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| Thread: Best two Heroes combo ?! | |
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Drizzt12
Hired Hero
The drow of the underdark
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posted July 14, 2002 06:01 PM |
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Best two Heroes combo ?!
I wanted to ask all of you homm4 fans what two heroes combination are you prefering.
I mean which two hero class are u putting together in the same army when you are playing ?
for example: With chaos i take usually 2 magic users and with Order a mage and a warlord.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted July 14, 2002 06:34 PM |
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The sad state of affair is that you can't tailor your heroes to the extent you want. You just get combat offered all the time. 
Therefore, advanced classes will depend on what tuition is available on the Map.
I usually start with one Magic oriented Hero and one Combat oriented hero. In order to be able to use Libraries and Veteran's Guilds both of these will learn some skill of the opposite type.
The next priority is to get either a Lord or a Thief. And sometimes I may start with these in the first week. These will then tag along as secondary heroes to the main ones.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Celfious
Promising
Legendary Hero
From earth
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posted July 14, 2002 09:24 PM |
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Considering GM is possible
Archmage
The second hero would have tactic's, scouting, and nobility.
Other stuff is accepted, but not critical to fufil my need's
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nidhgrin
Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
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posted July 15, 2002 04:40 PM |
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I always take a strong magical oriented hero along in my army, one school GM, maybe two (if you can reach more or less GM in the second one). In XL maps you could even consider 3 schools. May be wise to give the hero some Combat as well (but only that, not GM archery etc.) to raise his/her defense in order to stay alive a little longer.
As a second hero, I'm particulary fond of Tactics (GM in all subskills), this makes your army that much better! This hero needs some Combat too to keep him alive (again, no GM archery, ...). Scouting is a useful tree for this hero, though I rarely max out other subskills than pathfinding and scouting. Nobility is cool too, but I often find my nobility hero dying in combat.
Here's a question. Nobility and scouting are definitely really cool. But when I take these, I find my hero hiding behind other creatures/heroes in combat because he/she is complete crap during battle. How do you keep these heroes alive or combat-worthy until they have some other skills like Combat? Am I looking at this completely wrong, is my choice of hero skills just bad? I know a lot of you guys are using GM Nobility heroes with success, what's the trick to do so?
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~Vegetables don't spam~
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted July 15, 2002 05:03 PM |
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Edited By: Djive on 15 Jul 2002
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Quote:
Here's a question. Nobility and scouting are definitely really cool. But when I take these, I find my hero hiding behind other creatures/heroes in combat because he/she is complete crap during battle. How do you keep these heroes alive or combat-worthy until they have some other skills like Combat?
Usually, I develope Lords to Expert Nobility or so before developing other skills for them. To get the next Nobility bonus is three promotions, which is a bit much.
At the point of having Expert Nobility, I usually do an assessment of whether I want to continue developing this Hero or I'm happy to let this Hero just to work as support. If the Hero has some Diplomacy and there are plenty of properly aligned creatures, then often the Hero gets used because of the Diplomacy skill.
To keep lords alive... You hide them behind other creatures and heroes, who take the pressure. They often don't do much good on the Battlefield.
Thieves you try to give Stealth so that they can gain additional XP by sneaking pasts stack. So sneak close to stack with thief. Rejoin with main army. Defeat stack.
You can get Thieves and Lords somewhat efficient by giving them basic in a magic college or equipping them with a missile weapon. Then at least they do some damage or aid your troops. There's no reason not to visit free power-ups and I also pay for tuition if I can get an advanced class for them.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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Oldtimer
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Please leave a message after..
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posted July 15, 2002 05:25 PM |
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I think the question, is which skills work best together. Each hero needs to specialize in order to get the better bonuses. So the hero combo has to be 1 might and one magic hero for main army. I like to promote the magic skill exclusively for the magic hero, once maxed then go for the the secondary skill, (High level spells are very powerful and need to be learned as soon as possible) Necomancy and Resurrection are important to develop but the others can wait. I like the might hero to have combat and tactics, Ccombat makes the hero into a great stack by himself and the tactics make all you creatures that much more effective. The general is a great choice to have on the battle field. Scouting is a possibility for the magic hero, or another magic school. Nobility is for homebody heroes, very easy to kill in the feild.
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nidhgrin
Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
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posted July 15, 2002 05:52 PM |
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Quote:
Usually, I develope Lords to Expert Nobility or so before developing other skills for them. To get the next Nobility bonus is three promotions, which is a bit much.
At the point of having Expert Nobility, I usually do an assessment of whether I want to continue developing this Hero or I'm happy to let this Hero just to work as support. If the Hero has some Diplomacy and there are plenty of properly aligned creatures, then often the Hero gets used because of the Diplomacy skill.
Hey, thanks Djive. So you take along a nobility fellow for a couple of battles, keep him out of the action and when he reaches expert nobility, it's time to go home. Maybe you do it again to have a number of such heroes in the towns you need a boost in creature production, right? Sounds nice, your main combat heroes won't suffer that much loss of exp I guess.
How do you get nobility heroes in maps (or campaigns) loaded with chaos and nature towns? I think that's problematic sometimes.
For my magic hero I usually take one school with fast-direct effect spells and one school with slower, but long lasting spells. For example chaos and nature are two great direct effect schools (direct damage and descent summoning). Life is a major supportive tree, as is death but working the opposite way by making enemies weaker. Order is somewhat in the middle. Take two direct effect or two supportive schools and your spellcaster will not be that versatile. Taking order is never a bad idea in my opinion. For example if I start with death I often pick chaos, nature or order, almost never life.
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~Vegetables don't spam~
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted July 15, 2002 06:50 PM |
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Quote:
How do you get nobility heroes in maps (or campaigns) loaded with chaos and nature towns? I think that's problematic sometimes.
Usually I don't. I prefer to develope thieves in these towns.
Unless I have troops that are allied with the Lord or Might troops, I usually don't hire Lords because of the Morale Penalty they will incur.
I will however take Nobility if I get offers in Beastmaster's Huts, or other Adventure Tuition places.
In these case I'm not afraid of giving my main heroes Nobility. Better to fill the slots with something than letting them go empty. Usually I avoid advanced classes where one part is nobility for my two best Heroes, but having Nobility as 3rd to 5th skill is Ok for me. All depends on how much free tuition I can get, and which skills are offered.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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nidhgrin
Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
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posted July 16, 2002 10:48 AM |
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Quote:
I will however take Nobility if I get offers in Beastmaster's Huts, or other Adventure Tuition places.
In these case I'm not afraid of giving my main heroes Nobility. Better to fill the slots with something than letting them go empty. Usually I avoid advanced classes where one part is nobility for my two best Heroes, but having Nobility as 3rd to 5th skill is Ok for me. All depends on how much free tuition I can get, and which skills are offered.
Yeah, I also do that. Those 4th and 5th skill tree slots are never gonna reach GM anyway.
Yet I have another question. I know now that tactics and scouting do not stack. I've noticed that necromancy doesn't stack either. Does charm stack? And more important maybe, does summoning stack? If so I may have an idea for a very powerful hero combination.
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~Vegetables don't spam~
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted July 16, 2002 11:34 AM |
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Quote:
Yet I have another question. I know now that tactics and scouting do not stack. I've noticed that necromancy doesn't stack either. Does charm stack? And more important maybe, does summoning stack? If so I may have an idea for a very powerful hero combination.
No Charm doesn't stack and it's also so that you get to use only Charm or Diplomacy. So it's exclusive with Diplomacy.
Each Hero summons the XP worth of creatures they're entitled to individually. So in that sense you can say that Summoning stacks.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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nidhgrin
Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
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posted July 16, 2002 12:02 PM |
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Quote:
No Charm doesn't stack and it's also so that you get to use only Charm or Diplomacy. So it's exclusive with Diplomacy.
Each Hero summons the XP worth of creatures they're entitled to individually. So in that sense you can say that Summoning stacks.
Yeah, I've seen the diplomacy-charm thingy. Pity that charm doesn't stack though. Summoning stacks! *big smile* Great, then my idea will work, haven't tried it out yet, but I think it's fun to try out and it enables you to have two powerful armies, one of which you don't have to pay a penny for. Here it is, I'll call it
The who needs towns anyway strategy
Starting out with the necropolis, your army should have one necromancer and one nature magic spellcaster. At the beginning it requires necro troops to survive, but after a while this will no longer be necessary and you can use your recruitable troops to build a second army!
Hero 1:
- Specializes in death magic at first, gets at GM necromancy as soon as possible but all death subskills should reach GM.
- As a second skill, nature would be nice, maxed also in all subskills. Especially GM summoning is desirable.
- As a third skill tree order is an option, chaos is not a bad choice either, even scouting can be considered.
- Combat is nice also, but none of the subskills should be developed.
Hero 2:
- Specializes in nature magic at first, GM summoning is a must have, but all subskills should reach GM.
- The second skill choice is probably tactics, maxed out in all but leadership (no use of that at all).
- As a third skill, pick the thing the other hero hasn't, either chaos, order or maybe scouting.
- Combat is great here too, but again don't mind about developing the subskills.
For both heroes nobility is a no-o, never pick it. Life magic can be considered, given the opportunity to learn such spells, but less advisable than order or chaos.
The general idea is to summon elementals with two heroes, should be around 10 each week I guess. Post combat you receive a steady flow of vampires, not lowering the morale of your army given the elemental nature of your other troops. Tactics boosts the power of your army a lot, death magic weakens enemy armies, nature can summon troops during combat all the time and order and chaos add a some extra 'spunk' to your magical arsenal.
I believe this is a fun idea, could be powerful, and you still have all of your creatures available for recruition in your towns, leaving the option to raise a second powerful army with other heroes. What do you think? Would this work?
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~Vegetables don't spam~
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Drizzt12
Hired Hero
The drow of the underdark
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posted July 16, 2002 07:14 PM |
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10x for the tips u all !
about the nobility stuff that's exactly what i always do, take a week lord with my main hero to advace his nobility and then put him back home ! work very cool with the stronghold breeder.
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Thunder
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted July 17, 2002 10:52 AM |
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Well, the best two heroes combo as I see it, is either Necromancer and Priest or Priest and Wizard. On the former the Necromancer casts Plague and the Priest casts Sanctuary, and your opponent is going to lose his forces unless you accept his surrender or he has some dispel magic. On the latter the Wizard casts Hypnotize on the enemy troops and the Priest casts Martyr(s) on the hypnotized enemy troop. This too will be nasty combo but doesn't provide immediately victory, especially in the case your opponent can do something about it. Luckily those are rare combos and won't be seen often except maybe in larger maps with many towns and shrines. But, those are more like spell combos not hero combos.
I don't think that it is good to have only two heroes, players want surely to hire as many heroes as they can, for heroes can provide gold boosts like Lords and enchance your fightíng forces even if you leave them to rot in garrison.
Even in your army you will propably want to use three or four heroes as the scenario makes progress. What those heroes are, depends on your starting town, although capturing another town of another alignment or having tavern outside towns may change that.
Asylum
Thief
Usability of Thieves depends on the type of map you are playing. On small maps, it is usually not worth to hire them early on as it is rather likely that there aren't enough experience to provide them levels. On medium maps it may be worthwile to hire them, especially when it is a closed map. Generally on larger maps, hire Thief as soon as possible and always when it is a new map for you. However, clever positioning of Neutrals might reduce the Stealth ability almost useless.
On other words, having a Thief or not depends on
how fast you can develop them and whether there are enough use for them or not after developing.
Having Thief fighting in your main army is not often good idea as then the Stealth ability is almost useless against opposite players. In the beginning it is better to go on separate paths with your main army and to collect experience from Stones and Chests. Thieves, are propably only heroes where I don't have to consider whether to take experience from chest or not. Also, in later stages of scenario it is good to disturb your opponent by taking his dwellings and gold mines and to be as much of annoyance as possible, or to use them mainly for logistics purposes, to bring your army more creatures or to just provide your main army more movement.
Sorcerer
I'm not too fond of Sorcerers, as most of damage spells require high levels to be effective. However, spells like Confusion, Globe of Confusion, Bloodfrenzy, Mass Misfortune and Mass Haste are really useful. Damage spells are mainly useful for hit and running, which is safer to be practised on neutrals than to your opponent, as in Heroes 4 hit and running may easily backfire when your enemy starts. Still they are the native spell casters for Asylum and should be usually hired before other spell casters except when you are playing larger maps, where you are propably eager to hire Necromancer as soon as possible to develop GM Necromancy.
Nature versus Death in Asylum
Death spells are more effective than Nature spells, especially on higher levels plus the fact that Death has Tactics hero as well boosts the favour largely towards Death. If you have managed to build up your Mage Guild before recruiting hero of neither party, and you see that Nature spells seem to be much more effective than Death spells there, then go for Druids and Rangers. Death is an easy choice in larger maps.
My Hero Recruiting Tree Generally Looks Like This For Asylum:
Thief (unless one already), Sorcerer (unless one already), Necromancer, Death Knight............
Academy
Lord
Well, I'm not too impressed by Lords either. On rookie levels they don't provide much for your kingdom. And to level with them, usually requires to take them into battle with your main army where they continue to be sandbags even in high levels, as you rather develop their Nobility Skills than other skill trees like Combat. Also having Grand Master Nobility requires gold for it to be of any use, which in turn and without gold mines requires Estates skill as high as possible. And that means that they have to be on high levels, again to be effective. Regardless of that, you will want to hire one for each town sooner or later. In my case, later.
Wizard
Wizards are the most effective spell casters by far thanks to their extraordinary powerful spells. Just to name a few reasons for that: Hypnotize, Town Gate, Blind, Mass Slow and Berserk all are more or less nasty spells. Town Gate is the dream spell of Hit and Runner: Attack the enemy, cast Ice Bolts and Magic Fists with Genies and Magi, hurl some lightning with Titans and cast Town Gate for your opponent's joy. And as the Wizards are native spell casters and there are no thieves available in Academy, you will hire one as soon as possible. Except maybe in larger maps where Necromancers rock thanks to their Necromancy skill again.
Life versus Death in Academy
Both sides have good spells, and both sides have Tactics heroes. Life is a little stronger when it comes for spells, which is somewhat due to spell combos. However, in larger maps Necromancy rocks again which turns the tide little towards Death. Special case is when you have both Sanctuary and Plague in your Mage Guild, which means that you want to hire Priest first (Sanctuary is higher level spell than Plague after all) and then Necromancer.
My Hero Recruiting Tree Generally Looks Like This For Academy:
Wizard (unless one already), Necromancer, Death Knight, Lord (unless enough already).....
OR
Wizard (unless one already), Priest, Knight, Lord (unless enough already)......
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