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Izzachar
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 28, 2006 02:16 PM |
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I gotta test that today, after all deleb is my main resource gatherer.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 09, 2006 05:34 PM |
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Ok, spent some time playing inferno and I must say I'm impressed 
The unit summary is done already, so I'll just focus on strategy.
Pick Deleb. In the first week, your goal is to get the ore mine and find as much exp shrines and chests as possible. Take only exp from the chests - since you don't really need an army with this hero, just the levels. Focus on getting ballista skill as fast as possible - it's your number one pick. The tent skill is next. Then, expert warmachines has the biggest priority. Once you've reached it, you're ready for earlygame domination.
In the city, build mage guild first, so your hero will be able to clear the ore pit with ease. If you encounter problems, build the demon dwelling on day two and get more meat, but it shouldn't be necessary. Your next buildings should be: marketplace, resource silo, town hall,blacksmith, imp dwelling. From this point, build whatever you want, but remember to get the hellcharger dwelling as soon as you can. In week 2, upgrade it (that's why resource silo early is important, since you may run short on sulfur here). all you need now is 6 nightmares and a tent.
If you have the tent skill, don't be afraid of any enemy from levels 1-5 not named druids, elder druids, archmages and silver unicorns. Druids do ridiculous damage and your tent isn't effective enough to heal it, archmages with their fireballs can score good damage too+they can destroy the ballista easily, and unicorns are just too fast and tough. The rest - including creatures hard to kill by other castles like archliches, inquisitors or master hunters - is an easy kill. Gate your nightmares in the first turn (when facing shooters, gate next to them of course), than attack. It's possible that the fear special will trigger, and it's one of the best specials in the game. Apart from that, ballista will score amazing damage - on herolevel 15, it kills 50 hunters in one turn! Of course, watch out - the tent can heal 100 hp max and it has only 3 ammo, so you may find it difficult not to take any loses from too big groups of creeps.
Kill everything, get as much resources as you can, flag all mines. If the map is small, consider a rush - ballista will kill enemy's shooters in seconds, while your nightmares + gated ones can be frustrating to fight against due to their initiative and amazing specials. I've won many games thx to that. Just Don't rush warlocks. Even with your fireball ballista doing tons of damage, you may find it impossible bcuz of empowered spells and annoying units like redheads and assassins ;p
Main Skills to get:
War Machines - they will help you a lot.
Luck - amazing skill, get it as soon as you can.
Expert Gating - Very good lategame skill, helps your creeping with nightmares too. Ofc the ultimate gating would be best, but it's unlikely to get.
Dark Magic - Since dark spells appear in your guild on levels 4 and 5, it's dandy to get it. It's the best magic skill after all Destructive magic appears too, but demonlord's spellpower is IMO too low to utilise it properly. It's better to go with mass confusion, mass slow and frenzy.
Leadership - extra actions are always worth it.
Logistics - This strategy involves killing as much as you can, and logistics helps.
Attack - extra damage
Those IMO are the best.. take your pick (so sad that there are only 6 slots instead of 7  )
Good auxiliary skills:
Hellfire - more extra damage? why not Very dandy when it triggers on attacking succubuss mistresses :]
Tactics - to let the nightmares attack in their first turn. Good for pesky shooters.
Gate Master - gating is a key to succes in big battles, so why not to make it stronger?
Swift gating - Another gating bonus.
Teleport assault - requires the not very good consume corpse ability, but it's worth it IMO - the only way to make use of pitlords after they are out of mana~~
Soldier's Luck - You want to see Fear special almost everytime when your nightmares attack? No problem, take this skill fantastic one, improves your midgame power a lot.
Swarming Gate - when it triggers, you will summon almost as big stack as the original one. Quite amazing one
Ballista, Tent - already explained.
Endgame tactics
Gating, gating, gating. With all those skills described above, you may improve your army's strength by around 50%. Not only the damage increase, it gives you also extra units to soak retaliations from tough stacks AND an extra stack of nightmares to abuse the fear thing.
Use dark magic - frenzy first, mass slow and mass confusion later on. A very nasty strategy involves recruiting all those familiars which have been waiting in the dwelling while you have been creeping to get rid of most of enemy hero's mana. It makes might heroes empty, and seriously cripples warlocks and necromancers. IMO, it's a must Pit lords are good only in the beginning of the combat, once their mana runs dry they suck - unless you have teleport assault. Block the shooters with gated creatures. Don't rush - if you have frenzy, it may be better to wait and let enemy's stacks kill themselves ;p Your ballista acts like a nice stack of strong shooters, so the ranged problems of inferno are solved with deleb. Now, it's all about skill AND luck
regards :]
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Klaital
Known Hero
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posted July 09, 2006 06:55 PM |
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I usually take catapult + brimstone rain to Deleb instead of first aid tent, it really helps all those walkers you have to actually get in the enemy castle when your attacking, very good for late game where the healing of first aid tent is rather trivial.
Also you can get Urgash' Call at around level 25-27 to Grok, depending on how lucky you get with witch's huts. He is the best inferno hero for going to Urgash' call, and also the best hero inferno has after Deleb otherwise too, since he not only starts with logistics and increased movement on top of that, but he also starts with teleport spell which makes your horned overseers and pit lords a lot better.
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Izzachar
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 12, 2006 01:20 AM |
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Edited by Izzachar at 01:36, 12 Jul 2006.
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I wanna add something to doomforge's nice summary.
If you get ballista first lv. expert war machines second. and tent third, well good for you. But it might not be that easy
To ensure getting aid tent + ballista abilities fast as possible there are a number off things you should think about.
* No more skills. This goes for gating aswell as warmachines! Do not choose another skill untill youve got both tent and ballista ability. choosing logistics as an example at this point might be very tempting but it WILL flood your ability choices and getting ballista might take several levels.
* Catapult + gating ability -> Choose gating ability If catapult shows upp together with a gating skill and you take catapult, brimstone rain will flood the ability choices later. Ive found out that "advanced" abilities seem to get a priority in the ability list. So you wont be able, or have a very hard time, getting tent and ballista. Anyways getting the gating ability even if its crap (mark of the damned)you are ensured getting Tent + ballista two next turns. You could also choose warmachines here but it might just delay getting tent and maybe ballista a lv. Making you not getting it untill lv 5. And then its getting late..
* Only gating abilities -> Take any off them This will ensure you to get two warmahcine abilities next lv. And you are 100% sure to be able to either choose tent or ballista.
Following the above guidelines will guarantee that you get tent and ballista abilities at lv 4 the latest.
There is no better and safer way to accomplish this early. Well you can actually pick warmachines before the other ones but getting ballista and tent skill will benefit you MUCH more.
About Brimstone rain, its nice. But IMO the advantage you get from capping all those mines and advance early with deleb with aid tent and ballista is better atleast for the harder difficulties. 
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 12, 2006 07:06 AM |
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good advice Izzachar 
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Klaital
Known Hero
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posted July 12, 2006 07:49 PM |
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I don't really see how you need the tent anyway with deleb as your ballista is doing all the fighting and your troops can just sit there.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 12, 2006 08:17 PM |
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well, ballista can shoot as long as you have an army so you need something to keep it alive + it is a blessing for nightmares, which do similiar job.
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juventas
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 13, 2006 06:16 AM |
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How useful, really, is a catapult in castle sieges? The moats in this game are ridiculous, so it would be suicide to go through a hole in the wall. The main way is through the front gate, and only one or two creatures can fit through the front gate. Seeing as how inferno units have low defense, it would be suicide to send one or two units through the front without having gated some creatures past the walls first. Therefore, I think brimstone rain is quite useless since it only helps you break down the walls faster, but you still have to wait for your gated creatures for support. Getting a first aid tent is a much better alternative than brimstone rain.
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Izzachar
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 13, 2006 12:30 PM |
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The tent allows you to get all mines faster. There will always be a neutral stack that the ballista itself couldnt handle without you having losses. Shooters as an example then its VERY nice to have the tent.
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Klaital
Known Hero
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posted July 13, 2006 02:14 PM |
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Umm well you can break the gate lot faster if your ballista has 3 shots. So your guys actually CAN get in. Even ai isn't always moronic enough to open the gate for you, and a human player probably never does. It can take like 20+ turns from the catapult to break the gate with one shot a round. Also destroying the castle turrets asap helps to lower your casualties, those are usually the ones I target first.
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juventas
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 13, 2006 04:09 PM |
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Quote:
Umm well you can break the gate lot faster if your ballista has 3 shots. So your guys actually CAN get in. Even ai isn't always moronic enough to open the gate for you, and a human player probably never does. It can take like 20+ turns from the catapult to break the gate with one shot a round. Also destroying the castle turrets asap helps to lower your casualties, those are usually the ones I target first.
I'm not talking about having no catapult ability. I'm saying brimstone rain isn't that useful. With just the basic catapult ability, you can break the front gate in 2-3 turns, even 1 sometimes. In my experience, one of two shots hits the target you aim for most of the time, and if you have expert war machines, one shot is enough to create an opening. Same thing applies to the side turrets (although I've always had a bit of trouble killing the middle turret in one hit).
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Nightrage
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 15, 2006 11:20 PM |
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slight change of topic: Chained shot
whats your opinion of it and does it do a good job of making up for the lack of shooters in the inferno army relative to other armies?
and a tip with chained shot:
if possible, target a stack that won't incur a ranged penalty, when the shot bounces, it goes off this damage instead of the range penalized damage. So its possible to do MORE (if not the same) damage to a stack by NOT targeting it. (That is if I understand chain shot fully)
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Klaital
Known Hero
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posted July 16, 2006 09:23 AM |
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What I don't like about the chain shot is that it hits also your own guys if they aren't inferno troops, which is a real annoyance at times when you get some nice joiners.
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Izzachar
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 20, 2006 02:13 AM |
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Edited by Izzachar at 02:17, 20 Jul 2006.
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What I dont like about chain shot is that it ruins your blind and possibly puppet master spell 
What I do like is to charge in with all my melee units kill flyers and main damage dealers first. Use fireball or mass confusion. Next hero turn teleport assault succubi just behind your own lines or in the line, somewhere where opponent cant reach them easely and do some very nice damage.
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duoscye
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 29, 2006 08:27 PM |
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I really like playing Inferno and could use more tips from advanced players on how to start the early game without using Deleb. From reading earlier posts, I have learned that Deleb is very useful because she can use war machines and nightmares to clear all the spawn points without losing Imps. Against enemy heroes, I found that a high number of Imps makes a drastic difference in the combat result, since the enemy hero is obviously less dangerous with no mana.
If I use heroes like Grok or Alastor, I end up needing Imps for combats. They get targeted frequently on the Hard difficulty (I hate pixies), and I can't protect them by blocking 'line of sight' like in Heroes 4. Is there an easier way to clear mining spots without losing lots of imps or using Deleb? I really like Alastor because he comes with the confusion spell, but at early levels his spell power is very low and it lasts for a very short time. So at early levels it's hard to justify using confusion over eldritch arrow or ice bolt. Last game I played Warlords 2v2v2v2 on Hard with a computer ally (I'm not quite good enough to play against humans yet) and after a making a few enemy heroes flee the warlock manhandled me with 5 shadow dragons when I had 4 pit fiends as my highest stack. I attribute this loss to my slow start.
Also what units would you suggest that I build for early mine clearing? With Deleb on Hard difficulty, I get 6 Nightmares by beginning of the 2nd week. With other heroes though, should I pick war machines (since it's a useful early game skill) and go with Nightmares, or should I develop other creatures like Cerberus or Succubus mistress? Deleb starting with 2 war machines is worth buying her just to steal them.
Could someone also explain to me how useful the Archdevils 'Pit lord summoning' is? So far whenever I have acquired Archdevils, I was so strong that I hadn't had a chance to use the ability. I think in a harder game when I lose a stack early, to Paladins for example, it could be good but that is just speculation on my part.
Thanks for your input.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 29, 2006 09:39 PM |
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Hello, Inferno fan
My post up there (and Izzachar's posts aswell) are partially out-of-date. The 1.3 patch changed much in costs, and getting nightmares early isn't that good anymore, because you'll get stuck without any sulfur. Try to build more basic structures. Fortunately, I'm able to do without them and use only demons and ballista to kill almost any creature on the map, save those very fast and strong (dragons, for example).
Without Deleb, you may find things extremely tricky. Alastor is risky - he may be great, but he may suck aswell, depending on many circumstances. Even if he gets dark magic/master of mind, he can still be owned by i.e. paladins+marksmen, because paladins don't need mana for cleansing.
It may not be the best idea to use familiars or even imps on the field. IMP used to stand for I Must Perish, but in H5, these units are very valuable and you should never use them in creeping. Inferno has a hard time creeping without deleb's ballista, so you should get warmachines and ballista skill ASAP, fortunately the skill is often offered. Tent is precious too, to minimize the loses. Gating may help to stall, while ballista tears creatures apart. You can also use other possibilites. Hellfire is very deadly. You can split familiars (if you must use them)or hellhounds to maximize the chance of getting hellfire blow, which does very good damage. You can also use Succubi specialist and get mistressess ASAP, together with hellfire they can be extremely effective (of course split them - 6 stacks of 1 succubi and one big) because you will deal much much more damage than you should. Using cerberi (splitted ofc) and hellhound specialist may be also a fine idea, but don't attack shooters unless you have tent skill and/or tactics. The hellhound specialist comes with adv. destructive, but no spells, so get at least level2 guild to help your creeping. Don't worry about mana, demonlords have alot. Also, consider mark of the damned+excruciating strike+weaking strike for tougher creatures. Not only you will kill some, but also weaken them. Very good if you met one BIG stack of neutrals on battlefield. Demons (splitted to six stack of one creature) are best here. The enemy kills one demon and gets hit by mark. After several kills, the enemy stack has 0 attack and has reduced numbers due to hellfire+mark, so and your big cerberi group is ready to move in and tear the stack apart.
With Deleb, you can do a very nice trick: you can wander as far as you can, killing everything, followed by two heroes to flag mines and get resources. Deleb should kill everything (almost) with ballista, tent and 20-30 demons only with no loses. If the enemy appears close to your city, attack some neutrals with deleb, then run and re-hire her in the town. You have to buy the ballista again, but it's just 1,5k. So, you can safely cast a "town portal" and pay only about 3k and several demons, which is of course much better than losing a city.
As for archdevils' powerful ability, you have to target a friendly corpse (yup, you have to lose a stack first) and that's it, Pit Lords will be raised from the corpse. Great to use on your cerberi - in big battles they will be surely targeted and killed first, so a corpse will appear quite soon.
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duoscye
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 30, 2006 05:10 PM |
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Thanks for the input Doomforge.
I underestimated hellfire and its damage output. Using Alastor with horned demons and succubus I was able to clear most of the neutrals with few casualties, utilizing hellfire with split stacks of course. I have also been fairly lucky with getting both dark magic and war machines before level 10, with several Inferno hero's, as long as I choose the proper primary skills to maximize my choices.
I have had a fairly easy time fighting Academy, Sylvan and Haven so far with mass confusion and Alastor. I haven't fought the Necropolis as much however because I usually make them my ally. However since I can't use mind affecting spells on undead, or use unholy word, should I also try and pick up master of curses and master of pain? Weakening strike and dark renewal are pre-requisites for Urgash call. I don't know if its possible to get level 27+ in a regular multiplayer game to attempt Urgash call, but I don't see many options for Inferno to stop 1k+ skeleton archers due to a lack of: flyers, creatures with breathe attack, mass deflect missile, or a powerful implosion. I could try to use 'gating' to tie up the skeleton archers but any decent player would surround his archers with zombies and such.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 30, 2006 05:23 PM |
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Skell archers aren't that much of a problem if you block them. They are not marksmen, they are in fact weak and necros have no bonuses for them, so one suffering and their attack equals zero.
The biggest problem is dark magic, since inferno has no cleansing caster and light magic is a nono. Tent can cleanse, but it has only three charges and can't help vs. mass suffering (very annoying). So, try to get a LOT of familiars to dry necromancer empty if it's already endgame, or rush quickly and end it fast. Watch out for necro's midgame rushes, they are very deadly - 600 battlefrenzied skeletons in week 3-4 are quite dangerous. Of course, they are not marksmen, but they can't get countered by manadrain+confusion like marksmen can, so you have to watch out.
If you have weakining strike, no need to develop magic guild too high. The mark will cripple the skeletons' attack alone. You have to kill the tent so it can't cleanse and the slow them. Consider even summoning magic if wasp swarm is in your guild, expert wasp swarm + expert slow = skeletons are simply standing there and staring stupidly as you kill them. If wasp swarm isn't in your guild, go destructive and use icebolt+freeze mastery. Works similiar to slow+swarm combo. I dunno if vorpal sword works against tent, but if so, you can teleport assault the pitlords to get rid of it extremely fast.
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Shauku83
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted November 30, 2006 05:36 PM |
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Good tips overall. But Wasp Swarm doesn't affect Skeletons, so that option is out. Not that you get Summoning offered often for Inferno anyways.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 30, 2006 05:55 PM |
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aww, yes, correct. I was thinking about skeletons like about the marksmen Well, the freezing part still applies. Necropolis doesn't havedivine guidance to counter it.
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