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| Thread: Weakest Race/Faction POLL!! | |
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veteran_player
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 13, 2020 06:09 PM |
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Poll Question:
Weakest Race/Faction POLL!!
This poll is for HoMM5.5 RC13; RC14; or later! It is not historical!
This is interesting and important to me, since I only play on "Impossible" -- for the difficulty and challenge!!
Thank you for participating... 
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thGryphn
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted November 15, 2020 11:44 AM |
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I don't believe the outcome of this poll will be particularly useful for you, since the "strength/weakness" of a faction is perceived very subjectively.
The fact is, each faction (including the creature stats and abilities, hero classes and their stats and skills, and town build requirements) has their strengths and weaknesses that add up to an extremely balanced picture overall in MMH5.5.
Some factions are stronger early game, so they will appear dominant on a small/fast-paced map. Some others are stronger late game, and they will dominate on very large/slow-paced maps. Some others are less prominent at any stage, so they will be more competitive on mid-size maps.
Each faction requires using its strengths in the best way, and yes, some factions are harder to master. Hence, if someone says a particular faction sucks, it's only because they haven't mastered it yet.
Coming from the Heroes 3 or the vanilla Heroes 5 will be an crucial determinant in these perceptions as well...
My suggestion is, give each one a try and experience for yourself 
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Rimgrabber
Promising
Famous Hero
Voice in Gelu's Head
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posted November 15, 2020 10:55 PM |
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I voted for Inferno but I pretty much second that. The factions are much more balanced in H5 than in H3, especially in H5.5. Taking Inferno as an example, I chose them because their most important troops all die quickly and the devils are probably more expensive than they're worth compared to other factions. But even so, they're MUCH closer in strength to the other factions than their H3 counterparts, and their gating skill does a lot to compensate for their fragile troops.
If I had to pick a single STRONGEST faction, I'd probably say Academy because all of their classes have a high knowledge skill, meaning that they're all potent spellcasters, and on large maps, they're all able to make excellent use of the Artificer skill, which boosts their already powerful (and magical supported) troops considerably. Plus, they have 3 ranged creatures and the artifact merchant. Fortress is also a contender but I don't use them much because their lineup is boring.
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Saulor
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 26, 2020 03:21 AM |
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Edited by Saulor at 03:22, 26 Nov 2020.
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In H5.5...I would say the clear winner for the underdog is necropolis. It alredy was in vanilla TOE in any game that lasted over 5 weeks unless it was a map with many aditional castles, and even then, it had a big chance to loose. Their army is vastly inferior, and summoning and dark magic can be countered very effectively with low effort. In H5.5 it is nerfed further, vampires are worse, warriors are worse, liches are worse, necromancy is half as efficient as the alredy underwhelming TOE one, dark magic is much worse, and all the perks and spells that neutralized dark are still present, not to mention raise dead nerfs... All in all, an alredy weaker race that took much more skill than most to win was made worse. Academy on the other hand is clearly the best.
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azalen
Responsible
Known Hero
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posted November 26, 2020 06:15 PM |
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Edited by azalen at 18:23, 26 Nov 2020.
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Rimgrabber said:
I voted for Inferno but I pretty much second that. The factions are much more balanced in H5 than in H3, especially in H5.5. Taking Inferno as an example, I chose them because their most important troops all die quickly and the devils are probably more expensive than they're worth compared to other factions. But even so, they're MUCH closer in strength to the other factions than their H3 counterparts, and their gating skill does a lot to compensate for their fragile troops.
If I had to pick a single STRONGEST faction, I'd probably say Academy because all of their classes have a high knowledge skill, meaning that they're all potent spellcasters, and on large maps, they're all able to make excellent use of the Artificer skill, which boosts their already powerful (and magical supported) troops considerably. Plus, they have 3 ranged creatures and the artifact merchant. Fortress is also a contender but I don't use them much because their lineup is boring.
I think the main issue with Inferno is not that they are worse, but that they are less desirable to play because gating is a slow game mechanic.
The (now a long time ago) buff to gating where gated stacks appear faster was a major improvement for them and solved most of their balance issues. However, it is still kinda boring when their main faction special, gating, is primarily used in the early weeks to produce more 1-unit horned devil blockers from 3 unit hornded devil stacks for additional blocking and a disposable big gated imp "attack stack". It is a slower, more plodding game style in the early weeks, making them less fun to play. It doesn't mean they are less effective, though.
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azalen
Responsible
Known Hero
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posted November 26, 2020 06:36 PM |
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Edited by azalen at 18:38, 26 Nov 2020.
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Saulor said:
In H5.5...I would say the clear winner for the underdog is necropolis. It alredy was in vanilla TOE in any game that lasted over 5 weeks unless it was a map with many aditional castles, and even then, it had a big chance to loose. Their army is vastly inferior, and summoning and dark magic can be countered very effectively with low effort. In H5.5 it is nerfed further, vampires are worse, warriors are worse, liches are worse, necromancy is half as efficient as the alredy underwhelming TOE one, dark magic is much worse, and all the perks and spells that neutralized dark are still present, not to mention raise dead nerfs... All in all, an alredy weaker race that took much more skill than most to win was made worse. Academy on the other hand is clearly the best.
I think you are missing some stuff in your analysis. Ghost blockers will probably become more valuable now as the hp buff allowes melee to hang around longer to take more swings at your blockers. Other factions used to be able fake it with 1-unit throw away stacks, but with the hp buff, specialized blockers like ghosts will become more valuable to protect your ranged stacks and not just a "block more" strategy.
As for Academy, week 1-2 Artificer is effectively a dead skill slot until late game. There are a few exceptions to this like war machine heroes like Minasli who benefit greatly from Artificial Glory (she doesn't start with Artificer anyway), but these are exceptions and not the rule. When you are talking about faction power, things like starting skills can make or break you on your early creeping speed.
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thGryphn
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted November 26, 2020 07:04 PM |
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^ He's definitely missing a lot in regards to Necropolis.
Necropolis is simply "quantity over quality" and they can easily overwhelm with their numbers. The in-town necro transformer means they don't need to convert any new towns/dwellings and they can directly utilize any joining stacks. All changes to Necropolis town simply curbed their OPness.
In TOE, Necropolis was the most straightforward to play, so Saulor must be kidding. Dungeon was and still is the most risky faction; you're always on the edge of the knife, so it actually is fitting with their theme, lol.
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Saulor
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 11, 2020 02:08 PM |
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What the Gryphn say is nice for big maps with many aditional castles and dwellings but not all maps are like this; in a competitive 1v1 map with one castle per race this will have little impact. Their quantity factor is greatly reduced in 5.5 mod with the nerf to necromancy.
You talk about necro opness and how straightforward it is to play, but I disagree with that regarding TOE, there you had to take the maximum advantage out of your speed and creeping tools because you had a massive lategame dissadvantage vs most factions (which I bet is maintained or exacerbated in 5.5) and to play really fast you must be good and knowledgeable at the game.
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zmudziak22
Supreme Hero
Heroes 3 Fan
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posted December 17, 2020 12:07 PM |
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Necro instead of farming undead, you can use shrine to convert living units as Necropolis ones. With secondary heroes you can use advantage of chaining + shrine power
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Zaio-Baio
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 18, 2020 03:13 AM |
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azalen said:
As for Academy, week 1-2 Artificer is effectively a dead skill slot until late game. There are a few exceptions to this like war machine heroes like Minasli who benefit greatly from Artificial Glory (she doesn't start with Artificer anyway), but these are exceptions and not the rule. When you are talking about faction power, things like starting skills can make or break you on your early creeping speed.
Academy town has a really strong early game and some of the best early game heroes. Artificer being an effectively dead skill during the first 1-2 weeks doesnt hurt their game at all. They already have one of the best early games possible.
The real issue with artificer is that it scales really well with high knowledge. Since people like to make custom maps very rich and with many knowledge boosters the academy heroes may craft some really strong mini artifacts that break the balance of the game. On custom maps i have had over 100 knowledge lvl 3 mini artifacts on all my troops and i can confirm from experience that its extremely broken  . In order to balance academy on rich maps artificer needs to be completely rebalanced. And imo - after 20-25 knowledge it should become increasingly harder to obtain bonuses. That way academy will be balanced no matter how many knowledge boosters a map maker puts on a map.
As far as Tote 3.1 balance went - academy had great early game + very good lategame potential with artificer. However, there were some clear weaknesses too. The academy heroes had very low chance to learn some of the best skills in the game - logistics, attack, defense, leadership. Logistics was really, really strong. At expert it gave +30% movement and lets not forget the path of war perk - +250 movement after each victory on the map. However, since heroes' normal movement speed was 2500 it basically meant that path of war gave + 10% movement after each fight. So 5 fights a day = +50% more movement on top of the +30% from expert logistics. So 80% more movement compared to a hero with no logistics. For comparison in Hota logistics is capped at 20%. And in order to have +80% movement speed you need to have logistics specialist like Kyrre or Gunnar at level 60! And in tote 3.1 its was possible to get it week 1-2 with some towns. So it was a really big deal that academy had a low chance to get logistics. Because the later you get it the harder it becomes to get pathfinding and path of war, since your level ups will be flooded with other perks.
Attack and defense were a very strong lategame skills. And because academy had only 2% chance to get those offered it was really hard to have them both in one game. Not getting attack early meant having low chance to get tactics and retribution perks. And having tactics was really important in the lategame against haven, sylvan, ors, inferno.
Leadership was a great skill on big maps. The Empathy perk was really strong and had impressive synergy with initiative miniartifacts, but it was also very hard to get as wizard, due to leadership being a 2% skill.Also the diplomacy skill paired with crown of leadership artifact was a game decider on big maps.
So in tote 3.1 the academy town had a great lategame potential but also some big issues that needed to be solved. Overall a very fun town to play and i really enjoyed playing it. Especially with havez .
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SlavaVixenVPP
Tavern Dweller
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posted August 11, 2022 05:56 AM |
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Fred Flintstone; StoneHouse; StrongHold; SmokeStone; StoneCreek; Fortress 
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