HoMM III: Best level 3 creature

[Banedon]

You don't start with Ivor for the sake of this poll! Or do you see a hero mentioned in the poll question?
Moreover, this is not a poll about what combination of troops ans tactics allow best creeping in the first 2 weeks under all or certain difficulty levels.
So this is all irrelevant. The question is, what level 3 unit is best!

But as GC stated (who you so agree with) when he voted Centaur Caps best level 1: they have the best stats. Grand Elves haven't. Not by any stretch of imagination.

If you're playing Rampart, it's your fault for not starting with Ivor. Saying Grand Elves aren't the best level 3s because you may not start with Ivor is like saying Ancient Behemoths are bad creatures because you're rushing the Cyclops Kings instead, so by the time you have your Ancient Behemoths everyone else already had his / her tier 7 creatures for a week, thus outnumbering your Ancient Behemoths by 2. But it's not the fault of the Ancient Behemoths for being 'useless', it's the player's fault for not utilizing them properly. Ivor is here to help you, and if you choose not to start with him it's your loss.

In any case ~20 Grand Elves on day 8 is still very strong, and you should have that 20 Grand Elves if you want to get them.

As for Grand Elves not having the best stats, you don't get it. The important stats - damage and attack skill - is there, and that's good enough. Similarly, the Dwarves you mentioned are definitely superior to the Dwarves that are currently in the game because the important stats - HP and defense - are buffed. They have less attack, less damage, blah blah blah, but who cares? Having extra HP and defense allows them to do their job of absorbing retaliation and covering the Grand Elves better, and that's what matters.

[Muszka]

Eferets? Again? They are lvl 6 not lvl 3, nor lvl 2 nor lvl 1. This is childish. The poll is about lvl 3 not any other.

I know. What I mean is, if JJ bases his arguments that Grand Elves aren't that good because they cannot take out neutral Grand Elf stacks without much problems, then equally he ought to agree that Inferno should rush Efreet Sultans because Efreet Sultans can take out neutral Grand Elf stacks without much problems. See?

When playing against human, and in the battle I see his 300 Grand Elves, I'll surly tend to send something to block them, and if that something is Griffins, the GE are anihilated.

Wow, 300 Elves take a very long time to muster ... anyway one of the problems with using Griffins to block Grand Elves is that they can't cross the map in a single turn. That'd mean the Grand Elves get at least one shot off, and the Dendroids / Centaurs get the turn they need to barricade the Grand Elves in. That's assuming no Tactics on either side of course.

I see your point.
About the 300 GElves, I mean that in a big fights, I tend to see that the rush tactic is best. I cast mass haste and attack with everything. Of course even if I cast mass haste, against Rampart, after ArchAngels, GoldDragons would come next, and the enemy can cast mass slow, thus ruining my tactics. But once the elves got blocked, they are of no use. And playing against them my top priority task is blocking them.
I have no doubt that GE are excelent unit takeing in count even the fact that need defending. And their value is incrased by the fact that they are the only shooter of their town.

And I admit that I won't have RGriffins in the first two weeks. I admit that I won't buy them ArchAngels, but all in all in their level along with Cerberi they have the best use in the middle->middle-end, (and sometimes even in end-) game. Cerberies only negative is they are not fliers thus suffering from obstacles, an mostly from castle walls. As for Flies, I find them a bit fragiles, but nonetheless an outstanding unit especiall for speed. (but if it's the same question in WoG, I won't even bother thinking 'cos Berserker Flies are by far the best.)

[Jolly Joker]

Your personal rules how to play the game are not the only rules possible, that much should be obvious. The poll is about level 3. It's not about heroes or troop combinations, nor about what a unit may do on a certain diff level with a certain hero and certain support troops. It's not about "stats that matter" either. In short, it's not about IFs: IF you have this or that, if your hero has archery, if you have 20 or more the first week, if you play on easy difficulty, if you have tons of money and apply Banedons I-know-how-to-win-a-known-map-with-tons-of-money strategy-if-my-opponent-doesn't - all FACTORS to have a look upon, but still just FACTORS in a very large equation with LOTS of factors.

What you CAN sum up the Elves to is that they are a factor at any stage of the game - as an opponent you have to take them serious because they are able to do serious damage.
Which is true for Griffins as well, for example. They are definitely not out of any loop, as well as Cerberi.
You have to look past your obviously very limited gaming experience which concentrates on playing mp on a certain type of map and difficulty which is quite obviously only a small part of the game as such.

[Muszka]

But yes, morale boosts can seriously hurt the tactic. Nonetheless, the probability of that happening is really quite small - you need a stack that is strong enough to survive some rounds of really painful Grand Elf fire, and then it has to get good morale immediately after killing a blocker, and then it still has to be strong enough that it can both kill several Grand Elves and survive the soon-to-come Centaur Captain attack

Simple: RoyalGriffins. Not just they Survive because of big HP+growt, but they make GrandElves useless, since they won't worth striking with.

[Jolly Joker]

Cerberi as well. If you lose enough blockers - and Cerberi will kill a lot of them, once they connect - this seriously affects your creeping ability.

[Muszka]

Your personal rules how to play the game are not the only rules possible, that much should be obvious. The poll is about level 3. It's not about heroes or troop combinations, nor about what a unit may do on a certain diff level with a certain hero and certain support troops. It's not about "stats that matter" either. In short, it's not about IFs: IF you have this or that, if your hero has archery, if you have 20 or more the first week, if you play on easy difficulty, if you have tons of money and apply Banedons I-know-how-to-win-a-known-map-with-tons-of-money strategy-if-my-opponent-doesn't - all FACTORS to have a look upon, but still just FACTORS in a very large equation with LOTS of factors.

What you CAN sum up the Elves to is that they are a factor at any stage of the game - as an opponent you have to take them serious because they are able to do serious damage.
Which is true for Griffins as well, for example. They are definitely not out of any loop, as well as Cerberi.
You have to look past your obviously very limited gaming experience which concentrates on playing mp on a certain type of map and difficulty which is quite obviously only a small part of the game as such.

Agreed

[Gaidal Cain]

Cerberi as well. If you lose enough blockers - and Cerberi will kill a lot of them, once they connect - this seriously affects your creeping ability.

And getting into a fight with other Royal Griffins won't hurt your Griffin's abilities to continue fighting?

Oh, and I find

About the 300 GElves, I mean that in a big fights, I tend to see that the rush tactic is best. I cast mass haste and attack with everything. Of course even if I cast mass haste, against Rampart, after ArchAngels, GoldDragons would come next, and the enemy can cast mass slow, thus ruining my tactics. But once the elves got blocked, they are of no use. And playing against them my top priority task is blocking them.

very telling. Grand Elves are so dangerous that you need to move a stack over to the other side of the field, where it's very vulnerable, just to get rid of a third level unit (when you're playing Castle, with two good shooters of your own, no less). Would you do the same just to kill Griffins or Dragonflies?

[Jolly Joker]

Cerberi as well. If you lose enough blockers - and Cerberi will kill a lot of them, once they connect - this seriously affects your creeping ability.

And getting into a fight with other Royal Griffins won't hurt your Griffin's abilities to continue fighting?

No, the Marksmen they have as blockers to make up for the blockers the Elves have divert them.

[Gaidal Cain]

I can't get any sense out of that sentence (and not as in "you're wrong", but as in "that's not English").

[Muszka]

Oh, and I find

About the 300 GElves, I mean that in a big fights, I tend to see that the rush tactic is best. I cast mass haste and attack with everything. Of course even if I cast mass haste, against Rampart, after ArchAngels, GoldDragons would come next, and the enemy can cast mass slow, thus ruining my tactics. But once the elves got blocked, they are of no use. And playing against them my top priority task is blocking them.

very telling. Grand Elves are so dangerous that you need to move a stack over to the other side of the field, where it's very vulnerable, just to get rid of a third level unit (when you're playing Castle, with two good shooters of your own, no less). Would you do the same just to kill Griffins or Dragonflies?

I never said that GE aren't dangerous. They are an Edge Attackers. If not blocked they are a terrible force in their corresponding lvl. And yes if I see 300 or even 200 elves and I see that rushing to them comes with fewer losses than staying back I will attack them.

Anyone can draw thousands of situation where GE would win or lose.
I agree JJ in that Grand Elves are elit troops only with guards. But they are very helping in creeping, brobably more, than any 3rd lvl troop.
But I don't agree JJ in that you can rate a creature only in one on one battles. If you do so, the Grand Elves would be extremly weak, they would lose agains almost everything.
The rate can be done calculating in the troop's help to the army, the work that the respectiv troop does in a won battle. If we look at things like this GE power is incrased. They have great role in the Rampart army.

[Jolly Joker]

I don't say you rate units one on one only.
I said the everything should be factored in.

@ GC
No, the Marksmen which the Griffins have as blockers - to make up for the blockers the Elves have - divert the Griffins that are attacking me.
Clearer now?

[Gaidal Cain]

No, the Marksmen which the Griffins have as blockers - to make up for the blockers the Elves have - divert the Griffins that are attacking me.
Clearer now?

So the Oh so great Griffins does in fact not win that battle themselves but do so through the aid of the Marksmen. And yet you hold it against the Grand Elves that they lose that battle badly without bodyguards. I rest my case.

[Muszka]

I don't say you rate units one on one only.
I said the everything should be factored in.

Then you must agree with me in that Banedon and GC are true when they tell that GrandElves are great, since 'Bodyguards' can be a factor.

[Banedon]

Your personal rules how to play the game are not the only rules possible, that much should be obvious. The poll is about level 3. It's not about heroes or troop combinations, nor about what a unit may do on a certain diff level with a certain hero and certain support troops. It's not about "stats that matter" either. In short, it's not about IFs: IF you have this or that, if your hero has archery, if you have 20 or more the first week, if you play on easy difficulty, if you have tons of money and apply Banedons I-know-how-to-win-a-known-map-with-tons-of-money strategy-if-my-opponent-doesn't - all FACTORS to have a look upon, but still just FACTORS in a very large equation with LOTS of factors.

What personal rules? There is no rule saying you can't pick your hero and your bonus and your town at the start. There is no rule saying you can't know the map, or that you have to pick a map which you know intimately and your opponent doesn't. There is no rule saying you must give your opponent a chance when you can eliminate him. And of course, there is no rule saying you have to play a map with tons of money. You're using almost exactly the same arguments I used against csarmi, and unfortunately, you're missing the point. I'll just point out that I reached the Dragon Cliffs at the end of the second week with Rampart / All For One / Hard difficulty. I doubt you can do that even if you tried.

And - there is absolutely no reason why you should not have anything less than 20 Grand Elves on day 8. You should, in fact, have more: you get 7 from the Homestead, then 14 at the start of the new week, which is 21. This is without Ivor, and assuming none of the heroes you hire come with any Elves.

PS: Not starting with Ivor (unless you get to pick Kyrre, of course) is just like not learning Tactics with Stronghold. Again - it is not the fault of the Elves, it's the fault of the player.
PPS: You can go ahead and say the Rampart player should not have 21 Elves on Impossible difficulty, I'll point out that he should on all the other difficulties.
PPPS: I find it really hilarious how you can pick a map which you know and your opponent doesn't. That simply means your opponent is either mediocre or else not doing his homework, and that's not your fault. It's your opponent's.

You have to look past your obviously very limited gaming experience which concentrates on playing mp on a certain type of map and difficulty which is quite obviously only a small part of the game as such.

Lol, the more I think of it the more it seems that it is you who lack the gaming experience, and that all the games you've played involved no more than decent players, and that you've never really played for speed. I'm not going to press this though until I attempt the Inferno game, and I prefer you not provoke me.

Cerberi as well. If you lose enough blockers - and Cerberi will kill a lot of them, once they connect - this seriously affects your creeping ability.

Why should you lose enough blockers? You have 6 stacks of them. Even assuming the Cerberi kill two blocker stacks in a go, you still have three turns to feather all of them, and that's not counting the time they take to get over.

As for Royal Griffins, this isn't the final battle. It's the expansion phase. So growth does not matter, and (once again) they can be blocked and barricaded to death.

Grand Elves are so dangerous that you need to move a stack over to the other side of the field, where it's very vulnerable, just to get rid of a third level unit (when you're playing Castle, with two good shooters of your own, no less). Would you do the same just to kill Griffins or Dragonflies?

Fully agreed, and that's the point. Saying Grand Elves are worthless once they are blocked is almost equivalent to saying Mighty Gorgons are worthless once their retaliation gets stolen and Archangels attack them. Of course the Rampart player isn't going to let the Grand Elves get blocked, and if he does, he's either not playing well, taking a calculated risk or circumstances leave him no choice (eg. you send Archangels over to block the Grand Elves on turn 1).

[asandir]

it was either the grand elf or the dragonfly for me .... grand elf won in a pinch

[Muszka]

Saying Grand Elves are worthless once they are blocked is almost equivalent to saying Mighty Gorgons are worthless once their retaliation gets stolen and Archangels attack them. Of course the Rampart player isn't going to let the Grand Elves get blocked, and if he does, he's either not playing well, taking a calculated risk or circumstances leave him no choice (eg. you send Archangels over to block the Grand Elves on turn 1).

I was talking about Rgriffins blocking Gelves. How do Archangels and Mgorgons got involved, I don't know.
You really want to say, that you'll hit(melee) Rgriffins with Gelves? It's suicide and/or worthless.

[Banedon]

I was talking about Rgriffins blocking Gelves. How do Archangels and Mgorgons got involved, I don't know.
You really want to say, that you'll hit(melee) Rgriffins with Gelves? It's suicide and/or worthless.

No, the point is that the Royal Griffins should not get through to the Grand Elves in the first place (unless it's already past a very tough fight to get through the guards).

Think about it. In a full-fledged late-game firefight, the Grand Elves will have a minimum of three bodyguards: the Dwarves, the Dendroids and the Centaurs. To destroy all three of them is not going to be easy, yet unless you destroy them the Royal Griffins aren't going to be able to block the Grand Elves. If, for some reason, the Royal Griffins do manage to block the Grand Elves early in the battle, the Rampart player must have done something grievously wrong - in other words, he isn't using those Grand Elves properly. The Grand Elves should not get blocked early in a fight against Castle unless the Castle side flies the Archangels over to block the Elves.

[PhoenixReborn]

JJ and Banedon should play some matches. Perhaps 10 games across various map types and difficulty.

It might save the constant arguing in every thread in this subsection...of course I don't mind really, I'm learning, since heroes III is the one I've played the least.

[Humakt]

JJ and Banedon should play some matches. Perhaps 10 games across various map types and difficulty.

Even better, they could go and get their behinds kicked by some ToH veterans. Would teach those two some humility.

[Jolly Joker]

Your personal rules how to play the game are not the only rules possible, that much should be obvious.

What personal rules? ... I'll just point out that I reached the Dragon Cliffs at the end of the second week with Rampart / All For One / Hard difficulty. I doubt you can do that even if you tried.

You have to look past your obviously very limited gaming experience which concentrates on playing mp on a certain type of map and difficulty which is quite obviously only a small part of the game as such.

No more words necessary.