Discussion about Sylvan (Wood Elves).

That's not good, making such a detour through the sand. It's best to take out the guard post right away, and then have a scout pick up everything and pass it on to the artillery. Or do you manage to have different heroes fight for the outpost and artillery, while a third one picks up the loot?

No, of course not. I just go to the Oasis, then take the Outpost, then go back through the Oasis. It's not that much of a loss – you have to go there anyway. And, of course, the scout passes on the artillery.

I'm not against banning rushers in general, it's just a different game. But I always believe in the principle: if you ban a hero from your opponent, give them the right to ban one of yours. But it's a bit tough without Ossir. But in principle, Gilraen and Dirael are quite decent. It's definitely not about day 3, but taking the outpost on day 7 is quite realistic, maybe even faster, I haven't tested it much. And have you tried playing without Ossir on Former Friends? It's still interesting.

I don't even know why people ban certain heroes. If you don't want to play against someone on a specific map, just don't play. It's just that on UBI, it's become a tradition that one hero is banned in each race. And for the Elves, it's definitely not Ossir. :)
Gilraen is strong, yes. But he's weaker than Ossir when it comes to clearing out monsters. And weaker than Dirael. She's a fun character. I leveled her up with Spell Weaving and Intelligence in Misty Veil. She didn't even notice what casters were. She just took out one stack, and the rest were destroyed by the army, because the enemy's initiative was lowered. But I haven't tried her on Former Friends yet – archers still give a fast start, and she'll only have 7 of them.
And in general, I'm just trying to seriously focus on the race I started with in 1.0. In 3.0, I only studied them superficially, and now I'm trying to do it seriously.
The main thing I've already understood is that early upgrading of archers wasn't as necessary before 3.0 as it is now, because Forest Archers are terrible damage dealers against armored creatures, and they are the key to fast and efficient monster clearing.