Some skill Clarifications

[okrane]

Taken From the official Forum

* Invisibility: An activated ability. When it is activated, the unit becomes completely invisible for the enemy until it performs an attack or takes a position in a tile next to an enemy unit. The stack attacked by an invisible stack can not retaliate. An invisible unit can not be the target of any target-specific effect, nor do mass spells work on it (but the area-effect spells and area effects do). Also, the Fire Trap spell can be applied to an invisible unit. Summoning spells and effects can be cast on tiles occupied by the invisible units, but the summoned effect/creature will appear on a random tile next to it. Unit movement routes can be plotted through the tile occupied by an invisible unit (i. e., its location can’t be found through failure to pass through a tile). When the movement is performed, if the invisible unit blocks the way and there is no other way, the moving unit stops right before it and performs a melee attack. For the player/AI who owns it, the invisible unit shows on the screen as semi-transparent. The ability works once per combat. The invisibility effect’s duration is 3 rounds.

* Ride-by-Attack: a passive ability. If, while moving towards the target of its attack, the Raider passes very close to any enemy creatures, it inflicts damage equal to ¼ of its normal damage on them, and then continues its movement/maneuver without suffering any retaliation.

* Acid Blood: every time the Hydra is hit, it splashes out some acid, covering four tiles in the direction of the attack. The damage of the acid is physical (the Hydra’s Attack and the target’s Defense skills are evaluated) and the damage equals ¼ of the Hydra’s normal attacking Damage capabilities.

* Incinerate: the Dragon can soar up and give the target a specifically powerful blow of its fiery breath. The ability can only be used on a target that stands close to the Dragon. The damage inflicted is 50% greater, and the Dragon suffers no retaliation from its target.

[Corribus]

I really like how Nival is making up wholly new, tactically interesting skills for the new upgrades.

[watcher83]

nice abilities(guessed about hydra - how alien of it)
So basicaly the red dragon losses immunity but gains some damage which in basic form is lower than the black's.
rider charge>>>ride by attack
Invisibility - hit&run festival

[Elvin]

About invisibility I see that an expert firetrap or charging towards them is an easy counter. This:

When the movement is performed, if the invisible unit blocks the way and there is no other way, the moving unit stops right before it and performs a melee attack.

Makes me think that by charging with a paladin will reveal the nearby ones(large unit) and make the one that is in the way attack them only to perish in the retaliation. However they will still be 7 of them...

These are obviously used for a more offensive dungeon. I bet power of haste and waiting with the red dragons will work wonders. You move the dragon near an enemy, then incinerate There are flaws but it could work.

Edit: What am I even talking about? That's meant to be used with teleport assault!

[Omega_Destroyer]

Those are some pretty cool abilities. I'm really like the Ride-by-Attack and the Acid Blood specials. Incinerate seems a bit too powerful, leaving me to wonder if it will be limited to only once a battle. I don't see the Invisibility power being anything spectacular seeing as how it's limited to once per comabt. It certainly would be annoying though.

[winterfate]

Yeah, I like these abilities a lot...

Can't believe I'm going to say this but...

Good job Nival!

Now keep it up and I'll stop bashing you guys in my interview thread.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Taken From the official Forum

Invisibility will give rise to some abusive tactics.


* Incinerate: the Dragon can soar up and give the target a specifically powerful blow of its fiery breath. The ability can only be used on a target that stands close to the Dragon. The damage inflicted is 50% greater, and the Dragon suffers no retaliation from its target.

50% greater ability alone would be tremendous. Adding no retaliation for whatever survives is I think too much. I wonder if there will be any sort of penalty afterwards to help offset this.

The dungeon now has hydras and dragons that can't be retaliated against and the alternate upgrade scouts and witches gain that ability once per battle (with invisibility.) And the Raider ride by attacks are no retaliation attacks. That's a lot of free attacking.

GOW

[dallasmavs41]

These new abilities looks pretty promising, and I can hope that they will keep them coming...I like the idea of the Ride-by-Attack ability a lot, too..

[Wolfsburg]

Grumpy is usually the one who brings up the subject of unbalancing. This time I am here to join him with my concerns.

Stalkers will be hit and runs entities like no other.

[okrane]

well it means dungeon will have to do hit and runs from now on

[Qurqirish Dragon]

About invisibility I see that an expert firetrap or charging towards them is an easy counter. This:

When the movement is performed, if the invisible unit blocks the way and there is no other way, the moving unit stops right before it and performs a melee attack.

Makes me think that by charging with a paladin will reveal the nearby ones(large unit) and make the one that is in the way attack them only to perish in the retaliation. However they will still be 7 of them...

Only if the paladin is charging through a choke point. what I think this means is that in this situation:

Code: Select all

....?....
PP.....TT
PP..S..TT
....X....

where P=paladin, S= (invisible) stalker, T=paladin's tagert destination, X=an obstacle, ?=unknown, we have the case where if ? is an obstacle, then the only way for the paladin to complete its movement is through the stalker, so it will be stopped and attack. However, if ? is not an obstacle, then the attack will be completed as originally planned (the stalker can get out of the way, since there is extra room). Thus, in a wide-open field, invisible creatures will be VERY hard to locate, but in battle fields with lots of obstructions, the ability is very limited. Now, the real question is: can friendly units move "through" an invisible one? (again, assuming there is room)

These are obviously used for a more offensive dungeon. I bet power of haste and waiting with the red dragons will work wonders. You move the dragon near an enemy, then incinerate There are flaws but it could work.

Edit: What am I even talking about? That's meant to be used with teleport assault!

[Mirez]

in the "hood" are drive-by's but in homm5 it's ride by

[watcher83]

I guess the fallen angel doesn't look so overpowered now

[Eternor]

Someone on the Nival's forum bought the magazine, which can be seen on the news section, and posted some information about the orc creatures and alternative upgrades.

Orcs
1) Goblins – shamans have the ability to tear spell from an enemy hero or casting unit. If the goblins fail, they will cast the spell they were going to tear on themselves. Goblins – hunters can set traps, which are invisible to the enemy.
2) Centaurs are the fastest shooters in the game, but take four tiles on the battlefield. Centaurs – nomads can run away from enemy, who has just hit them and then shoot the enemy from distance with half their normal strength. Centaurs – marauders does not have penalty when shooting into support.
3) One of the upgrades for Orc warrior can take hits, which were targeted on a nearby friendly stacks, also his retaliation attack is two times stronger than normal attack.
4) Shamans – Human and succubus hybrids can cast haste and slow. One of the upgrades, when engaged in hand-to-hand combat will curse (Slow, Weakness, Curse, Disrupting ray) the opponent.
5) Orc warlords raise initiative of all friendly creatures by one.
6) Pao-kai is one of the upgrades for wyvern. It is immune to blind, because it has no eyesight to begin with. It attacks with electric breath that harms everyone standing near the attacked creature (amount of damage is divided among those affected by the discharge). In addition, Pao-kai can eat dead bodies to restore health.
7) Cyclops is a strong hand-to-hand fighter, with an ability to attack walls, when in siege battle. One of the upgrades for Cyclops can shoot beam from his eye that affects several creatures, and decreases his victims luck.

Necropolis
1) Skeleton warriors will receive only one fourth of damage dealt by an attack.
2) Disease zombies will cause all creatures excluding undead to decrease their attack and defense values by two and decrease morale by one.
3) Poltergeists will be able to remove a number of ammunition from a chosen shooter creature. The amount of removed ammunition is calculated from weekly growth of poltergeists.
4) When Nosferatu attacks, he can put creature to sleep for three rounds.
5) Lich masters have the ability to deal damage to all creatures (excluding mechanisms and undead) in the surrounding area (radius 3 tiles).
6) Banshee causes all of the enemy’s creatures to have decreased morale by one.
7) Horror dragons cast sorrow when they attack.

Inferno
1) Quasit extracts mana from enemy hero and distributes it evenly between all casters in quasit’s army.
2) Horned leaper can jump to indicated creature if there is a free tile next to it and deals damage increased by 10% for each tile crossed while jumping. In addition, the leaper can jump to creature even it is impossible to reach it by walking.
3) Firebreather covers two tiles with his fire breath.
4) Succubus Temptress is immune to hypnosis, and has the ability to seduce a creature one time per battle. The owner of the succubus can control seduced creatures.

5) Hellmare will cause all enemy creatures to suffer from 10 points of fire damage multiplied by the count of hellmares in the stack when they reach their turn while residing in the immediate area of hellmare.
6) Pit Spawn will deal damage increased by two for each creature in the attacked stack.
7) Arch Demon’s ability “Summon Other” will allow him to choose any creature in the radius of his movement area. Chosen target will teleport near the Arch demon stack in tile, which will be the closest to the direction of previous position.

Sylvan
1) One time per battle, dryads will be able to heal and resurrect treants, in the same time treants will be able to heal dryads. One dryad heals four hit points, one treant 20 hitpoints.
2) Bladesinger will receive two point addition to defence for every crossed tile.
3) Sharpshooters will ignore 75% of targets defense, his shoot can throw target back by one tile.
4) High Druids can perform special ritual, which transfers their magical power to hero, adding him spell power. The effect lasts until there are no more druids alive.
5) When White Unicorns participate in battle, every light magic spell excluding damaging spells will be cast on the unicorns, regardless of the caster.
6) Anger treant’s ability “Rage of the Forest” will activate only once per battle, and take effect for the whole battle. Treants will transfer half of their defense to attack, increase their initative by two and loose the ability to entangle enemy.
7) Rainbow Dragon’s fire attack can affect one to five tiles, depending on luck.

Academy
1) Gremlins will be able to paralyze any mechanical unit on the battlefield (golems, ammo carts, tents, town towers) for one turn, if the unit’s total hit points are lower than gremlins.
2) Gargoyles and all creatures (including allies) standing near them will receive 1,5 times more damage from fire, air and water based spells.
3) Obsidian golems are immune to all spells excluding those dealing damage. Every spell that deals magical damage heals and resurrects golems. The amount of restored hitpoints equals to 50% of the damage, which would have been dealt by the magical attack. At the start of the battle, golems receive “Obsidian sphere” that zeroes damage from destruction spells. If the golem stack was somehow damaged, next magical attack that hits them will heal the stack. If the golems suffer from area spell together with allied units, they will transfer portion of the damage to themselves.
4) Battle mages have a little amount of spells, their shoot only hits one target.
5) Genies – viziers can increase luck for friendly creatures and decrease it for enemy creatures. They can do that three times per battle. It is possible to do so on a single unit only once per battle.
6) Rakshasa princess can break through six tiles in front of them.
7) Colossus can summon 3x3 tile sized cloud to any place on the battlefield; every creature that gets under the cloud receives 10 points of damage for each colossus that summoned the cloud. Shooters under the cloud receive 1% penalty to ranged attack for each colossus.

Fortress
1) As long as defenders do not move, they receive five point addition to their defense.
2) Harpooners can shoot harpoon that in addition to standard damage can pull the attacked creature by one tile closer to the harpooner.
3) When bears attack, they can frighten the attacked creature and enemy creatures that stand nearby. Bear receives one point addition to his morale and ten percent gain to his health. The effect lasts for two turns.
4) Every time Bonecrusher deals damage, he will gain two point addition to his initiative and five point addition to his attack. This effect is active for two turns. When fighting with large creatures he will receive four point bonus to his attack and defense.
5) Priests – After death, their inner flame escapes and deals fire damage to every enemy in the surrounding tiles. Level of damage depends on the amount of priests in the dead stack.
6) One time per battle thanes can do standard damage multiplied by 1,2 to any creature and hang “Mark of fire” on them.
7) When the dragons attack, they leave a fire wall, that deals ten point damage for each dragon in the stack.

Dungeon
1) Stalker can turn invisible for the enemy until it attacks or moves to a position in next to an enemy unit. The ability works only once per battle and lasts for three rounds.
2) Blood Witch is immune to curses, deals less damage and has more hitpoints.
3) Minotaur Captain causes all creatures in the area around him (radius 3 tiles) to be unable to have morale with value less than one.
4) If, while moving towards his target, the Black Rider passes any enemy creatures, it inflicts damage equal to one fourth of his normal damage on them and then restarts his movement.
5) When acid hydra takes damage, it spills acidic blood four tiles to the side of the attack. The damage of the acid is equal to one fourth of normal damage dealt by the stack of hydras.
6) Shadow Mistress’s Invisibility works the same way as stalkers, but she can cast spells without being exposed.
7) Red Dragon can fly up and attack nearby enemy with 1,5 times more powerful attack without receiving retaliation.

Some information
In one of the campaigns, the main hero will be orc warlord, who invades in Griffin Empire’s Crow duchy to free his kinsmen from enslavement. This campaign is set 500 years before the events of Heroes V. Other campaign tells the story about necromancer Arantir and how he united the lands of Heresh and why he helped humans and dwarves in the war against Biara.
It will be easier for heroes to gain superabilities, because the list of requirements for them is reworked.
Both, standard upgrades and alternative upgrades will cost the same; it will be possible to retrain creatures, but only in towns and for high price.
One of the new adventure buildings is ”Teacher of memory”. When a hero visits it, he can forget one of his skills or abilities for a price and learn another one.

[Elvin]

[quote="Eternor"]

Orcs
6) Pao-kai is one of the upgrades for wyvern. It is immune to blind, because it has no eyesight to begin with. It attacks with electric breath that harms everyone standing near the attacked creature (amount of damage is divided among those affected by the discharge). In addition, Pao-kai can eat dead bodies to restore health.

No rez tactics I guess

7) Cyclops is a strong hand-to-hand fighter, with an ability to attack walls, when in siege battle. One of the upgrades for Cyclops can shoot beam from his eye that affects several creatures, and decreases his victims luck.

Along with many other alternates it can decrease luck. Interesting, perhaps they heard the cries of protest for the overpowered luck? Probably a firebreath type attack.

Necropolis
2) Disease zombies will cause all creatures excluding undead to decrease their attack and defense values by two and decrease morale by one.
6) Banshee causes all of the enemy’s creatures to have decreased morale by one.
7) Horror dragons cast sorrow when they attack.

Wow three morale reducing units...Add Deirdre and enjoy

Inferno
1) Quasit extracts mana from enemy hero and distributes it evenly between all casters in quasit’s army.

So it can transfer it to units, very interesting. Imagine if wizards got a stack of them to join

2) Horned leaper can jump to indicated creature if there is a free tile next to it and deals damage increased by 10% for each tile crossed while jumping. In addition, the leaper can jump to creature even it is impossible to reach it by walking.

Now even they can charge? Scary.

4) Succubus Temptress is immune to hypnosis, and has the ability to seduce a creature one time per battle. The owner of the succubus can control seduced creatures.

I was afraid of that, I hope it's not an easy way for puppet master

7) Arch Demon’s ability “Summon Other” will allow him to choose any creature in the radius of his movement area. Chosen target will teleport near the Arch demon stack in tile, which will be the closest to the direction of previous position.

No need to charge, you bring the opponent to you At least that is within his movement range.

3) Sharpshooters will ignore 75% of targets defense, his shoot can throw target back by one tile.

You MUST be kidding me...

7) Rainbow Dragon’s fire attack can affect one to five tiles, depending on luck.

That's gotta be annoying

Academy
2) Gargoyles and all creatures (including allies) standing near them will receive 1,5 times more damage from fire, air and water based spells.

Hmm a possible destructive boost for the wirards!

4) Battle mages have a little amount of spells, their shoot only hits one target.

Finally you can use them as a shooter and defend them

5) Genies – viziers can increase luck for friendly creatures and decrease it for enemy creatures. They can do that three times per battle. It is possible to do so on a single unit only once per battle.

I hoped they would help passively. As it is they can't deal much damage, being so vulnerable.

Fortressffect lasts for two turns.
5) Priests – After death, their inner flame escapes and deals fire damage to every enemy in the surrounding tiles. Level of damage depends on the amount of priests in the dead stack.
6) One time per battle thanes can do standard damage multiplied by 1,2 to any creature and hang “Mark of fire” on them.
7) When the dragons attack, they leave a fire wall, that deals ten point damage for each dragon in the stack.

More fire happy damage for ignite users

Dungeon
6) Shadow Mistress’s Invisibility works the same way as stalkers, but she can cast spells without being exposed.

Nice!

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Well, there are some quite nice abilities listed there. I am not overly impressed with the Academy's abilities. Looks like they get the short end of the stick once more.

Academy
1) Gremlins will be able to paralyze any mechanical unit on the battlefield (golems, ammo carts, tents, town towers) for one turn, if the unit’s total hit points are lower than gremlins.

The academy is the only one with mechanical units (aside from war machines) and the paralyzation lasts only one turn. Not an impressive ability.

2) Gargoyles and all creatures (including allies) standing near them will receive 1,5 times more damage from fire, air and water based spells.

This will hurt the academy a lot more than help it. The gargoyles won't be able to help protect the gremlins for instance. Furthur, the academy specializes in summoning and light magic, not destruction. This helps the enemy and hurts the academy.

3) Obsidian golems are immune to all spells excluding those dealing damage. Every spell that deals magical damage heals and resurrects golems. The amount of restored hitpoints equals to 50% of the damage, which would have been dealt by the magical attack. At the start of the battle, golems receive “Obsidian sphere” that zeroes damage from destruction spells. If the golem stack was somehow damaged, next magical attack that hits them will heal the stack. If the golems suffer from area spell together with allied units, they will transfer portion of the damage to themselves.

Well, the academy can't help the golemn with light spells now but the wizard can use destruction spells to heal them (but not much since wizards have low spell power and it is only 50% effective.) It looks like area affect spells like meteor shower and fireball do still damage golems?

4) Battle mages have a little amount of spells, their shoot only hits one target.

Well, if their shot only affects one target now mayabe they can hide behind other troops (but not behind the new gargoyles.) However, why fewer spells?

5) Genies – viziers can increase luck for friendly creatures and decrease it for enemy creatures. They can do that three times per battle. It is possible to do so on a single unit only once per battle.

Pretty much another useless ability for the Djinn kin. Why does Nival insist that they have to suck?

6) Rakshasa princess can break through six tiles in front of them.

No idea what this means.

7) Colossus can summon 3x3 tile sized cloud to any place on the battlefield; every creature that gets under the cloud receives 10 points of damage for each colossus that summoned the cloud. Shooters under the cloud receive 1% penalty to ranged attack for each colossus.

Not an overly impressive ability. I expect it will seldom if ever be used.

Oh well, maybe moders will give the academy creatures some useful abilities.

GOW

[watcher83]

since they've mentioned all the towns except haven, and that most of the alternates sound overpowered I have no doubt (much to my satisfaction) that the renegades are the alternates.

[winterfate]

3) Sharpshooters will ignore 75% of targets defense, his shoot can throw target back by one tile.

You MUST be kidding me...

IMBA Sharpshooters FTW! Oh...I love Wood Elves!!

Disclaimer: The previous statement may carry a heavy pro-Sylvan bias...feel free to ignore.

[Elvin]

Ehm sure I would love to have this myself but...I don't know, doesn't it seem a sign of a blatant imbalance?

[winterfate]

Of course! That's half the fun!

Well, some of the other abilities are pretty good too, but that gargoyle ability is really...how to say this...erm...lame?!

Warlocks will marry you during battle (in thanks of the damage boost you give them ).