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| Thread: Best hero speciality (HOMM 3) |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 27, 2015 11:09 PM |
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Laser70 said:
I can give one example when Logistics saved my life. I lost all towns, a hero of double the might of my own captured my last town. I used my logistics to walk away from my town into wilderness (safety) away from that hero, when he left the town, I had a few days to capture a town or lose the game, I quickly ran back and re-captured it. Then the hero came back again in one turn, and I had to escape again. I went back and forth many times for a long time, and eventually I took out small parts of his army bit by bit, because he left some of it in the town every time he left.
That's nice, probably would'nt have worked against a human though.
So there seems to be consensus about Logistics being the most powerful speciality and I guess I agree, but again it is always situational and a hero in a map full of swamp or water might not benefit much from Logistics and if Dimension Door and Town Portal are allowed they are probably the fastest/best way to travel and Logistics won't help in combat at all. Still it is a very nice skill (almost) always worth taking.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 27, 2015 11:46 PM |
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phoenix4ever said:
I agree, but again it is always situational and a hero in a map full of swamp or water might not benefit much from Logistics and if Dimension Door and Town Portal are allowed they are probably the fastest/best way to travel and Logistics won't help in combat at all. Still it is a very nice skill (almost) always worth taking.
There is a bit of confusion going there. First, logistics is equally powerful on swamp, why not? Then you open thread about specialties and hardly agree with general consensus about logistics because "anyway DD and town portal are faster". I don't know how the last ones can concur with a specialty, while you call logistics situational but claim that DD and TP will always prevail.
Or the truth is that if you choose the right class, you will always get logistics. On the other side, getting DD and TP in a map, nothing less sure. So, what is situational now?
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Era II mods and utilities
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted September 28, 2015 12:01 AM |
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Herry said:
But is she as much special and badass as Crag? I think not.
I hate to say this cause Gundula is my favorite hero but Crag gets much better primary skills. A typical level 30 Gundula still has quite the same numbers in all skills.
Now, in WoG there is the Arcane Tower and Overflow_Fix mod and it is true, it is much easier to get Learning and Eagle Eye with Gundula but with those skills enhanced I don't mind.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 28, 2015 12:02 AM |
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@Salamandre I said IF you get DD and TP, they are better. Logistics won't help much in swamp unless you also get Pathfinding, but those skills won't help in combat, but will be really helpful outside combat...
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted September 28, 2015 12:28 AM |
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phoenix4ever said:
@Salamandre I said IF you get DD and TP, they are better. Logistics won't help much in swamp unless you also get Pathfinding, but those skills won't help in combat, but will be really helpful outside combat...
If you get DD AND Air, if you get TP AND Earth, if there are ways to refill spell points without spending the turn in a city, etc...
Logistics is a must have skill there is no doubt about that, the only question is, is it the best specialty?
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Laser70
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 28, 2015 08:07 AM |
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Edited by Laser70 at 08:53, 28 Sep 2015.
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In theory, Logistics and Pathfinding won't help in combat, but in practice they do help in combat because chances are you use your extra movement points to visit luck fountains and morale objects and wells right before you enter a battle. In battle that will probably not only help but even decide your victory. The hero that has short movement points is pretty much always the "weaker one", he just get jammed everywhere and he doesn't "reach" anything, unless he can fly or use dimension door or if he is very actively pursuing those fountain objects long before battles do occur. (The careful hero)
But even the careful hero need a little dynamic behavior because sometimes heroes get tricked to lose their luck/morale bonuses by being attacked by fake heroes right before the "real" hero attacks him. The AI is actually very good at that, they place a single weak unit in choke points just to steal your bonuses right before the real battle, and if you don't have enough movement points to visit a fountain in one turn (after that occurence) then Logistics has impact on the next battle.
You can think of Logistics in a different way. Think of the amount of squares that you can move each day, and all those squares are equal to how many days there are in one month. How many days would you be able to take advantage of in a full year with and without Logistics.
Most players knows instinctively that they need Logistics even if they don't know how to play the game, don't underestimate that instinct, Logistics may be more valuable than otherwise known to the player. (It may even be that Logistics is so powerful that it can be considered cheating)
Here is a different thought experiment. If there are 100 artifacts on the map, how many artifacts will you get with and without Logistics. (Or with gold, resources, joining creatures etc)
Personally, I value Logistics and Pathfinding the most, certainly above Leadership because the fountains that I reach easily replaces Leadership. The second most important skill is Ballistics, because you can cast precision spell on the ballista and it just gets very lethal after a while, the second reason is because the giant stacks of monsters will almost always waste their first attack in taking out your ballista, and that could probably save 50 Mighty Gorgons during every large battle. The sum of that is that ballista is worth it. It just seems to take the damage when your creatures should have taken it. I'll gladly pay 2500 gold for a new ballista rather than wait 8 weeks to be able to rebuild 50 Mighty Gorgons. And the ballista has 250 health so it's not always easy to kill it in one strike, they usually need two strikes and in two strikes you have saved many of your own creatures. That is if you haven't put any spells on the ballista that improves the health of it. But the real value in having the Ballista is that usually, the biggest and most powerful enemy stack will usually attack it and waste one turn on that. The ballista is simply a long term investment, it's not there to kill your enemy, but it does kill quite a lot of archers, but the main goal of it is to save your creatures and save one turn worth of damage.
When I go into a battle and 150 Wyverns comes flying toward me, I know that it is aiming for my ballista, and thats a very good investment to me, because if it aimed for my Evil Eyes, I would probably lose 4 weeks of dwelling in that one turn.
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Heroes3 HotA 1.3.8 + HD IniExtension Last updated: 12.02.2015 (Update #3)
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 28, 2015 09:00 AM |
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@BloodSucker Yeah Earth and Air would definitely help, but don't players tend to go for these schools exactly for TP and DD. Besides Air and Earth are'nt that hard to learn save for a few classes and there are universities, witch huts, Conflux' university etc.
@Laser70 You mean Artillery skill, Ballistics is for Catapult. I find ballista good and bad, it won't do much damage except if you have high attack and Artillery. It can be a disadvantage if it shoots at blinded targets (Why does it do that?  ) Also Dragons/Phoenixes can attack it and the creature besides it, without retaliation.
I much prefer Offense and Armorer to Artillery.
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monere
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
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posted September 28, 2015 09:16 AM |
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phoenix4ever said:
monere said:
As for navigation, yeah the skill is good, but since I never play with water maps...
You should try my map some time. It is an XL map with underground, no Town Portal and Dimension Door and you will need Navigation in that map. 
If the AI is landlocked somewhere and he can't harass me then I might give it a try. But usually I create random maps with the map editor until a find a good map (with lots of utopias, relics, and high level monsters), then modify them heavily (remove all low level scrolls, replace all neutral creature dwellings, and low level dwellings with 5-7 level dwellings), choose my opponent from a tough hero (mutare, tazar, kilgor, crag hack, etc.) and give it 5 million experience + thousands of creatures, give him the best skills for and artefacts, and then I play the map (usually for 11-12 months, or until I manage to get enough army that allows me to attack the AI (which has been landlocked and who can only be reached with DD by me), and when I attack him I usually.... lose 
And then I get pissed off and go play dota...
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 28, 2015 09:24 AM |
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Laser70, those discussions about what's best are more from the competitive point of view, translate= what is best to have when your opponent is equally skilled. Not AI which you can sit one month clicking end turn, then beat with no skills at all, it makes not much sense. So please, we are aware of all the tricks people use to lure poor hardcoded AI, don't need to hear them again for the 1000th time.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 28, 2015 09:35 AM |
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@monere Haha that way to play sounds ...fun, though I would'nt be happy to lose continually against ai.
In my map ai is'nt landlocked so it will try to take your towns from everywhere and it will be hard defending them all, so you will probably gain some towns and lose some towns, TP won't save you here.
It is still a map with lots of artifacts and high level monsters and I consider it a fun map, where you never know what to expect.
@Salamandre behave yourself in my topic, mate.
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Laser70
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 28, 2015 10:20 AM |
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Edited by Laser70 at 10:27, 28 Sep 2015.
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phoenix4ever said:
You mean Artillery skill?
Yes
phoenix4ever said:
It can be a disadvantage if it shoots at blinded targets (Why does it do that? )
If you don't have the artillery skill the computer will select targets for you which is bad because you can't blind your enemies, the computer will unblind them with the artillery shot. If you have the artillery skill you can skip shooting blinded targets and thereby keep them blinded. But all in all, if you can combine offense/armorer with artillery I would say it's worth it because of the saved creatures in every battle.
The AI enemy will waste one attack on your Ballista sooner or later, and before your other creatures are killed, and they don't care about wasted damage points, they will gladly put 200 Mighty Gorgons to kill your tiny Ballista, all that waste is clever strategy from your part. I've never seen one battle in my life, ever, where the AI didn't attack your Ballista, so that investment is a safe bet. The choice is easy, do you want 100 dead creatures which will cost you anything from 10,000 to 50,000 gold and 4 weeks of dwelling time, or do you want to lose a ballista which cost you one day worth of gold or half a day (2500 gold)
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Heroes3 HotA 1.3.8 + HD IniExtension Last updated: 12.02.2015 (Update #3)
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 28, 2015 10:34 AM |
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Yeah you are right and I would gladly sacrifice ballista (and ammo cart and first aid tent) for saving my creatures. Still it bugs me that ai will shoot at blinded targets, it should just skip it's turn/defend imo. Arrow Towers are also very stupid, wish we could control them without Artillery...
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 29, 2015 12:21 AM |
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Arrow towers or ballista are not stupid: they are coded to shoot to the most threatening stack, especially if there are shooters; and obviously that stack is also the stack which you want to blind, for same reason.
In general, this doesn't bogus players because no one will select artillery when you are limited to 8 skills. The thing "they go after ballista" is a 1st week advantage because usually you attack weak stacks which spend several turns to destroy it and it gives your shooters extra time.
Later you will attack stacks which can kill ballista in one hit so is not "a great investment" because you could put in its place a single stack to lure AI and it costs you 10 times cheaper + you don't have to deal with lack of artillery skill disagreements.
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Era II mods and utilities
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted September 29, 2015 01:22 AM |
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phoenix4ever said:
@BloodSucker Yeah Earth and Air would definitely help, but don't players tend to go for these schools exactly for TP and DD.
Well, today I saw a bit of a stream from a match between Maretti and Redwait. Red's main was Tazar and he only had one magic school - Earth. You go for doesn't always mean you get it.
So, me at least I will continue to pick Logistics everytime I can cause it will help me to flee if I'm in disadvantage and to pursue if I am in advantage, will help to clean the map and level up faster. I will look for Earth but I will pick Water for might hero if offered cause I had the experience of getting in trouble with Mullich, Mephala and Kyrre cause I refused it over and over and endup with just one magic school (in Mullich, Water anyway), so maybe I will have some difficulty using DD (against computer I disable both Fly and DD).
Logistics is also a skill a scout really improves from learning, while Offense or Armorer are quite useless.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 29, 2015 11:18 AM |
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@Salamandre Except arrow towers sometimes shoot at creatures which are no threats at all. Example: You are defending a Tower town and are getting attacked by Inferno. Arch Devils and Efreet Sultans moves over the walls and attack two of your stacks. Familiars moves toward the castle, which is still not broken down. Round two arrow towers shoot at familiars instead of Devils, Efreet or Magogs, which actually are a threat, instead of useless familiars outside the walls. Arrow towers don't seem to be (much) affected by enemies defense, so it usually pays to shoot for their high level creatures.
@BloodSucker Yeah sometimes it happens you don't get the magic school you wan't, but in my experience it is rare. Earth magic is the one you get offered the most, while fire seems to be the one you get offered the least. If you know TP and DD are available, you'll probably always go for Earth and Air...
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted September 29, 2015 07:42 PM |
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phoenix4ever said:
@BloodSucker If you know TP and DD are available, you'll probably always go for Earth and Air...
I thought I made it clear: in a random map against other player, with Knight, Ranger and Beastmaster, if Water is offered before Air I take it. Of course, if Air is offered first I pick Air but I prefer to have to Dispel or Cure Slow then risk not get both Air and Water. So, DD gets compromised.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 29, 2015 10:13 PM |
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Okay and water is good too, especially on maps with water (duh!) I was just talking about people in general though. I associate different towns with different schools fx. tower is air, inferno is fire and necropolis is earth, so that's what I tend to pick, though I always pick earth magic. (And I play without TP and DD)
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vippy
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 14, 2019 09:53 PM |
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Heroes 3 opinion on skills
phoenix4ever said:
Hello there.
I would like to hear your opinion on which hero speciality is the best in HOMM 3. I have excluded Necromancy, Archery, +2 speed and other good specialities, for my own personal reasons, so please choose which of these 6 specialities is the best.
In the comments you can argue why you think it's best and if you wan't also which of the six specialities is the worst and why.
Thanks in advance
I beat heroes 3 years ago and have been revisiting it through a GoG purchase. Here's my list in order of must have skills and why and later on My favorite Specialty and why...
#1Master (Earth Magic) - Slow for all enemies, plink them off with archers and spells, it saves mana and creatures, and its a cheap spell
Advanced - Resurrection actually revives dead creatures permanently
Basic - cheaper/more effective death ripple(Spell From Tavern Hero Through Scholar),very cool if you find the ankh early, and don't forget implosion and meteor shower(From Tavern Hero), it puts fire magic to shame for controlled damage... which is unbalanced imo,fire should do the most damage but whatev
View Earth - if your playing a no save hardcore(No reloads) game, a great tactical tool regardless
#2(Air Magic) Chain Lightning (From Tavern Hero) Probably the most Damage Per round you can dish out for a 4th level spell for the 1st round of combat
Master - Mass Haste for a barbarian Esp. w/Tactics-Offence you do all your troop damage first, it doesn't matter if the hero your fighting is a spellcasting God his defense will never be good enough to ressurect,raise dead,lightning,implosion your troops, because you will win troop for troop, you may not be efficient but you on evenly creature matched will always win the short battle, even if he goes first with mass slow you can mass haste to reverse the effect and attack 1st round and go first 2nd round
View Air - if your playing a no save hardcore(No reloads) game, a great tactical tool
#3 Logistics - This in some games could be pick #1, get more resources around your castle and from the enemy faster, blitz in and investigate and execute with your new resources faster which gets you more resources, your supply chains can have less heroes, a must have for hardcore game or i guess player vs player, at mastery level you can move or do 30% more per hero per turn that's quite badass, numbers wise its like having 1 whole extra turn every 3-4 turns. But most satisfyingly chase down that punk enemy hero faster and kill him faster! or Run away from the badass army and actually live to fight another day(all the while stealing a extra resource here and there while fleeing .
#4 Intelligence - It doubles one of your stat effectiveness at master level (Knowledge) More sps more distance your hero can move forward without resting and resupplying sps
#5 Wisdom - depends on board restrictions but 3rd level+spells are cool for late game
#6 Archery - Slightly more useful in some ways than offence for casters Mastery is +50% damage (Impressive)
#7 Offence - Depending on hero build might be #3 in priority
#8 Resistance - Not often used in creature battles but essential against casters, add some resistance items and casters R toast
#9 Armorer - I dunno 15% damage reduction, Hmm ? Does it reduce spells also or only melee/archery. It seems like it could be Uber for a game with no resting till your enemy is dead with crappy units, it technically saves 15% troop loss per round so for a long battle with a healing hut/ballista could win the day. I have considered the Armorer Specialty of a lv 20 hero with 30% damage reduction, or 40/45%, 60/60%, 80/75%,lv 100 for 100%!
#10 Artillery - Mandatory When you can barely take a castle with weak troops and spells
#11 Estates - I Wet myself when that witches hut is near, it means all my resource heroes learn it and 150+ gold/turn, as badass as that may be practically the skill is rarely exploited and learning it from a university costs 2000 gold, practically that over 13 turns till it pays for itself but long term its a massive moneymaker
#12 Ballista - It can be uber with archery and a barbarian and even luck, Much more badass for Heroes 4 game
#12 Tactics - Might be #2,3 for barbarians/necromancers(Undeads never get morale) with mass haste ,no magic zones(for saving troops),or archery casters who need archers protected, generally it adds little benefit unless your theory is strike first and strike hard with the slow but tough creatures and mess up your enemy's whole day(Zombies,Ogres,Dendroids), Its most useful attribute is it works very well at basic level, so for that low level troop runner with that tactics witches hut, go ahead and grab it, it might save your butt
#13 Scholar - it beats out the other skills because you can trade all you 4th level spells amongst each other, not for a primary hero but useful for low Xp spent on hero 4-8?k Xp or so to get mastery scholar and advance wisdom
#14 I never willingly take Leadership,Pathfindng,Luck,Sorcery,Navigation,First Aid,Water Magic,Mysticism,Fire Magic but sometimes end up with it and its useful. For Water boards a wizard with Nav is essential for getting all the water loot quickly,1 top end creature and a healing hut+ballista for whirlpools, or a pile of cheeze expendable creatures that let you flee with artifacts found
#15 Necromancy - It makes troops... cool! ,Could be #2-3 pick for some boards but overall its just a inconvenience unless you have leadership if your not a necromancer with undead starting cities, heroes 4 it was totally badass making infinite Vampire Lords !
#16 Diplomacy I guess a secondary hero could rock with this recruiting troops, but in practical gameplay it never comes in useful it seems
#17 Scouting - I guess could be useful for a expendable scout I.E Scouting! I've thought about that pegasi hero Aeris with scouting, he could be nifty on a no save board if u were stuck with him and load him with unupgraded Pegasus to be cheap on resources, crazy thought never mind! Scouting SUCKS! Kinda…
#18 Learning - technically you can level up a hero faster/less Xp than anyone with a single scenario and have Huge Raw Stats, Probably best for a tank character...Overall it SUCKS! Ralph....
#19 Eagle eye gets a special last place slot all its own for the most crappy skill ever, however it would be cool to play a scenario where you never own a town with a tavern or past lv 1 mage guild and only get new spells by surviving battles against evil wizards Muah Ha Ha Ha 
Onto Specialties…If you have Dim Door then Intelligence is UBER, or have Good spells, its basically broken you can take over a large Map in 3-4 turns or so, you dim across the world have tons of sps to move that far and take a city along the way you will find a well and can recover on the run, no other hero has the range or movement
Druid Elleshar,Witch Andra (Good Aligned) Heretic Ayden (Evil Aligned) Can quickly Xp them with altar of sacrifice (Good) artifacts/(Evil) Creatures
However these uber badass infinite dim dooring wizards take some building so in light of that on a random map Sir Mullich with Haste Wins... +2 speed to all troops, Tactically a gamebreaker, He comes with advanced leadership so load him with all your favorite skills and undead and he will surely win for you
But I've seen the ballistics hero perform with minimal troops, Offence kick ass with armies, Chain lightning hero win a early victory otherwise unattainable, and Logistic heroes go Boldly where no man has Gone Before
For archery Orrin should be a badass, archery adds +50% damage so he should dish at lv 10 +75% ranged damage and 100% for lv 20, With Leadership can take the Archers from every alignment technically No problem! But practically I've never played with him where he was preferred over Int. heroes...Sorry Orrin
The armorer heroes should be badass at super high levels, as well as resistance heroes, but in practical gameplay these guys never really reach the heights you would think naturally
….but the most practical specialty that may be overlooked are the resource heroes +350 gold and +1 resource. Aline Is the Best 1st to get she has Scholar/Wisdom and +350 gold you can teach your frontline troops new spells without going home, Damacon with advanced offence is the safest courier of troops early who can kick some ass if needed and +350 gold, the gold heroes almost pay for themselves in 7 days and the resources can be traded/used early to get that creature/town upgrade structure just a little earlier…(More gold per day overall income faster than buying blacksmith, mage guild,market then city hall +1000 increase per day,citadel,castle,capitol+2000 per day increase),but getting all these guys takes craploads of reloading each new week or each time you purchase a hero, kind of takes the action out of the game reloading 100x
…and don't forget you can have 8 heroes adventuring but you can have +1 per town garrisoned hero, so get all the resource heroes and garrison them, pull them out to grab that nearby waterwheel, silo, or creature structure. remember this style of play is for the uber minmaxer it may not be appealing for most players
If you've like what I've posted please check out my blog and like me at.....im just kidding I don't blog or like, I am just a 45 year old disabled fat guy who plays too many computer games and needs to do more for Jesus !
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Otuken
Famous Hero
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posted March 16, 2019 11:45 AM |
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"Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more."
George S. Patton
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Lth3
Known Hero
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posted March 16, 2019 03:01 PM |
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Edited by Lth3 at 15:01, 16 Mar 2019.
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“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
- Smedley D. Butler
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