HoMM III: Best level 3 creature

[Metathron]

[Jolly Joker]

Level 3 is probably the most interesting level of all.
So here are, JJ's ratings again. 1) Single unit; 2) Weekly prod; 3) Cost effectivity
I include in brackets the Storm Elemental to show what it is.

1) Cerberus 13.28
(Storm Elemental 12.96)
2) Royal Griffin 12.49
3) Ice Elemental 12.12
4) Dragonfly 11.22
5) Evil Eye 10.50
6) Grand Elf 10.19
7) Iron Golem 9.96
8) Wraith 8.61
9) Orc Chieftain 6.69
--------------------------------------

1) Royal Griffins 212.33
2) Dragonflies 179.52
3) Cerberi 172.64
(Storm Elementals 155.52)
4) Evil Eyes 147.00
5) Ice Elementals 145.44
6) Grand Elves 142.66
7) Wraiths 120.54
8) Iron Golems 119.52
9) Orc Chieftains 93.66
---------------------------------------

1) Cerberus 5.31
2) Royal Griffin 5.20
3) Iron Golem 4.98
(Storm Elemental 4.71)
4) Dragonfly 4.68
5) Grand Elf 4.53
6) Orc Chieftain 4.05
7) Evil Eye 3.75
8) Wraith 3.74
9) Ice Elemental 3.23


So Cerberus wins single creature and cost effectivity while Royal Griffins win the weekly production. Grand Elves are basically the same case as Marksmen. They are not THAT good, but look stronger because in game they benefit from their bodyguards. Storm Elemental is a rather good level 3 unit, while Ice Elemental is not bad either, but too expensive. Wraiths and Orcs suck, comparatively, while Iron Golems are at least cheap. Evil Eyes are useful, but too expensive as well, something every Dungeon player knows - you cannot use them in the beginning, and having a map with an outside level 3 dwelling is a real curse, since you can't pass on hiring them, but it's a real future investment.

While Dragonflies win nothing they are a true contender since they are extremely useful for their town. Castle has the Marksmen and developing the Griffins to their fullest takes time. Griffins are a curse later, though, when they are a real force (which is true for the Elves as well, though).

I'm not going to vote, yet, because I ever was and still am undecided.

[Gaidal Cain]

Grand Elves. Since we don't have the formula for JJ's calculations, it's pointless to base discussions on it. Grand Elves have enourmous damage output, and while they as shooters do need protection, it is not hard to provide for most towns. There are other solid units of this level, but none which one can form a really effective early map clearing force around.

[darknessfood]

Voted grand elves. They shot twise and the damage is really nice too

[Meandor]

Dragonfly for me.

[Banedon]

Elves for obvious reasons. The Ice Elementals are very strong too. Evil Eyes are good, Dragon Flies are almost essential to the Fortress army. Cerberi and Royal Griffins are both good creatures but also quite useless because they're out of the building scheme. Iron Golems aren't that out of place with Tower because they aren't going to slow down the already slow Tower army anyway. The remaining two creatures are mostly worthless.

[Jolly Joker]

Nah, this is pointless.
As with Marksmen, if you rate Elves high

IN FACT YOU RATE ELVES AND ANOTHER

a combo. Or do you fight with Elves alone? Fact is, they are GREAT attackers, but they "lend" HPs from other units.
This is, for example, different with Evil Eyes - by the way, a duel Evil Eyes against Grand Elves is won by whoever starts which should tell you something.
If you put an EQUAL number of Dragonflies against Elves (and you get more Dragonflies than Elves in the game), for example 50, the Flies lose 10 or so.

Since I think that the specials for Griffins and Cerberi are a bit awkward at times and since the Weakness spell of the Flies (-6 on attack) is very powerful throughout the game, I think the Dragonfly gets my vote.

[Suleman]

I'm a fortress player, and I know how useful Dragon Flies are. I also know that High Elves, though awesome at clearing neutral stacks, aren't as good overall as some others.

Cerberi lack mobility compared to Dragon Flies and Griffins. Now, Griffins or Dragon Flies? A tough one.
Griffins are extremely versatile. They can be used defensively or as a shock troop like the hydra, except that they can do it without teleporting.
Dragon Flies are ridiculously fast, can help disabling units with their Weakness attack and dispel buffs. Excellent for harassing and focusing on a certain enemy unit.

In the end, the Dragon Flies got my vote because they're fortress units and are also hella cool.

[Paulus1]

Voted Cerberus, but it was pretty much a tie between them, Royal Griffins, Dragonflies and Grand Elves.

[Gaidal Cain]

Nah, this is pointless.
As with Marksmen, if you rate Elves high

IN FACT YOU RATE ELVES AND ANOTHER

a combo. Or do you fight with Elves alone?

No, I don't. Which is exactly why it is not relevant that they aren't as good on their own as in an army. Thinking any other way is like arguying that the Ressurection speciality of Archangels isn't any good because you need another stack to use it on. Griffins and Dragon Flies are good units, but they're not as good an addition to an early mapclearing force as Grand Elves.

If you put an EQUAL number of Dragonflies against Elves (and you get more Dragonflies than Elves in the game), for example 50, the Flies lose 10 or so.

Pointless example.</csarmi-mode>

[Heretic_Cata]

The Dragonflies - Dispel then Weakness on the first round is awsome.

[Jolly Joker]

Nah, this is pointless.
As with Marksmen, if you rate Elves high

IN FACT YOU RATE ELVES AND ANOTHER

a combo. Or do you fight with Elves alone?

No, I don't. Which is exactly why it is not relevant that they aren't as good on their own as in an army. Thinking any other way is like arguying that the Ressurection speciality of Archangels isn't any good because you need another stack to use it on. Griffins and Dragon Flies are good units, but they're not as good an addition to an early mapclearing force as Grand Elves.

If you put an EQUAL number of Dragonflies against Elves (and you get more Dragonflies than Elves in the game), for example 50, the Flies lose 10 or so.

Pointless example.</csarmi-mode>

Wrong. Dragonflies are better because your hero is faster with them and the building of them is easy as well. You can't do no more than clear a map, and Dragonflies do just that. Dragonflies WILL clear Grand Elves easily. Grand Elves won't. In fact, what Grand Elves do or not do depends ALOT on the guards: give them infinite guards and an ammo cart - voila clear whatever you want. But:
YOU LOSE GUARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Depending on the force you face.
So this is just a trick: you SWAP the losses you have from the Elves to some other troop, you conjure up.

To sum this up: you are willing to allow Elves the advantage of using other troops to support them and give Elves full credit for the effect . Which means, you rate it as a DISADVANTAGE for other units that they are not dependent on other units, even though this clearly has advantages - AND: you are obviously not willing to allow support units for Flies (for example): How will Flies do with Lizzies? (Let Lizzies soften up hard targets first!) I mean, if you consider bodyguards, why not consider light shooter support, hero support, higher level support...
Unfair. Biassed. Silly. Stupid. Sorry for the hard words.

If you allow other troops you can just as well make one poll for the best 7-stack army.

[Pol]

Yep, just by the way I also voted for Dragon Flies
(however not expressed my opinion previously, albeit vote was already cast )

The D.F. win for me by superb combination of speed, good stats and additional spells. I think that's very clear here.

It could be that <csarmi> mode.

[Pitsu]

I admit that elves with their speed and damage are super, but I would love to highlight the concept of dragonflies. Dragonflies speed and somewhat also special attack IMO adds a lot to the game. Mostly in H3 all stats increased with creature level so that high levels were in every mean better than low levels. Dragonfly/fortress is a nice exception widening the possibly strategies quite a bit. May the usability and damage output be as they are, but lvl 3 creature with the *best concept* is the dragonfly.

[Gaidal Cain]

Wrong. Dragonflies are better because your hero is faster with them and the building of them is easy as well.

Taking only Dragonflies? I don't see how you're going to defeat anything but shooters and some of the weaker units with that. That Dragonflies are fast and allows you first cast early on is true, but you're not going to clear the map with just them.

You can't do no more than clear a map, and Dragonflies do just that. Dragonflies WILL clear Grand Elves easily. Grand Elves won't.

Of course not. You're still comparing the wrong units. Dragon Flies works fine against shooters. Grand Elves works fine against almost everything else.

But:
YOU LOSE GUARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Considering what's said about multiple exclamation marks, I don't even want to count how many there are there.

So this is just a trick: you SWAP the losses you have from the Elves to some other troop, you conjure up.

And? You can't do the same thing with Dragon Flies. Being able to keep your very competent damage dealer out of harm's way is not a weakness of it.

To sum this up: you are willing to allow Elves the advantage of using other troops to support them and give Elves full credit for the effect . Which means, you rate it as a DISADVANTAGE for other units that they are not dependent on other units, even though this clearly has advantages

Of course I am. I'm not stupid, so I don't use Grand Elves and nothing else. What you forget is that is only due to do to the good properties of the Grand Elves that you can sacrifice other units this way. You forget that the Grand Elves also protects the shields, by damaging the enemy so badly that the losses are much reduced. I didn't vote for Beholders, even though they also would have been able to defeat the enmy given infinite guards (come to think of it, with infinite troops, you can defeat anything), because they're just not as good.

- AND: you are obviously not willing to allow support units for Flies (for example): How will Flies do with Lizzies? (Let Lizzies soften up hard targets first!) I mean, if you consider bodyguards, why not consider light shooter support, hero support, higher level support...
Unfair. Biassed. Silly. Stupid. Sorry for the hard words.

I wonder who's stupid: me, or the one who wants to use lizardmen support when he ditched them for higher speed...
(Not to mention the fact that the Elves can make do with almost any troop support, when you want to add in shooters and heroes).

If you allow other troops you can just as well make one poll for the best 7-stack army.

I find that comment so utterly ridiculus that I don't see why I should even bother, but here's a clue for you: almost no unit is ever used on its own. Evaluating the units that way is just silly.

[Pol]

I don't know like others, but I'm using Dragon Flies like obligatory equipment for Scouts and also like fast attacking preemptive force against Undeads, when I'm on my own and have Destroy Undead. The resulting damage output from that strategy is in the final much better that the one from the Grand Elves.

Dragon Flies are versatile, can disrupt enemy strategy and halve spells. On the other hand Grand Elves are just boringly good.

Problem is that these both units have very different strategy to deploy and use. But overall I would rated DF higher, overall doesn't means in all situations of course.

[Jolly Joker]

GC, I'd thought you were better than that.
Just one point. How good the Elves are, is obviously completely dependent on how many guards are there (which is one of the points you don't seem to grasp. Let's say you have ONE grand Elf and the Ammo Cart. How much will that grand Elf do? Now give that grand eld guards. How much damage will the grand Elf do? IT DEPENDS ON THE GUARDS AND THE LOSSES THEY TAKE. COMPLETELY.
So 1 Grand Elf can take ANY amount of creatures, it just depends on the number of creatures it has as body guards.

And you obviously never played with Dragonflies.

[Kristo]

I voted for Grand Elves, based on their damage-dealing potential and the fact that you have to get past Dendroids and Dwarves to get to them. In the absence of the proper spells (that changes everything), you need either Archmages (level 4), Zealots, or Power Liches (level 5) to out-shoot them. Not bad for a level 3 creature.

Royal Griffins and Dragonflies are close behind. RG's are a great wall for Zealots or Marksmen AND they hit hard enough to be used offensively as well. Dragonflies are a pain in the butt to fight against but aren't strong enough to rank as "best level 3 creature."

[Banedon]

Of course not. You're still comparing the wrong units. Dragon Flies works fine against shooters. Grand Elves works fine against almost everything else.

The idiocy is that Efreet Sultans work better than Dragon Flies against shooters, yet JJ refuses to rush them 6 Efreet Sultans would allow one to destroy otherwise untouchable ranged stacks (eg. Throng of Marksmen), yet they're somehow not worth rushing.

I agree with you all the way Gaidal Cain

@topic - I find it surprising no one has considered that Cerberi and Royal Griffins are out of the build chain. Like, Cyclops are great units, but you don't deploy them in general because you don't need them to access Ancient Behemoths.

[HodgePodge]

Voted Dragonfly.

Although Grand Elf was a close second.

I cast my vote(s) for the unit I like and think are the best and don't give a rat's ১ what JJ's ratings are. He's just looking for something to argue about!