The Inferno Strategy

[Destro23]

NOTE - Article not complete Faction specific notes will be posted tomorrow, My secretary refused to proof read this for me and therefore I apologize in advance for any gramatical or spelling errors.


General Strategies – This Strategy guide will take a medium or large sized map into account and will be adjusted to Hard difficulty setting.

1. Faction Overview.

The inferno faction is probably the most difficult to start with and to master in Heroes5. The general objective for inferno play is to strike hard and strike fast. Used properly and to its full potential the Inferno becomes a large threat to most other factions.

2. Build strategy.

Building for this town is very dependant on what you decide your objective is to be. There are a number of roots to follow. These will become more apparent when we discuss creeping (below). My builds will vary greatly depending on my opponent and my anticipated final combat.

Week 1 : (RMG maps, mainly) Here I will assume town level 2 Village Hall and tavern built.

Day 1 - Imp Crucible
Day 2 - Demons
Day 3 - Blacksmith (Purchase Ballista and move it to main hero)
Day 4 - Town Hall (if in particularly rich map demon horde building)
Day 5 - Hell hounds
Day 6 - Fort
Day 7 - Mage Guild 1 (Hopefully you cleared a circle around main town and can return for spells and troops now)

Week 2 – This week we build succubus, nightmares, nightmare horde building, Citafel, Stupid requirement building, castle, and Devils. Skip pit feinds all together, they are expensive and just as good in low numbers later as they are in higher numbers.

Week 3 – If resources allow, build pit feinds, upgrade all other troops first. Get city hall and capitol.

As for richer, toh multiplayer style maps we can assume town level will be 3 maybe higher. With town level 3 we can assume that we have village hall, tavern, and level 1 generator built. For this style map your build should be slightly different.

Day 1 – Mage guild 1
Day 2 – Demons
Day 3 – Town Hall
Day 4 – Hell Hound
Day 5 – Fort
Day 6 – Blacksmith or Demon Horde building (pending on accesability to war machines on map)
Day 7 – Hell Chargers or Succubus ( again depending on map dwellings, resources, creep strategy)

Week 2 - Build Succubus or chargers, (upgrade succubus if built week 1, or city hall if not) up to castle (3 more builds), Charger horde building, and Devils

Week 3 – Upgrade Units, get at least mage 3 for dark magic options, also take any mage vaults, pyramids, or utopias (if possible) to find puppet master and or frenzy, build guild accordingly if you don’t learn these from a bank.

3. Creeping.

Creeping with inferno is possibly the most time consuming of all the factions. Theres a few methods I use under normal circumstances (yes without deleb) If you are fortunate enough to have deleb skip to next topic (lol).
Initially you should have somewhere in the range of 40+ familiars and probably 20 demons. Demons are yor best friends for early game creeping, as is Mark of the Damned if war machines are not yet an option. My early game creeping strategy looks something like a tight box formation with no shooters…

X = Demon single stack, Y=Imp stack Z= Large demon Stack
X
XX
ZX
YX

You will then gate all of your units on the first turn, using Mark of the Damned, slow, or regular attacks with the hero. Gating should be done differently for different types of units.
For slower walkers gating units behind where the enemy will move to with 2 large stacks, the single stacks of demons all gate directly in front of the clump (NOTE – Not all of the single demons will produce a gated unit, so do not count on this for cover.)
After the initial move of slower walkers your gated stacks should start popping up especially the imp stack, if placed properly the walker neutral will have to double back to attack your unit this buys your hero and war machine more time to shoot the enemy, your imps will die quickly here, but they last long enough that the demon stack will also gate into the same area, the slow walkers are then forced to start attacking the demon as its now the only unit in range, your hero and war machine continue to drill the enemy until they start to advance to your main force. By this time the odd single stack of demons will have gated in, these are your retaliation stealers. It is important to use the “wait” command often in these early battles, you need to time it in such a way that your imp stack can move out and attack 1 or 2 times before the enemy is going to be able to hit them. By this time in the fight however the enemy should already be quite cripple. Your imps can finish off the left overs fairly easily, but you don’t want to lose any imps to slow neutrals like this so be careful.

Early Combat vs Shooters

Shooters require a different setup, and it depends on the size and type of shooters.
Gremlins, master gremlins, archers, marksman, Hunters are really the only week 1 battles you can contend with if your using a starting army. The formation for this setup is slightly different. Again X = Single Demon, Y= Imp Stack, Z = Demon Stack, I= Single imp

I

I

Z

I
I Y
I
You have single imps on lines 1, 3, 7, 9 in the 2nd square out. Demons in Line 5 and Main imps in line 8 and a single imp behind your main stack.
The main idea here is the Imps in lines 1,3,7 will charge forward, depending on the formation of the archers you may want to let 1 or attempt to gate. The demons also charge forward (as these get closer the hope is that they draw fire off your main imp stack, often times if the imps are not upgraded a demon stack further across the battlefield seems to draw fire.) The 2 single imp stacks attempt to gate as does the main imp stack. After the first volley 1 of 2 things will happen, either your imp stack has taken serious casualties or you’ve lost the single stacks, or your demons have taken a slight beating. This is somewhat unpredictable and depends very heavily on the stack size and formation of the shooters. All mentioned units above this is the strategy I use with the exception of hunters. Hunters will always attack your imps, and therefore it is best to take 6 stacks of 1 imp and your demons, the hunters will waste their shots on the imp stacks while they and the demons gate. The hunters being low health can be killed quite easily with hero and gated in blockers.

I don’t fight casters week 1 with inferno, only exception Deleb. Deleb can kill Mages, Archmages, Druids and elder druids fairly easily if you have adv war machines and ballista skill, I’d use 7 single demons, and maybe one large stack.

I don’t bring hell hounds out at all for creeping, normally if I have a town level 3 to start I’ll make succubus and immediately upgrade them week 2 day 1. Then go out with a stack of 10 Succubus Mistress and my demons, the imps now stay at home. If you have war machines, and 10+ succubus mistress you can kill a really good portion of the mobs on a map. Things I won’t fight with this setup are Casters, Very Fast inferno units (no chain shot), any level 6 shooters, As for level 7’s many can be killed, but you need to watch the terrain closely dragons, titans, Arch Angels, can be impossible battles. For this strategy we put the succubus in the corner with an open space beside her, this is where she will gate into, unless there is a spot on the field that can be accesed by gating that is covered or guarded by terrain. In addition to the succubus you have 5 stacks of 1 demon and a main stack. All demons gate immediately this creates a very tight knit of demons that cause serious problems for neutrals to advance through.

Week 3 Creeping is when I start to power creep on a toh style map. By now I normally have 3 Devils to play with, and again 3 devils + All your demons and a first aid tent(skilled) can kill anything on the map. If you have good dark magic support it’s a big bonus as well. This is also 5 stacks of 1 demon, devils, remainder of demons. As normal we try and get as many gated 1 stacks as possible. By anything on the map I am refering to utopias, banks, neutrals ect.. you will most likely not be able to kill big blocks to another human player this week. And its probably better to wait for week 4 for these types of fights anyway. Ie: Lots of lv7’s or garrisons with large quantities of guards.

As for magic.. Dark magic is absolute nessecity. You can do a lot more fights a lot sooner with mass slow or confusion or mass decay. And naturally we all know about the late game kills like blind, frenzy, or puppet.

The second creeping method is the hellfire approach, in this method I would use most of the same strategies as above only I’d make single imp stacks rather than demons. Imps move faster and will have more opportunity to activate hellfire.
Hellfire is a mana intensive ability, and will not function if you do not have mana for this reason I will pick consume corpse as early as possible. You should be focus firing one stack at a time using this method, and immediately consume any fallen enemies for more mana. Naturally if at all possible take enlightenment, and using this strategy would be the only time to warrant a pick of intelligence. Sorcery and Destructive magic can also be used here (see below).



4. Hero Development.

Hero Development is one of the most basic concepts for inferno, its actually very easy. Skills should be chosen in this order, War Machines, Dark Magic/Logistics (both are of equal importance), Offense, and luck. If you have the option to take enlightenment I would take it as well, the demonlord is going to rely on his primary statistics and dark magic to win fights more than anything else, and additional +10 skill points is a huge bonus for this class. Some other skills worth mentioning are Leadership, and even maybe Light magic if offered and you have numerous banks to obtain high level spells from.
As for perks for the hero he needs to get pathfinding, swift gating and teleport assault from logistics, he is also going to need Ballista and First aid from War Machines. Dark Magic is obviously dependant on the spells available to you, Offense you want to have battle frenzy and to a lesser extent tactics. Some people like power of speed, I am not one of them. Although this ability is good, as inferno you are already very susceptible to an opponents dark magic and curses, the idea of wasting your heroes turn to mass haste only to have it countered with mass slow is not a good one. In fact this may outright lose the match for you. For luck you want to have soldiers luck, swarming gate this is a huge benefit with 5 luck.
There is another breed of Demonlord as well. This is the hellfire specialist, in matchs vs necropolis or to a lesser extent Academy, hellfire can be great way to fight. For this build you want to a slightly adjusted skill set. Firstly sorcery can be nice and for this reason both Allastor and Jezebeth are prime heroes for hellfire builds. Mana Regen is paramount to creeping using this slightly inferior hero design. Also this is the only time you can take Destructive magic over dark magic. Although dark could be handy vs both Academy and Necropolis your main power bombs are ineffective on a large percentage of their troops. As mentioned above enlightenment is a 2% skill choice for inferno, if you can get it great.. if not I’d suggest taking logistics or war machines in its place. So ideally the hellfire hero looks like
Offense – Battlefrenzy
Armor – Hell Wrath
Destructive magic – Master of Fire, Searing Fires
Sorcery – Mana Regen (maybe arcane training)
Enlightenment – Intellegence

This hero class is limited in fighting other factions, and really should only be attempted if you have no other option for a good hero.

5. Player versus Player.
Player vs Player games are completely different from defeating AI opponents naturally, we all know that the AI in H5 is somewhat errrrr lacking.
When playing another human you willneed to consider a number of things
1) How long do you have
2) How long should you let him have
3) How rich/poor is the map, is it best to horde a smaller level army in high numbers or get the higher level troops
4) What do you expect his main attack strategy to be
5) And maybe most importantly – How can you clean your area most efficiently while minimizing losses.
6.Tactics:
:
When battling an evenly matched opponent or army I rely on my overblown attack stat and high initiative creatures to cripple the enemy quickly. In most normal game I also rely heavily on dark magic, both curses and mind control effects to remove threats from the battlefield.
As far as creature abilities go, I rely heavily on the nightmares aura and fearing attack, I utilize succubus mistress chain shot and Cerberus 3-headed attacked to there fullest potential with little regard as to the danger the unit might be moving itself into.
In addition to this, gating the demon lords racial is an amazing ability. Assuming I have Swift Gating as a skill, I will always gate my nightmares, imps, Cerberus, succubus, and demons on their first turn. Vs almost all factions (without initiative modifying artifacts) your nightmares will act again before the enemy troops, and your Cerberus will follow close behind. Double draining from your familiar and gated stacks can really hurt an armies chances to remove precious cleansing mana or cursing potential. After this time all units rush charge attack try and cripple and kill as much as possible while waiting for the reinforcements to arrive. Another nasty trick is teleport assaulting your succubus after they have gated with swift gating, I will often drop them 2 squares away from an enemy shooter and kill the entire stack and a bunch of other adajacent units this way. (And the best part is, they NEVER see it coming)
A demonlords war machines are incredibly powerful aswell the overloaded attack stat and somewhat useless knowledge increases make his ballista a monster. A skilled ballista on a demonlord is often comparable to an enemies level 7 unit.

7. Map-specific Strategies.

Definitely on a small map inferno will come out the winner. They are an incredible adversary early in the game. Your War Machine is just ridiculous this early, as are your imps ability to remove all the mana a hero has. For a smallmap I would always build up to hellchargers and probably nothing more, in fact in many cases levels 1-4 all upgraded might be a better option than even getting the chargers out.
XL maps carry a unique problem for Inferno, although you are a absolute powerhouse on a very very long game you lose to one main problem. In month 2 month 3 when a giant stack of enemy units is attacking your meager 4-5 defense score you take so much damage from the attacker that its sometimes to hard to recover. I’ve actually seen games that have lasted into month 4 and I attack with a stack of say 60 hellchargers (maybe more) and the retaliation of the enemy actually kills more of my chargers than the opponent took casualties.

[Caradoc]

Excellent analysis! The one matter I would like to further explore is bypassing the Pit Lords. They accumulate slowly, so it will be some time before you get to the point of diminishing returns with the Fireball. I'm supposing you are thinking of solo Teleport Attacks with the Vorpal Sword. For that I like to use two stacks, a main group for Fireballs and a single Fiend for Vorpalporting. (I can afford to do this, since I want to be able to accept 'greater glory' offers for my Sac Pit.)

[Destro23]

I actually rarely build pitlords. Theres a few reasons for this, mainly its from my gaming experience. I play 99% multiplayer 1vs1 and therefore games often end early month 2 and to build the pitlords and purchase them costs alot of resources and money, which is usually a commodity I do not have.

I find them very handy to use for both creeping and in final battles, but I am not prepared as a rule to sacrifice an upgrade or otherwise full buyout of my army to have them.

[winterfate]

Nice article Destro23!

Concise and well-thought out.

[Caradoc]

I actually rarely build pitlords. Theres a few reasons for this, mainly its from my gaming experience. I play 99% multiplayer 1vs1 and therefore games often end early month 2 and to build the pitlords and purchase them costs alot of resources and money, which is usually a commodity I do not have.

I find them very handy to use for both creeping and in final battles, but I am not prepared as a rule to sacrifice an upgrade or otherwise full buyout of my army to have them.

Aha! I usually play solo L/XL maps. I get your point about resources. My top priority is usually to capture a Sulfur mine, even if I lose a lot of Demons in the process.

To change subjects, a little tactic that has worked out quite well for me is to hoard up my Familiars, bringing them out only to mana-drain enemy heroes. Late in the game, when I have a high Attack, they are great for melee. Usually I Wait the first turn and then pounce.

[Omega_Destroyer]

That's a good (and infuriating) tactic.

[Elvin]

Heh imagine that I used to creep with familiars, demons and adv/exp gating Apparently ranged units target them too much so it's probably not a good idea. With 10% for warmachines it should not be too hard to get early and may even save me an early upgrade for the hellhounds. I'll give it a shot.

[Hocoino]

I have a bit of a question here. When you are fighting neutrals... say a Horde of Plague Zombies... where do you gate your troops. Do you gate them in the middle? on the far end away from your troops? to one side? or do you gate them right in front of your normal troops? Ive been doing them right in front of my original troops, but I've been taking light casaulties rather regularly, which are annoying especially if I have several neutrals to clear. Losing a dozen imps and two dozen demons in 7 battles might not be too devistating in the long run, but they sure come in handy when in a big neutral fight. I always try to eliminate all losses, or keep them as low as possible.

This is of course before I get any ranged units and even before I get cerberi. Usually this is what I deal with when initially trying to clear mines and am at a fairly low level... between level 1 and 5.

Any tips. Ideas?

[Destro23]

Early inferno creeping for slow neutrals is easy...

Buy Ballista (unskilled or not)

Gate troops to far enemy line

Let ballista kill, your units take leftovers.

[Destro23]

My apologies for not getting faction specifics up yet.. Its been a very busy summer. I did however find time tonight to play a toh game vs a pretty skilled opponent. I was given Inferno (random Town) Vs Dungeon (Random Town) Map was Dueblo Difficulty hard.

On day 1 faced with the prospects of Alastor or Gruul, I opted for Allastor. Day 2 brought Nymus but on a single town map Nymus doesn't really shine so much So I took my chances with Allastor. After a nice and lucky witchs hut offering Logistics right away I was set to go. 3rd level up I was offered enlightenment, a rarity. My skill set eventually looked like

1) Gating
2) Sorcery
3) Logistics
4) Enlightenemnt
5) War Machines
6) Dark Magic

I leveled fairly quickly using 4 water elemntals that came out of an elemental conflux thing and 3 demons. In fact with this setup I cleared most of the map. As I am sure most of you know 4 stacks of 1 water elemental in each can kill a vast amount of enemies.

This map starts at town level 6 You have a fort, market, level 1 upgraded, Town Hall, and Tavern prebuilt for you. Week 1 I pushed very hard, I built hellhounds, demons, mage guild, succubus, Hell Chargers, Citadel. I would normally have built a Blacksmith in place of chargers, succubus, or citadel but on day 3 deleb showed up in tavern with a brand new ballista and ammo cart for me.

I got lucky on my Mine guards and prisoner guards. Guarding prisoner was 26 vampires (killed day 3) Guarding Mines was 29 Berserkers (killed day 4) And Gold mine had 9 Ancient Treants (killed day 4). I then proceeded to attack 67 Ghosts who were guarding a zone that leads to a military post and refugee camp. I took the ghosts and military post day 5.

Week 1 Ended with me sitting at level 11.. not too bad. After many more neutral battles with my 4 water elementals who had now been joined by 5 vampire lords from the refugee camp week 2 ended and my zone was for lack of a better word.. cleared. After being offered master of mind I attacked a mage bank week 2 day 5 and got Frenzy, day 7 I hit a pyramid and got puppet master. My hero was now level 19 and I had a few decent artifacts. My skills and perks now looked like :

1) Basic Gating (no perks)
2) Exp Sorcery (Mana Regen)
3) Exp Logistics (Navigation!!! which a second witch hut was so kind to give to me.
4)Exp Enlightnement (Intellegence)
5) Exp War Machines (First Aid, Ballista)
6) Exp Dark Magic (Master of mind)

End of week 2 saw castle, pit feinds, devils, upg cerberus, and Nightmare Horde building.

So week 3 day 1 I upgraded my succubus (I now have 2 succubus external generators) And I bought out my Familiars, Demons, Dogs, and Mistresses. During the early days of week 3 I attacked 27 wights, and 29 Warlords who where guarding my colored border guard. And proceeded to the middle. After opening the passage to a utopia by going through 34 arch devils with the above army, I chained out my devils all 3 of them. And took my utopia week 3 day 5 with 3 devils and 5 demons, from the utopia I couldn't believe my luck!

7 Emeralds, 5 Blacks Emeralds killed a demon, black got bad morale. I puppet mastered the emeralds, the blacks attacked my devils and killed 1... my first aid tent brought it back as the 7 emerald dragons swooped in and made short work of the black dragons with my sickening 27 attack score! My units and war machines pelted the Puppet mastered emeralds until they were at 50 or so life, they then flew and attacked a demon killing it.. I consumed corpse and soulfire killed the final dragon (yes I had no other option when soulfire was offered)

So from the utopia was 20K gold Ring of Speed, Cursed Ring and some other garbage. So now with +30% init (thanks to dragon bone greaves and Ring of speed) things were looking good. I then checked an artifact merchant and to my delight I found a cloak of deaths shadow for 13K gold so I bought it. Now sitting with -2 morale and -4 luck to enemy and +30% Init I felt quite unstoppable.

I bought out the remainder of my armies in town on day 1 week 4 and passed them down the line to my main hero, we cleared through an easy 68 Bone Dragons.. really what a useless level 7 these are. WIth all the creature generators on dueblo my army was menacing week 4 I have 42 Nightmares, 68 Mistress, 250 familiars, 250 demons, 130 cerberus, and 7 Devils.. Pit Lords never got to my army I just couldn't afford them (again)

Long story short I attacked the dungeon hero Sinitar on week 4 day 3 I was level 24 he was level 19, My units all move long before any of his and nullified any meteor shower advantage he might have had. After he dropped an implosion killing my whole stack of devils, I cast mass slow, followed by mass confusion.. and the rest you might say is history.

After the mass slow I am not sure his units got another opportunity to make an action. Between my ridiculous initiative and Frenzy + Puppet Master on an already slowed, confused army he stood little chance. I left the battlefield 7 devils 2 nightmares, and 20 familiars poorer. His army crushed.

All in all I was extremely impressed with Allastor tonight, his specialty really shined for me in many neutral battles and his skill set although quite unorthodox without offense, luck or gating (never upgraded from basic) worked perfectly. Enlightenment is such a nice skill for inferno its really a shame its only 2%.

[Corribus]

Thank you for the nice articles, Destro. I just returned yesterday so I havne't had time yet to read them. I will try to give them some attention tomorrow!

[Elvin]

Wow that came out pretty well Skill and luck though I wasn't a big fan of Alastor exactly because of sorcery. Seems inferno with a helping hand on creeping just keeps on moving.

[Corribus]

Some great strategy information there, destro. I wonder if you could comment on siege battles. It seems that, with gating and good ballistics skills, Inferno should be better equipped than most factions to take on fully developed castles. Do you feel this is so? Do you gate into the castle on the first turn to temporarily block garrisoned shooters?

[Destro23]

Yes exactly, I actually very much enjoy seiging with inferno.. Unless of course its Fortress.. but really, who can seige fortress?

If I plan to really rush an opponent, I expect the castle will be the battle ground... Catapult skill is very very nice for seiging obviously and it is the 3rd war machine perk you would take. Although the tree can go Catapult, Brimstone Rain, Tremors I don't feel that its worth 3 skill slots to "maybe" have an edge in a seige which you already have.

Seiging with inferno is all about the gates I feel, what I like to see is Imps going quickly and hopefully the towers decided to attack mistress (often the case) I gate everything into the castle walls on the first turn except mistress, I gate them 1 tile out from the gate and in the very center this blocks any large units from moving out of the castle and allows you to only have that stack attacked by 1 large unit at a time. This can serve from very nice strategic placement. If the enemy has a lower mana pool, your double familiar stacks should drain him very efficiently, leaving him with only towers, and archers. Naturally gated stacks will kill off archers quickly as possible, and with catapult skill it will not be long before the towers are destroyed also. This then leaves your opponent with a mess of gated units within there walls, subsequently thinning his ranks substantially. By the time the battlefield is cleared up enough to allow his troops free movement, a good portion of his army is already dead, and chances are his mana is for the most part non existent.

At this point your outside units should still be fairly complete, and you can start to move these in, I will usually send only a few units into there castle at a time, unless of course they have decided to move out. First round I will place devils on a outside wall, allowing them full movement to "hop" in and and out striking and backing out. My first attack is usually cerberus and nightmares they will charge forward hoping to catch what little is left with both terror strike and a good 3 headed attack, the cerberus attack becomes extremely useful in a seige due to the very limited space allowed within the walls. In many seiges after the gated units have finished doing there job I have been able to take out all the remaining troops with only cerberus and nightmares.

I'd say that inferno is highly advantaged in town seige because of the emphasis on war machines they have and of course gating in a seige enviornment is absolutely devastating.

[Corribus]

Assuming equal assortment of spells, what do you feel is better suited for inferno, dark or light magic?

[Destro23]

Definately a difficult question.. both schools offer great advantages. However the real kicker is that it is a well known fact that without cleasning, dark magic will ruin your inferno very quickly.

Vs a faction that doesn't have light magic I'd still go dark all the way, on a faction with potential for dark magic, light would be the wiser choice.

I've built a light magic demon lord on a few maps before, only maps that have mage vault + pyramid + utopia this allows you to get the high level power spells ressurection, teleport, Anti Magic without having to waste resources on a guild. Before I would do that I guess I'd have to see at least cleasning in the guild, and probably Divine Strength.

[Corribus]

Yeah I'm actually surprised that there aren't more spells available that will dispel enemy spells. In earlier versions of HoMM there were always at least two or three (cure, dispel magic, etc.) that were easy to come by. Though, if the enemy has proficiency in dark magic, and you have proficiency in light magic, you can also counter enemy castings with your own light magic spells that have the opposite effect - which may be better than cleansing anyway. For example, if the enemy casts Mass Slow, you can cast Mass Haste. Though, to get to high enough level in light magic to make use of such spells, you'd probably have to sacrifice growth in other areas, which wouldn't be doing the Inferno faction any favors, I wouldn't think.

[Destro23]

That would be my concern,

When your dealing with a faction that doesn't have full access to a given spell school, putting alot of lv ups and perks into the skill is risky. For example I'd hate to take Master of Wrath for haste only and then also have to take master of blessings for cleansing. Mind you master of blessings + power of speed would be fine.

[Elvin]

*bump*

Here's hoping this one will be resumed If anyone has comments give it a shot.