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| Thread: Make Every Hero Viable!!1! | |
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted July 17, 2020 05:42 AM |
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Make Every Hero Viable!!1!
I've mentioned this in other threads before, but I decided I'm just gonna give this its own thread since its probably enough of a conversation topic on its own. In my ideal Heroes game, there would be no useless heroes. Ideally there would be as many unique specializations as possible too so I'll change some entirely to limit repeats. Also ideally, specializations would play a bigger role in strategy, rather than (with some exceptions) just being small bonuses. Obviously, that doesn't mean all of them are equal, or meant to be used as mains, but every hero would be good enough to either be useable as a main or give good side hero bonuses. Of course, this would involve many balance changes to some of the skills and mechanics as well, so I'll also be going over those.
First and foremost: Might Heroes can no longer cast mass spells as well as Magic Heroes. Instead of targeting every possible target, they will cast it with an AoE the size of Inferno(the spell.) For all heroes, expert Wisdom will be required for casting mass spells at all, in addition to expert level of that magic school. Damage for offensive fire spells increase and Frost Bolt and Ring of Frost lower the speed of all targets by 1. Next, Sorcery bonuses are increased to match Offense for better scaling, and Learning works like it does in H5 and WoG adding an extra stat boost level x amount of levels. First Aid will be able to resurrect dead creatures. Eagle Eye is gone completely.
Creature and spell specializations are also buffed: creature specialties work like in H5, adding +1 to attack and defense every other level starting at level 1, and/or buff/add an extra ability to the creature. Damaging spell specializations conversely will function more like vanilla creature specialties: when casting the spell in question, effective Power is boosted by Hero Level/Spell Level, rather than 3%*Level/Target Tier. Again, some exceptions may apply for balance/to make things more interesting.
So, let's go through the heroes!
Knights I think are mostly fine as they are. They're not the best class but they all have decent specials and starting skills.
However, Orrin and Valeska's specializations are fairly similar, and there are other heroes I want to have the Archery specialization. Since his bio mentions he's "one of the best siege tacticians" and "archers under his command can shoot behind walls" I propose his specialization be changed to increasing the power of siege towers. His starting skill will change from Archery to Artillery, and siege towers get an attack buff based on level.
For Clerics, Adelaide will start with basic Water Magic instead of advanced Wisdom, and her Frost Ring will, in addition to the damage increase will lower the speed of the target in the center of the ring instead of just those damaged(unless its a friendly creature.) Cuthbert's Weakness spell will lower the attack of the target by an additional 3 regardless of tier, and start with intelligence instead of estates. There's probably not a lot that can be done to salvage Ingham, but he'll start with archery instead of mysticism and 1-3 monks instead of 4-7 archers. Loynis's Prayer bonus will be +2 attack and defense and +1 speed to all creatures regardless of tier. Rion stays the same but is buffed by the First Aid skill being able to resurrect creatures. For Sanya, since Eagle Eye is totally irredeemable she can start with Air Magic and specialize in Destroy Undead, since it makes sense there would be a cleric that does that.
The only Ranger that I see needing any boost is Ufretin just because dwarves are so bad. Because of this, I propose he specializes in Estates instead of dwarves and obviously starts with estates instead of Luck. Of course, this would mean Jenova's specialty should be changed to not be too similar, and I'd suggest Archery. This might make her a bit similar to Ivor, but I feel that unlike Valeska and Marksmen, elves are important enough that the extra elves at the beginning and the extra defense for them balances Ivor and Jenova out much better. I think that given the creature spec buff and the offensive spells buff, the other Rangers are fine as they are.
Druids.... ugh. This class will probably never be good per se, but I can make them a little less bad. Aeris will, in addition to the attack and defense bonuses, buff the Magic Damper ability to 4 extra mana. Alagar I think will be improved by the ability of Ice Bolt to lower speed and the general buff of offensive spell specs, but just to be safe his specialization will increase the penalty to -2 speed. He'll also benefit from the buffed Sorcery skill. Coronius will start with Fire Magic instead of Scholar since Fire Magic is rare for Druids, his bonus will be +2 attack to all creatures regardless of tier, and he'll also benefit from the fact that Mass Slayer will be a thing. Elleshar and Gem are fine as is, Malcolm will change his spec and starting skill to Sorcery, Uland's Cure will have an anti-magic-like effect for debuffs for 2 turns after casting it and he'll start with Water Magic instead of Ballistics, and finally Melodia. Arguably the worst hero in the game. Instead of Fortune always giving +3 luck, which is useless because she starts with Luck the skill, her specialization will instead allow Fortune to raise her troops' luck to 5, so that rather than nullifying her specialty her starting skills synergize with it. Assuming the enemy doesn't have any luck debuffs, Melodia will be one of the only heroes in the game to be able to have +5 luck and she can have it from her first turn.
As for Alchemists, Fafner and Neela are obviously fine. I think Rissa is fine too, although I'd have her start with Estates instead of Mysticism. Iona, in accordance with her "charming personality," will start with Diplomacy instead of Scholar(I know its a racial skill for genies but I hate that lol.) Since there doesn't need to be 2 genie specialists Thane will specialize in Learning like Kinkera. Josephine will start with Tactics instead of Sorcery to compensate for how slow Golems are and because Sorcery is weird for a might hero. Piquedram will start with Logistics instead of Mysticism, making him an ideal scout. Torosar will start with Artillery, obviously, instead of Mysticsm.
Wizards - Hypnotize will have to be buffed for him to be viable but I don't know what that would take. I don't want to give him an entirely new spec because Hypnotize is cool as a concept. Cyra, Halon, and Solmyr are fine, Aine probably is too although Rissa outclasses her. I don't want *another* Estates specialist. Daremyth can stay the same, except specializing in Mirth instead of Fortune. It would work the same way as Melodia's spec. Serena changes to a Sorcery spec, and Theodorus to Intelligence. Their skills adjust accordingly.
Demoniacs are fine as they are for the most part, except change Calh's Scouting to Logistics to compensate for the slow speed of Gogs, and make it so that friendly troops are immune to Magog's attacks. Rashka should start with Leadership based on his bio instead of Scholar.
Heretics - All Heretics start with +1 knowledge so that they can actually cast spells from the get-go. Ash starts with Fire Magic instead of Eagle Eye, her specialty gives a +3 bonus to troops regardless of tier. Olema also starts with Fire Magic and specializes in Misfortune instead of Weakness, making it always lower Luck by 3. Xeron starts with Intelligence instead of Scholar and Xarfax with Sorcery instead of Leadership. Zydar is fine, except he starts with Magic Arrow instead of Stone Skin.
The only thing I'd change about any of the Death Knights is that Vokail starts with Interference instead of Artillery.
Necromancers are also mostly fine, except Nimbus should be the Raise Dead specialist based on his bio. Thant can specialize in Sorrow, with it working like Olema's specialty.
Overlords are also solid, although I'd give Loreli Logistics to start for the same reason as Piquedram, Ajit Archery instead of Leadership, and Synca should start with Armorer instead of Scholar. I think the creature spec boost with make her Manticores actually worth using.
There doesn't need to be 2 resurrection specialists, and based on their bios I'd say it makes more sense for Jeddite than Alamar. I know that people like the resurrection+scholar beginning though, so Jeddit with start with Scholar instead of advanced Wisdom. Alamar will have his specialty changed to Intelligence. Darkstorm is gonna be changed not because he's weak, because with the buffs to learning he's not, but it makes no sense at all to me that a guy named darkSTORM with lightning literally shooting from his eyes specs in an earth spell. Keeping with his bio and the defensive spell theme, he'll spec instead in Air Shield(which also works with his name since storms are windy and Air Shield uses wind to deflect ranged attacks.) He'll start with Air Magic instead of Learning. Malekith starts with Magic Arrow instead of Bloodlust.
Literally every single Barbarian is already good lol
Battlemages are mostly good too, but Oris will spec in Learning, and Gundala in Interference because there doesn't need to be 2 offense specialists in the same faction and I always imagined Barbarians as sort of an "anti-magic" hero.
While it's hard to justify from his bio, I think Gerwulf should specialize in resistance, keeping with the defensive theme of the faction, because starting with 0 attack means the ballista spec is basically worthless. Korbac should start with Logistics instead of Pathfinding since Beastmasters really don't need it, and Wystan's Lizard Warriors will be given No Melee Penalty. They are warriors, after all, and they can't make very good use of their defense otherwise. It would probably be good for him to start with something other than Archery too, but at the same time Lizards need all the buffing they can get.
I'm actually going to go ahead and say that Mirlanda should start with Fire Magic and spec in Curse, even though that's not especially lore-friendly, just because its a bit silly to have a Weakness specializing hero when one of your earlies troops can cast Weakness. Tiva can have an Eagle Eye-like effect on her where she learns any and all spells cast by a hero or a creature in combat. She'll start with Earth Magic instead of Eagle Eye.
Erdamon, Fiur, Lacus, and Pasis all have their specialization changed to match other creature specs (+1 a/d for every other level). Ignissa specializes in Artillery, Monere in Interference(he's a magic elemental after all), Kalt in Learning, and Thunar in Ballistics, giving the catapult an extra shot. Monere and Thunar's starting skills change accordingly.
I like the Elementalists in theory because there's 2 for each magic school, one specializing in an offense spell and one in a beneficial spell, with the notable exception of the water users: Gelare has a boring +350 gold specialty, and Ciele specializes in Magic Arrow which isn't really a water spell. I'm fine with Ciele, Gelare I think should specialize in Dispell, making it so it doesn't remove negative effects from enemy creatures like when a Dragon Fly casts it. Inteus should specialize in Fire Shield since half of Conflux's army is immune to fire, he needs to specialize in a better spell than Bloodlust. Labetha should specialize in Shield just for variety's sake. Grindan I'm fine with have the gold spec since he's a dwarf and a slow spec would be too powerful. Aeinin and Luna are fine IMO. I wanted to change Brissa too for variety's sake, but I couldn't think of a different beneficial air spell that would be any better.
I'm not doing Cove because I trust Hota Crew more than myself on this matter lol. Anyways, everyone tell me your thoughts. I'm too tired to write anymore tonight lol.
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RerryR
Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
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posted July 17, 2020 11:08 AM |
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Rimgrabber said:
I've mentioned this in other threads before, but I decided I'm just gonna give this its own thread since its probably enough of a conversation topic on its own. In my ideal Heroes game, there would be no useless heroes. Ideally there would be as many unique specializations as possible too so I'll change some entirely to limit repeats. Also ideally, specializations would play a bigger role in strategy, rather than (with some exceptions) just being small bonuses. Obviously, that doesn't mean all of them are equal, or meant to be used as mains, but every hero would be good enough to either be useable as a main or give good side hero bonuses. Of course, this would involve many balance changes to some of the skills and mechanics as well, so I'll also be going over those.
There are some nice suggestions. The idea to make every hero unique and viable was one of our goals when we developed the Advanced Classes Mod.
I know you said that you don't play ERA but in HotA you will never see these changes you suggested.
I don't want to copy-paste a long text here because of the bad forum formatting possibilities but I will link you our text files which lists Hero starting skill changes and more importantly also our Hero specialty changes. You will find many similar approaches to your suggestions:
https://dropmefiles.com/8cvBN
I know sometimes it can seem a little lame to promote yourself. But I do this because I am convinced that it is more worthwhile to invest your time in something where you actually have the opportunity to change something, rather than just writing down a proposal.
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Jagulars
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 19, 2020 07:48 AM |
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Would be interesting to play a mod where hero skills are divided into might and magic skills as well as some general skills such as logistics or estates that could be gained by anyone. However, magic skills only for magic heroes and might skills only for might heroes.
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RerryR
Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
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posted July 19, 2020 11:26 AM |
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Edited by RerryR at 11:29, 19 Jul 2020.
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Jagulars said:
Would be interesting to play a mod where hero skills are divided into might and magic skills as well as some general skills such as logistics or estates that could be gained by anyone. However, magic skills only for magic heroes and might skills only for might heroes.
Such a mod exists.
But just making magic skills unavailable to warriors heroes or the other way round will cut away a lot of the game mechanics for one class or the other. You need a more sophisticated system and it is important that the secondary skills are adapted. If they are not adapted you will grind your teeth playing as a mage and getting Eagle Eye or Scholar all the time, because other skills are not available for your class.
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted July 20, 2020 04:19 PM |
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Thank you for this post, it was a good read, althrought I don't exactly agree with everything.
If the goal is to make every hero viable, I don't exactly understand why some heroes, that are working and viable would need to be changed, such as Orrin. Valeska and Orrin may both have archery focus, but Orrin is definetly about late game, while Valeska is a beast early game hero. Same goes for Wystan, as he is already quite good early game hero, and can do some battles that are not doable by Drakon. Calh is also, if not the best, atleast the second best hero in Inferno roster, I'm not sure why there would be a need of boosting him.
I think every creature specialist could start with creatures they specialize in, as you suggested with Ingham. I mean even the heroes such as Tamika, Fafner and Broghild. They would only have one tier 6 creature ofc, and tier one creatures, maybe they wouldn't even have tier 3 creatures at all. This feature in general would justify some of the usage of heroes that are normally not seeing any kind of time in their spotlight, like Aeris.
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted July 20, 2020 04:29 PM |
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Admittedly, I'm not used to competitive play and don't know much about the meta because nobody ever wants to play with me because of that lol. Part of it was also just that I wanted there to be more uniqueness to heroes. If I ever learn how to mod, I might try and implement some of these changes and wanted feedback, especially because I'm not that in-tune to the multiplayer scene.
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FirePaladin
Promising
Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
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posted July 20, 2020 04:36 PM |
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I would honestly play MP with you, ngl. Besides, sometimes me and some guys need one more player to make it 2v2.
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Enshackling time itself, heralds of the Ancients among their heat-depleted land.... Who could they be, who could rally the beings of the East and the North and control the mortals' fate?
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted July 20, 2020 04:39 PM |
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Cool! DM me if you ever wanna play.
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted July 20, 2020 07:57 PM |
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Rimgrabber said:
Admittedly, I'm not used to competitive play and don't know much about the meta because nobody ever wants to play with me because of that lol. Part of it was also just that I wanted there to be more uniqueness to heroes. If I ever learn how to mod, I might try and implement some of these changes and wanted feedback, especially because I'm not that in-tune to the multiplayer scene.
There's no need to feel bad about it, I've tried to get into the MP scene for around 2 years now. Heroes3 is somewhat really hard game game to play on MP, as it can be very unforgiving, even the top tier players can make silly, game losing mistakes. Then again, one can learn a lot by watching streams and such, as this game doesn't need you to have god-like reflexes.
As there is many templates, the are different metas and the power of heroes can vary. Some templates even have very strict hero pool. However, the common "meta" could be described about making things happen as early as possible, even since day1. Therefore, heroes than can achieve that goal are concidered at least somewhat good. A hero you start with may not end up being your main, and this is usually the case.
Good starting heroes are the ones that get some kind of advantage in their army, or have a spell that can can be used to cheese some (early) fights. Usually, you don't see skill specialist being picked as a starting hero, Kyrre is probably an exception thou. Mirror templates (mt) allows blue player to ban some heroes from both players, so in those templates you can often see a bit more creative picks than usual.
Good starting heroes could be heroes such as:
Castle: Valeska
Rampart: Ivor, Kyrre
Tower: Josephine, Thane, Solmyr (Tower would pick Gremlin specialist 95% of time if they could.)
Inferno: Calh, Ignatus
Necro: Galthran, Thant, Galthran, Aislinn, Galthran, Isra, Galthran.
Dungeon: Mostly Shakti. Ajit, Lorelei, Alamar, Deemer, Jeddite, Gunnar
Stronghold: Usually Tyraxor. Gretchin
Fortress: Mostly Drakon. Wystan
Conflux: Luna 95% of time, Grindan, Ciele.
Cove: Mostly Cassiopeia or Anabel, Derek, Jeremy, Eovacius
Great main heroes are usually the ones that have secondary skill specialists in Offence, Armorer, Logistics, Intelligence for example. Also heroes with really good spell speciality such as Thane can easily turn to be your main. Your starting hero tends to do some fights early on, so that hero can also become your main, if he learns important skill such as earth magic.
Then there are heroes that are not really as great, but are good nonetheless as they have some sort of noticeable advantage going on with them. Those would be heroes with:
- a good starting skill/speciality. I mean generally desired skills, or skills that give some sort of support ability like Tactics, Scholar, Scouting and Estates.
- good starting spell such as slow, magic arrow, haste.
- not-so-good-starting-spell, but atleast usable one like fireball, death ripple, inferno.
- gold or other resource speciality.
- starting war machine (your main can pick it up and use it as meat if nothing else)
Then there are heroes don't fall into the list above, but can surprise and turn into something good:
- Sorcery specialists
- Mysticism specialists
- heroes not so good but atleast from good class such as Synca or Gerwulf.
Then there are heroes with atleast something going on with them:
- Hero such as Inteus being a magic hero with +1 stat and semi-usable Fire magic.
- Hero such as Casmetra with Water Magic.
- Hero such as Zilare, with unique spell and capability to do very spesific fights.
- Bad might heroes such as Ufretin
Heroes that are simply terrible, but aren't the at the very bottom:
- Eagle Eye specialists,with only ok-ish starting spell like Tiva
- Cure specialists
- Heroes like Merist and Theodorus, that only have ok-ish starting spells and nothing else.
And then there are the absolute thrash at the bottom, worst ones being either Sanya or Serena, that don't have anything going on with them. Terrible speciality and class, and both start with Dispel, which will not be any use while you fight against creatures on the map. Oris isn't that much better, as she has even worse starting spell, but at least she is a battlemage.
So, if we would like to make every hero viable, we should look at the heroes in the very bottom first. 
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