Drakes

Inspired by arthan's post about the wisp, I decided to make a topic about the drake
What do you guys think about them?

Waste.Of.Mana?
Very Usefull
A big piece of shit?
Awesome unit?

In my opinion it depends, on the enemy race, on the map, on the mana, on the positions, so Ill post some examples of drakes utilities, feel free to post yours.

- Thirsha slayer - When you notice your enemy thirsha is travelling to some island/base/etc, and its poorly defended, or not defended at all, send 2 gryphons, move them to some feets ahead of Thirsha's face, inducting her to fire a Thunder Ball. So she will waste her mana, and make it impossible for she to unleash the Wave. Now send your 7~10 drakes, and unleash your fire, make sure to control them well, and if you notice she recovered enough mana to unleash her wave on your dragons, retreat them, send 2~3 drakes, and harass her, until she: unleash a wave/unleash some thunder ball; then you should send back the other drakes.

- Lodestone Slayer - If youre playing a big map, with spread mana, make 5~6 drakes and send them together, searching for unprotected lodestones, if there's a caged demon, or some weak tower, kill it, but watch out for groups of archers.

- Anti-Air - Make them patrol in the middle of the map, they can kill Birds with some ease, also they can weaken enemy rocs



Make sure to control them while they fly/attack/thirsha-hunt.

Also I think they can be of good help in Mon Fights. And to kill trebs that dont have mage archer groups.

That's my view about drakes, what do you think about them?

In the campaign missions of both Book of Darien and Iron Plague, drakes are an awesome unit. You can finish the last Iron Plague mission, for example, by just creating drakes until you have "unit limit reached" messages and send them altogether to the center of the map to harass the Sage.
Against AI, they are also very good unit. However, an average-decent TAK player can find very effective every kind of TAK unit when they face AI.
In online matches, they can become a truly strong aerial army just by themselves, but they are much stronger if combined with support of other units, no matter if these units are ground, naval or flying. That's my point of view.

drakes are good on high mana maps and big maps or spread mana maps (cd/dc)

just watch out for area of effect units and others
1.taros lich, witch, fire mages
2.Rictus (big AoE)
3.stronghold bastions
4.aramon acolyte
5.dozen of mage archers, assasins and
6.hundreads of tier1 range units (they are worthless to kill, just avoid them)
7.mass death totems
8.beast riders (AoE)
9.mass pristmatic mirror

mass drakes are the best in my opinion for veruna (only bastions have AoE for them) and other zhon (no any serious AoE units)


the best are groups with more than 30-40* drakes but they shouldnt be too big because lossing them can hurt your strategy

one hit keep, citadel, temple, divine lodestones (thats your major healthy targets)

problem with drakes is drakes. You need avoid anything can hit, and need have groups...if i have mana to do 5 6 7 drakes, i can do 5 6 7 stones giants...or make 2 3 rocs and jungles orcs. Like ppl said is situational.