LIFE Realm

[Nelphine]

That's the point catwalk. Its too slow to make your hero op. So you could cast it and wait for the hero to grow.. Or you could just use your hero how you were going to anyway. Now its actually a choice.

[zitro1987]

What about this :

Heroism
The target non-hero unit becomes Elite. The target hero unit receives +5 experience at the end of turn. The spell is automatically dispelled if the unit reaches Elite.

or something like it. The idea is, you don't get the levels instantly, but get it over time instead.

That is a good solution I didn't think of: helps both units and heroes in a more balanced approach. Please do it!


Any thoughts on tackling the 'extreme armor stacking' topic of earlier? (particularly the +2 to defend issue)
*My thought remains with re-thinking the 'endurance' effect to be a cheaper +1 armor/movement.

[Seravy]

Any thoughts on tackling the 'extreme armor stacking' topic of earlier? (particularly the +2 to defend issue)
*My thought remains with re-thinking the 'endurance' effect to be a cheaper +1 armor/movement.

I believe the "to Def" cap is enough to fix that part of the problem.

A hero can get :
+2 from levels (heroism is +1 here)
+13 from Agility* (heroism is up to +6 here)
+18 from equipment (6 from weapon, 4 from accessory and 8 from armor)
+2 from Holy Armor
+5 from Iron Skin
+3 from Chaos Channels
~5 base at level 1
+6 is the rough value of Invulnerability in shields (but much more in some cases)
+2 from Tactician
and with the current cap, +5 from each + To Def, including
+5 for Prayer
+5 for Endurance  or Teleportation
+5 to +15 from Soul Linker if Chaos Chanelled, Raised, Undead or Chosen
+5 from Lucky/Divine Protection
+2 from Land Linking if Chaos Chanelled, Raised, Undead or Chosen
+2 for Survival Instinct if Chaos Chanelled, Raised, Undead or Chosen
+2 for Chaos Node Aura if Chaos Chanelled

So yes, stacking defense is troublesome but removing a single line out of these isn't a solution. And even at 20 the hero is near invincible to all multifigure units, while the above table shows they can get up to twice as much, and that much just from having 3 pieces of equipment with nothing but non-maximal defense on them (+4/+5/+4 and holy armor or tactician).
This problem is unfixable by nerfing unless we want to nerf every single source of defense in the game to the point where it's unusable without stacking. This is just how defense works - it counters all multi figure units, that's what it is meant to do.
My preferred approach to fix this problem is to provide enough ways to pierce or ignore defense (or have high enough attack power to still deal damage) to keep the heroes vulnerable, as I don't think there is any other way.

I don't particularly like the experience idea but depending on Catwalk's test games, we might try it. My main concern is the same what he says, I don't like it when a spell has two different effects based on the target, it's confusing. So it's somewhat of a last resort idea.

[zitro1987]

So, what is good against a high-armored hero? There's actually a decent number of options and if AI knows what it's doing, can stop them. A priority for AI is to learn how to kill 20+ armor heroes. Given AI was taught by you strategies against certain units, it can potentially do the same against heroes regardless of realm (though 'life' has nearly nothing)

one star (*) - can contribute
two star (**) - ideal

Neutral:
**Warlocks
**Other Heroes

Life:
*Archangel (damages a hero)
*Unit buffs, if significant, can allow them to damage heroes.
**Buffs on heroes

Death:
*Syphon Life (if items not very resistance-based, can do serious damage)
** Blood Lust (double-melee can be enough, especially on advanced units)
**Annihilate (if items not very resistance-based, can kill a hero)
**Death Knights (armor-piercing, resistance-based attack)
**Demon Lord (can do damage, plus a doom bolt)

Sorcery:
*Psionic Blast - can do damage, especially with a group of magicians
**Phantom Beast (0 armor effect)
*Aether Binding (combined with dispelling spells to take out armor, prayer)
*Mind Storm (5 fewer armor/resistance -> followed by other tactics)
*Storm Giant - can do damage
**Sky Drake - can do damage, especially if attacking

Chaos:
**Lightning Bolt - can do damage. A group of focus-magic magicians can likely down a high-armor hero in 1 turn
**Doom Bolt - predictable 10 damage. Just 2-3 will kill a hero
**Doom Bat - predictable 8 damage and fast moving. Some heroes can't kill them in 1 hit
**Call The Void - For those heroes inside cities.
**Great Drake - can kill a high-armor hero in 2-3 hits

Nature:
**Crack's Call - sometimes 20 damage is all you need to do, but risky and time consuming. AI is pretty good with it.
*Cockactrice - may kill a hero if resistance is not high enough
*Colossus - will damage a hero a few times
*Great Wyrm - will deal significant damage to a hero and has high hp

[Tlaloc]

Other ideas to balance Heroism for heroes: increase its maintenance cost when cast on heroes (not sure if this is doable), or make it uncommon.

[namad]

Other ideas to balance Heroism for heroes: increase its maintenance cost when cast on heroes (not sure if this is doable), or make it uncommon.

I think uncommon heroism is bad, because, well, stuff like war college. Heroism is really strong early on, but at some point very late it becomes fairly weak.

EDIT: don't wanna double post, but another idea to nerf heroism, don't nerf heroism just buff nagas and whatever else you need to even it out?

[Catwalk]

Heroism for non-heroes only solves all problems with it. Easy fix, it'll still be a very good spell worth picking.

[Catwalk]

Healer should be moved from Arch Angel to Angel. It's a low-end ability by the time you have access to Very Rare spells, it would be far more useful on Angels.

[Nelphine]

But it's perfect with the archangels windwalking. He moves doomstscks, and heals them quickly.

[Catwalk]

Hmm, is healing that much of an issue by the time you have Arch Angels?