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| Thread: The usefulness of Mentoring | |
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Cleave
Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
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posted April 14, 2008 08:42 PM |
bonus applied by alcibiades on 16 Apr 2008. |
Edited by Cleave at 20:56, 14 Apr 2008.
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The usefulness of Mentoring
Mentoring is a very useful skill when it comes to train secondary heroes giving them 25% of the mentor's XP.
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Training a secondary that will be able to defend the city while the main hero is away can be useful (in maps with many castles, it helps to recruit and train a hero who is aligned with the city that has been taken by your main hence allowing a Stronghold city to be defended by a Barbarian with Blood Rage or an Inferno city defended by a Demon Lord with Gating).
Training secondary heroes to get some skills that may yield a few goodies is useful too.
Another option would be to train another hero who would be less powerful but tailor made to face a foe (in the absence of memory mentors).
Getting Recruitment for a Defence hero or Estates and Resourcefulness for a gatherer/windmill visitor hero is not bad, likewise Scouting and Logistics help when you want to explore the map and assess the threat level of enemy heroes.
Planning a defence hero with Destructive Magic, Master of Ice and Cold Death is also a great way to defend a city from attacks or to counter Phoenix or War Machinists (first destroy the catapult, then concentrate on warmachines Chariot and Balista and then on high level shooters -beware of Untamed Cyclops they can destroy the gates- and target Phoenix when they are summoned).
With a certain amount of luck, Mentoring may get you extra spells with Secret of Destruction or Arcane Brillance.
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-->Knights: Mentoring is really handy for them. Training can be great on rich maps but you can't afford your main hero to stay in the city for that (one alternative is to come back every two weeks, just make sure you leave before right at the start of the week after training reinforcement and come back right before the end of the follosing week so you can train some more). Mentoring allows you to have a secondary hero that will be sufficiently adept so that it won't be too expensive so that you will be able to keep your main hero busy with more important endeavours.
-Knight only perks: Expert Trainer and Expert Counterstrike are the most useful skills and abilities to pick.
-Potentially interesting secondary heroes: Ellaine starting with Taxpayer and Beloved of the People will yield more cash so training will be easier.
-->Barbarians: Mentoring doesn't look so good for Barbarians. They get XP from shrines so getting a secondary hero up to level 7-9 is not a big feat. Enlightenment is not the easiest skill to get either.
-Barbarian only perks: Defend Us All gives extra goblin reinforcements but you have to give the secondary Warriors and to get Defense (Shak'karukat is the most likely candidate for that one). Other than that Goblin Support might be nice for some extra goblins everyday (but still hard to get).
-Potentially interesting secondary hero: Kilghan (extra goblins and recruitment)
-->Necromancers: Mentoring raises the level of secondary heroes contributing to the global DE (although the increase is minor, it can add up in the end and allow you to raise several creatures).
-Most unlikely mentor: Zoltan can't get Mentoring.
-Potentially interesting secondary hero: Raven (starts with Destructive so Cold Death should be easy to attain).
-->Rangers: Mentoring may not look like it's a real benefit to Rangers but in fact it can be really awesome.
-Ranger only perks: Battle Commander is the reason why Mentoring is so good with the elves. Getting 10 to 50 free Battle Dancers is really good. In long games (with a little luck) that can translate into up to a maximum 400 Battle Dancers (50 per hero).
-Most likely mentor: Vinrael (he is tailored to get Mentoring).
-Potentially interesting secondary hero: Talanar (starts with Leadership hence can easily get Battle Commander).
-->Runemages: Mentoring can help with runes because of Inga's specialty.
-Most likely mentor: Inga (she is tailored to get Mentoring but since with the Guard Post your city may be well defended already you may choose to aim for Empathy instead, still if Leadership is not one of your priorities you could do worse than Mentoring).
-Potentially interesting secondary hero: Inga (if you take another hero as your main and he gets Mentoring Inga could still learn a few extra runes in the process, nevertheless it's unlikely that it will happen too often).
-->Warlocks: Mentoring is one of the prerequisites for an effective hit and run strategy. You can train other Warlocks who will be able to use powerful spells and you won't care about the Shackles of the Last Man. Another (minor) use would be to recruit Rangers and train them to get Battle Commander so you can sacrifice the Battle Dancers to boost your Fury and Minotaur production.
-Most likely mentor: Yrwanna (she is tailored to get Mentoring).
-Potentially interesting secondary heroes: Eruina and Sinitar (they start with Destructive.)
-->Wizards: Artificer gets better with Knowledge so having a higher Knowledge makes a defense hero better at crafting equipment (not as vital as training for the Knight but still it can be helpful). Mentoring is perhaps more useful in order to get spells that are missing from the library (see below).
-Most likely mentor: Narxes (he is tailored to get Mentoring).
-->Demonlords: Mentoring has no special effect on this faction (except if you recruit and train Rangers for Battle Commander and sacrifice the Battle Dancers for very little XP).
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Another thing that I like about Mentoring: One of the requirements for Mentoring is Scholar. Scholar can be quite useful because in the course of the game if you are out of luck you may miss out on some good spells that you might want to learn. If you are lucky enough you can get one of these from a rookie hero in your inn.
-Confusion (Alastor)
-Decay (Lethos)
-Cleansing (Galib)
-Righteous Might (Helmar)
-Teleportation (Grok)
-Fireball (Nathir)
-Ice Bolt (Kythra)
-Lightning Bolt (Svea, Eruina)
-Haste (Sorgal, Maeve, Razzak)
-Slow (Yrwanna)
-Fire Trap (Vayshan)
Since Mass Spells work by pairs if one is missing in the Guild and you can't find it on the map, it can be a good idea to recruit a hero who already knows it.
Demonlords, Runemages, Warlocks and Wizards can be trained to get Logistics and Teleport Assault in order to learn the Teleportation spell (Demonlords are the best choice since it's easier to get Logistics with them).
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In conclusion, while taking Mentoring is not a waste of a level up you have to bear in mind that it will be more useful in larger maps and during longer games, in fact the larger the map the better it gets (for the very reason that your main hero won't be able to be everywhere at the same time).
If you have some comments to make or some ideas that you are willing to share, please post. I'd like to know what you make of my analysis especially if there are points on which you disagree or if I have overlooked some aspect of the game in this post.
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zamrai
Adventuring Hero
Moonlight Melody
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posted April 14, 2008 09:16 PM |
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Good post 
Usually I do not play large maps so one strong hero is enough, no need for mentoring. But on large maps, you are completely right, the bigger map is and the more potential xp to gain the more inteligence is important. So there is short way to go for mentoring.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted April 14, 2008 09:32 PM |
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First of all good job Cleave  It's no secret that mentoring is a great ability but there's more to it than meets the eye. The larger the map the more important it is, for instance in hourglass a 30 lvl hero can mentor 28 or so lvl secondaries which is a chance to start anew if you did not like what you had. For instance you may like starting with Telsek because of warmachines but go for Gorshak that will have a nice bonus to slayers.
For knights it's not as important where training is concerned, it's just 3 levels to get expert trainer and counterstrike.
Barbarians are a little better. You get defend us all, transfer the warrior to another secondary, mentor him too, even more goblins. The chance for defile should be pretty good with all these goblins.
I think the more important function other than instant boosts to heroes or new spells is the ability to create kamikaze suicide bombers. Many factions have destructive and even if native spellpower is not good there are perks from sorcery/enlightenment as well as warlock's luck. Even a weak armageddon can be worth it but then it depends how late in the game it is. It's also a matter how fast you can do that, academy and dungeon can have powerful heroes right from the start and it's easy to take down a good part of the opponent's army that way.
However I'd like to express my distaste for the people who will do that. Smart, yes. Hard to repel, yes. But I just don't like it, feels cheap.
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Cleave
Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
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posted April 14, 2008 10:28 PM |
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Quote:
However I'd like to express my distaste for the people who will do that. Smart, yes. Hard to repel, yes. But I just don't like it, feels cheap.
I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. I'd like to add that since you can recruit a Warlock from any city you can imagine getting Sinitar with Empowered Spells and train him to be able to cast Empowered Armaggedon (that would be really cheap, give him some resistant creatures and he would be set for dealing an awful amount of spell damage).
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13 Heroes
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted April 16, 2008 08:39 AM |
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Nice review. Is the list of spells-on-heroes complete? It would be pretty handy to have a complete list of which spells you can learn from other heroes sorted by spell, like you did above, but including all spells (the Raise Dead is perhaps redundant).
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What will happen now?
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Cleave
Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
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posted April 16, 2008 10:46 AM |
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Edited by Cleave at 10:48, 16 Apr 2008.
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Thanks. I only picked out the most interesting spells. But if we look for exhaustivity, here is a list of spells by schools and levels:
Dark Magic:
-Weakness (Raven)
-Slow (Yrwanna)
-Decay (Lethos)
-Vulnerability (Faiz)
-Confusion (Alastor)
Light Magic:
-Haste (Sorgal, Maeve, Razzak)
-Cleansing (Galib)
-Righteous Might (Helmar)
-Teleportation (Grok)
Destructive Magic:
-Eldritch Arrow (Jhora, Nur, Sinitar, Yrbeth)
-Ice Bolt (Kythra)
-Lightning Bolt (Svea, Eruina)
-Fireball (Nathir)
Summoning Magic:
-Fist of Wrath (Narxes)
-Fire Trap (Vayshan)
-Wasp Swarm (Dirael)
-Raise Dead (any necromancer)
IMO the heroes you should really look for are Alastor for Dark Magic users (Confusion is one of the best Dark magic spells), Galib for Light Magic (without Cleansing you'll miss a lot against a Dark Magic user), Kythra for anyone (Ice Bolt is the best spell for heroes who don't specialize in Destructive but want to directly affect enemy stacks) and Vayshan if you specialize in Summoning (but didn't get Fire Trap).
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13 Heroes
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HEBPEME
Hired Hero
I have TotE now!
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posted April 16, 2008 10:57 AM |
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All of the ideas are really good!
And some of the options stated in your post would be able to do terrific things using a memory mentor, wouldn't you agree?
Imagine taking your main mentor hero and his apprentice together to a memory mentor. So if you're a barbarian, transfer all those warriors to your apprentice (i guess u have to use another hero just for troops transfering purposes since mentor skill probably initiates leveling of the apprentice the moment they interact with eachother, right?) But anyway, make sure that all lvl 3 creatures are with the hero about to be mentored and get him defend us all. Then send him to memory mentor, forget the skill and then select it again as you leave memory mentor Repeat the process until you are sattisfied with the number of goblins you have by then I am not sure if it can work that way but if it does it kinda makes the player that uses this strategy slightly overpowered ))
Similiar strategy can be done with ranger, only without a need for troop transfering, which makes it even easier.
Did anybody ever try this?
Also, for spellcasters, can this be accumulative for secrets of destruction for instance? So you pick SOD, get a spell, but u need another spell so u do it again? Does the first spell remain in spellbook? It is common sense that it should remain cuz once you learn it it is there. It's not like you are forgetting your destructive magic skill or anything.
Mentoring for sure opens doors for many improvisations and therefore can affect the game big time.
Cheers
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Cleave
Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
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posted April 16, 2008 01:05 PM |
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Edited by Cleave at 13:06, 16 Apr 2008.
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I never tried that trick. Truth be told I didn't even think about it. I'm not fond of Memory Mentors since it kills the importance of carefully choosing your skills as the game progresses.
If the Defend Us All trick worked it would be really a flaw in the game system (come to think about it, Battle Commander would be even worse). But getting unlimited reinforcement for free is just plain wrong.
Like I said I don't know much about Memory Mentors (I only used it once). I don't know if the Secrets of Destruction or Arcane Brillance trick would work still it wouldn't be as bad since the number of spells is limited (in game and by your hero's skills).
The Memory Mentor could be helpful in order to get Mentoring. Sometimes you just aim for it but Arcane Exaltation or Arcane Intuition keep popping up and it never happens.
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13 Heroes
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted April 16, 2008 01:22 PM |
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Quote:
I'm not fond of Memory Mentors since it kills the importance of carefully choosing your skills as the game progresses.
Sometimes you don't have a good choice and your path to Ultimate Skill gest blocked and it doesn't feel fair.
On the last map I played I was abusing mentoring + necromancy combo. At the end of the game I was able to rise 15 Blood Dragons after a single battle, so it may do the trick in a long run.
Never tried Kamikaze tactics as I don't play online 
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted April 16, 2008 02:05 PM |
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I don't think you can abuse Memory Mentor like that. They seemed to predict this abuse, I haven't tried defend us all specifically, but I've tried a couple of Enlightenment skills, and with these, you only get the 1-time bonus (like Wizard's Reward, Graduate) first time you learn the ability.
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What will happen now?
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Azagal
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Smooth Snake
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posted April 16, 2008 02:19 PM |
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Abilities like Forest Commander, Defend us all or Stat uppers like Graduate, etc. only work once. However if you unlearn them you will not lose the stats (like with enlightment).
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"All I can see is what's in front of me. And all I can do is keep moving forward" - The Heir Wielder of Names, Seeker of Thrones, King of Swords, Breaker of Infinities, Wheel Smashing Lord
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VokialBG
Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
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posted April 19, 2008 05:08 PM |
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Quote:
-Most unlikely mentor: Zoltan can't get Mentoring.
Originally, yes he can't, but after TotE on the most new maps he can, you need to unlearn your Arcane Intuition (the Memory Mentor).
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Cleave
Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
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posted April 19, 2008 05:37 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
-Most unlikely mentor: Zoltan can't get Mentoring.
Originally, yes he can't, but after TotE on the most new maps he can, you need to unlearn your Arcane Intuition (the Memory Mentor).
That's why it's unlikely, not impossible.
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13 Heroes
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