A guide to buffing

[PDF]

Graeme Dice said:

He did that because they are usable only as meat shields, and not particularly effective ones in the standard game. A high protection unit with a charcoal shield can kill dozens to hundreds of vine ogres without suffering for it at all.

That's a weird rationale : using VO as meat shield is a means to allow other, hard-hitting units (mages mostly) to slaughter the enemies caught in the VO mass.
And vanilla VO are already unbeatable in terms of cost effectiveness...
And tell me how any non-lifeless unit can stand hundreds of VO without succumbing to fatigue.

[Oversway]

Reinvigoration?

But I agree that VO are fine in their role as just meat shields...

[The Panther]

One of the reasons VOs work so well as meat shields is the 50 Morale. They fight to the death every time, which makes them far better than they really are.

They also have so many HPs that they are difficult to kill with Murdering Winter and Fire Storm. And they take a while to die under Wraithful Skies.

It is probably the Ivy King which makes them unbalanced, as level 3 Nature mages are quite good even without getting 4 VOs for 1 gem while waiting for a war or battle to begin!

Don't forget that the Thug with the Charcoal Shield will be quickly killed by enemy mage spells while he is trying to fight through all the VOs to get at the mage snug in the back with his Staff of Storms.

[Graeme Dice]

PDF said:
And tell me how any non-lifeless unit can stand hundreds of VO without succumbing to fatigue.

It only needs to be able to last long enough to have the vine ogres kill themselves on the fire shield. Just about anything with protection over 20 can do it.