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| Thread: Heroes 5 TotE Strategy: Playing Stronghold Faction |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 ... 10 20 ... 24 25 26 27 28 · NEXT» |
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted October 09, 2007 12:01 AM |
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elmek
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 03:48 PM |
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Does anyone have any thoughts about counter strategies to dark magic?
So far all I can do is relying on magic restance + barb luck perk and first aid tent. I feel however that it's not enough and vs any good dark magic user (not AI) stronghold is in deep trouble.
Puppeted cyclopes, frenzied executioners, mass curse are only several things that come to the mind right a way.
Opponent effective spellpower may be low due to might over magic, but it does not resolve the problem.
How effective is shatter dark?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 05:16 PM |
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is it just me, or are orcs weak? I've played a couple duels, and got thrashed badly with them or thrashed the opponent with nearly no loses (despite what faction I've taken!!) if he took orcs. The units are slow, quite weak, very vulnerable to dark and their blood rage takes quite long to power up (plus, they lose it quickly when focused, and it's obvious that I focus on executioners and try to put cyclops out of fight - its easy, they have nothing to defend themselves against magic.
The antimagic faction is suddenly the worst antimagic faction in game, how ironic.
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samiekl
Supreme Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 05:27 PM |
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hmm? they are very strong in my opinion. if you play with them try to get the proper skills that give you bloodrage in the beginning of combat. you can creep fairly easy with cenaturs and trappers. dont underestimate the shamans. all your units can be strong and effective melee fighters. about anti magic, i played warlock vs orcs and my destructive was pathetic. he could thrash my army with few losses if i wouldnt have picked up summoning.
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elmek
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 05:36 PM |
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So far the worst thing about them is, that AI completely has no idea how to play them. When I pick another town, I usually meet the entire orc army with some warlock or some other hero. That way blood rage is useless.
And I somewhat agree. They're quite good against destruction, as just before the fight you can switch arties to lower enemy spellpower, but they're helpless against dark. Even meeting a decent inferno army with 3x+ seducers usually ends up with seduced cyclops which is gg for stronghold.
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phoenixreborn
Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
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posted October 23, 2007 05:39 PM |
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Quote:
I've played a couple duels,
The antimagic faction is suddenly the worst antimagic faction in game, how ironic.
Since when is duel indicative of anything?
I haven't played enough with them to know but lack of cleansing really hurts.
I'll agree that there special blood rage takes too long to get going. I rarely make the third level and if I do it's knocked away instantly. I'll have to look more closely at the perks.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 23, 2007 05:42 PM |
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Besides even if puppeted their ballista is still a pain.
____________
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Map also hosted on Moddb
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samiekl
Supreme Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 05:46 PM |
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against dark (or anything) you've got might over magic, and shatter skill. well developed shatter dark gives a puppet master that can control your units for what? 1 turn? and cyclops cannot be pupetted if you have expert shatter dark 'cause it will make expert dark magic turn to basic dark magic and if i remember correctly you cant puppet a lvl 7 with basic dark.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 05:51 PM |
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nope. Puppet master is exactly the same at any mastery, plus, read carefully shatter dark skill desc. lvl 4-5 spells get lowered by only 1 mastery level when you have expert shatter dark.
Shatter dark is NOT a counter to dark magic, and 1-2 turns of puppeting is more than enough to cripple your army, I fear 
just another dungeon-type problem, only that you don't have destructive to resort to.
I sincerely believe stronghold is weak. I hope I'm wrong. C'mon ToHers, say something..
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dschingi
Famous Hero
the guy with the dragon golem
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posted October 23, 2007 05:57 PM |
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From what I saw the damage reduction from blood rage is their best advantage to other factions. The more rage you have the longer you get the reduction effect, so getting as much of it as possible is probably not a bad idea.
I believe they are pretty strong, need to play them more often though...
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samiekl
Supreme Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 05:59 PM |
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yeah, you're right about the description, although think a little. we have necro and inferno with dark (i'm gonna leave academy out of this). Against necro you have initiative and against inferno you have might over magic that decreses demon's (already low) spellpower. and how many demonlords go for sorcery to use effectively dark? look at the perks shatter dark gives.
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elmek
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 06:16 PM |
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Edited by elmek at 18:17, 23 Oct 2007.
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Quote:
yeah, you're right about the description, although think a little. we have necro and inferno with dark (i'm gonna leave academy out of this). Against necro you have initiative and against inferno you have might over magic that decreses demon's (already low) spellpower. and how many demonlords go for sorcery to use effectively dark? look at the perks shatter dark gives.
Against necro you have the initiative, but it'll influence executioners and paokais mostly. After that there is a necromancer with expert sorcery and advanced dark (with your expert shatter dark). Puppet duration depends on dark mastery. His spellpower will not be impressive, maybe half of the original value.
Still you're left with no counter of cyclopes/executioners get puppeted.
Against demonlord you have to face advanced dark and seducers. And Demonlord usually have enough mana to cast some puppet/frenzy for double cost.
Imo the problem is that there is no counter like cleansing/counterspel.
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Jabarkas
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 06:20 PM |
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Edited by Jabarkas at 18:22, 23 Oct 2007.
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I find Stronghold to be an oddity, since bloodrage and its ability to absorb damage has the effect that your units behave more like tanks, especially considering the town has no exceptional fast units either. Overall Stronghold is like an army looking for a magic hero.
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Nirual
Famous Hero
Imbued Ballista
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posted October 23, 2007 06:25 PM |
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Orcs really struggle against Dark. No cleanse against PM and Frenzy, and Slow gives them a lot less actions to build rage with.
Although you can at least counter Slow with Earth/Sky Daughters.
Shatter Dark helps, but it doesn't prevent the enemy from casting the spells. The effect is most noticable on Frenzy since it drops it to Advanced and as such, it's only one turn. Might over Magic also helps a bit, but Barbarians don't get a lot of Spellpower, nor should they focus their artifacts towards it.
In my opinion, orcs would need a Warcry with Cleansing effect.
The other schools aren't really as troublesome. Light can hurt, but Bloodrage is somewhat comparable. Summoning Magic doesn't bring forth anything that orcs can't kill swiftly, although it can delay them somewhat (Wasp Swarm, anyone?), and Destructive Magic gets absorbed by Blood Rage like just any other damage. In other words, if any Shatter skill is worth it, it's Shatter Dark.
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In ur base killing ur doods... and raising them as undeads.
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sdfx
Famous Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 07:58 PM |
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In 3.0 manual 312/338 "Order of the Chief: the ATB boost is 1% of their stack size, limited to 0.6".
I don't understand it. For example: how big is the boost with 10 chieftains? Is it 0.01*10 = +0.1 ATB?
Anyway, when I was (ab)using it the boost was significant so for me it's an excellent skill mainly because it makes a powerstack(cyclops/centaurs..) act like mad. A stack that act like mad gets a lot of rage points..
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted October 23, 2007 07:58 PM |
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I'm not sure it's a good idea to get executioners vs dark users just because of double attack. Also exactly because your units can turn on you you'd rather have defense or shout to raise your rage fast. In 2.1 getting good morale decreased the puppet duration and it probably still works this way. Finally a good ballista because it cannot be turned against you.
When I faced the wizard with dark magic in the final orc mission I used chieftains, tried once with executioners and they decimated my army.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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Nirual
Famous Hero
Imbued Ballista
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posted October 23, 2007 08:46 PM |
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I'm afraid a good ballista only helps you until the enemy gets the idea of using the PM'd cyclops stack on it. The AI probably won't do that, but any decent player will.
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In ur base killing ur doods... and raising them as undeads.
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Deathy
Known Hero
Angels Galore
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posted October 23, 2007 09:10 PM |
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what i find really weak about the orcs, is that blood rage takes ages to get. even with good blood rage buffs at beginning of combat and warcries, it might sometimes take TWO turns from some units before they even get the first blood rage level. and ive reached maybe like 2-3 times to level 2 blood rage. and we all know that the orcs are so weak without blood rage that even Necropolis units laugh at them.
only two units can get blood rage levels fast, executioners and cyclops. and it's not hard to focus fire them out of the blood rage points like Doomforge said.
and Dark Magic can be quite a problem aswell indeed.
Orcs are fun to play but they do seem to be on the weak side currently.
atleast orcs have one thing done well, their creeping is really awesome, i lost almost no units and i crept with goblins,centaurs and warriors only.
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PaleMaster
Hired Hero
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posted October 23, 2007 09:11 PM |
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u cant PM cyclops when the barbarian hero has expert shatter dark
it also makes frenzy duration 1 turn only
consider might over magic too
when u are against inferno, they have low spell power already and with might over magic PM will be live 80% reduction on targets initiative, like blind, they will just skip their turs
against necro, they dont have any great units to kill ur army fast, with blood rage u can absorb enough dmg to withstand and kill them
and u have 40% resist chance too
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Anakrom
Known Hero
(Scroll) Out of the blue
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posted October 23, 2007 09:26 PM |
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Quote:
nope. Puppet master is exactly the same at any mastery
Puppet Master - Cost: 18
Gives the hero temporary control over the selected enemy creature. Creature under this spell can't counter-attack. Control will be lost if the unit is attacked Puppet Master is cast on another target. (The caster should have an Expert Dark Magic skill to gain the control over 7 level creatures. The spell does not work on undead, elemental and mechanical units).
The target's Initiative is multiplied by 0.03*Power during the control (0.01*Power with no mastery). The multiplier can not be greater than 1. Duration depends on the caster's mastery.
Puppet Master
0.15*Power 0.2*Power 0.25*Power 0.25*Power
It isnīt.
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Result matters
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