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KonijnFTW
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 20, 2006 07:33 AM |
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A Gating Boom
Hi , I'm pretty new to the HOMM series , but I'm quite an experienced rTS-player so I'm already developing strategies  .
My 1st thought was doing something with the special ability of Inferno : Gating.
As each race/civ has some specific attributes , gating is the one for infenro along with the sacrificial pit. Early game gating isnt very effective as it takes quite a while before your gated creatures appear on the battlefield but lategame gating cna be a very good trump card , maybe even your main strategy when your hero has some good gating abilities/skills. That's why I'm working on some sort of a gating boom which seem to work well atm.
Probably the best hero to do this with is the "gate keeper" (Nymus) , but you might succeed with other heroes as well to give your gating strategy a 2nd dimension , and nymus actually doesnt get the good gating skills easily either.
I'll explain the basics in a 1vs1 defeat all setup. As most of the starts include a 2nd hero this one does too. The risky feature here is that you should use your starting hero to scout forward and steal the treasures. why? well you'll need your main hero to get a lot of levels to get various gating abilities/skills. You might want to get advanced gating ASAP. As this strategy is a boom you should up your city as first giving you the economic advantage later in the game but making you slightly more vulnerable to rushes. If your 2nd hero encounters any experience treasures leave them for your 1st hero who'll come back when you think the forward scouting is becoming too dangerous.
1st week passed: Your hero should be around lvl 3-5 and you should have upped your city twice giving you respectively 2000 gold per day. Also the resource silo should be gotten to give a steady incom of sulfur which you'll need lategame as lategame will be your shot. Furthermore you can have some military buildings cuz you'll need a huge army which will give more gated creatures. Hellhounds is my 1st choice followed by imps . This is 6 buildings , I'd went for the magic guild as well giving acces to the hall of temptations in the 2nd week . At the end of the week get all the creatures available (hell hounds and imps)
Once your hero got all experience treasures, it's time to get experience in an other way , by fighting neutral creatures, and thus getting acces to resource buildings,artifacts,treasures,... .
Now maybe the other player might be going for an early attack (especially academy can with a pretty good gremlin/golem rush), with your forward scouting you should see him coming from a far, except if the map has an underworld entrance near your town so you'll see him only 1-2 turns before he can siege your town. This is your chance getting infernal loom and recruit all your creatures you can afford. If you got one more turn before he attacks upgrade your defenses. You can pick them in the other order as well (1st fort then infernal loom).
When you have repelled him or when he simply doesnt attacks just continue gathering experience and army till you get a reasonable sized army with great gating capacities. Focus your army especially on pit lords who are just a devastating foce with gating in large numbers (4 times meteor shower!). Ultimate gating isnt really a mist have with devils as they can summon pit lords instead of gating and it's better not to give a turn to gating to them as they might be target no.1 for your enemy giving your other creatures the gating time .
Here follows the skill lists which include all gating-improving skills and skills who unlock those skills:
- Basic/Advanced/Expert/Ultimate Gating (Increase umlber of gated creatures and more creatures get the gating ability)
- Consume Corpse (Hero can consume corpses for mana)
- Pathfinding (Less penalty for walking through rough terrain)
- Swift Gating (Gating becomes faster)
- Mark of the Damned (Hero ability)
- Master of Mind (Slow and Confusion get mass effect)
- Dark Renewal (hero gets mana back if his spell gets resisted)
- Soldier's Luck (combat abilities trigger more often)
- Swarming Gate (15-30% chance that twice as many gated creatures get summoned)
- Dead Man's Curse (Luck of enemy troops decrased by 1)
- Battle Frenzy (Min. and Max.Damage of creatures increased by 1)
- Excruciating Strike (Improves Mark of The Damned)
- Power of Speed (Haste doesnt cost mana anymore , if hero doesnt have haste he gets it)
- Urgash's Call (Instant Gating)
- Recruitment ( Lvl 1-3 creatures growt increased if hero is stationed in that town)
- Gate Master (20% more gated creatures)
Weakness of this strat:
- Some skills needed to activate a good gating skill aren't that good on itself
- The weakness in early game vs some races/civs
- Can result in some long games
- Not very focused on war machines nor on hero's magical skills.
Feedback would be appreciated
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Shauku83
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted July 20, 2006 09:10 AM |
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Hi, these kind of topics are needed! But I would have wanted you to cover these areas also :
On what difficulty is this designed? Does tactics chance when difficulty changes? What Skills to prioritize?
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KonijnFTW
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 20, 2006 09:21 AM |
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Yeah the more difficult the game is the longer you have to wait to get the neutral enemies. It's harder on a higher difficulty as I mentioned magic and war machines are good vs neutral player and this strat isnt really focused on those.
Off course if you can do some good ability-choosing you can have a gating army + some good war machines along with them or a very good magic.
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Shauku83
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted July 20, 2006 11:18 AM |
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Edited by Shauku83 at 11:22, 20 Jul 2006.
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Well, I expected a little more thorough analysis.. But I'll add my opinions then.
Skills.
The skills to aim for are Logistics, Luck and Leadership (in that order). All unluck some very efficient gating booster. As addition I would do for Defence, since your aim is to overwhelm the opponent, that means that the gated creatures need to last more than one blow.
Abilies.
Logictics : Swift Gating is a must as you can't afford to sit with your troops for very long. Teleport Assaut is usefull in many instances, so I would go for it.
Luck : Swarming Gate is a devastating ability to double amount of gated creatures. Magic Resistnce should be picked most of the times, but still depending on the opponent(s)
Leadership: Gate Master brings solid 20% more troops via gating, nothing bad about this.
Gating : Hellfire. This ensures that your creatures keep doing that damage, and gives even smaller gated stacks high damage potential.Consume Corpse may prove usefull when using Hellfire and it is needed for Teleport assault.
Defence : Evasion and then you find Hellwrath, a very nasty ability allowing Hellfire to trigger on retaliation. Considering that enemy will be sorry for hitting those gated stacks, which you force him to do obviously. Protection as third if the opponent isn't Might (like Haven)
You can go magic also as support, or as variation instead of skill Leadership. Destructive or Dark preferrably. In Destructive one should go for Master of Fire and Searing Fires. In Dark any mass effect is good and will aid your cause, but Hellfire shouldn't be left out even then.
Nymys is the best Hero choice obviously, made for the job I'd say. Others can be used, but mainly Grok or Marbas. The skills I mentioned will probably explain why.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 20, 2006 11:29 AM |
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some good strategies are written here : http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=17791&pagenumber=2
^_^
gating is very, very powerful (in the endgame ofc), with proper skills you may increase your army by 50-60% (depending on luck). Fighting 20 nightmares or 35 nightmares is a big difference, plus the tactical possibilities it gives (more stacks = free retaliation stealers, double mana steal from familiars, better use of the fear special of nightmares, more stacks to block shooters, etc.  ).
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KonijnFTW
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 20, 2006 12:02 PM |
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I'm not sure if nymus is the best to handle this job , he doesnt get the good gating skills pretty fast I thought and others can use their bonuses to make up for the slightly weaker gating
This is Nymus first skills he should get in the right order :
- Advanced Gating
- Mark of the Damned
- Consume Corpse
- Advanced Luck
- Expert Gating
- Expert Luck
- Soldier's Luck
I think there was one step you could change to a different skill but I'm not sure
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Shauku83
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted July 20, 2006 12:11 PM |
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Edited by Shauku83 at 12:14, 20 Jul 2006.
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Well a level 20 Nymus is like having the 20% Gate Master skill  So you can skil Leadership or have the bonus as 40%!
But I see your point..still I'd go with Nymus most of the time.
And I don't quite understand the reason why you pick Mark of the Damned?
Edit: Oh I do understand now... Mark of the Damned is best used with gated creatures... I allready forgot the Earth Elemental fight in Inferno campaign
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KonijnFTW
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 20, 2006 12:16 PM |
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+ Mark of the Damned unlocks excruciating strike which unlocks power of speed which unlocks urgash's call .
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 20, 2006 09:07 PM |
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Assuming you went for attack->excruciating strike it might be fun to try this strategy:Take seven stacks of imps(hell hounds work better) and attack your opponent early.Gate all of them and cast mark of the damned(AFTER the hero's first round lest you waste it).When you attack the retaliation activates the mark as well as when you are attacked.If you are lucky you may even get some hellfire attacks!Gating is good in numbers but can be just as good with a few creatures(unless you face a meteor shower wielding spellcaster).Guaranteed success otherwise!
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