Destroyer (Warcraft III)

Large flying unit that must consume magic to sustain its mana. Breaking free of the obsidian stone that holds them, these monstrous creatures roar into battle, swallowing magic to feed their insatiable hunger as they move between battles and rain destruction down upon their foes. Has Spell Immunity. Attacks land and air units.

Destroyers are aerial units who specialize in destroying enemy spellcasters by denying the enemy buffs or summoned units in battle.

In order to create Destroyers, Undead players must first research the "Destroyer Form" technology. This allows Obsidian Statues to morph into Destroyers, costing an additional 100 gold, 50 wood, and 2 food. Essentially, every Destroyer costs 300 gold, 85 wood, and 5 food.

Due to their thirst for mana, Destroyers rapidly lose mana, making the Obsidian Statue's Spirit Touch and natural regeneration from Fountains of Mana useless. In order to obtain mana, the Destroyer needs to consume enemy buffs or allied debuffs. Players may alternatively have the Destroyer siphon mana from a friendly unit, but this is seldom used because the of the Destroyer's high mana pool, which would result in draining Necromancers, Banshees and your Heroes of a considerable amount of mana.

The mana is vital for their Orb of Annihilation spell, as it allows the Destroyer's attacks to have AoE properties and also inflicts more damage. However, it's high mana cost combined with the Destroyer's negative mana regeneration means they require a high amount of enemy spellcasters to truly shine in battle. When consuming magic, allow for one or two Destroyers to focus on a targeted area to prevent competition and allow your Destroyers to reel in the full benefits of Devour Magic, while keeping enemy buffs and summoned units at a minimum (it takes two Devour Magic casts to kill summoned skeletons).

Generally, one or two Destroyers are needed when playing alone, but in team matches three or four of them may prove useful depending if the enemy team is running spellcasters. Destroyers have a fairly fast attack rate and have high armor as an aerial unit. However, they are not fairly strong otherwise, being similar to Dragonhawk Riders and Faerie Dragons, and thus it's generally not recommended to have Destroyers as the core of your army.

• Takes all mana from one of your units and gives it to the Destroyer.

• Consumes all positive and negative buffs from all units in an area. Each unit that is devoured of magic gives back the Destroyer 50 hit points and 75 mana. Deals 160 damage to summoned units.

Devour Magic does not give health or mana when a player devours friendly buffs. Devour Magic dispels the owl summoned by a Huntress but will not restore the Destroyer's health and mana. It will not dispel an anti-magic shell created by a Banshee but will still restore health and mana.

• Adds 15 bonus damage to the Destroyer's attack and causes his attacks to do area of effect damage.

• The Destroyer was originally known as a "Black Sphinx" in The Frozen Throne beta.