The serious brokenness of necros in Heroic

[Magepunk]

I played a wicked hot-seat multiplayer last night, and it appeared to me that while i had troubles creeping around, and blasting everything, my necro-playing friend was just raising up more and more. In the end of week 3, (we played isles of wonder map. balanced, but it's a hell of a work to get to the underground resources. 3 of mine were guarded by druid elders) he outnumbered me 3 to 1. WTF?

[Jolly Joker]

It would seem to me that the three Druid stacks are at fault here because a Necro would have a problem with them, too, initially.
Keep in mind that Necro needs an insane amount of resources for building. We all know that Druids and Mages suck, if you have them as opponents. Having them at 3 mines qualifies as bad luck.

[Orfinn]

Yeah. Such stacks scares me automatically away until I get a grand army or lots of initiative boosters and magic resistances.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I'm of the opinion the necromancers are too strong too. It is possible to get an overwhelming army early. Being able to raise higher level troops is just too imbalancing. Hopefully TOTE will balance it more.

GOW

[Adicto]

Hey, calm down. It has nothing to do with necropolis, it is a question of bad luck with mine guardians.

[okrane]

When I play necro, I pick usually lucretia, find a nice stack of lvl 4 creatures and spend all my week 2 DE on it raising thus a good number of vampires.

And if I manage to get about 20 of them, I will creep pretty much every stack out there. I mean, even if druids cast lightning, once the vamps get to them they will regenerate. Add raise dead to this, and it's no losses for sure.

I usually do Dragon Utopias in week 3, provided I have around 30 vampires and a lvl 10 - 12 hero, which is more than doable. I abuse the fact that they are small creatures and if standing in a corner they will fight one dragon at a time....

So yeah, necro, has it really easy...

[PhoenixReborn]

But was the old system any better? Weren't the necro's just as abusable under the skeleton system?

Also, It does not work the same way in 1.5 because of severely reduced dark energy from the pillar, the hero provides more dark energy as he/she goes up in level.

[okrane]

No, I like it more this way.

Although that pillar should give like a 10% bonus instead of a useless amount, for 10 sulfur !

[Magepunk]

I'm playing HoF 2.01.

What's changed in the 1.5?

[Adicto]

When I play necro, I pick usually lucretia, find a nice stack of lvl 4 creatures and spend all my week 2 DE on it raising thus a good number of vampires.

And if I manage to get about 20 of them, I will creep pretty much every stack out there. I mean, even if druids cast lightning, once the vamps get to them they will regenerate. Add raise dead to this, and it's no losses for sure.

I usually do Dragon Utopias in week 3, provided I have around 30 vampires and a lvl 10 - 12 hero, which is more than doable. I abuse the fact that they are small creatures and if standing in a corner they will fight one dragon at a time....

So yeah, necro, has it really easy...

I've killed 36 master hunters with 39 assassins, day 4 week 1, losing just 16 of them; I've destroyed a horde of steel golems with just 1 obsidian gargoyle and a 2 lvl wizard; I've raped 60 master gremlins with 7 horned demons the first day...

20 vampires = end of week 2. By then, most of monsters you are going to kill could be killed almost a week before by other factions. Necropolis is nothing special.

[Jolly Joker]

Yeah, well, we actually agree on that one, Adicto.

[okrane]

I've killed 36 master hunters with 39 assassins, day 4 week 1, losing just 16 of them

Losing 16 is quite a lot(more than 2 weeks growth)... seeing that you play with Vayshan and assasins are your early game strength...

I've destroyed a horde of steel golems with just 1 obsidian gargoyle and a 2 lvl wizard;

any race can feed on slow walkers... even necro...

I've raped 60 master gremlins with 7 horned demons the first day...

Deleb is imba.

20 vampires = end of week 2

No. Day 8 more precisely: 1 from Lucretia + 5 growth in the first week + 5 growth in the second week + 9 from a lvl 4 stack you attack in day 8 or 9 at most...

And then you can rush dragon utopias with no losses... try it.

The problem here are spell casters that are really difficult to take early on.And necro has an easy time killing them.

[Jolly Joker]

Of course it's game over if the Utopia contains the 11 Spectral Dragons as well. And the full number of Emeralds isn't all too healthy as well.

[Romanov77]

I've raped 60 master gremlins with 7 horned demons the first day...

Me wants explanation.

[Elvin]

That's not too hard to believe though I'd be interested in specifics. Say, main hero(was it the guy with confusion?), skills(maybe hellfire, motd, gating?) etc.

[Adicto]

Losing 16 is quite a lot(more than 2 weeks growth)... seeing that you play with Vayshan and assasins are your early game strength...

16 assassins = 32 skeleton archers? 48? against 36 master hunters in the day 4, those casualties should make you very happy.

any race can feed on slow walkers... even necro...

Try to kill over 50 steel golems divided in 4 stacks the first days of gameplay with necropolis, suffering 0 casualties... until you can get a decent amount of vampires (town lvl 9) or a single vampire lord, it seems not possible.

Deleb is imba

Me wants explanation

The hero was Nebiros (I play random heroes). All you need to do is to build the mage guild lvl1 (eldritch arrow or stone spikes is needed) and split 7 demons in stacks of 1. Once in battle just try to invoke a pair of additional demons for blocking gremlins, hold the ground with the rest, and cast destructive magic till your 20 mana is gone (Mark of the Damned should make it easier).

No. Day 8 more precisely: 1 from Lucretia + 5 growth in the first week + 5 growth in the second week + 9 from a lvl 4 stack you attack in day 8 or 9 at most...

+9 If you find the right creature the first days of week 2, that is.

Of course it's game over if the Utopia contains the 11 Spectral Dragons as well. And the full number of Emeralds isn't all too healthy as well.

Yeah, the result would depend on his luck with the numbers. It would be like playing dices.

[okrane]

ok... I agree abuses can be done with all races. My favorite for these are Dungeon (blood furies + destructive) and Wizard(MMR)

but let's put it another way:

Your essential resource mine is guarded by:

Lots of Master Druids (40 of them - you don't know but you see *lots*)

What is your strategy with each town, and what losses each one of them has.

With Necro I would presume I normally beat them Week 2 Day 3-4 with no losses (vamps + MotN + Raise Dead).

[Apocalypse]

Try to abuse the creeps (Druids) with Haven WITHOUT Irina (to get BattleDive with Griffins) and without Vittorio (War Machines overpowered at creeping) and tell me how you succed, 'cause I can't figure out how to do it

[okrane]

ok... so here's how I do it:

Haven:

Irina + Griffins: it's doable but you must have about 20 griffins for it to work, if not after killing your other stacks the druids will keep on waiting and when the griffins land, slaughter them with lightning...

so definately not as good as necro, with a big risk.

Inferno:

Deleb + Ballista + First Aid - it's the most efficient although in week 2-3 you will have losses against 40 Master Druids.
Marbas + Protection + Magic Resistance: it can work but it's a matter of chance.

Sylvan:

Absolutely no idea. I would not attack them with Sylvan. The low hp low level creatures are dead meat in 2 casts.

Academy:

Jhora + Destructive + Master of Ice + Mark of the Wizard and some gargoyles / golems
You will lose some, but who needs them anyway...
Razzak + golems + magic resistance artifact + deflect missile
Havez + magic resistance artifact + deflect missile + first aid tent

these are the most effective after necro I think...

Dungeon:

Expert Destructive + Fireball / Circle of Winter + Empowered Spells and 7 minotaur stacks,

and pray you have sufficient spellpower to one hit kill 2 stacks.

Fortress

No idea here... Rune of Charge, maybe, but still they will take heavy losses...

Necro

Get MotN - easy
Get Vampire Lords
Find a stack you can turn into vampires - not that hard. And then no losses guaranteed.


Summing up what I've written I would say that either you need a lot of luck to pull it off effectively or you take major losses. So I guess in this case Necro has it really easy.

[Apocalypse]

Irina + Griffins: it's doable but you must have about 20 griffins for it to work, if not after killing your other stacks the druids will keep on waiting and when the griffins land, slaughter them with lightning...

so definately not as good as necro, with a big risk.

'
And without Irina?
I mean, of course some heroes are overpowered (why she gives Battle Dive to Griffins while other specialists don't do anything extra?), like Deleb, but that doesn't mean the faction itself is good at creeping (it should work with all, or almost all heroes to be considered good - and with Necro it works with every hero)