Heroes and abilities

[Nelphine]

Unfortunately I simply don't use heroes enough to be able to help much here on the lower tiers.

However, I do use champions, and the wind mage, at least a little bit.

Personally, I'd like to take abilities like charmed, and make them worth more for low tier (3 at fame 0, reducing by 0.5 per extra tier). The later you are in the game, the more likely you have abilities like items with appropriate immunities, powerful items with +resist, or strong spells like lionheart to buff your hero, which make charmed meaningless. Torin in my current game has something like 31 resistance.

Other things that are better for lower tiers are all 5 types of resource generation. Yes the necromancer gets them, but the sage is worth more at the time you actually get him (only in terms of resource generation.)

In the reverse, caster gets better by tier as you get more and more spells that can singlehandedly win combats - casting multiple such spells is unbelievably powerful.

I'd also suggest super agility be worth double regular agility; unlike most stats, the more you stack armor, the better it is, as it gets increasingly close to simply negating all damage.


For the heroes I do use:
Wind mage: 25 (overland movement wins.)
Illusionist 20 (quick casting is unbelievably amazing in someone with 100+ casting skill - massacre - or whichever is the hit everyone version - with a -5 or better save penalty, cast twice, on the first turn? Casting high prayer and supreme light and blur all on the first turn? Casting entangle and call lightning and web? Heck just casting 3 webs per turn? Mind storm + whatever? The list goes on)
Swordsman 15
Priestess 16 (unless using something like bezerkers, she's simply too much support. And honestly, a unit of unicorns is usually more than enough for bezerkers, so she's overkill. Still better than melee champions of course.)
Paladin 15
Black Knight 15
Elven Archer 16 (I don't care about melee heroes. Items make heroes strong in melee, I don't need to have any strong melee abilities to one shot opponents. So having a ranged attack as well Is more important and blademaster makes her better than the priestess. Editted as per comment under chaos warrior.)
The Knight 6 (no caster... At this point of the game that just means he can't cast a very rare combat spell on the first turn of combat, which makes him just useless compared to others on this list. Zaldron is quite literally better than the knight at this stage of the game. If black knight doesn't get caster, reduce him to this level too.)
Necromancer 22 (super soul linker is .. obnoxiously good. I don't care about anything else as much except wind walking. You can literally build strategies around the necromancer. Yes this means super soul link beastmaster is also a 20 and that is a hero I do use if I see him.)
Chaos Warrior 16 (ranged attacks and caster. Same as priestess with different abilities. I'd understand an argument matching the elven Archer instead. So 17. Realistically I use all 3 for caster and the actual strength of their ranged attack doesn't really matter. They all kill things effeciently. So I guess all 3 should be 16.)

[Nelphine]

Putting this into the list for abilities:

0.5 points : anything else
1 point + 1 per tier (+0.5 for each extra rolled level) : Caster (so this is worth 5 base for champions, +0.5 for each extra level rolled; whereas a tier 0 hero it's worth 1 + 0.5 if it rolls extra levels)
1 points : Web spell, Pathfinding, high starting health/RES, Healer, Missile/Poison/Fire/Cold/Death/Illusion Immunity, Water Walking, Capacity, Armsmaster, Destruction, Might, Arcane Power
2 points - 0.5 point per tier (0 for champions) : Noble
2 points : high base armor, random ability, Thrown, Breath, Supply Commander, having spells with unique valuable high impact effects, Blademaster, Guiding Beacon, Divine Barrier, Armor Piercing, First Strike, Prayermaster, Leadership
3 points - 0.5 per tier (so 1 point for champions) : Charmed, Legendary, Sage, Ritual Master, Aether Master
3 points : Agility (super agility is double, therefore 6 points, which is an exception to the normal super bonus), Lucky, Holy Bonus, Constitution, Flying, Logistics (letting ranged units outrun drakes is extremely funny), Battlemage (better than in combat regeneration)
4 points : Invisibility, Illusion
6 points : Soul Linker
7 points : Quick Casting
10 points : wind walking (this should actually be 5 points since I know im biased about overland movement)

Edit: aether master wasn't on your list, so I added it with the other resources, instead of leaving it as 0.5 misc

[Nelphine]

I'll post a list of where all current heroes fall based on my points, and then do a comparison with the list of heroes you think need to be changed.

[Seravy]

AEther Master? My table doesn't show any hero that has that. Is it outdated?

Edit : Huntress says +1 To Hit on thread but it doesn't actually has that bonus right now. Elven Archer does have it though so I guess I need to raise her score by 1.

[Nelphine]

Maybe none have it. I put it in just in case.

[Seravy]

Logistics as 3 is a good idea, I didn't really think about it because it only appeared on one hero. Giving it to the Knight sounds appropriate and could boost the hero's value quite a bit. (Probably still the weakest champion though, as his other abilities are not that useful for late game, but at least he has plenty of them.)

[Nelphine]

Heroes based on my numbers:
Note: I have given a +0.5 for a ranged attack, although I'm not sure you intended that. Still, it matches my experience, so I'm including it.

Tier 0:
Dwarf - 5.5
Barbarian - 4
Sage - 7.5 (includes +2 for dispelling wave ; I'm going to mark each time a spell impacts it, as that is technically subjective.)
Dervish - 5.5
Beastmaster - 10.5
Orc Warrior - 5
Healer - 6
Thief - 9
Druid - 5.5

Tier 1:
Bard - 7
Huntress - 5.5 (+ anything for that +1 to hit? if she actually gets it, I would actually count that as a 1 point bonus, not a 0.5, so she'd be 6.5)
War Monk - 10
Warrior Mage - 9.5 (I included an extra +0.5 for web. I don't think it's a full super spell, but the web ability is worth 1, so I think it should be worth something.)
Assassin - 7.5
Rogue - 7.75 (included 3.75 for super legendary; 2.5 for tier 1 +50% = 3.75)
- ALSO this is spelled Rouge in the first page of this thread, which is wrong.. Rogue is the correct spelling...

Tier 2:
Wind Mage - 14.5
Ranger - 14
Draconian - 10
Witch - 12.5 (included +2 for the combination of possession/black prayer)
Golden One - 10.5

Tier 3:
Magician - 11.5 (I only included +1 for flame strike instead of the +2 for a major spell)
Ninja - 12
Amazon - 9
Warlock - 11.75 (included 2.25 for super ritual master, as its 1.5 for tier 3 +50% is 2.25. Also added 0.5 for ranged attack though technically it's not listed)
Unknown - 15.5 (I'm actually ok with him being noticeably higher than others of his tier, as it's all random.)

Tier 4 (Champion):
Illusionist - 24.5 (included +1 for mindstorm, and +0.5 for ranged attack although technically not listed)
Swordsman - 19
Priestess - 16.5 (added +0.5 for ranged attack, although technically not listed)
Paladin - 11.5
Black Knight - 14
Elven Archer - 17.5 (included 1 for +1 to hit)
Knight - 12.5
Necromancer - 23.5 (included 2 for animate dead, and +0.5 for ranged attack although technically not listed)
Chaos Warrior - 19

Incarnation (not a standard tier, but count as champion, tier 4, for pricing)
Chosen One - 32.5 (included 2 for healing and mass healing)

[Nelphine]

If I had to call it, I'd say ballpark (based on discussions on problem heroes below) should be:

Tier 0: 5.5
Tier 1: 8 (originally I had thought 7.5)
Tier 2: 10.5 (originally I had thought 10)
Tier 3: 13 (originally I had thought 12.5)
Tier 4 (Champion): ?? maybe 20? (Quick casting and super soul linker really make this tier awkward)

And Incarnation is MILES ahead of Summon Champion. Which is probably OK? I'm not sure. Honestly, he might need to be toned down.

Heroes that are definitely problems:
Tier 0:
Beastmaster should be tier 1, and then just say screw it, accept that he's overpowered; the AI need him early, and his abilities are a good mix. Given that a bunch of his abilities really aren't that relevant (forester, scouting), he's not actually that much higher than tier 1, especially if (as below) tier 1 gets moved up to an expected 8.
Thief should be tier 1, and toned down? Or tier 2 and get a random misc ability to bring to 9.5 (like high scouting maybe). Oh but being in a higher tier will reduce the value of charmed, so she'd be down to 8.5 even with scouting.. would need to add something else for tier 2. Probably better to move to tier 1, where she would be worth 8.5 without scouting; and (as below) we want tier 1 to be 8, so 8.5 is acceptable.

Tier 1:
Huntress should be tier 1, and not get the +1 to hit. Swap with Beastmaster
War Monk should be toned down or moved to tier 2. I would say lose a random ability, and stay at tier 1.
Warrior Mage should lose the random ability but i really don't like that. Random abilities are GREAT. Lose agility and get might instead? Or arcane power instead? Actually, I really wish we could give him a second random ability, but force it to choose between might and arcane power. (It would then only be worth 1 despite being random, since both of those powers are worth 1.)

Tier 2:
Witch should lose black prayer; then she really can't have a justified bonus from spells, and is fine where she is.
Wind mage should lose guiding beacon, and drop to caster level 1. He's still a little high, but that's due to windwalking. Since summon hero makes it hard to actually get him, should be ok. Alternatively, drop to caster level 1 and move him to tier 3.
Ranger: Swap to tier 3, and still I'd drop the caster level to 1.
Actually at this point, witch, golden one, and ranger are all 10.5, wind mage is 11.5; so let's make tier 2 worth 10.5, and give a random misc ability to the Draconian. Then we could also make tier 1 worth 8, and consider granting random stuff there too.
I don't see anyone here we could swap for the thief; can we just add an extra person to a tier? Or do we have slot space issues?

Tier 3:
Generally underpowered even given the caster bias and the ninja getting invisibility. I would literally just add random stuff to this tier. And pick one, probably Amazon, and swap to tier 2 to replace the ranger. Consider picking another one, probably the magician and swap to tier 2 for the wind mage.
The Unknown is fine to say above the expected 13, given that he's purely random.
However, if we do increase tier 2 to 10.5, we really should make tier 1 worth 8; that way each of the hero tiers are exactly 2.5 apart.

Champions:
All over the place. Non casters suck, but that is expected given my formula. I really do think it's justified though; combat spells WIN things - that's why attacking with a spearman is a thing. However, I don't

[Seravy]

Interesting.

Based on that I'd need to make the Huntress tier 0. However that puts 4 out of the 5 archer heroes in that tier which is not very good. On the other hand, Super Legendary on tier 0 is kinda too powerful (30 fame with heroism is enough to unlock the second best tier with Just Cause) albeit, it does cost you a slot so the chance of getting another hero is quite a bit lower.

We seem to agree the Thief is stronger than its tier. Also that Huntress is too weak.

Surprised to see Ranger at 14, why? No spells, 2 random abilities, Lucky is really the only high value thing that hero has. Even the caster level is far below average.

I understand you rate Wind Walking higher, personally I find it good but not that outstanding anymore (yes it's twice as fast as a wraith form or flying warship if you have 4 move worth of items but idk. Unless playing mono-Life, or mono-Nature, you'll have some sort of transport and 4 is usually the amount you need to reach the next city in a turn. You can even have 5 with Endurance on the ship.)

Weird to see the Amazon and Paladin rate that low, I consider those the best melee heroes.

[Seravy]

can we just add an extra person to a tier?

We can but that increases the probability of getting that tier and reduces whichever is missing the hero. So I rather not, the 10/5/5/5/9 distribution is about the best we can have.

I really do think it's justified though; combat spells WIN things

Nothing prevents you from giving your melee heroes an item with your best combat spell in it (up to 4 times, even). Except for the casting cost of course, assuming you also want stats on that weapon it is expensive...