backs up his HP and armor with some solid attack as well he's actually a very useful unit in
the first five Missions at the El Cid campaign and is able to more than hold his own against
regular units or even take a bit of Castle fire in a pinch thanks to his high armor and HP moving on
to number 7 we have William Wallace he's one of four pretty similarly powerful looking infantry
units including Le Trien they all have mid 300 to 400 HP and 20-something attack so they all have a
case to be top 10 but only wanted one melee infantry Hero on the list as they're a bit
slow and less versatile because of that of this very strong list to me William Wallace stands out
slightly because of his high armor which makes him a lot better against weak units especially though
Le Trien also has a very compelling argument as a top hero unit William Wallace actually appears
twice in the campaigns once as the hero in his self-titled campaign where he sends reinforcements
and gives you his Aid as a playable unit but also as the antagonist in the final Edward Longshanks
campaign mission hammered the Scots where his good stats are used against you also appearing
in that same campaign mission is the next entry on our list the warwolf trebuchet named after
what's very likely the largest trebuchet ever constructed this is not just any old Britain
trebuchet with the unique tech warwolf there is a bit of competition among a few trebuchet hero
units but this is by far the better version of Bad Neighbor and God's Own sling while all three
have 20 range and 300 HP the warwolf trebuchet has even more attack pure summer and a greater bonus
against buildings especially when compared to the regular trebuchet on top of that it also has a 40
larger Splash Zone than a regular Britain warwolf trebuchet it's hard to accurately rank Siege units
on this sort of list as they just look so good in terms of stats but die without protection still
having even a few of these would make quick work of either buildings or bunched up units
next up at number five we have Admiral Yi as the lone water unit on the list Admiral Yi is
most famous for defeating 300 Japanese ships with 13 Korean ships and consistently made a habit of
winning when both outnumbered and under supplied he appears in the Korean Noryang Point scenario
and compared to a regular turtle ship you can see he of course has more attack and HP but
maybe most handy is his 10 range again it's hard to compare his stats to land units directly but
I consider it pretty clearly the strongest Naval unit in the game even after the addition of a few
hero ships in the last cons expansion including the Middlebrook Lief Erickson and Vasco de Gama
moving on to number four we have and I'm sure I'm saying this wrong Ulrich Von Jungingen again he
was a Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and appears in a Polish and Bohemian campaigns as an
antagonist that's wise the first thing you'll notice is he has great armor comparable to
Alexander Nevski in that respect who was already a Great Hero unit but in other ways is even better
with much higher attack in HP plus some cool horns to cap things off he's truly what you'd
get if you put a Teutonic Knight on a horse and gave it pure summer making him arguably the most
well-rounded of the melee heroes in the game that said I do think he's slightly outclassed in raw
stats by the next entry the Abraha elephant while this unit doesn't make a campaign appearance you
can see compared to a regular Elite or elephant it's a clear-cut above in addition to it's just
amazing stats for a single unit it also does full damage to adjacent units like Tsar Constantine
in terms of raw damage output and HP it's probably the tankiest combined land unit in the game by a
significant margin though I think two other units practically have a slight advantage in
their versatility so what units could possibly outdo this one well at number two we have Harold
Hardrada superficially he's very similar to Charles Martel as both are fast firing ranged
infantry but where Charles Martel has more range herrada moves about 50 percent faster the fact
that you're combining range with an incredibly fast one attack per second means it has slightly
higher damage output than the Abraha elephant Harold hardrada appears in the Hastings Mission
as a possible Ally in an alt-history side quest but most of the time you see him is in online
scenarios where he's typically the highest level of melee unit the combination of fast movement
fast attack and just pure damage output is I think the main reason for that now before we get to what
I think is the obvious number one we have a couple of honorable mentions the first is Nobunaga he's
scripted to die in the opening moments of the Kyoto Mission kicking off your revenge
Arc which is really too bad as he's an insane unit he in fact has the fastest attack of any infantry
Cavalry or Archer attacking twice every second his HP and attack stat are relatively modest but
even with just eight attack he's technically doing damage faster than Harold hardrada and
every other non-siege land unit except for one Hrolf the Ganger. Hrolf has a beastly 20 attack
and a reload time of one along with some very good armor as well last time I even put him on
my top 10 list though the problem is he's really slow like elephant unit slow he also has just 140
HP so archers are a pretty big thorn in his side though in melee he's basically Unstoppable but now
the number one hero unit there's really no doubt it's Genghis Khan he hits hard with 25 attack has
a bonus against Siege moves fast has zero frame delay for easy micro and even resists a bit of
anti-archer and anti-cavalry bonus damage object objectively he's not the tankiest per se but for
his versatility and pretty much any hero based scenario the Ultimate Upgrade is Genghis Khan
and always has been to me he's a clear step above similar Cavalry Archer hero units despite a lot of
competition including some recent additions that's just my list though and you tell me if you think
I missed one you challenge my every decision thanks for watching and I'll see you next time