Xiang Yu is one of the most popular cavalry legendary commanders in Rise of Kingdoms (ROK). He is a total beast on the open field and a very powerful rally commander.
XY is very versatile and can also be used in canyons and Champions of Olympia. This is a full guide of Xiang Yu(XY) which includes different Talent Trees for different scenarios, top commander Pairings, best equipment setup, and pretty much everything else related.
Xiang Yu Skill Overview
Warlord’s Courage(Active Skill)
Required Rage: 900
Deals direct damage to up to 3 targets in a forward-facing fan-shaped area (Damage Factor 1700). Damage dealt to each target is reduced by 25% for each additional target. Successfully hit targets also suffer 30% reduced defense for 3 seconds
Direct Damage Factor: 900/1100/1300/1500/1700
Defense Reduction: 10%/15%/20%/25%/30%
Snow-hooved Stallion(passive)
Cavalry units led by this commander gain 40% increased attack and 15% increased march speed. When attacked, they have a 20% chance to gain 25% march speed for 3 seconds. This effect can trigger once every 5 seconds.
Cavalry Attack Bonus: 20%/25%/30%/35%/40%
Cavalry March Speed Bonus: 3%/6%/9%/12%/ 15%
Triggered Cavalry March Speed Bonus: 5%/10%/15%/20%/25%
Conqueror of All(passive)
Xiang Yu: While attacking strongholds or Governors’ cities, troops led by this commander gain 5% increased damage, and normal attacks have a 10% chance to deal additional direct damage (Damage Factor 400), which can trigger at most once every 3 seconds.
Damage Bonus: 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%
Direct Damage Factor: 200/250/300/350/400
Forceful Spearhead(passive)
While on the map, active skill cost is reduced by 50 rage. After Xiang Yu has used his active skill, his troops will gain a stack of cavalry damage +5% and march speed -10% for 10 seconds. Another stack is gained if they are being surrounded. This effect can stack up to 6 times.
Rage Requirement Reduction: 10/20/30/40/50 Cavalry Damage Bonus: 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%
Unbeatable Warlord(expertise)
Troops led by this commander deal an extra 10% skill damage. When troops have gained a rage buff for more than 1 turn, their skill damage will increase by 10% for 3 seconds. This effect can trigger at most once every 5 seconds.
Skill upgrade order
5-5-1-5
Xiang Yu’s third skill is only useful in rally situations. So you can avoid it and go straight for the fourth skill. However, his expertise gives a nice skill damage boost, so you should go all the way and max him out even for open-field situations.
Xiang Yu Talent Tree builds
These are a few suggested Xiang Yu Talent Tree builds for open fields and rallies.
Open field/Canyons
This is an all-in-one talent tree that can be used for open field, murderball, alter/ruins fights, and Canyons.
Rally option 1 – Chandragupta secondary
As you might already know, XY and Chandra are cavalry rally meta. This particular talent tree seems to be doing very well against most garrisons. As you can see, the Clarity special talent has been skipped; that’s because Chandra doesn’t do skill damage.
Rally Options 2 – skill-based cavalry secondary
It’s not really advisable to pair XY with any other commander than Chandragupta for Rally. However, if you do plan to pair him with the skill-based commander, then you can go with a clarity build.
Xiang Yu(XY) Commander Pairings
XY has lower rage requirements(900) than other commanders and also has a defense reduction debuff. So it’s better to use him as the primary commander. He can significantly boost the dmg output of the secondary commander.
- William – The number one open field pairing; it has everything: double AOE skill damage, March speed, attack buffs, and debuffs. This is still the number-one pairing even after Nevsky’s release.
- Alexander Nevsky – Nevsky has very high skill damage capability when you pair it with a small skill cycle of XY; it becomes an insane nuke machine. However, this pairing lacks defense.
- Chandragupta Maurya– This is the current rally meta and works against every single garrison, even the infantry garrison of Zenobia.
- Genghis Khan– Khan is a rage machine with good March speed. So his synergy with XY is natural. They can do tons of damage together. On the other hand, if not used right, they can break easily too.
- Saladin – XY has lots of attacks but no defense; that’s where Saladin comes in. He can provide extra tankiness
- Baibars – He can be a good f2p/low-budget option who can provide AOE, March speed, and a decent attack boost.
