|
| Thread: Necropolis vs Fortress and Light Magic |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
|
shardik
Adventuring Hero
|
posted August 05, 2009 11:45 PM |
|
|
Necropolis vs Fortress and Light Magic
I played a hotseat game with my brother yesterday, and he is now convinced that there is no way Necropolis can beat Fortress late game without dark magic and mass slow/weakness/suffering. He claims that runes combined with light magic makes it impossible for a necromancer to beat the dwarves, if all other things like the level of our heroes and quality of artifacts are equal.
He argues that light and dark magic is overpowered, and that he is thus forced to pick a particular skill if he is to stand a chance late game. This, he says, is poor design, and I would very much like to prove him wrong. I would like to show him a way to beat a light magic fortress hero late game, with necropolis, and am therefore turning to you guys, who I know are much more experienced than me.
In short: Can a necromancer beat a runemage who has expert light magic, without dark magic late game?
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
posted August 05, 2009 11:56 PM |
|
|
That is true, do you think a necromancer can go toe to toe with dwarves with destructive or summoning in lategame? Fortress is one of the lategame kings and necro.. isn't. I suppose you could try power of endurance/speed for a more might approach but light+runes+dwarves is an obviously superior combination. Dark remains the only way and even then dwarves can pick dwarven luck making it hit&miss.
Balance in H5 is dynamic and shifts throughout the course of a game. It is different for each faction during earlygame, midgame and lategame but that does not mean that balance is poor. You just have to play accordingly and.. well play balanced maps 
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
shardik
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted August 06, 2009 12:02 AM |
|
|
So basically you lose late game if you don't have light or dark magic?
Which factions do you consider as strong as fortress late game?
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted August 06, 2009 01:32 AM |
|
|
Don't know exact strength which is map dependent in any case but sylvan, fortress and haven are in my top. Orcs and academy are pretty good as well but the former has weakness to dark and in epic games there are many chances to learn it.
Necro is not much of an endgame faction but if the map has many towns you could get outrageous amounts of units through undead transformer.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
SKPRIMUS
Promising
Supreme Hero
The One and the Prime
|
|
posted August 06, 2009 06:00 AM |
|
|
Interesting how the topic has subtly changed (in my mind anyway)...
agree with Elvin ofc
@shardik: You probably know this but just because faction may be good late game does NOT necessarily mean good against dwarves late game...
____________
Hope defeats despair - "a blatant clue"
too many idiots in VW
"to lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose"
bashing orcus 
|
|
Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
|
|
posted August 06, 2009 07:52 AM |
|
|
Of the Magics Light and Dark do seem to be the more potent. Followed closely by Summoning.
Destructive starts out great, but does not scale well. Even empowered looses some of its luster when you have huge armies (Epic late games). Meaning mass haste > then empowered Implosion in the grand scheme of things for battles with massive armies. Though with the addition of the new druids Sylvan MIGHT make a case for Imbue Implosion + Rain of arrows (or balista) + Favored Enemies (havn't had a chance to really test that yet). Further Destructive is even weaker against Stronghold whose rage can absorb the damage, and Academy whose mini-arties can do the same.
If you have light, it doesn't matter what immunities or resistances your enemy has (except for things like Divine Vengence). Mass spells also ignore Magic Mirror. Dark can be effected by immunities (not so much resistances though it can reduce ammount of time I believe?). Anyhow, the point is yeah Light and Dark are the more useful overall, but the others have uses and their place.
A Arcane Armor, or Crystal Barrier can do marvelous things 
____________
Message received.
|
|
Nirual
Famous Hero
Imbued Ballista
|
|
posted August 06, 2009 08:45 AM |
|
|
Quote:
He argues that light and dark magic is overpowered, and that he is thus forced to pick a particular skill if he is to stand a chance late game.
That is the case, though as Elvin said it's not nessesarily bad balance. It just means magic factions have to fight it out early. Necropolis especially as Necromancy loses potency the longer you play (larger stacks and small increase in DE).
The advantage of a magic-oriented faction lies in their ability to take on superior forces early and seize advantages like an earlier goldmine. These advantages boil down to nothing if you wait too long though, as might factions grow stronger every week while it gets harder and harder to reach new levels to improve spellcasting.
____________
In ur base killing ur doods... and raising them as undeads.
|
|
veco
Legendary Hero
who am I?
|
|
posted August 07, 2009 11:12 AM |
|
|
Or if you're lucky with leveling you can try a Light Magic necro  On a big map spells and artifacts should be available and it would certainly be worth it. Mass Endurance/Deflect Missile with Surpress Light to wear his mana of faster(hey, it works even againts a wizard  ) and Master of Blessings for Mass Cleansing (Divine Strenght won't help as much) to get rid of his buffs and more importanly - his runes But you need a lot of luck to obtain that.
Light Magic is failproof since it won't get affected by resistance like Dark would. On the other hand Staff of Sar-Issus will render resistance useless and Sandro's Cloak should negate immunities giving Dark the upper hand.
____________
none of my business.
|
|
Kispagat
Famous Hero
|
|
posted August 07, 2009 11:26 AM |
|
|
On a top of that a later the fight means that more troops gained back from rune of resurrection. And have a look the stats for magma dragons and necro dragon.
So I would say, even with dark magic win a late fight against dwarf must be very rare if conditions are around the same.
|
|
VokialBG
Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
|
|
posted August 07, 2009 11:36 AM |
|
Edited by VokialBG at 11:38, 07 Aug 2009.
|
@shardik: You need dark... you cans still try def + summoning + hounted mines (too bad you need leadership). You'll fall... Necro has the weakest units, and fort's are the hardest to kill, especially when he boots them with magic and tones of def skills, runes, etc... The good think is that necro is a bit cheaper and can rise from corpses, but Fort has the huges population (even if you rise creatures like insane the DE will never be enough to hold up with Fort...) You need dark to weaken his army a bit, but most likely you'll lose at late game, doesn't matter what you are doing to prevent it.
____________
|
|
Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
|
|
posted August 07, 2009 11:43 AM |
|
|
Yep, Fortress is a good late game town against ANY other town. Necromancers are not so hot late game. It is not impossible, but you have to be very lucky, very good, and not make a single mistake. Even then victory is not guaranteed. As most would agree, dark helps a lot, but even with dark it is not a guaranteed victory.
____________
Message received.
|
|
kcwong
Hired Hero
|
|
posted August 07, 2009 02:58 PM |
|
|
I agree that Dark Magic is a must for Necromancers... the skill is why they are called necromancers in the first place! It is a skill that defines them and suits them perfectly - it would be stupid to not take Dark Magic.
On a big map, go for Mentoring. Then hire as much necromancers as you can and level them up for Necromancy skill.
Don't wait until you are very high level to do that; you need to do this early, and level up your secondary heroes multiple times to reap the benefits of an increased DE pool. Choose your fights wisely; you don't want any good corpses go to waste.
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted August 20, 2009 07:55 PM |
|
|
False, they are actually in disadvantage in lategame. Even if runemages are at a lesser level a battle with strong armies and fully upgraded armies they are more likely to win. The only casualties you can expect them to have is on week 1, maybe a few bears in week 2. Beyond that point with power of endurance and some light, possibly regeneration they can take down ridiculous amounts of neutrals almost like necro can. For instance the garrison in art of war has 50 arcane archers, 70 druid elders(often split), 35 silver unicorns, 50 archmages, 17 emerald dragons and 40 djinn viziers.
Karim defeated them week 4 with thunderthanes only and zero casualties. He had defense, light and warmachines, forget if he had flaming.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Berny-Mac
Promising
Legendary Hero
Lord Vader
|
|
posted August 21, 2009 04:15 AM |
|
|
I dont really think that Necro really can beat Light-Fort without Dark in late-game. However, I know for a fact that Inferno can definitely do it without dark lategame despite the popular belief that Inferno sucks. That is completely untrue. With gating and their powerful and numerous troops, Inferno can destroy Fortress easily. However, it depends all on the hero. I have actually discovered that no matter what, the Inferno hero is more important to their faction than any other, though the Necromancer comes close behind. If you use Nebiros, not only does he have a significant advantage with luck, but he negates enemy tactics, while he can still do so. And for the Fortress, tactics is very important since their units are primarily defensive. If you keep up with Luck for Nebiros and Destruction, he can definitely beat a light runemage.
Now here is the list of Inferno units you should use and what to do with them.
1. Familiars- is actually very important, since at lategame you have huge masses of them, so gating is important for them. And because of gating, both the normal and the gated creatures steal mana from the hero, increasing mana depletion by 25 percent, which can mean a lot. And when they die, you can use your Archdevils to turn some of them into Pit Lords, which is an important advantage.
2. Horned Grunts- important to gate them to near the middle of the battlefield, and since Fortress units are primarily slow, just have them leap to the Fortress harpooners or skirmishers. When they die, remember that those are only the gated grunts, and by the time, the Fortress units defeat them, you can get your real grunts and other gated units up there.
3. Firehounds- very useful since you can gate them and use them to attack multiple Fortress units while they are busy with your grunts. The real firhounds are also important in charging them when they finish with the gated guys and try to attack you.
4. Succubus Seducer- super important! Use them on the enemy Thanes or Flamelords. Then gate them, and use the gated seducers to seduce others, unless you can't...in that case, just have them range attack whatever Fortress unit that comes close, like the bear riders.
5. Hell Stallions- really awesome guys. Get their gated guys and the real ones in the middle of the enemy ranks and just have them cause chaos!
6. Pit Lords- I don't know why many people don't like them, I think they are great. Use them to cast vulnerability a lot since it is at level 2 while it's offensive spells are only level one. In melee, make sure to use them against the Magma/Lava dragons since their attack is bound to kill at least one, due to the Vorpal Sword ability. You can get loads of these guys in battle due to the Archdevil's ability and gating. Not the most useful guys around, but effective nonetheless.
7. Archdevils- very important for raising dead stacks into pit lords (better than animate dead I think) and for just killing stuff randomly. Make sure not to get them into a heated battle with Magma/Lava dragons too much, but if you do, get as many guys as you can on it.
Hero- super duper important!!! Without them there is no gating or destruction spells or anything! So use them!
____________
Skyrim RP? YES!
Here it is!
|
|
Cleave
Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
|
|
posted August 21, 2009 08:53 AM |
|
|
Quote:
If you use Nebiros, not only does he have a significant advantage with luck, but he negates enemy tactics, while he can still do so. And for the Fortress, tactics is very important since their units are primarily defensive. If you keep up with Luck for Nebiros and Destruction, he can definitely beat a light runemage.
To be honest I stopped reading after that. Not being able to use Tactics is hardly crippling for a Runemage since in most cases Rune of Charge will be available. Given that Nebiros doesn't get better with levels (the bonus stays the same for the Chosen) it doesn't look like this hero would be the best against late game fortress.
Back on topic, I think this whole Necro vs Fortress thing is biaised because there is no way to call this a balanced fight if you start by making up rules so that the Runemage can use Light and Runes and the Necro can't use Dark. If at least the Runemage couldn't use Light the odds would be more even.
Necro units are weaker and need to be more numerous (way more numerous) and this is very map dependant, whether or not you'll get a chance to get enough units really depends on the map.
If you don't limit the Necro, you'll get an even fight. Trying to "balance" things out is a big mistake since it's not all about final fights. It's easier to creep with some factions and in my experience unless you take Ingvar (overpowered by the way) early creeping with the Runemage is not that easy in comparison to the Necromancer.
The faster you creep, the higher the chances that you're going to get some advantage (artifact, resource, an extra level or more -then again your "rules" actually negate this since your heroes must have the same level!!?). If you take this advantage away you actually destroy the game balance. Runemages usually have a much slower early game and whether you like it or not that makes quite a difference.
If for instance you take Logistics out of the picture vs Fortress, who is going to be penalized? No Swift Mind, no quick exploration of the map, etc.
Would you call a fight between Sylvan and Fortress balanced if you make up a rule so that Arcane Archers are not allowed "because Sylvan can't win without them" and would you go about calling that bad game design if they didn't win?
If the late game Necro without Dark could easily beat Fortress with Light and Runes that would mean that the two factions are not balanced properly and that the Fortress is much weaker (which is certainly not the case especially late game).
I'd say that to even the fight you could tell your brother that his Runemage can't have Light. No Dark, no Light. Then you can really see who wins.
____________
13 Heroes
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted August 21, 2009 09:20 AM |
|
|
Quote:
With gating and their powerful and numerous troops, Inferno can destroy Fortress easily.
That's a bit of a stretch. As for destructive I would never try in lategame, not even for arnour breaking effect. When the opponent casts amassing his buffs you have already lost. Inferno is not bad yet it has some issues against fortress. For one it cannot charge effectively and HAS to gate. In the meantime if fortress has rune of charge or windstrider boots the game is over. After a long melee the sad truth is that demons die fast, dwarves do not. And even if they do there's 50% chance that they have rune of resurrection which is a further hindrance to the demonlord. And actually I prefer pit spawns, no other unit can take down all those shieldguards, they are often amongst the last remaining stacks when most of your forces have died.
Your best bet is the opponent not having those runes, you gating successfully(hopefully with swift swarming gate) and somehow your seducers playing first which is usually not the case. Flamelords can weaken them from afar and so can patriarchs, they may even get a double dmg firewall and finish them off or get an attack with thunderclap rune. Next thing you should hope that his mana can be exhausted even after a long game so that he can become vulnerable to your dark, however he may still have dwarven luck or tap runes.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Berny-Mac
Promising
Legendary Hero
Lord Vader
|
|
posted August 21, 2009 09:26 AM |
|
|
jeez, I feel like im on trial here. Look, it is just my opinion. It has worked for me, that's all. For some reason it may not work for you, I dunno! Everybody has their own style, and this is mine, and it has always worked for me.
____________
Skyrim RP? YES!
Here it is!
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted August 21, 2009 09:33 AM |
|
|
Sure, I am just saying how things go in multiplayer. And inferno with destructive is unlikely to work against an experienced runemage.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Berny-Mac
Promising
Legendary Hero
Lord Vader
|
|
posted August 21, 2009 09:37 AM |
|
|
well I tend to always have heroes that are leveled about 5-8 levels higher than my opponents on multi, so it usually isn't a problem for me. Unfortunately, I tend to focus on one hero, and leave my other heroes to be more on the defensive side of things.
____________
Skyrim RP? YES!
Here it is!
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted August 21, 2009 10:06 AM |
|
|
If you have 5-8 levels higher then you already have an edge The superhero approach is for the best, at most you'd want some low level secondaries for minor creeping that your main will skip.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
| |
|
|
