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| Thread: Rough town rating |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · NEXT» |
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 01, 2011 09:46 PM |
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Rough town rating
EDIT:
This thread is now obsolete. ^^
However, Necropolis is clearly best. Best creeping, best racial, best elites.
Other factions are fairly balanced. Bloodlust and mass vampirism however aren't, so if the magic hero has access to fire/dark schools, it's fine, if not, the faction becomes underpowered quite "automatically".
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Mitzah
Promising
Supreme Hero
of the Horadrim
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posted July 01, 2011 10:08 PM |
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Edited by Mitzah at 22:15, 01 Jul 2011.
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I played Stronghold for an hour or so. They can get healing (and omg this REALLY needs fixing), but I tried to use "reinforcements" on them (especially on harpies). Unfortunately "reinforcements II" is broken (although it's active, it's listed as passive and you can't use it) and I shifted to healing. I was kinda hoping they'd have a well thought "healing through sacrifice" system.
For example, the dreamwalker (or some other unit with many HP) would have this sacrifice ability. It could've worked like this: "unit deals X damage to self, while healing an ally for 5X HP".
Or even cooler, something named "clan unity/sacrifice" where all units sacrifice some health (like X%) to heal an ally.
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| The HoMM Channel |
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MrDragon
Supreme Hero
Eats people with Ketchup
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posted July 01, 2011 10:29 PM |
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Odd I'm absolutely CREAMING neutrals with Inferno, as long as it's a melee neutral, some carefully placed gates and reinforcements on your hellhounds (AI will target them first without fail) nothing should be an issue early game, but you have to rely on core, just don't bother with the elites untill you have all three cores upgraded and with good spawn rates from fortifications.
Their mid-game seems weak, the elites... are just... well horrible, they die off like flies even on my level 14 Might Hero leaning towards tears, I just can't seem to squeeze damage out of them AND keep em alive.
I'd rather have 20 lilim then 20 mother breeders... that SHOULD NOT BE THE CASE.
The Pitlord though is an amazing powerhouse, when used correctly (and with a nice stone skin and regeneration on his face) he can tear through enemy armies almost by himself.
Yes, Inferno needs fixing badly, I found myself investing in Lilim first and at every possible oppertunity, everything else was pretty meh, Maniacs are quite good when upgraded but that about sums it up.
Side note: HoMMV AI was better at handling gating, HoMMVI AI will actively target your gated stacks even when a non-gated is nearby, making it rediculously good as AI Bait, heck more often then not they'll even prefer attacking the gate itself.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 01, 2011 10:30 PM |
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The reason why I haven't used healing in first game with stronghold/demons was the description ("vulnerable to light"). Elvin told me however this isn't the case and the regeneration works normally for them.
Still, the spells have big cooldowns and cost mana, while healing coming from units has no cooldowns and costs nothing. So no way they could reach the potential of creeping of Sanctuary/Necro/Haven.
I will do a "proper" regeneration test with demons/orcs tomorrow, along with necropolis, which will hopefully conclude my beta testing of HoMM VI
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 01, 2011 10:56 PM |
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*shakes head* Maybe you should just try to play a little better than that.
You shouldn't lose anything at all with no faction in week 1.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 01, 2011 10:59 PM |
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who says I did? Week 1 was trivial. Come on, I play this game for years, you expect me to lose something in 1st week? 
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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ArcaneNightmar
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 01, 2011 11:02 PM |
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Are you guys playing against multiple AIs or how do you get to level 14 and are still playing the game? I am playing on hard against a single AI and end my games at level 6-8, near the end of week three, sometimes week four. It is very unlikely to have more than just a couple of elite creatures in the main army, let alone upgraded ones. Am I playing vastly differently than you guys?
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MrDragon
Supreme Hero
Eats people with Ketchup
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posted July 01, 2011 11:07 PM |
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Oh I'm agreeing Inferno needs fixing, but their Core units are pretty ok, though admittedly very bland untill you upgrade them.
Overall in HoMMVI, even if I want to play a Blood focussed Hero, I usually end up with quite a lot of tears stuff, because any form of healing and the amazing reinforcements ability will preserve so many units you'd be stupid not to take it.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 01, 2011 11:08 PM |
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Quote:
Are you guys playing against multiple AIs or how do you get to level 14 and are still playing the game? I am playing on hard against a single AI and end my games at level 6-8, near the end of week three, sometimes week four. It is very unlikely to have more than just a couple of elite creatures in the main army, let alone upgraded ones. Am I playing vastly differently than you guys?
We were playing without AIs, so there was much more room (and free castles to take along with poorly guarded mines) hence we had bigger armies than a player against 5 AIs would have.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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MrDragon
Supreme Hero
Eats people with Ketchup
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posted July 01, 2011 11:19 PM |
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As for my level 14 hero, I was deliberately putting off killing my opponent to have look at higher level hero stats, abilities, builds etc.
I was experimenting with the game more then playing it.
I basically have 3 heroes all at level 12 or up (my main hero visiting them occasionaly to give them free exp, which needs a serious nerf btw) and fenced up my last opposing AI whilst my main hero kills the entire map in his quest for exp.
Despite all that, I have yet to class change, I'm almost at 500 tears rep, I doubt you'll ever see an advanced class or even just a hero over level 8 if you actually play to win, even with experience set to "Fast".
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 01, 2011 11:31 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 23:34, 01 Jul 2011.
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I disagree about Stronghold, they are VERY powerful, if not more powerful than Sanctuary. And creeping is pretty easy - Goblins for traps to immobilize the most dangerous stack, the hero cuts it, then the Mauler finishes it when the damaged creature reaches your lines (the Goblins also shoot...). Once you get to Furies - which are currently broken - just WAY too powerful and with high growth - you can attack pretty much whatever you like.
The Centaurs are among the best Elites in the game (I'm yet to figure out how the hell the ability of the Jaguar Warrior should be used) and the shaman-thing boosts the already ridiculous mobility of the army - when you add the racial, the things get very ugly.
And of course, the Cyclops - that's the closest thing to a real Champion I've seen so far. The unupgraded version has 300 HP and deals more damage than all upgraded Champions + Impervious to Pain can be exploited very easily. The upgraded one is a god damned Titan - Heroes II-III edition - shooter with very high HP and general resilience and no melee penalty. I'd say that 1 Cyclops is worth at least 2 other Champions (don't know how effective the Kirin is though).
The racial, combined with some speed-improving spells/abilities, is simply ridiculous. The faction has the best damage dealers in general and they can get whatever they want whenever they want and slaughter it in just a few turns. Cool, huh? No, actually it's not.
And because I haven't yet said it in this topic - fix the bloody Inferno!
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 02, 2011 12:25 PM |
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I disagree about Stronghold, they are VERY powerful, if not more powerful than Sanctuary. And creeping is pretty easy - Goblins for traps to immobilize the most dangerous stack
For one turn. After which it's up your butt again.
It's not H5. You can't kill 90% of the stack with a single lucky strike. Your stacks - attacking elites - will kill 1-2 elites per turn after 2-3 weeks. If there's 20-30 elites, how on earth do you plan to kill them during the "trap slowdown" in 1st turn?
it's not possible. What you describe is good against 20-30 core creatures max.
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the hero cuts it, then the Mauler finishes it when the damaged creature reaches your lines (the Goblins also shoot...). Once you get to Furies - which are currently broken - just WAY too powerful and with high growth - you can attack pretty much whatever you like.
We must be playing a different game then, 100 skeleton javelins will just kill 5-10 furies per turn and how on earth do you plan to defeat all of them before they inflict massive casualties on your stack? You can kill like 10 MAX and that means you have to reach them fast, too. I'm not talking about regeneration creeping here, since I have not done it.
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The Centaurs are among the best Elites in the game (I'm yet to figure out how the hell the ability of the Jaguar Warrior should be used) and the shaman-thing boosts the already ridiculous mobility of the army - when you add the racial, the things get very ugly.
Didn't do me any favor in a real battle against a thinking opponent (an experienced HomM player I was playing hotseat with).
Initiative doesn't matter too much against human opponent, I'm afraid. It did matter a lot when you had a massive chance of killing the stacks within the first hit (and when it also improved damage via higher frequency of acting). Right now, when your "first attack" can barely kill a few creatures of opposing army (composed of hundreds of cores and quite a big group of elites), it really doesn't matter who strikes first. No retaliation and positioning is MUCH more important in the long run. I think you're vastly overrating concepts of age long past (from heroes V).
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And of course, the Cyclops - that's the closest thing to a real Champion I've seen so far. The unupgraded version has 300 HP and deals more damage than all upgraded Champions + Impervious to Pain can be exploited very easily. The upgraded one is a god damned Titan - Heroes II-III edition - shooter with very high HP and general resilience and no melee penalty. I'd say that 1 Cyclops is worth at least 2 other Champions (don't know how effective the Kirin is though).
I will take your word here (until I test them myself).
Kirins suck, they have a decent no-retaliation freezing special but it has a big cooldown, their other specials are worthless.
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The racial, combined with some speed-improving spells/abilities, is simply ridiculous. The faction has the best damage dealers in general and they can get whatever they want whenever they want and slaughter it in just a few turns. Cool, huh? No, actually it's not.
I take it you never tried to use those "damage dealers" against Sanctuary led by human. I assure you, it wouldn't look so "fun" anymore if your stacks weren't able to deal any serious damage to a group of cores.
Cheers.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 02, 2011 12:26 PM |
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Inferno earlygame is actually pretty decent. Lilim surrounded by maniac single unit stacks(tactics) and firebolt work nicely, master of fire is another sweet perk and pressed attack as soon as you hit lvl 5  You may lose the occasional maniac but that's about it, hellhounds I avoid using for fear of casualties  The new enthrall helps a lot.
Can't by any means agree with stronghold being weak, it is pretty damn good even with goblin traps finally balanced What has changed though is that maulers can no longer reach shooters with rush due to their speed being decreased at 5, of course that can be remedied by tactics II or upgrading to crushers. Or getting dreamwalkers. Heal works, regeneration works, reinforcements or even vampirism that thankfully is down to 15 mana now. Centaurs are sweet for creeping.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 02, 2011 12:29 PM |
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I'm not saying they are weak, of course. I'm merely saying that Zenofex overrates the initiative/speed impact on a very "turtle" orientated gameplay. Also, without regeneration and healing you're really screwed, breaking through "horde" and "throng" of core shooters guarding paths on Broken Alliance map is really hard without losing precious creatures.
I will try it again with regeneration today, so this may change.
Sanctuary is definitively the best town. (of the four).
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 02, 2011 12:47 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 12:52, 02 Jul 2011.
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For one turn. After which it's up your butt again.
It's not H5. You can't kill 90% of the stack with a single lucky strike. Your stacks - attacking elites - will kill 1-2 elites per turn after 2-3 weeks. If there's 20-30 elites, how on earth do you plan to kill them during the "trap slowdown" in 1st turn?
it's not possible. What you describe is good against 20-30 core creatures max.
Well, if you intend to take down a neutral army several times the size of yours, it won't work of course. It works against neutrals which are up to 2 - 2.5 times as many as your army - that's what you meet in the beginning anyway. Of course compared to the broken creeping of the factions with healers it might seem weak but it isn't.
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We must be playing a different game then, 100 skeleton javelins will just kill 5-10 furies per turn and how on earth do you plan to defeat all of them before they inflict massive casualties on your stack? You can kill like 10 MAX and that means you have to reach them fast, too. I'm not talking about regeneration creeping here, since I have not done it.
You can reach them in round one with a proper Haste. The neutral shooters with melee penalty are dumb and never attack the stack sitting next to them, preferring to wait or move. The rest doesn't really need to be described. And anyway - creeping against a large number of shooters with a small army is supposed to involve some casualties - the fact that some factions can do it doesn't mean that those who can't are weak but that the former are overpowered.
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Didn't do me any favor in a real battle against a thinking opponent (an experienced HomM player I was playing hotseat with).
Initiative doesn't matter too much against human opponent, I'm afraid. It did matter a lot when you had a massive chance of killing the stacks within the first hit (and when it also improved damage via higher frequency of acting). Right now, when your "first attack" can barely kill a few creatures of opposing army (composed of hundreds of cores and quite a big group of elites), it really doesn't matter who strikes first. No retaliation and positioning is MUCH more important in the long run. I think you're vastly overrating concepts of age long past (from heroes V).
I have a totally different impression. You can literally choose when you want your army to act and re-arrange the entire movement order during the round. Thus you can block shooters, gang-rape the most dangerous enemy stacks and virtually go wherever you want while the enemy is just sitting and waiting for you to finish (except some creatures with exceptionally high initiative). The second level of the skill also adds Might power (YEAH! Woohoo! More damage!).
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I take it you never tried to use those "damage dealers" against Sanctuary led by human. I assure you, it wouldn't look so "fun" anymore if your stacks weren't able to deal any serious damage to a group of cores.
True that, I haven't. But like I said the ridiculous healing of Sanctuary (and in general) doesn't make Stronghold weak at all.
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Inferno earlygame is actually pretty decent. Lilim surrounded by maniac single unit stacks(tactics) and firebolt work nicely, master of fire is another sweet perk and pressed attack as soon as you hit lvl 5
Well, using only 2 out of 3 Cores just because the third one is generally prone to dying all the time doesn't speak well of the faction. Moreover with this approach you are still killing minor stacks in week 2-3 and can't go against shooters while other factions can engage Elites and large numbers of Cores as soon as week 2.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 02, 2011 12:59 PM |
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Well, if you intend to take down a neutral army several times the size of yours, it won't work of course. It works against neutrals which are up to 2 - 2.5 times as many as your army - that's what you meet in the beginning anyway. Of course compared to the broken creeping of the factions with healers it might seem weak but it isn't.
That's all I'm trying to say Sanctuary (assuming no healing/regeneration spells are cast by the hero) can clear crazy creeps without loses, haven isn't far behind. In a "real" game, your opponent playing haven/sanctuary WILL abuse this fact.
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You can reach them in round one with a proper Haste. The neutral shooters with melee penalty are dumb and never attack the stack sitting next to them, preferring to wait or move. The rest doesn't really need to be described. And anyway - creeping against a large number of shooters with a small army is supposed to involve some casualties - the fact that some factions can do it doesn't mean that those who can't are weak but that the former are overpowered.
It's not always the way you described - I had pearl priestesses act like you said once, but in the other combat, the skeleton guards simply bashed my hasted crushers, causing big loses.
I'm not saying stronhold is underpowered
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I have a totally different impression. You can literally choose when you want your army to act and re-arrange the entire movement order during the round. Thus you can block shooters, gang-rape the most dangerous enemy stacks and virtually go wherever you want while the enemy is just sitting and waiting for you to finish (except some creatures with exceptionally high initiative). The second level of the skill also adds Might power (YEAH! Woohoo! More damage!).
The player I played against (when he was playing haven) used a formation that made all the initiative a waste, I was forced to bounce off his preatorians no matter how hard I tried to use the fact my army acted first. Sure, I did some damage, but then he stomped me. In the end he had 50% army surviving. He had angels while I had no cyclopes, and I had some loses during creeping while he had none, but I had two external dwellings, so this evens it out.
Against santuary, I was unable to do much damage, simply because their racial countered me.
We played on "fast" level up speed and did not reach level 10. During the clash, we were both level 8, iirc.
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True that, I haven't. But like I said the ridiculous healing of Sanctuary (and in general) doesn't make Stronghold weak at all.
It's not weak, that I can assure you, it's just that - like in previous games - a faction that can creep ridiculous stacks without loses fast gets bigger and stronger too fast. Try to kill 20 jaguar warriors with 20goblins and 20 crushers... that's right, not possible without loses (without regen spells). While I did this (16 jaguar warriors to be precise) without any problems using sanctuary, kappas and maidens, 20 each, no loses. WHich obviously put me in a big advantage since I was able to clear external dwelling extremely fast (which means a shockingly effective boost to the numbers of cores).
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 02, 2011 02:00 PM |
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That's all I'm trying to say Sanctuary (assuming no healing/regeneration spells are cast by the hero) can clear crazy creeps without loses, haven isn't far behind. In a "real" game, your opponent playing haven/sanctuary WILL abuse this fact.
Necropolis can do the same by the way. It seems that I misunderstood you here, I thought you are talking about whether it is easy to creep with some faction and not whether some faction is overpowered when it comes to creeping - which is the case of the factions with healers.
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It's not always the way you described - I had pearl priestesses act like you said once, but in the other combat, the skeleton guards simply bashed my hasted crushers, causing big loses.
Don't know, for me the neutral shooters totally refuse to attack creatures standing next to them, except if they are cornered (and even then they still wait for some time, i.e. take losses before deciding to act).
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The player I played against (when he was playing haven) used a formation that made all the initiative a waste, I was forced to bounce off his preatorians no matter how hard I tried to use the fact my army acted first. Sure, I did some damage, but then he stomped me. In the end he had 50% army surviving. He had angels while I had no cyclopes, and I had some loses during creeping while he had none, but I had two external dwellings, so this evens it out.
I guess Haven can abuse Guardian Angel + the damage reduction of the Praetorians + healing but given that Stronghold totally dominates it in the ranged department - especially if you can get to upgraded Cyclops - you should be able to force it to attack. If his creatures aren't acting exactly one after another, I guess you can disrupt the attempt to form a turtle with the Praetorians in the centre by using the racial at some point. But I have to test this against a real player. It doesn't seem so hopeless to me.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 02, 2011 02:46 PM |
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With dominant cores, marksmen will overpower both cyclopes and centaurs in damage dealing, especially with flawless assault and guardian angel support. It doesn't take really much atm, maybe 1-2 external dwellings and maybe an extra converted castle, to make elites completely irrelevant compared to cores.
While maulers are definitively strong, you can't skip the fact that haven can simply abuse guardian angel and praetorians' bulk and protective talents to postpone blocking their main force until at least several turns have passed, during which it's extremely possible the combined assault of marksmen and vestals (which through magical attack score more damage then they in theory should). If the haven plays smart and gets blazing glory in both castles, you will also have to face a very annoying stack of "furies" of their own, with the ability to blind your stacks.
This might change if the pace of leveling is fixed; +10 attack is no joke (reminds me of ultimate artifacts from heroes II...) allowing stronghold for more successful damage dealing, but right now with "fast" setting it's not really possible to get to level 10 when playin a 1v1, even on XL map, unless you both specifically agree to delay combat until reaching that level.
We agreed, for test purposes, to delay combat until we both have more than five upgraded champion creatures, and it still happened when we had a puny herolevel 8.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted July 02, 2011 03:41 PM |
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We agreed, for test purposes, to delay combat until we both have more than five upgraded champion creatures, and it still happened when we had a puny herolevel 8.
Leveling in the private beta was a joke, if it is unchanged in the public - as I suspect - it's something that urgently needs fixing imo. Out of curiosity, do you take XP or Gold from chests? Because from my experience, you don't really need the Gold that much (Wood + Ore seems by far to be limiting ressources), and due to the puny experience yield from battles (even at x3 'fast' mode), XP from chests seems to be the only viable way if you want to level. Btw. is x10 XP ('fastest') still possible?
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What will happen now?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 02, 2011 04:14 PM |
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We haven't picked any exp from chests at all because if we did, there would be no gold for creatures and their ridiculously expensive dwellings. It took us roughly 1/3 of the map cleaned per player (along with gold mine and endless pack of gold) to be able to buy full populations (including champions) at sixth week. Well, excluding my stronghold game in which I had insufficient funds to buy cyclopes and their dwelling wasn't upgraded.
The hero's effect on the battle (at least before level 10) is marginal anyway, getting extra level or two wouldn't change much, getting an extra population of marksmen on the other hand... yeah, much better.
x10 is still possible, I think.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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