Fire/Air/Water/Earth Schools in HOMM3

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I liked how they distributed the preferences of schools among the 8 original towns.

Here is how I always viewed them. 4 towns focus on 1 element and 4 towns focus on a combination of 2 elements... with each town having what I like to call a few "signature spells".

Tower: Air.
Signature spells: Lightning, Chain Lightning, Summon Air Elemental.

Dungeon: Earth.
Signature spells: Meteor Shower, Implosion, Summon Earth Elemental.

Rampart: Water.
Signature spells: Ice Bolt, Frost Ring, Summon Water Elemental.

Inferno: Fire.
Signature spells: Fireball, Inferno, Summon Fire Elemental.

Castle: Water & Air.
Signature spells: Bless, Prayer, Destroy Undead.

Necropolis: Earth & Fire.
Signature spells: Curse, Death Ripple, Animate Dead.

Stronghold: Fire & Air.
Signature spells: Haste, Bloodlust.

Fortress: Water & Earth.
Signature spells: Stone Skin, Weakness.

[Muszka]

Interesting ideas indeed.

[Yurian Stonebow]

Agreed. These are good "stereotypes" concerning the various factions described here.




Yurian

[Jolly Joker]

I disagree somewhat.
Castle is the only school that doesn't have Earth in reach. Castle, for me is the Water town. If there is another school it's Air.
Necro is full Earth, even though they WILL get another school, but that could be everything.
Inferno is full Fire.
Tower is full Air.
Rampart is Earth with Water
Fortress is Water with Earth
Dungeon is Earth and Fire
Stronghold is Air and Earth

I disagree with the spells as well.
Dungeon IS Armgeddon and Inferno IS Berserk and so on.

[Corbon]

You can separate Water + Air and Earth + Fire by giving them an "alignment". Water and Wind can be considered "good" schools, while Earth and Fire are the "evil" schools.

Water is life. It has purifying and cleaning properties. Without it, life as we know it wouldn't be possible. It does however have a destructive attribute, in form of floods.

Wind is usually associated with the Heaven. Heaven is the opposite of Hell, therefore it serves a "good" cause. It does have tremendous destructive potential (anyone from New Orleans? >_>), especially in combination with water, but it may be used as an energy source.

Fire is usually associated with Hell but as with Water, life wouldn't be possible without it (Sun). Besides giving warmth, there aren't many other positive aspects. It's also somewhat "chaotic" and uncontrollable.

Earth is closely connected to death (graves, combustion) but does have some good properties (grains, corn fields). All in all the least "good" spell.


I think the programmers did a good job in giving each school attributes you'd give them in real life.

Water: Heal, Buff
Primary Town: Castle

Wind: Damage, Buff
Primary Town: Tower

Fire: Buff, Debuff
Primary Town: Inferno

Earth: Damage Debuff
Primary Town: Necropolis

[Muszka]

Castle is the only school that doesn't have Earth in reach.

Actually UHO never wrote that Earth is aligned with Castle. But if you disagree with the fact how NWC made up the schools, than I second you. I hate when I can't get Earth M. that's a big drawback of knights.

[Jolly Joker]

Okay, for better reference:

Tower: Air.
Signature spells: Lightning, Chain Lightning, Summon Air Elemental.

Agreed. Additional signature spell: Fly

Dungeon: Earth.
Signature spells: Meteor Shower, Implosion, Summon Earth Elemental.

Disagree. Mixed Earth and Fire. Signature spell: Armageddon, Stone Skin.

Rampart: Water.
Signature spells: Ice Bolt, Frost Ring, Summon Water Elemental.

Disagree. Mixed Earth and Water.

Inferno: Fire.
Signature spells: Fireball, Inferno, Summon Fire Elemental.

Agreed. Additional spells: Curse, Berzerk.

Castle: Water & Air.
Signature spells: Bless, Prayer, Destroy Undead.

Disagreed. Pure Water

Necropolis: Earth & Fire.
Signature spells: Curse, Death Ripple, Animate Dead.

Disagreed. Pure Earth. Can have every other school.

Stronghold: Fire & Air.
Signature spells: Haste, Bloodlust.

Disagreed: Air and Earth. Bloodlust is just because of Ogre Lords.

Fortress: Water & Earth.
Signature spells: Stone Skin, Weakness.

Agreed. Additional spells: Teleport.

As an addition Inferno and Tower HAVE Earth magic available, without actually being "aligned" to it, while Castle is the only town without any connection to Earth.

Note that this has the clear adversaries:
Castle-Inferno
Necropolis-Tower
Dungeon-Rampart (with the same Earthly connection, but the opposing second element)
and two neutrals, Air-Earth, Water-Earth.

[Muszka]

Ehumm.... Maybe...

[Jolly Joker]

Of course there is the slight problem that the Necro-Tower thing is Heroes 5.
In 3 we had the Dungeon-Tower thing going, but the sad thing is that the Dungeon-Tower thing isn't reflected in the magic.

[Corbon]

It's interesting to note that every school has two important Lv 1-2 key spells which can be used by everyone and remain useful throughout the game.

Air: Haste, Lightning Bolt
Water: Bless, Cure
Fire: Blind, Curse
Earth: Slow, Shield

[Muszka]

Otherwise it wouldn't worth picking those schools.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Jolly Joker, I agree with you about Armageddon (for dungeon) and Teleport (for Fortress). I would also add Earthquake for both Stronghold and Fortress.

But Curse is clearly an Undead, and Necromancy signature spell.
In both Heroes 2 and Heroes 3, there is a creature in their lineup who can cast it automatically (Mummies and Black Knights, respectively). And Undead units are immune to bless (and curse), so they have to resort to cursing their enemies instead of blessing themselves.

The animation in both H2 and H3 is that of an evil skull shaped wand.

And finally, in most RPGs, the Necromancer character class usually has a plethora of "curse" like spells and effects in his arsenal.

[Jolly Joker]

I have no problem with the Curse spell for Necro as such - I don't have a problem with Bloodlust as a signature spell either.

But that doesn't make them Fire affiliated: not in terms of spells - the Stronghold cannot get Curse, for example. The game mechanics for heroes paint a pretty clear picture and that's underlined by the spell selection in that towns.
For Stronghold Fire Magic comes right after Water Magic in terms of what they don't get
For Necropolis, this is clearly the Earth town: it's all the undead have. In terms of game mechanics I think the order is Water, Fire, Air, but considering Death Knights their heroes as a whole have with Tower the biggest magic affiliation and Necro is simply fully rooted in Earth but they may find everything else as support (but eventually they will return to Animating the graves)
With Tower it's basically the same, only with AIR instead of Earth.

Now compare the Dungeon and the Rampart. Both rooted in Earth (the Rangers), but the second support is the healing support, the Water (Druids). With the Dungeon it's the opposite. Overlords as a representative of the underground Dungeon fully rooted in Earth, Warlocks supporting with brutal Fire.

The interesting thing here is for me, that the basic structures NIVAL put into Heroes V are there in Heroes III without NWC realizing it, since THEY had the Dungeon-Tower thing going (which left Rampart/Necro).

Strange, somehow.

[Corbon]

The reason why Curse is a Fire spell is simply a balancing issue and a Heroes thing. There's no real "Dark Magic" in Heroes, with Earth taking the spot and Water being the "Holy" equivalent. Also, the EFFECT of cursing an enemy varies from game to game, whether it's only dealing low-end damage, half damage or not being able to strike at all, but it's always associated with "evil" magic. On the other hand, spells like Bloodlust, Frenzy and Slayer clearly compliment the already high physical damage output of Stronghold.

This is how I would sort them.

Tower: Air
Dungeon: Fire & Earth
Rampart: Water & Wind
Inferno: Fire
Castle: Water
Necropolis: Earth
Stronghold: Fire & Air
Fortress: Water & Earth
Conflux: (Everything)

[UndeadHalfOrc]

The reason why Curse is a Fire spell is simply a balancing issue and a Heroes thing. There's no real "Dark Magic" in Heroes, with Earth taking the spot

I still view the combo of Earth and Fire as the "dark magic" equivalent.
Sacrifice, while unusable by Undead, sounds pretty evil and dark-ish to me.
Armageddon & Sacrifice (Fire in HOMM3) are Dark Magic spells in the Might and Magic games.

and Water being the "Holy" equivalent.

Destroy Undead is an Air spell, and clearly a Holy spell. So are Bless and Prayer, which are Water. Hence, the "holy" town, Castle, is Water/Air

[Muszka]

Sacrifice, while unusable by Undead, sounds pretty evil and dark-ish to me.

Dark doesn't mean only undead. It means infernal and other kinds of evil too, like Dungeon for example. Also it's an awful thing when a barbarian hero Sacrifices his big stack of Goblins for some nice horde of Behemoths (Of course this is a rare case...)

[Corbon]

Sacrifice doesn't need to have an evil connotation. Think about the righteous warrior cliché who sacrifices himself by holding up the enemy so that his companions won't be harmed and are able to escape. But in the Heroes world it's definitely not a pleasant thing, giving the term fodder a completely new meaning.

As for Destroy Undead, you could switch the spell with Teleport and they would fit into the respective schools quite nicely. More likely a balancing issue as well.

[Gaidal Cain]

I don't see how it would be a balance issue. Water has several excellent combat spells already, Air has one you'd want the school for.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Additionally, each school (kind of... if you play with my patch ) already has its own kind of teleport spell...

Air - Dimension Door
Water - Teleport
Earth/Fire - Town Portal (hey, Inferno's Castle Gate is ungulfed in flames, so why not make it a Fire spell as well)

Besides Earth is opposite to Air, so it makes senses that the opposite spell to Death Ripple (an Earth spell) would be Air. The icon even depicts an angel blowing a strong gust, scattering the skeleton's bones

[HodgePodge]

Hmmm, which is the best?