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| Thread: Lets Discuss Summon Elementals |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 01:02 AM |
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Edited by Orc at 01:03, 02 Dec 2019.
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Lets Discuss Summon Elementals
so I played vs AI 200%, and he came after couple of weeks with not so big army,
but with his 220 mana, he summoned 140 water elementals at a time.
his stats were good all around as well. I was tazar and had slightly more armor, but I was a bit under leveled.
I did win the fight but I suffered heavy losses.
what is the best way to handle summon elementals, especially if it was a little too early to have an overpowered might hero who can sweap all the summoned creatures in 1 hit? assume I am playing stronghold or fortress, or at 200% and cannot yet afford implosion or other lvl 5 spells.
Edit: btw I also noticed that summon elementals grant NO XP for the enemy, no matter how much they are.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted December 02, 2019 02:06 AM |
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There is no particular exploit vs elementals. In general, if you want AI to never perform a specific actions, you should force him to perform other actions, but this require to know in deep how is set up.
For example, AI always will take a high priority on shielding his army. Once it is shielded it starts to throw damage spells. So if you keep casing mass dispel every turn, AI will keep casting shield, even if you have army that can be obliterated with few spells.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted December 02, 2019 03:18 AM |
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SUmmon Elementals should be capped to once per specific elemental type.
Also, it is an unbalanced spell even within itself since Earth Elementals for example are much, more stronger than air elementals (indeed, with Conflux expansion one is level 5 and the other level 2), yet they all summon the same amount no matter the type.
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 09:13 AM |
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Salamandre said:
There is no particular exploit vs elementals. In general, if you want AI to never perform a specific actions, you should force him to perform other actions, but this require to know in deep how is set up.
For example, AI always will take a high priority on shielding his army. Once it is shielded it starts to throw damage spells. So if you keep casing mass dispel every turn, AI will keep casting shield, even if you have army that can be obliterated with few spells.
not only for AI, but also for players.
I can just attack with 3 serpant flies, or some other fast creatures, and keep spamming summon Fire Elementals for hit and run, giving no XP, and then retreating when im out of mana.
at least for armaggedon one can either get resistance, dwarves, fire creatures, or dragons to counter it. but I dont see any potential counter play vs elementals except having much stronger hero
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Otuken
Famous Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 01:57 PM |
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Assuming the enemy main is magic hero, you can simply outlevel it since they level up slower than might heroes.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 02:01 PM |
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Salamandre said:
There is no particular exploit vs elementals.
Ah but there is one when summoning them  . The player will not lose when he loses his army and elementals are his last unit.
This is especially silly for campaigns. You can attack week 1 with a high SP/KL hero with 7x1 imp and still win against ridiculously big armies (unless they can wipe you in 1 turn, in that case you just need 1 stronger stack). Just keep summoning elementals to overpower the AI (in the campaigns it can get silly like 250 elementals per cast lol) and then remember to resurrect a stack, preferably before the AI gets too weak so he doesn't flee (that kills your hero). Voila.
I asked HotA team to make the player lose vs. AI when summons are the only remaining units. Whatever campaign you create, a player with summon elemental will wreck it and if you tune it for a player abusing summon elemental, the player will likely not succeed with "regular" method... Either that, or meticulously ban "summon elemental" from campaigns.
I think the player auto-loses when Cloned unit is his last, and should lose the same way when summons are his last unit on the field.
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 02:16 PM |
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Doomforge said:
Salamandre said:
There is no particular exploit vs elementals.
Ah but there is one when summoning them . The player will not lose when he loses his army and elementals are his last unit.
This is especially silly for campaigns. You can attack week 1 with a high SP/KL hero with 7x1 imp and still win against ridiculously big armies (unless they can wipe you in 1 turn, in that case you just need 1 stronger stack). Just keep summoning elementals to overpower the AI (in the campaigns it can get silly like 250 elementals per cast lol) and then remember to resurrect a stack, preferably before the AI gets too weak so he doesn't flee (that kills your hero). Voila.
I asked HotA team to make the player lose vs. AI when summons are the only remaining units. Whatever campaign you create, a player with summon elemental will wreck it and if you tune it for a player abusing summon elemental, the player will likely not succeed with "regular" method... Either that, or meticulously ban "summon elemental" from campaigns.
I think the player auto-loses when Cloned unit is his last, and should lose the same way when summons are his last unit on the field.
but that will only give more reason to make magic heroes sux. they already sux hard. even in the scenario I faced I still won due to armorer specialty.
though I still cant blv there is no counterplay for it.
maybe another summon is the only counter play? and might hero summons will have stronger stats so theyll win?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 02:38 PM |
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Orc said:
but that will only give more reason to make magic heroes sux. they already sux hard. even in the scenario I faced I still won due to armorer specialty.
Not really, it just removes a campaign exploit that makes all other strategies weak/irrelevant.
In maps it's not much of an issue. You don't have 40 SP and 800 mana day one, along with resurrection, summon elementals and slowblind
You see, for instance Hota campaign is supposed to be hard (really hard on 200%), but you're gifted summon elemental for both your heroes and the final battle turns from hard to ez. You just ride around summoning hundreds of elementals fightning armies equal 5-10 populations. With nothing in your army but fodder. In the first week. Was it intended? doubtful. Without this spell (and arguably armageddon, but arma at least requires certain units) you'd have to play "normally".
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 04:55 PM |
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Doomforge said:
Orc said:
but that will only give more reason to make magic heroes sux. they already sux hard. even in the scenario I faced I still won due to armorer specialty.
Not really, it just removes a campaign exploit that makes all other strategies weak/irrelevant.
In maps it's not much of an issue. You don't have 40 SP and 800 mana day one, along with resurrection, summon elementals and slowblind
You see, for instance Hota campaign is supposed to be hard (really hard on 200%), but you're gifted summon elemental for both your heroes and the final battle turns from hard to ez. You just ride around summoning hundreds of elementals fightning armies equal 5-10 populations. With nothing in your army but fodder. In the first week. Was it intended? doubtful. Without this spell (and arguably armageddon, but arma at least requires certain units) you'd have to play "normally".
Well, I guess you have a fair point talking about campaigns
But my concern was for regular maps.
Hiw would you deal with intelegent witch attacking with few serpant flies and imba summons?
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monere
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 05:02 PM |
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Orc said:
Hiw would you deal with intelegent witch attacking with few serpant flies and imba summons?
it's easy. We kill the batman
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 05:21 PM |
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Orc said:
Hiw would you deal with intelegent witch attacking with few serpant flies and imba summons?
Cast chain lightning 1st turn?
or trample him with mass haste and tactics.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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gatecrasher
Famous Hero
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posted December 02, 2019 06:40 PM |
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NimoStar said:
SUmmon Elementals should be capped to once per specific elemental type.
Also, it is an unbalanced spell even within itself since Earth Elementals for example are much, more stronger than air elementals (indeed, with Conflux expansion one is level 5 and the other level 2), yet they all summon the same amount no matter the type.
I don't think it should be capped. It is one of the few spells which scales well for magic heroes.
But yes, the numbers for the different types should be reworked.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted December 02, 2019 08:23 PM |
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The solution for the Summon Elementals spells is simple, we must look to Conflux.
The growth of Air and Water Elementals are 12 per week, Fire is 10 per week and Earth is 8 per week, that means we can use the current formula, but x1,2 if Air or Water, x1 if Fire and x0,8 if Earth.
Alternatively the x1,2 x1 and x0,8 could be applied to mana cost instead. (In reverse order)
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted December 03, 2019 04:44 PM |
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Edited by Orc at 17:30, 03 Dec 2019.
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phoenix4ever said:
The solution for the Summon Elementals spells is simple, we must look to Conflux.
The growth of Air and Water Elementals are 12 per week, Fire is 10 per week and Earth is 8 per week, that means we can use the current formula, but x1,2 if Air or Water, x1 if Fire and x0,8 if Earth.
Alternatively the x1,2 x1 and x0,8 could be applied to mana cost instead. (In reverse order)
Id disagree with you. EE already sux while same summon with fire, let alone if it was nerfed.
also, conflux balanced upgraded versions, not regular ones.
AE, WE, and EE seem balanced to me. aire more speed less HP, water , earth just trade speed for HP
Fire seem to be a little stronger than them, but since fire magic has no useful spells, you can consider it balanced too (with other summon spells).
That still doesnt answer my question in OP though still :/
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted December 04, 2019 07:38 AM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 07:40, 04 Dec 2019.
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Doomforge, you are wrong about it making campaigns not useful. An enemy army only needs one or two powerful armies or damage-only spellcaster and your elementals are toast. Won't do you any good to summon them when a 200 stack of Grand Elves wipes them out every turn. Thus, it is easy to balance against Summon Elementals by just upping the scale of battles.
However, it, as others mention, does make magic heroes suck even more, since magic like damage and high spell power becomes genrally less and less useful the bigger the battle is.
There are also other options such as having enemies use Orb of Inhibition, having few spell charge sites in map (Since summoning lots of elementals is really mana-intensive, this would force players in consecutive battles to use other methods), no knowledge enchancers, banning intelligence, etc., yet all are indirect nerfs to magic in general.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted December 04, 2019 09:58 AM |
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He's not wrong though. It has worked in all campaigns on impossible so unless you create a custom campaign where this is not possible it will remain true. Plus no decent player is going to have trouble vs an AI-controlled powerful stack 
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted December 04, 2019 10:14 AM |
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Just a question:
Don't you guys think Implosion is usually better than Summon X Elemental?, especially if you have the earth orb and/or Sorcery as skill or specialty?
I'm not saying Summon X Elemental is useless, but I generally find Implosion better.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted December 04, 2019 11:25 AM |
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Implosion does damage in 1 round and that's it.
Summon Elemental allows you much more, also tactically:
1. Deal damage every turn unless the elementals are destroyed (however, destroying them means a stack has to waste an attack that would damage your regular stacks).
2. Deal with magic immunity (Dragons - Utopias in particular) or anti-magic spell.
3. Absorb retaliations, block units.
Of course Implosion ignores defense, so that's that. Both have their uses. In the particular example I'm talking about (campaigns) Summon Elemental absolutely blows implosion out of the water. On PVP on JC, I'd say you can use both to good effects.
You can also mix them. Cast mass slow, summon elementals and fire an armageddon with elementals camping in the corner.
NimoStar said:
An enemy army only needs one or two powerful armies or damage-only spellcaster and your elementals are toast.
A 40 SP/KL hero is likely to also have 30-40 ATT/DEF. (easy in HotA campaigns which I underline in particular because Summon Elemental ruins them in particular).
Toasting 200 earths on 40 DEF hero takes some SERIOUS firepower. If you add THAT MUCH firepower to an AI (either by giving the AI hero ridiculous amount of free units - WEEK 1 - or ridiculous stats to the AI hero - you don't just stop summon earth elemental from winning, you pretty much screw the player up entirely and force him to play hit and run).
There is no other spell in the game that allows you to do what summon elemental does in the first week with as little as starting army (or even 7 stacks of 1 imp). Against an army consisting of 3-5 fully upgraded populations (IIRC hota's final mission introduces Tower heroes starting with 3 pops of units) neither Implosion, nor any other spell will bring you much success, because you cannot stop the AI from just wiping you out in 1-2 turns.
The only thing that comes close is Armageddon, but that requires fire immune units in the army. And even arma won't help if you can't survive a round with your 7 imp army. Summon Elemental let me comfortably beat up to 5-10 pops with nearly nothing (I didn't even bother recruiting units) in the final missions of HOTA campaign on impossible - I just set course for the AI in the first week and never stopped. What could've been a highly challenging mission was just loltrampled by heroes casting 1 spell and resurrecting a stack near the end of combat.
This is what it looks like in-game (HotA, final mission of the last campaign):
You just beat them up with starting units. Would I be able to do so with anything else in this game? Nope, not at all.
Should I be allowed to beat the hardest mission on impossible diff by spamming one spell without building units? Questionable. I'd say no.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Orc
Famous Hero
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posted December 05, 2019 09:28 AM |
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phoenix4ever said:
Just a question:
Don't you guys think Implosion is usually better than Summon X Elemental?, especially if you have the earth orb and/or Sorcery as skill or specialty?
I'm not saying Summon X Elemental is useless, but I generally find Implosion better.
for some reason I needed 3 implosions to destroy EE stack or WE stack vs the AI in the match I mentioned above.
yes its good vs AA stacks and other strong ones. though when troops get less and less, summon becomes more and more powerful.
@Doomforge,
I get that its broken on campaigns, but how would you deal with it in single scenarios?
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted December 06, 2019 12:33 AM |
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Orc said:
I get that its broken on campaigns, but how would you deal with it in single scenarios?
Cast Mass Slow every two or three turns, bait and kill them with shooters or No Retaliation creature.
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