Invisibility overpowered + Starwars start!

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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Jolly Joker
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Dec 2007, 06:58

The repetition doesn't make it less wrong, GOW:
1) It's NOT the Stalker. The Stalker just gives the HERO 3 turns time to cast magic onto the neutrals (or use the hero attack).
2) This means, the killing capacity of a hero with Stalkers is pretty ecactly 4 turns - after that the stalkers take losses. If they don't take losses before they vanish to invisibility, that is.
3) Said killing capacity depends on the ready availability of mana. Getting mana refills will almost always cost TIME - a lot more time than you need when you have more substantial units in your army that can do a lot of damage, for example blood furies
4) Said killing furthermore depends on the availability of destructive spells. Only 4 regular Dungeon heroes start with a Destructive spell (3 Academy heroes do), and one of those has Lightning Bolt (with a bad damage output without the prerequisites in skill and power). That is, you'll have to build a mage guild as well if you don't start with such a hero AND Stone Spikes and Lightning Bolt in the guild would limit the damage output further. Which means that creeping with stalkers costs AT LEAST THREE builds for most of the heroes.
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Unread postby Metathron » 07 Dec 2007, 07:28

Jolly Joker wrote:1) It's NOT the Stalker. The Stalker just gives the HERO 3 turns time to cast magic onto the neutrals (or use the hero attack).
I don't understand the emphasis on this point. It's still the stalkers that enable the hero to go nuts with spellcasting for 3 turns or more.

In light of that, I would say that invisibility is slightly overpowered, but very fun and exciting at the same time. The only thing I would appreciate is some sort of warning or marker on the initiative bar as to when the invisibility is going to wear off, because usually if I try to count I just get lost what with all the waiting and all.
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Dec 2007, 08:50

Metathron wrote:
Jolly Joker wrote:1) It's NOT the Stalker. The Stalker just gives the HERO 3 turns time to cast magic onto the neutrals (or use the hero attack).
I don't understand the emphasis on this point. It's still the stalkers that enable the hero to go nuts with spellcasting for 3 turns or more.
The hero must be able to "go nuts with spellcasting". So what he needs is spells, mana and some power and skills OR SPECIFIC spells. If he doesn't have ANY of these Stalkers are worth squat.
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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 07 Dec 2007, 09:27

3 free attacks aren't really nothing... but it's not that overpowered as much as the OP made it sound. Overall i think that Wizards need to be given an early creeping advantage too instead of invisibility being nerfed...
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Dec 2007, 11:03

Well, don't you think they have one?
If you look at the Stats of the Gremlin Saboteurs you'll see that they have very high initiative and attack.
Now add MotW to that - which has been made better still - and the high base Mana and you'll see that you can blast one hell of a lot of stuff, too.

Don't forget that initial poster built 2 MG levels before starting off. If you do the same for a Wizard and give him MotW, what more can you get? Aren't there lots of possibilities? Stone Spikes plus Magnet Golems sound like a very solid option. The new Gargoyles are another way to deal more damage....
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Unread postby okrane » 07 Dec 2007, 13:00

Angelspit wrote:
ThunderTitan wrote:i prefer fighting against another player then the map myself.
So true. When I think of Heroes I-III, I see an AI player moving closer to my castle. With Heroes IV and V, I think of a long series of neutral stacks leading to the enemy player.
QFE
The single player experience in those games was really something... 4 and 5 really suck from this point of view.... still I think multiplayer is better in the last 2 installements

About the topic itself, I really doubt stalkers are imba. Of course they are good against the computer, but there is no point in talking about imbaness in single player.
Balancing comes into mind for multiplayer games and in that chapter dungeon needs an extremely fast creeping method to keep up with other towns.

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Unread postby tb5841 » 07 Dec 2007, 13:36

Academy will have to sacrifice some troops for distractions in almost every single early battle. Typically gargoyles. Their low level troops do little damage and the wizard will need the delay from single stack sacrifices to win early battles.
True, but it's a small price to pay.
And of course there can be a problem with early spell selection for the academy. The warlock faceds no such problem as his expertise is destruction and his guild provides those spells, all of which will be useful to him. Not all summoning spells are very useful in creeping (or otherwise) and light magic will certainly not help the wizard early (and is never very good for him.)
Fire Trap is brilliant now that it works with MotW, and Wasp Swarm + MotW is the best early creeping spell. And many Academy heros start with damaging spells. Light magic is useless early, but later on can be very powerful for a wizard - MotW + Divine Vengeance is amazing, and it works pretty well with Resurrection too. And Word of Light is pretty good now...
Academy does not have infinite mana. Necro does (and higher spell power), with mark of necromancer (plus free troops.) Rune Mage does with tap runes(and can cast rune magic whenever any of his troops can move.) It is true that Nur regenerates mana in combat, but she is the only academy heroe to do so.
I find mark of the necromancer pretty useless in the first week creeping battles (it is definitely less useful in TotE than it used to be) and tap runes is also fairly useless early on as you don't want to spend valuable resources against neutrals (and tap runes is not an easy skill to get anyway). Warlocks struggle lots with mana early on.

Academy have very high knowledge very quickly (Narxes has a massive amount as he starts with intelligence) and mana regeneration increases as your total number of spell points increases. Whereas after two or three battles, a Warlock will probably have to return to his castle to get spell points back.

By the end of the second week, I can get a mage guild level 5 along with some magic skill at expert level, which makes neutral-killing extremely easy. No other team has the mana to do this effectively.

I don't think stalkers are overpowered, as several other teams can creep just as well. But I do think some teams need some improvement to their creeping ability to keep up. Notably Fortress, who I find really struggle to do anything in the first few weeks.

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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 07 Dec 2007, 14:54

okrane wrote:
AS wrote:With Heroes IV and V, I think of a long series of neutral stacks leading to the enemy player.
The single player experience in those games was really something... 4 and 5 really suck from this point of view....

Weird, when i think of H4 i think Hero vs Hero battles... also Heroes defeating neutrals they had no business defeating. Drink Ress Potion, kill a few enemies with retaliation (First Strike ftw), drink another Ress Potion if you need it or heal yourself, kill some more with retal... do until no enemy remains.
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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 07 Dec 2007, 15:43

Jolly Joker wrote:Well, don't you think they have one?
If you look at the Stats of the Gremlin Saboteurs you'll see that they have very high initiative and attack.
Now add MotW to that - which has been made better still - and the high base Mana and you'll see that you can blast one hell of a lot of stuff, too.

Don't forget that initial poster built 2 MG levels before starting off. If you do the same for a Wizard and give him MotW, what more can you get? Aren't there lots of possibilities? Stone Spikes plus Magnet Golems sound like a very solid option. The new Gargoyles are another way to deal more damage....
3 free attacks with no possibility of casualties is a big deal. And the warlock will have useful destruction spells in his guild 100% of the time, as opposed to the wizad maybe getting useful spells and maybe not.

Plus the stalker can sneak up on shooters to take care of them if the warlock doesn't manage to kill them all before invisibility runs out.

Shooters/casters are no longer a problem for the warlock.

So are you saying the wizard can travel with only a few sabateurs and do the same thing a warlock can with a few stalkers? No? Then stalkers are overpowered.

Yeah, the wizard has a higher base mana and a lower spell power. The warlock can also resore his mana far away from town and wells with dark ritual so the warlock has a higher effectie knowledge than what is shown on the character screen. Plus his creatures deal more damage than the wimpy low level wizard creatues.

The new gargoyles help the wizard only if he he gets good destruction spells early which he very well may not. After early usage you'd better ditch the new gargoyles or your opponent will use them against you.

GOW
Last edited by Grumpy Old Wizard on 07 Dec 2007, 15:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 07 Dec 2007, 15:59

tb5841 wrote:
Academy will have to sacrifice some troops for distractions in almost every single early battle. Typically gargoyles. Their low level troops do little damage and the wizard will need the delay from single stack sacrifices to win early battles.
True, but it's a small price to pay.
A price the warlock doesn't have to pay.
tb5841 wrote:
And of course there can be a problem with early spell selection for the academy. The warlock faceds no such problem as his expertise is destruction and his guild provides those spells, all of which will be useful to him. Not all summoning spells are very useful in creeping (or otherwise) and light magic will certainly not help the wizard early (and is never very good for him.)
Fire Trap is brilliant now that it works with MotW, and Wasp Swarm + MotW is the best early creeping spell. And many Academy heros start with damaging spells. Light magic is useless early, but later on can be very powerful for a wizard - MotW + Divine Vengeance is amazing, and it works pretty well with Resurrection too. And Word of Light is pretty good now...
Sure fire trap is a nice spell against walkers (but does nothing against shooters) but the wizard is by no means guaranteed to get it. He could instead get Fist, which will not help him creep.

Wasp swarm +MOTW is nice for disabling a couple of stacks at the same time. But the wizard has a 1/3 chance of gettting it. He could get raise dead instead which will not help him creep. Or he could get arcane crystal which can help creep a little but has to be set off by wasting the gremlin's turn.

The warlock is guaranteed to have spells that will help him creep with 3 free turns of spell casting.

Stalkers are overpowered because of the free turns that the warlock is given and the fact that they don't have to fear being shot when they advance on shooters/casters.

GOW
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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Dec 2007, 16:00

Grumpy Old Wizard wrote: Shooters/casters are no longer a problem for the warlock.
It never was a problem.
Grumpy Old Wizard wrote: So are you saying the wizard can travel with only a few sabateurs and do the same thing a warlock can with a few stalkers? No? Then stalkers are overpowered.
Do you really want an answer to that? Do you really think everyone has to be able to do the exact same thing than everyone else, otherwise it's unbalanced or overpowered? For example, who can run around with a couple of unpgraded level 2 creatures, Gargoyles, and beat basic Druids? No one? Then Gargoyles are overpowered! Sure thing.
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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 07 Dec 2007, 16:11

Jolly Joker wrote:
Grumpy Old Wizard wrote: Shooters/casters are no longer a problem for the warlock.
It never was a problem.
Grumpy Old Wizard wrote: So are you saying the wizard can travel with only a few sabateurs and do the same thing a warlock can with a few stalkers? No? Then stalkers are overpowered.
Do you really want an answer to that? Do you really think everyone has to be able to do the exact same thing than everyone else, otherwise it's unbalanced or overpowered? For example, who can run around with a couple of unpgraded level 2 creatures, Gargoyles, and beat basic Druids? No one? Then Gargoyles are overpowered! Sure thing.
I think the factions have to have comparable abilities to accomplish things for them to be balanced. TOTE is in no way balanced at the moment.

2 stone gargoyles won't win against druids. Not to mention that they are level 2 creatures, not level 1.

2 stalkers can will against the druids and against high level creatures too.

Stalkers are overpowered

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Dec 2007, 16:22

No, you are wrong. Apart of the fact that I don't know why you take TWO stalkers (and Gargoyles): 2 Stalkers won't win either. The hero will win against them. A COUPLE of Gargoyles will win the same way because the hero will beat the druids as well.
So with that logic Gargoyles are overpowered as well, because they disable the casting of the Druids, allowing the hero to kill them. By the way, you can take Magnet Golems as well: they will kill all caster neutrals.
Just because you can do something with a unit you can't do with the others of the same level that unit isn't overpowered.
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Unread postby tb5841 » 07 Dec 2007, 16:48

The warlock can also restore his mana far away from town and wells with dark ritual so the warlock has a higher effectie knowledge than what is shown on the character screen.
Dark ritual costs a skill point, and then a whole day to use. Usually as a wizard, I'll leave my town on day 1, return once a few days later to learn some spells, and not stop moving until I have all my mines (maybe end of week 2?). Whereas with a Warlock, I can't get Stalkers until day 2, can't learn any useful spells from my mage guild until day 4 at the earliest, and probably have to spend a day in the first week just recovering mana - so I don't have enough movement points to get all my mines that early.
Or he could get arcane crystal which can help creep a little but has to be set off by wasting the gremlin's turn.
Arcane crystal completely stops shooters firing at you, which is very useful in creeping - for any team.
The warlock is guaranteed to have spells that will help him creep with 3 free turns of spell casting.
Guaranteed is a bit strong. Stone spikes/lightning bolt/fireball don't do huge amounts of damage early on. And in the first week, 3 free turns of spell casting = half your mana gone in just one battle.

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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 07 Dec 2007, 18:08

Jolly Joker wrote:No, you are wrong. Apart of the fact that I don't know why you take TWO stalkers (and Gargoyles): 2 Stalkers won't win either. The hero will win against them. A COUPLE of Gargoyles will win the same way because the hero will beat the druids as well.
So with that logic Gargoyles are overpowered as well, because they disable the casting of the Druids, allowing the hero to kill them. By the way, you can take Magnet Golems as well: they will kill all caster neutrals.
Just because you can do something with a unit you can't do with the others of the same level that unit isn't overpowered.
Because you said a wizard could defeat druids with a couple (2) of stone gargoyles. He cannot. The druids will shoot the gargoyles and the wizard will lose. Gargoyles can't turn invisible so even if druids couldn't use their spells they still shoot them eh?

On the other hand, a warlock with 2 stalkers can defeat the druids as well as defeat higher level creatures because the stalkers turn invisible and the warlock unloads his spells.

Overpowered.

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Dec 2007, 18:46

Still wrong and more so.
You know exactly what I mean. You wouldn't attack with 2 Stalkers depending one the number of druids and the number of stacks of them because you don't know the exact number and you could only kill so much with your mana. Moreover a druid stack MIGHT start before one of the stalkers. You always need the full number of stacks to guard against everything untoward.
And considering the weekly production of Gargoyles and Stalkers - and the cost as well - the Gargoyles are as "overpowered".
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Unread postby Grumpy Old Wizard » 07 Dec 2007, 19:36

Jolly Joker wrote:Still wrong and more so.
You know exactly what I mean. You wouldn't attack with 2 Stalkers depending one the number of druids and the number of stacks of them because you don't know the exact number and you could only kill so much with your mana. Moreover a druid stack MIGHT start before one of the stalkers. You always need the full number of stacks to guard against everything untoward.
And considering the weekly production of Gargoyles and Stalkers - and the cost as well - the Gargoyles are as "overpowered".
Lol. First of all gargoyles are second level creatures and stalkers are first level creatures. Secondly you can't honestly say that you can accomplish as much with week 1 gargoyles as you can with week 1 stalkers. Gargoyles do really pitiful damage and the wizad has to continually sacrifice them in virtually every single early battle.

Moreover, it is quite easy to send a second warlock out with a few stalkers to help creep.

Stalkers overpowered. Gargoyles not. You are the only one I have ever heard saying gargoyoles are overpowered! I think there is no way you can make a case for that.

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Unread postby Jolly Joker » 07 Dec 2007, 19:49

I don't.
You are making a case for Stalkers being overpowered. And I said, that I can make a case on the same grounds for Gargoyles being overpowered.
Besides, the level doesn't matter. Or didn't you notice that Gargoyles are way cheaper and more plentiful than Stalkers?
And lastly, OF COURSE you can creep with Gargoyles. MotW and Eldritch Arrow are already enough. You should try it.
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Unread postby Muszka » 07 Dec 2007, 20:34

The warlock can also restore his mana far away from town and wells with dark ritual so the warlock has a higher effectie knowledge than what is shown on the character screen.
I don't know how much knowledge you get with warloks in the first two weeks(creep), but my warlocks's mana won't survive more than two days, when I won battles only with spellcasting. And if I use dark ritual on every third day, I've lost much the advantage accumulated because of Stalkers.
tb5841 wrote: Dark ritual costs a skill point, and then a whole day to use. Usually as a wizard, I'll leave my town on day 1, return once a few days later to learn some spells, and not stop moving until I have all my mines (maybe end of week 2?). Whereas with a Warlock, I can't get Stalkers until day 2, can't learn any useful spells from my mage guild until day 4 at the earliest, and probably have to spend a day in the first week just recovering mana - so I don't have enough movement points to get all my mines that early.
Exactly I'm talking about.
The warlock is guaranteed to have spells that will help him creep with 3 free turns of spell casting.
The same problem: spellpoints.
[/quote]

Guaranteed is a bit strong. Stone spikes/lightning bolt/fireball don't do huge amounts of damage early on. And in the first week, 3 free turns of spell casting = half your mana gone in just one battle.[/quote]
Again: I agree.

As a result, Stalkers CAN help the hero to win a battle early on, that with other creatures he MAY not. But after that fight he surely must rest for a day (exception for the case of a nearly well).
And if we take in count that Dungeon's shooter part is a bit weak, the early minor creep advantage is not a big deal in overall.
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Unread postby Apocalypse » 09 Dec 2007, 12:54

JJ: Gargoyles disable the casting of the druids, while Stalkers disable both the shooting AND the casting of the druids. Plus they deal a lot more damage, so they also help the hero in defeating the Druids.

And the Druids (10 init) acting before the Stalkers (12 init) is a very small chance. The starting ATB of the Druids must be around 2.0 or more than that of the Stalkers...
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