Is necromancy worth taking?

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Nyarlathotep
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Is necromancy worth taking?

Unread postby Nyarlathotep » 15 Jun 2006, 00:02

I am playing single player and have reached the Necropolis campaign. I was looking forward to the necromancy ability but now I don’t know if it would be worth taking. It just allows you to get 5-20% of defeated living enemies added to your army in the form of your lowest tier unit. I know that can add up to a lot but I also know how pathetic the first tier troop is in big high-end armies. In the Haven and Infernal campaigns I had stacks of 200 or so peasants/imp dying in one or two attacks. Even if you managed to get a huge stack of skellys, I can’t see them helping too much in the end.

So is necromancy worth it? Or would I be better off going for the magic skills to get better spells for my hero? Keep in mind I am talking about the single player campaign here, I know things can differ in online games.

juventas
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Unread postby juventas » 15 Jun 2006, 00:05

Well, you can amass over 1000 skeleton *archers*. Peasants and imps have to get right in the middle of the action. Archers don't.

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asandir
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Unread postby asandir » 15 Jun 2006, 00:26

ummm .... YES

it is an awesome skill - you have to fight most of the stacks anyway, and the higher your necro skill the more free units you get .... my stacks of skelli-archers can easily kill 4-5 of the level 7 creatures of the enemy by the end of the campaign (and they are FREE) .... now that is sweet!!!

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Gus
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Unread postby Gus » 15 Jun 2006, 00:38

Protect them. Fight every fight against living units you can, even if it is an easy fight and they want to flee (don't let them). Use Autocombat for that since it gets boring real fast otherwise.
With Attack => Archery, Blood Frenzy, and potentially the Necklace of the Bloody Claw, you're looking at scary damage from units you didn't even buy.
If there is one thing close to being overpowered in this game, it's Necromancy =)

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DaemianLucifer
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Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 15 Jun 2006, 01:24

Of course its worth taking!With the skeleton archer raising ability,you can get 20+ of them from every battle.Having thousands of those in the end fight,coupled with raise undead that can rasie hundreds of them,and with the mark of the necromancer,you cannot loose.

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Pagan
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Unread postby Pagan » 15 Jun 2006, 01:42

In the Haven and Infernal campaigns I had stacks of 200 or so peasants/imp dying in one or two attacks. Even if you managed to get a huge stack of skellys, I can’t see them helping too much in the end.
The thing is you will get 10 times that amount by the end of the scenario (depend on the map), and those skellies can do some serious damage with some buffing (from item, skill or spell) from a safe distance.

Necromancy is probably one of the most useful skill in the game.

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Psychobabble
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Re: Is necromancy worth taking?

Unread postby Psychobabble » 15 Jun 2006, 01:56

Nyarlathotep wrote:In the Haven and Infernal campaigns I had stacks of 200 or so peasants/imp dying in one or two attacks. Even if you managed to get a huge stack of skellys, I can’t see them helping too much in the end.
the difference, of course, being that advanced necromancy gets you archers which don't die very easily.

Also, remember to pursue all those puny stacks which flee from you so you get skellies from them. Turn quick combat on so it doesn't take much time (you can always manually re-play a quick combat battle if you take too many casualties).

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cornellian
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Unread postby cornellian » 15 Jun 2006, 02:44

Strangely one of the things Markal (or any other Necro for that matter) doesn't have much use for is Dark Magic, which is supposedly their 'area of expertise'. Now, don't start yelling me with words like 'Mass Slow' or 'Mass Decay' ;), I would prefer attack/defence/luck any day..

In the battle you'll be very busy raising your troops on hero's turns anyway; so Nyarlathotep, I'd suggest you take logistics/attack/defence/summoning/luck if you can with necromancy..

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Thanquol
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Unread postby Thanquol » 15 Jun 2006, 04:54

Hmm, I'd drop Logistics and grab Enlightenment instead - choosing Intelligence, Scholar and Lord of the Undead for optimal effect.

I'd even be willing to drop Luck for Enlightenment with Markal since he is stuck with Leadership.

Ari
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Unread postby Ari » 15 Jun 2006, 05:43

One of the (undocumented?) additional benefits of necromancy is that unlike in previous homm games, it's power rises with the level of creatures killed. You'll never get more skeletons than there were units to begin with, but killing 40 nightmares will get you 40 skeletons, not (5% of 40) skeletons.

zhuge
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Re: Is necromancy worth taking?

Unread postby zhuge » 15 Jun 2006, 06:18

Psychobabble wrote: the difference, of course, being that advanced necromancy gets you archers which don't die very easily.
Hmm... Skel Archers come from the Skeleton Archers ability IIRC.
In the beta this ability was called Raise Archers. Higher levels of Necromancy just give more Skeletons unless they have changed this after the beta.
Ari wrote: One of the (undocumented?) additional benefits of necromancy is that unlike in previous homm games, it's power rises with the level of creatures killed. You'll never get more skeletons than there were units to begin with, but killing 40 nightmares will get you 40 skeletons, not (5% of 40) skeletons.
IIRC, this feature was also present or partially implemented in HoMM3 in the latest patched versions where raised skels (or whatever undead was dictated from Cloak of Undead King) was dependent on both power of the enemy stack slain and total number of units in the enemy stack.
But yes you won't get more units than there were to begin with in H5.

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Pitsu
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Unread postby Pitsu » 15 Jun 2006, 07:15

In H5 you raise a % of hitpoints. And the more HP unit has compared to skeleton the more skeletons are raised. For high tier units you are more likely to hit the "max number of skeletons cannot exceed the number of units killed" than the outcome of skeleton raising equation:

skeletons raised = trunc (killed HP*(0,05* necromancy level + 0,1 * pillar of bones) / skeleton hit points)

skeleton hitpoints is 4 or 5 for ordinary and archers, respectively.

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Qurqirish Dragon
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Re: Is necromancy worth taking?

Unread postby Qurqirish Dragon » 15 Jun 2006, 12:45

zhuge wrote:
Psychobabble wrote: the difference, of course, being that advanced necromancy gets you archers which don't die very easily.
Hmm... Skel Archers come from the Skeleton Archers ability IIRC.
In the beta this ability was called Raise Archers. Higher levels of Necromancy just give more Skeletons unless they have changed this after the beta.
Ari wrote: One of the (undocumented?) additional benefits of necromancy is that unlike in previous homm games, it's power rises with the level of creatures killed. You'll never get more skeletons than there were units to begin with, but killing 40 nightmares will get you 40 skeletons, not (5% of 40) skeletons.
IIRC, this feature was also present or partially implemented in HoMM3 in the latest patched versions where raised skels (or whatever undead was dictated from Cloak of Undead King) was dependent on both power of the enemy stack slain and total number of units in the enemy stack.
But yes you won't get more units than there were to begin with in H5.
No. in HoMM3, if you (1) had upgraded units, (2) had no normal unitss, and (3) had no open army slots, then you would raise the upgraded form. Normally, the unit involved was skeletons, but if you had the cloak, then you could get zombies, wights, or liches (based on necromancy skill).

the number of raised troops was based on the lesser of the following, calculated for each stack in battle:
a) (total HP of killed creatures/HP of raised troop)*necomancy percentage
b) total number of killed creatures*necromancy percentage.

necromancy skill was [(skill level + amplifiers)*10%+artifacts]
If you raised upgraded troops, then you only got 2/3 the amount you would otherwise have gotten.

A typical necromancer would have 40% necromancy (expert+1 amplifier), so case (b) would apply for any creatures with over 20 HP for skeletons, up to a need for 150 HP for power liches (2/3 of 40% of 150 is 40)

Of course, for power liches you would need the cloak, and thus have 70% necromancy- so only 90 HP for each is needed. I would normally go only for normal liches instead- more liches was more useful than the upgrade was powered.

The 2/3 modifier was also why maximum necromancy skill wasn't actually hit until you had 150% skill- then 2/3 the skill would be 100%. (you obviously couldn't ever raise 150% creatures, but the upgrades were nice if you could do it :-)


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