Best Aethelflaed Commander Guide: Skills, Talent Builds, Pairs & Roles
Aethelflaed is a legendary commander that can be obtained for free via Expedition Mode in Rise of Kingdoms. She is a powerful barbarian hunter and slayer with incredible damaging active skill. In addition to that, she boasts strong leadership skill that allows her to command mixed troops as well as expanded troops capacity.
| Aethelflaed |
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| Title: Lady of the Mercians |
| Civilization: Britain |
| Base Power: 4,700 |
| Rarity: Legendary |
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Aethelflaed Summary:
- Hits up to 5 targets in a fan-shaped area damage.
- Versatile.
- Skilled barbarian hunter.
- Increases experience gained by 35%
- Increases damage done to barbarians by 35%.
- Increases damage by 20% with 3 or more troop types.
- Reduces enemy targets’ attack, defense and health by 30%.
- Deals extra 20% damage to slowed targets.
Why Aethelflaed is the Best Commander?
- Best free legendary commander.
- Comes with powerful active skill that hits multiple targets.
- Easy to level up thanks to bonus experience gain.
- Excellent for barbarian farming.
- Very flexible, can work with any troops.
Background Information
Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mericans, ruled Mercia in the English Midlands from 911 until her death. Born at the height of the Viking invasions of England, she grew up in a land at war, fighting a losing battle against Danish conquerors.
It is said that Aethelflaed ruled in her husband’s place for a decade after he became ill. When he died in 911, Aethelflaed became Myrcna hlaedige, “Lady of the Mericans.” Before her death, she had taken back a large part of England, and had more ready to surrender.
Introduction
Welcome to our in-depth Rise of Kingdoms guide for Commander Aethelflaed. This informative guide was created to help provide an overview of Aethelflaed skills, talent trees, gameplay, strategies, and guides in Rise of Kingdoms. The purpose of this overview guide is to help new and experienced players understand how to play Aethelflaed right and maximize strategic advantages.
Before we go any further in our best Aethelflaed commander guide for beginners in Rise of Kingdoms. I want to point out that this is one of the easiest legendary commands to obtain via the Expedition Store. Aethelflaed comes with the nationality of Britain and boasts large troop capacity. Combined with her strong AoE active skill, she can effectively reduce the enemies’ attack and defense, allowing your forces to chip them off with each strike.
To summon Aethelflaed in Rise of Kingdoms, you need to gather 10 Aethelflaed sculptures. Once you have the required materials, navigate to the Commander Selection tab on the lower right corner. Tap on the button to summon Aethelflaed. She comes with a base power of 4,700 and skills that focuses on leadership, peacekeeping and support.
Skills
In the next part, we are going to talk about the best skills to use for Aethelflaed. As you can see, the majority of her skills focus on increasing the experience gained from killing barbarians as well as increasing damage against neutral units.
But that doesn’t mean she is not viable for PvP battles. In fact, her active skill is by far one of the strongest abilities in the game. When you pick a talent build that focuses on generating rage fast, she is able to maintain high uptime by keeping the enemy’s attack AND defense reduced, allowing her to effectively slaughter them to death.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at Aetheflaed’s skills and see how you can use them to your advantage during the gameplay in Rise of Kingdoms.
| Arrow of Iron |
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Deals damage to a single target and reduce the target’s attack, defense and health for 5 seconds. Next, deals damage in a front-facing cone to up to 5 enemies and reduces their attack, defense and health for 2 seconds. Direct Damage Factor: 400/500/600/700/800 Attack, Defense and Health Reduction: 10%/15%/20%/25%/30% |
This active skill is amazing when pairing with a secondary commander for opening up nuking opportunities. The amount that this active skill reduces your enemy’s force overall combat effectiveness by 30% is massive. When coupled with rage generation talent build, you will be able to sweep them with minimal resistance.
| Thunderous Force |
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Counterattack damage against your troops is reduced. When actively attacking, you have a 10% chance to reduce the movement speed of enemy cavalry and the movement speed of other troops. Slow effect lasts 3 rounds. Counterattack Damage Taken Reduction: 5%/8%/11%/15%/20% Cavalry March Speed Reduction: 20%/25%/30%/40%/50% Other Unit March Speed Reduction: 10%/15%/20%/25%/30% |
Thunderous Force keeps your enemy forces at bay and deters them from escaping a losing battle. By reducing their march speed, Aethelflaed is able to keep them close to the edge, allowing you to maximize their casualties.
| Synergy |
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All troops under your command gain attack against Barbarians and other neutral units, and all Commanders get EXP bonus. Bonus Damage to Barbarians: 5%/10%/17%/25%/35% Experience Bonus: 5%/10%/17%/25%/35% |
Synergy plays a significant role in granting experience bonus and damage bonus to the barbarians. When you pair Aethelflaed with a secondary commander, both will get this bonus which makes the whole leveling phase absolutely breeze.
| Fortress of Mercia |
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When this Commander leads a rally attack, all armies joining the rally have higher troop limit. When this Commander is leading at least 3 different troop types, their damage is increased. Rallied Army Capacity Bonus: 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% Bonus Damage (3 Unit Types): 5%/8%/11%/15%/20% |
Fortress of Mercia allows you to play an army composed of various troop types. When you play at least three troop types, Aethelflaed deals 20% increased damage in rallied army. Plus the troop capacity of the rallied army has increased by 10%.
| Warrior Queen |
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Deal an extra 20% damage to enemies who have been slowed. |
Not much can be said about this enhanced skill, but basically it increases damage towards enemies who have been slowed. Thus, allowing you to finish them off quickly.
Best Aethelflaed Talent Trees
In the next part of our best Aethelflaed commander guide, we will reveal the best talent builds to go with this legendary commander. There are at least three popular talent builds, but it depends on your preferences and gameplay style. So take a look at the recommended talent builds for Aethelflaed below:
Peacekeeping Talent Build
This talent build expands on Aethelflaed’s already strong passive skill towards barbarians and neutral units. By further increasing the amount of damage that she deals to barbarians and the amount of experience she gains for each victorious battle.
A small portion of the talent points goes toward support to help with rage generation. Which plays an important role in intimidating barbarians’ attack, defense and health. Unlike other commanders, Aethelflaed’s active skill do hit barbarians that’s in the splash range which makes this talent build extremely popular.
PvP Talent Build
If you have a different plan for this legendary commander, perhaps you want to roll PvP talent build with her. Then this talent build is a viable option. Basically, it supports Fortress of Merica passive skill by incorporate the defense and offense bonus that she gets for having more than 3 type of troops in her army.
Just like the previous talent build, a small portion of the talent points is invested in rage builder generation to help maintain high uptime on her active skill. She also gains improved defensive capabilities with this talent build thanks to damage reduction.
Field Talent Build
The field talent build is the ultimate crowd control for Aethelflaed. Basically, this talent build focuses on destabilizing your enemy’s movement, rendering them immobile while you finish them off with powerful strikes.
The field talent build is great when you are commandeering Aethelflaed and to provide support to your allies in heat of battles on the map. In contrast to previous talent build, this build emphasizes more on the support side which allows you to control your enemies effectively with movement impairment effects.
Star Level & Talent Point Upgrade Priority
In the next part of our Best Aethelflaed commander guide, I am going to talk about star level & talent point upgrade priority to maximize your commander’s combat potential. Here’s how to prioritize your Aethelflaed effectively:
Peacekeeping Talent Build:
- Keep Aethelflaed at 1 ⭐ until you max out her first skill.
- Level Aethelflaed to 3 ⭐ and max out her third skill.
- Level Aethelflaed to 4 ⭐ and max out all of her skills.
PvP Talent Build:
- Keep Aethelflaed at 1 ⭐ until you max out her first skill.
- Level Aethelflaed to 2 ⭐ and max out her second skill.
- Level Aethelflaed to 4 ⭐ and max out all of her skills.
Field Talent Build
- Keep Aethelflaed at 1 ⭐ until you max out her first skill.
- Level Aethelflaed to 2 ⭐ and max out her second skill.
- Level Aethelflaed to 4 ⭐ and max out all of her skills.
Best Commander Pairs
Aethelflaed is a great legendary commander and obviously there are some decent commanders to pair with her. We have compiled the best commander pairs if you plan to specialize Aethelflaed as your main commander of choice.
Moctezuma I
Meet one of the best barbarian commanders in Rise of Kingdoms, Moctezuma I. If you are looking to further increase Aethelflaed’s combat capabilities with major damage boost as well as reduce incoming damage from counterattack and faster movement speed. Then you are in luck because Moctezuma I is an excellent barbarian hunter.
This legendary commander comes with a wide array of powerful skills that dish out heavy damage. Plus an extra 20% damage goes on the top of already strong troops under Aethelflaed’s leadership. This commander duos sets the stage for the perfect strike against heavily fortified barbarian camps thanks to increased rallied troops capacity.
Joan of Arc
By far one of the most popular commanders to pair is Joan of Arc. She works exceptionally well with Aethelflaed due to buffs that increase infantry health, cavalry defense, and archer attack by 30% when activating her active skill. Plus, a small amount of rage is gained that helps Aethelflaed cast her powerful active skill more frequently.
When you do 3 or more types of troops under Aethelflaed’s leadership the troops get 20% more damage bonus which is pretty huge considering how diversified this pairing is. Plus another 25% more damage on normal attack. Not to forget to mention that your troops also do get some healing on chance for each normal attack. An exceptional strong pairing.
Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu is a solid secondary commander to pair with Aethelflaed. He is by far one of the most popular picks along with Joan of Arc due to his powerful AoE nuke skill. He can quickly bring down your enemies with raining fireballs and restore some of the rage that helps Aethelflaed use her active skill more often.
One of the main advantages for pairing Sun Tzu is mainly due to the 20% skill damage bonus. Aethelflaed will be able to benefit from that in order to dish major blows to enemy targets in a matter of seconds. A great epic commander to start with, especially if you are starting off as China in the beginning of the game.
Yi Seong-Gye
If you ever find yourself in need of an incredible powerful commander that can ruin your enemies to death. Yi Seong-Gye is one of the most powerful commanders in Rise of Kingdoms and a very formidable force to battle against.
His active skill can dish out quite a serious amount of damage. Not to forget to mention that he comes with a passive skill which increases the damage of active skill by an extra 50%. This turns Yi Seong-Gye into a nuker and also improves Aethelflaed’s active skill. A perfect combo is waiting to happen when you pair Yi Seong-Gye and Aethelflaed.
Hannibal Barca
Hannibal Barca actually is a very powerful legendary commander that will benefit a lot when paired with Aethelflaed. Both commanders get a damage bonus for having more than 3 types of troops under their leadership.
While Aethelflaed excels at killing barbarians, she can use some support that Hannibal Barca has to offer. Hannibal Barca can crush his enemies with his active skill, which reduces target attack and defense by 25%. In addition to that, he grants an extra 10% troop capacity along with leadership ability which makes this pair one of the biggest army sizes in Rise of Kingdoms.
Baibars
If you ever find yourself in need of being able to dish out heavy AoE damage while reducing their march speed to gain 20% damage bonus towards all targeted enemies. Pair Baibars with Aethelflaed and watch both of them demolish enemy forces in a matter of seconds.
While Baibars is specialized in cavalry force, he is an ideal choice for killing your enemies quickly. Though, his active skill movement impairment debuff has a shorter time compared to Cage of Thorns talent point in the talent tree. He is still a great pick for PvP battles when you want to fill in the gap to gain 20% damage bonus for Aethelflaed.
Lohar
For some of players who prefer to play on the PvE side, Lohar is a great secondary commander to pair with Aethelflaed. He comes with passive skill that further increases damage towards barbarians and grants 70% bonus commander experience. Given the fact that it takes a long time to level up legendary commanders, Lohar is incredibly useful and a great pick since he also heals troops after each battle.
Pelagius
Sustained damage factor is popular with Aethelflaed which is why Pelagius is a great pick. He comes with active skill that helps out with rage generation and deals sustained damage factor. He also has a passive skill that has a 10% chance to heal a portion of the army during the battle.
If you don’t have Pelagius, Kusunoki Masashige is another good pick that focuses on keeping the pair debuff-free. But prefers to focus on archers as opposed to cavalry under Pelagius’ leadership.
