Feat/Spell/Skill Testimony

[maltz]

The game is still new a lot of us are still experimenting with different hero builds. How about we start a thread to share our testimonies on different spell/feat and their combos?

With very limited experience I will start with a few:

Life Drain + Regeneration/Heal: perfect victory all the way

Back in HoMM5 Vampirism was a Lv5 mage guild spell. Now? You can get it on level 1! I am certain that some future patch will move it back, but for now let's enjoy the feast of blood! Life drain + 1 good melee stack alone is enough to score perfect victory in most minor encounters. For the slightly more troublesome encounters, Regeneration/Heal will make up the damage.

Tactics (lv 1): critically important

This is a no-brainer pick. There are so many benefits of being able to arrange stacks before the battle begins - protect shooters, block paths with 1-unit stacks, and remove unecessary stacks.

Luck: no good

The increased damage are unoticeable, if there is any.

Ice Bolt: no good

Puny damage, and frozen stack can still attack as long as the attack does not involve moving to another tile.

[Mozared]

I've actually found Tactics to be way less important than in previous games. I've completed the first two Sanctuary campaign levels without it, and never really wished I had it. Enemy melee units rarely reach my shooters and I've never really needed to protect them. I use reinforcements if they are going to get damaged, but I generally cut down enemy melee stacks by focusing and CCing them as they advance.

On a similar note, I've found Ice Bolt to be of more usage than you're putting it down. I started off my hero with it and it really helps at the start of maps against those stacks of full melee creatures. In the average battle, I find that if you optimize your damage (and ignore CC, heal, and all that), you kill enemy melee units just about one round after they reach and hit you. Frost Bolt allows you to force the enemy to take longer to reach you, thus wins.

[qiox]

Ice Bolt is puny damage if you don't make any effort to make it good. On the other hand, if you focus on high spell power and blood rep, Ice Bolt will be doing 1700+ damage a shot on day 1 of the final map of any of the campaigns. For just 15 spell points that's plenty of damage.

Luck at high levels is very useful. Killing 50% more units than the predicted max number of units killed is the norm once you get a high luck.


Rush: Casting this to get a melee unit across the map is very useful. This way the when the AI units attack it, they are too far away to move onto your ranged units on their next turn, and hence they never leave your forward melee unit. Keep that unit with drain life+regen and it's an easy win.

Counterstrike: Getting the 2nd and 3rd tier of this is very powerful.

Retributive Strike: With the 3rd tier causing damage to every enemy unit on every hit it takes, this is just an awesome way to devastate their ranks.

[Mozared]

Ice Bolt is puny damage if you don't make any effort to make it good. On the other hand, if you focus on high spell power and blood rep, Ice Bolt will be doing 1700+ damage a shot on day 1 of the final map of any of the campaigns. For just 15 spell points that's plenty of damage.

I wouldn't get Ice Bolt for the damage, though. I'm using it purely for the CC. By now I've obtained Petrify and Serenity (Sanctuary Tears class), so it's not as good as it used to be, but before you reach that point (which is easily map 1 of any campaign, map 1+2 of non-sanctuary campaigns), it seems pretty helpful.

I'll expand upon my last post later (it was unexpectedly cut short), with my full Irina build so far and experiences with it.

[ywhtptgtfo]

I've actually found Tactics to be way less important than in previous games. I've completed the first two Sanctuary campaign levels without it, and never really wished I had it. Enemy melee units rarely reach my shooters and I've never really needed to protect them. I use reinforcements if they are going to get damaged, but I generally cut down enemy melee stacks by focusing and CCing them as they advance.

I'd say tactics is a very important skill to have, especially for necro and and sanctuary.

Well-positioned kappa and kirin can give you a very devastating first attack (especially when coupled with reinforcement or eye of the storm). Necro boxing also requires tactics to function optimally (preferably tactics 2).

[RollingWave]

Is it just me or is toughness completely useless now, 2-3% ? really? even on champion creatures that's like 4-6 more HP per unit.

Pressing Attack for Barbarians is very useful, since Barbarians rage gauge rely quite a bit on their hero attack, and also their stacks are likely to get high moral quite a bit, pressing attack + crusher + good morale usually = rage 2 or 3 every turn. The dmg hero do while using pressing attack is also noticablly higher . (like double)

As for icebolt, it's useful enough if enemy has a lot of melee types. where a bolt is almost as effective as a outright stun. at least water elementals are generally worth using (though dark is the most useful, and earth is roughly as useful. fire and air seems meh unless your defending in siege.)

As of now I think most of us will agree that no-brainer skill (Everyone should take ) are generally (only speaking of fighting skill .)


Reinforcements
Regen/Heal/Life Drain(everyone need at least one and preferablly two)
Rush
Dark elementals

[Avonu]

Ice Bolt is puny damage if you don't make any effort to make it good. On the other hand, if you focus on high spell power and blood rep, Ice Bolt will be doing 1700+ damage a shot on day 1 of the final map of any of the campaigns. For just 15 spell points that's plenty of damage.

I wouldn't get Ice Bolt for the damage, though. I'm using it purely for the CC. By now I've obtained Petrify and Serenity (Sanctuary Tears class), so it's not as good as it used to be, but before you reach that point (which is easily map 1 of any campaign, map 1+2 of non-sanctuary campaigns), it seems pretty helpful.

I'll expand upon my last post later (it was unexpectedly cut short), with my full Irina build so far and experiences with it.

Isn't Ice Bolt bugged atm? It should freeze unit until its next turn but it seems that freeze it until its next move - so when you cast it on unit, it will move anyway.

[parcaleste]

One thing that bothers me is the damage of most of the battle spells. Let's say last week I played with Sanctuary and pick Lightning Bolt and Implosion. At one point (around lvl 20 (when I picked it) to at lest 25) the LB was dealing more damage (1 700) than the Implosion spell (1 500), now how is that possible? Why is not the Implosion spell dealing AT LEST triple the damage of the other spells (3k instead 1k, or even better - make it deal damage decided on the percentage of the stack size (20-30-40% depending on the hero's level)).

A lot of them (damage) spells do need some serious buffing.

Make them more useful in late game, please. I want to CRIPPLE them enemies with Implosion, not to use it when I am out of other spells or Warcries... which doesn't really happen, because there are too many and way too useful other ones (Heroism, Heroic Charge, Stand Your Ground, Pressed Attack, Regeneration, etc).

**********************************

I haven't seen the Time Stasis spell mentioned here and also this Poison Cloud from the Earth tree. Esp. the second one can be really useful in siege battles, as the AI hardly moves it's archers at all (it stays till the end of the freakin' combat).
Which is weird, because the first thing the AI was doing in the demo was to put it's archers in that tower.

[Mozared]

Isn't Ice Bolt bugged atm? It should freeze unit until its next turn but it seems that freeze it until its next move - so when you cast it on unit, it will move anyway.

I have no idea, seems to be working fine for me so far?

As for that write-up; my Irina level 17 has the following build so far:

Might abilities
Enlightenment - As suggested in another thread, I grabbed this at level 10. Undecided on it's worth (not sure if you really need it to reach the cap), but at least it makes a noticable difference.

Logistics - Probably the single most useful skill for really any hero.

Snatch - Not only does it eliminate the need of following your main hero around with a resource-grabber, it also gives you an edge in terms of not losing movement when entering buildings that your main hero must visit anyway (stat boosters, arenas, etc).

Pathfinding - I'm undecided on this. Even with the talent I'm still finding I can only move 8-10 steps off-road, so I can't even imagine how horrible off-roading must be without it. It does seem to be worth it's bucks if your hero is Sanctuary though, seeing as how it applies to water movement.

Economist 1 - This skill seems decent enough. Especially in those first 2-3 weeks of a map, this allows you to squeeze in that additional dwelling on day 7 of week 1.

Reinforcements 1+2 - A downright good skill. I've found two primary uses for it; A) whenever the enemy has a large army, or an army with a lot of ranged units, you toss it on your own archer stack. They will almost always be attempting to kill that specific stack (since most archers have low HP), and having a ~20% buffer on it has prevented losses for me in numerous occasions. Use B) is where the enemy has an overdose of melee units and you can't/don't want to CC them all. You toss is on a stack of your own melee units (preferably Kenshis) and simply run them in there. Rejoice as the enemy whacks away at your costless units instead of advancing towards your ranged fighters.

Ambush - This might be surprising for some of you, but I've actually found this to be a really useful skill. Seeing as how most battles don't last longer than 3 turns, you always get the full bonus. 5 Initiative is also a lot, and especially on a Sanctuary army it often means the difference between moving before or after common semi-fast units (elementals and wolves, mainly). It also generally guarantees that you get the very first move in a combat, giving you access to your hero's spells before the enemy gets to do anything.

Heroism - While it seems good if you really base your hero around buffing, I'm not sure why I grabbed this. I only ever use it if I can't use Petrify, Serenity, Ice Bolt, Regeneration or Mass Regeneration and it's sure to give me more damage in the long run than simply attacking (i.e. if I know the battle is going to last 3-4 more turns at least and my ranged stack is in a good position).

Magic abilities
Regeneration - Lategame this spell starts lacking (it feels bad if my Regeneration ressurrects two dead Kenshi's while my pearl priestess' Waves of Renewal ressurrects up to 17), but it seems pretty decent in the early game, where it allows stacks of 20-30 melee fighters to survive without losses against some neutral stacks.

Mass Renegeration - Even though this ability heals for even less than normal Regeneration, I've found it to be pretty damn useful in mainly sieges. The enemy's towers have the habit of randomly shooting at all of your stacks, causing every unit in your army to take damage. Mass Regeneration prevents victory screens where your losses are listed as "2 Wanizame, 3 Pearl Priestesses, 1 Kenshi, and 1 Snow Maiden".

Petrification - A 3 turn CC. Lovely in so much occassions. Either you CC the enemy's ranged, or you CC their strongest stack and kill their entire army before starting to work on that. A good spell.

Earth Magic 1 - I'm not sure whether these talents are worth it, seeing as how I'm using spells for CC, not damage (as pointed out, they suck for damage), and how spell points only seem to increase damage on spells, not duration on CC. Still, I decided to just run with it since it seems logical if you're grabbing Earth spells. Also, it makes my Regeneration less sucky late-game.

Water Magic 1, 2, and 3 - Ditto, really.

Ice Bolt - As explained earlier, mainly in the first map, when I didn't have Serenity and Petrification yet, this was my primary source of CC against melee stacks. I know ocassionally use it when I don't want to use Serenity or Petrification for whatever reason.

Eternal Winter - Now that I'm taking a closer look at this, it seems useless in my build. Ice Bolt freezes targets, which isn't "the 'chilled' effect". I will probably pick up Ice Armor or Ice Wall in order to apply this effect to see what it does.

Conclusion
So far, this build has worked pretty decently for me. My Pearl Priestesses along with my two forms of Regeneration and Reinforcements prevent me from taking losses whenever I can't avoid getting hit. In a large battle I can CC up to two important stacks for 2-3 turns, allows me to ignore them and kill everything else because shifting my attention back. If the shit hits the fan, I've got Ice Bolt as a backup to halt enemy melee advances. So far this has won me pretty much every battle I've found, mostly with minimal losses, though I do occassionaly feel like I miss some kind of powerful Heal on my hero (like 'Heal').

[Metathron]

I always take Ambush as well. Looking at your build, I would trade skills like pathfinding, heroism, _______ magic,... for counterstrike. The first and second levels are not spectacular but the third one definitely is, allowing your units to retaliate before they're even attacked. This one is right up there with reinforcements as the best skill in the game.

Not sure what counts as rough terrain in this game, so I have mostly ignored pathfinding.

Also, the "_______ magic 1/2/3" skills seem to me to be seriously lacking in noticeably upgrading your spells. The whole water magic school seems really bad to me, or rather I just didn't know how I would put those spells to use, so I've never picked it; no not even with Irina - sacrilege, I know.

[maltz]

Thanks for all the inputs.

I am still in Necro campaign map 1 (hard difficulty) and already see large army clashes. There is certainly a lot of pressure to get a build to mature for serious challenge.

Any recommendations for mass spells? They don't seem particularly powerful and uses way too much mana.

[Avonu]

Regeneration + Heal for Living or Life Drain for Undead/Demons. Also I think Mass Haste and Slow are good idea.
Teleportation (against shooters and during sieges) + Time Stasis are also good choises for a mage.

[Mozared]

I always take Ambush as well. Looking at your build, I would trade skills like pathfinding, heroism, _______ magic,... for counterstrike. The first and second levels are not spectacular but the third one definitely is, allowing your units to retaliate before they're even attacked. This one is right up there with reinforcements as the best skill in the game.

I don't think I can take that - my Irina is a mage (hence the Petrification, it's a 3d level magic skill), and I think counterstrike is a might skill. It does sound like something awesome, though.

Thanks for all the inputs.

I am still in Necro campaign map 1 (hard difficulty) and already see large army clashes. There is certainly a lot of pressure to get a build to mature for serious challenge.

Any recommendations for mass spells? They don't seem particularly powerful and uses way too much mana.

Mana shouldn't be a problem. I'm about halfway through map 3 of the Sanctuary campaign by now and have only had to fight two battles without spells because I ran out of mana. The main use for 'mass spells' seems to be the obvious one - they are fairly weak, but they benefit you if you need to buff your whole army at once. Like I mentioned in my huge post: if you're doing a siege and the towers randomly shoot all of your stacks, mass regeneration is pretty cool.

[RollingWave]

dp, help delete mod

[RollingWave]

Thanks for all the inputs.

I am still in Necro campaign map 1 (hard difficulty) and already see large army clashes. There is certainly a lot of pressure to get a build to mature for serious challenge.

Any recommendations for mass spells? They don't seem particularly powerful and uses way too much mana.

I also run into some mana trouble with my Necro Campaign in the later stages, that's what Meditatian (Prime, require lvl 15, no other preq) is for though, it' basically give you unlimited mana, though the trick is that you need to use it while your still above half mana or so, as it's mana regen is based on current mana, so if you only have like 40 mana left when you use it it's pretty useless.

For Necromancers, mass haste is a very good idea, since a lot of their units either have low initiatives (Skeletons) or Movements (Vampires) or both. (Lamasus). and Teleportation is probably the most useful on Necros due to how Lamasu's main skill functions. Lamasus (espiecally unupgraded) are virtually useless without Teleportations.

For The Necropolis campaign, I have relied heavily on Summon Elemental spells , often ending up using all 3 of Earth / Water / Dark, I actually find Earth to be the most overall useful since it's the best tank and Petrification can remove a unit from battle for a couple turns outright. though Dark is obviously very powerful esepcially combined with Lich. Still Necropolis was my first campaign so a lot of my skill points distribution were less than ideal. (I took mass dispel for example, only to realize how I'd almost never have any use for it even in large fight against enemy heroes, though I'd guess in PvP this would probably have greater use. )

[RollingWave]

crap double post

[RollingWave]

General thoughts.

Logistics - Probably the single most useful skill for really any hero.

Obviously, the most overall useful skill for all HoMM series

Snatch - Not only does it eliminate the need of following your main hero around with a resource-grabber, it also gives you an edge in terms of not losing movement when entering buildings that your main hero must visit anyway (stat boosters, arenas, etc).

Good point... never thought about that.

Pathfinding - I'm undecided on this. Even with the talent I'm still finding I can only move 8-10 steps off-road, so I can't even imagine how horrible off-roading must be without it. It does seem to be worth it's bucks if your hero is Sanctuary though, seeing as how it applies to water movement.

I also seem to not notice the effect of Pathfinding too much, though at least in theory it should be worth it yes

Economist 1 - This skill seems decent enough. Especially in those first 2-3 weeks of a map, this allows you to squeeze in that additional dwelling on day 7 of week 1.

I kinda disagree, because this is only kinda relavant on Map two, by map 3 you start with two heroes anyway.

Reinforcements 1+2 - A downright good skill. I've found two primary uses for it; A) whenever the enemy has a large army, or an army with a lot of ranged units, you toss it on your own archer stack. They will almost always be attempting to kill that specific stack (since most archers have low HP), and having a ~20% buffer on it has prevented losses for me in numerous occasions. Use B) is where the enemy has an overdose of melee units and you can't/don't want to CC them all. You toss is on a stack of your own melee units (preferably Kenshis) and simply run them in there. Rejoice as the enemy whacks away at your costless units instead of advancing towards your ranged fighters.

Yes amongst new skills this is widely agreed to be the most overall useful, though Reinforcement 3 this early seems overkill, as you only get the upgraded Kirins later on ( unpgraded versions are not really worth reinforcing). and even then I'd think most of time we'd either reinforce Kappa / Priestest or Kenshi, which gives a much better bang for the buck.

Ambush - This might be surprising for some of you, but I've actually found this to be a really useful skill. Seeing as how most battles don't last longer than 3 turns, you always get the full bonus. 5 Initiative is also a lot, and especially on a Sanctuary army it often means the difference between moving before or after common semi-fast units (elementals and wolves, mainly). It also generally guarantees that you get the very first move in a combat, giving you access to your hero's spells before the enemy gets to do anything.

I agree, it's a skill I've only took later on and really regret not taking it earlier. moving first often saves you as many units as any other skills.

Heroism - While it seems good if you really base your hero around buffing, I'm not sure why I grabbed this. I only ever use it if I can't use Petrify, Serenity, Ice Bolt, Regeneration or Mass Regeneration and it's sure to give me more damage in the long run than simply attacking (i.e. if I know the battle is going to last 3-4 more turns at least and my ranged stack is in a good position).

Ahem, Irina is Heroism expert which means she starts out with it for free. Mass Heroism is usually rather good for large fights obviously. though Sancturary don't benifit from it quite as much as other factions (it is awesome for Might heroes of Stronghold and Infernos, and useful enough for Knights as well. high level Barbarians with lvl 2 or 3 Rage and Mass Heroism adds up to some crazy crazy damage.) but Irina's version can be quite powerful. though again, this is sort of a big fight only skill for Magic type heroes.

Magic abilities
Regeneration - Lategame this spell starts lacking (it feels bad if my Regeneration ressurrects two dead Kenshi's while my pearl priestess' Waves of Renewal ressurrects up to 17), but it seems pretty decent in the early game, where it allows stacks of 20-30 melee fighters to survive without losses against some neutral stacks.

Mass Renegeration - Even though this ability heals for even less than normal Regeneration, I've found it to be pretty damn useful in mainly sieges. The enemy's towers have the habit of randomly shooting at all of your stacks, causing every unit in your army to take damage. Mass Regeneration prevents victory screens where your losses are listed as "2 Wanizame, 3 Pearl Priestesses, 1 Kenshi, and 1 Snow Maiden".

Regeneration can be used for unlimited times though, unlike Wave of Renewal. though the odds of you needing to use it more than once in a fight is rather low(it has a 4 turn CD)

Petrification - A 3 turn CC. Lovely in so much occassions. Either you CC the enemy's ranged, or you CC their strongest stack and kill their entire army before starting to work on that. A good spell.

I disagree, earth elementals are quite obviously better because.... IT COMES WITH PETRIFICATIONS! With Earth Elementals you can block 1 (or two) range stacks AND petrify another stack at the same time, the only downside is that Earth Elementals can't Petrify stacks with much higher HP than them, though in such fights you probably want to use mass spells more anyway.

Earth Magic 1 - I'm not sure whether these talents are worth it, seeing as how I'm using spells for CC, not damage (as pointed out, they suck for damage), and how spell points only seem to increase damage on spells, not duration on CC. Still, I decided to just run with it since it seems logical if you're grabbing Earth spells. Also, it makes my Regeneration less sucky late-game.

It does improve their time, at least I've noticed it with Time Statiss though usually only for lower level stacks. also it improves the # of summons you can get. which is obviously quite useful.

Water Magic 1, 2, and 3 - Ditto, really.

ehhh, if you only took Ice Bolt it's a huge waste to take 3 points here.

Ice Bolt - As explained earlier, mainly in the first map, when I didn't have Serenity and Petrification yet, this was my primary source of CC against melee stacks. I know ocassionally use it when I don't want to use Serenity or Petrification for whatever reason.

Eternal Winter - Now that I'm taking a closer look at this, it seems useless in my build. Ice Bolt freezes targets, which isn't "the 'chilled' effect". I will probably pick up Ice Armor or Ice Wall in order to apply this effect to see what it does.

Right now your Water use is not very optimal... if you took that many points you should at least take Blizzard / Circle of winter and/or mass Ice Armour (which is really gay when combined with the Honor ability. )

[RollingWave]

Forget what skill is useful though, I mean most of us would agree that most skills are useful to some degree depending on the hero / build / factions. but what is "NOT USEFUL" right now? I'll give a short list ...


Battle March : really? +2 movement for SIEGE??? if it's +1 movement in any fight it be a very useful move... but right now it's crap.

Catapults : well, actually catapult 2 is kinda useful in certain big fights. but catapult 1 is ehhhh which kinda removes it's usefulness, I think this should be changed to how it worked in HH3. lvl 1 should be two random attack instead of 1 random attack with +1 structural damage. that would at least give some more usefulness espeically when combined with Catapult 3.

Toughness: the ratio's simply too low at the moment, if you spend all 3 points of it you get something like 10%... *3* points! it really should be something like lvl 1 5-8% magic resistences lvl 2 5-8% might resistence and lvl 3 5-8% HP.

Luck and Leadership 2/3 : lvl 1 is kind worth it espically in the case of Haven / Inferno. but the rate of return on 2/3 seems to be too low to justify.

Defense / Offense : 1 point of defense or might??? really?? that does nothing early and nothing mid and nothing late. it needs to be changed to something like +1 for every x lvl of hero or something (like 5/4/3/ or something, that way you get +5 might at lvl 15 with lvl 3 , which isn't exactly a ton either but certainly at least worth considering)

[Mozared]

Battle March : really? +2 movement for SIEGE??? if it's +1 movement in any fight it be a very useful move... but right now it's crap.

I kind of agree with your entire list, but just to point it out; I guess this works if you're the defending faction too, right? That would make it somewhat decent for defending a castle siege as Fortress, the only race I can imagine that would want to rush out there and bash skulls.

[aaelgr]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the 2nd archery skill, where the ranged attack gets stronger with every shot so long as the chain isn't broken. It made my Archliches even more lethal (and I think it made the hero attack increase each time too, though I can't be sure). Not so useful for Haven but for Necropolis and Sanctuary...
From what little I've played Air and Dark seem a decent combination, but I'll have to try out some of the Earth spells being mentioned. There's also a useful one in the Fire Magic which boosts initiative and might power (Inner Fire?) which mixes with Ambush quite well.