Heroes and abilities

[Seravy]

The huntresss already has 1 random ability and pretty much no random ability (besides lucky) helps becoming a better archer anyway.
Removing Lucky from the Ranger isn't really an option, it's already the lowest value hero in that tier in my ranking. If we do remove it, we'd need to add two random abilities to make up for the loss, which makes them have 4 total. I guess that's acceptable but not a fan of it.
...well, I don't have a better idea so maybe we'll end up doing it anyway.

[Seravy]

Beastmaster can't move up because it just can't. The chance of the AI hiring one out of the 10 base level heroes is not that bad. The AI has 6 slots, plus will lose a few heroes in combat. So overall they have more than 50% chance to hire one I'd say, as their fame will stay low for a while. (Unless they are Life wizards with Just Cause but then they don't need a Beastmaster anyway - no good summons, and they can buff without the BM.)
If they get fame however that increases the pool of heroes to pick from. We also have weighting in place so higher tier appears much less often. So not only does the AI get the hero late, but also at a reduced probability from a greater pool of heroes, all at the same time. Overall, that 50% would drop to like 10%.
...also I went out of my way to say I like having that hero there as a personal preference.

Barbarian certainly isn't that great but it is one of the very few heroes that can naturally hit flying enemies. Draconian is the next "upgrade" for that type of hero, which is almost identical except comes with two random abilities. If barbarian also had one, they'd be almost the same thing.

I'll take a look at the higher tiers after we manage to sort out the low tiers.

[Nelphine]

I don't understand how you rank the ranger so low. Lucky is amazing - its one of the core abilitues for stacking invincible defenses - and he's a caster. I want to simply remove lucky, definitely not replace it with anything.

On beastmaster: ok I accept the chance of getting becomes too low if higher tier. Sucks, but can't be helped. 

Draconian is waay better than barbarian - he flies and has 2 random abilities. I want the barbarian to have one random ability. Not remotely the same. If anything the Amazon is too similar.

[Seravy]

Lucky is 3. Random abilityx2 is 4. Pathfinding and Poison Immunity are 1 each (probably overrating them). Caster pool is 1.5 because it's that low. Total of 10.5. But the others here have 11-11.5. (assuming we do swap Witch and Warlock)

Flying and thrown serve the same purpose. Yes, Flying is an upgraded version of it, but they are both abilities to hit flying enemies. Also the Draconian has Flying and Breath, which is quite redundant and honestly makes both worth less. But if you find it similar to the Amazon that's even worse since the Amazon is 3 tiers higher.

Ideas for the huntress.

Dispel Evil. A hunter hunts animals, meaning fantastic creatures. It's an ability that's fairly powerful early, especially when used at range, and not particularly relevant in the late game, ideal for this tier. And no hero has it. Too bad the name implies the user is some sort of a mage or priest and uses magic to achieve the result.
Fire Immunity. No idea how to justify this one, but no hero has it and an early archer benefits from not being targeted by Fire Bolt ever.
Poison. Poison arrows are a thing, right? Not that useful though...

ok, time to make some progress. I think I'l give her the Super Blademaster, -4 melee and +4 ranged.

...with that the first two tiers are done, time to look at the rest.

[Nelphine]

Yeah, but I think barbarian is like the Amazon becauze I think the Amazon is worse than the Draconian, and the Draconian is a tiny bit weak for tier 2 (let alone the tier 3 amazon is supposed to be.) Flight is AMAZING. See all the draconian discussions, and sprites discussions.

And i don't understand how you can rate caster that low; we've just discussed how efreet are overpowered, and you want to weaken them, and any hero with caster is better than an efreet.

So my point is with lucky, Ranger is the best hero (before champions, and even including some champions). So, if we remove lucky, it's to make him into a tier 2 hero, instead of a tier 3 hero, which means not replacing it.

[Seravy]

So next tier we have
Wind Mage, Ranger, Draconian, Witch, Golden One.
Then 
Ninja, Magician, Amazon, Warlock, Unknown

Witch is too good for this tier, albeit she might be still ok if we consider Charmed only 3 (but still would be the highest score in the tier). Her spells are very situational though, as is Charmed itself so probably good in that tier anyway.

This would mean 4-6 for tier 1, 7-10 for tier 2, 10.5-12(13) for tier 3 and every one of them fits that.

So based on that tier 4 should be 13-14.

Ninja is 13 so safe, also Invisibility is useful and unique.
Amazon is 12 (or 11 with Charmed at 3), might need an extra random ability. Albeit honestly, I think that's one of the best if not the best hero in the game. Can hit flying enemies, and has both might and blademaster for high damage output, plus has Charmed so has enough slots remaining on items to max all of defense, abilities and offense. We had to nerf this hero repeatedly. So I don't feel comfortable buffing it. Yes, the total score isn't that great, but it's a perfect set of abilities that are self-sufficient. So you don't need to play "puzzle" with your items when you have this hero, you can equip the best 3 pieces and still be sure you aren't missing anything important. Her starting defense is atrocious and the chance of rolling a defense boosting ability is low (only 1 random), but...umm. Ok, Thrown isn't all that great now that we have the Shadow item power, actually. Albeit finding a maxed weapon that also has Shadow, well, there is exactly one such predefined item... so this hero is still good. For life and nature wizards, anyway. They can buff defenses but can't attack flying (ok web, but that's one a turn and noncorporeal can block it). For Sorcery and Chaos you can buff with flying (or fire breath), but not defense so this hero would be bad for you and you'll want something like the Thief instead.
Still, I guess adding 1 more random ability is acceptable. That only puts her at equal to Draconian+Blademaster+Charmed. Wait, that's a hell of a lot better for only 1 tier difference...
Unknown is 13 so safe (barely). Having a naturally water walking hero is convenient, especially if it's a caster.

So that leaves the Warlock and Magician. Those are really similar to each other to be honest. I'm not comfortable with both in this tier.

And i don't understand how you can rate caster that low; we've just discussed how efreet are overpowered, and you want to weaken them, and any hero with caster is better than an efreet.

Because heroes do that even without caster. A hero doesn't need a Warp Lightning to deal 13 (or more) damage, its normal attack (melee or ranged) does the same. One can argue spells might do even more than that attack but this is really random and depends on your realm, spells, etc. Unless you are chaos (to spam Flame Strike), you probably have limited use for spells - only 1-3 combat globals to cast before you need to switch to using single target, which will not be stronger than the hero's basic attacks and will be weaker if the hero is melee (albeit yes, you can use the attack+cast in one turn trick)

Efreet's normal attack is way weaker than a Warp Lighting. (expected damage is like half) On a hero, your normal attack deals 30+ doom damage.

I can see caster being worth more if your heroes are poorly equipped, of a low tier or without decent equipment, but if it's a level 5+ high tier hero with at least medicore late game items, the caster isn't that great, normal attack will hit harder than casting spells. (exceptions apply of course, Chaos prefers caster. Death MIGHT prefer caster if you have a good spell save set. )

[Seravy]

So Magician and Warlock.

I think I would like to see the Warlock with Super Arcane Power. No non-champion hero has it currently, and the Warlock is definitely about dealing damage and nothing else. At the same time Ritual Master is pretty worthless on them, too late hero for that...

Magician only has normal Arcane Power but they have Flame Strike which is better than Doom Bolt or Warp Lighting. All magical heroes in lower tiers have no Arcane Power at all, unless getting it at random. I think that's about right.

I think I'd like to move the Super Ritual Master from the Warlock to another caster hero. Golden One might be a good candidate, if we drop the Noble. We already have non-super Ritual Master on an early hero (Druid) so it's not particularly essential. We can even drop the ability entirely. Alternately we could add (Super) AEther Master instead, as no hero has that.

The Warrior Mage is slightly underwhelming (7.5 in a tier of 7-10) so maybe we could add AEther Master there?

Regardless of that, on Warlock if we drop the Super Ritual Master, add Super Arcane Power and one more random ability then we get 13 which is perfect.

On the Magician, adding 1 random ability should be enough to reach 12.5 which I'm fine with considering Flame Strike is most definitely above average and unique.

[Nelphine]

No the whole point is turn 1 spells. I don't care about caster (relatively - it's still helpful) after turn 1.

The point is to do things like supreme light and high prayer and blur and counter magic all on turn 1. Or darkness and Mana leak and black prayer and wrack and terror. Or entangle and call lightning and earth to mud and webs. Or mind storm and possession. Or mass invisibility and haste. Or mass flame strikes.

All of these spells are most effective super early, and getting multiple on turn 1 often means you win and your opponent can't do anything, and you've already won the combat regardless of how many more turns it takes, or how much damage your hero does per hit.


Anyway, Ive said my piece. I'll step out of it again.

[Seravy]

btw I prefer to tackle the "heroes have too much MP" issue as a separate problem, and for now assume caster to be fairly balanced (even if we disagree at that right now).

[Seravy]

With that tiers 1-4 are complete.

Last are the champions.

All champions rank 16-18 currently except the four that don't. The previous tier was 13-14 so that sounds appropriate.

I'm fine keeping Priestess above average - she is full support. Maybe we could remove the random ability but I see no real need. A some of her abilities are expected to be redundant and worthless in a typical game (you either already know Prayer, or have another Prayermaster in the stack, or another one with Divine Barrier, another Healer, etc, none of these stack.), also 1 point can be removed for overrated Charmed (heck, on a Super Prayermaster it's not even that useful, I'll remove 2...and now she is not even about 18 anymore).

Chaos Warrior is surprisingly low at 15.5 but I think that's underrating the hero. It's a ranged spellcaster with Constitution and Armor Piercing. Doesn't really get better than that. And he/she gets double benefit from Armor Piercing because the stats are good enough for melee as well. I'll add an extra +1 for that and now we are good.

This leaves the Knight and the Elven Archer.

The Knight is full support, so let's give him/her Super Logistics. That's +4.5 points. Let's not stop there. We don't yet have Super Constitution on any hero. That is another 1.5 extra. I'm willing to even throw in some extra hit points - having a super durable hero is relevant as you can't add health through items. 18 base health. (Let's count this another 2 point ability.)
Now we are at 21.5 points. Too much. Legendary is meaningless on a hero of this tier, so we can drop it. Still at 20. We could drop 1 random ability. That way it can have either Might, or Blademaster, but never both and none at super. So he'll be distinct from the other Paladin and Black Knight who have those abilities. Wait, Logistics does not have a Super level. So we keep the random and have normal Logistics and we are done, total of 17.5 points. A durable melee hero that boosts movement speed, has Super Leadership and Super Armsmaster, and 2 random warrior/leader abilities. You're effectively trading the first strike, armor piercing on the paladin/black knight for more durability and support. Hey, let's throw in a "Negate First Strike", no hero has that yet and that way he can even counter the other two's First Strike ability.

Will think about the Elven Archer after I implement these changed.