Battle Mages and other useless troops...

[Macros the Black]

@Macros

I agree that Stormcaller is better than Call Lightning, but the damage it does is meagre and I would never think of sacrificing my titans' turn to use it. Come to think of it, if I were the opponent (i.e. the one with the tight formation), I wouldn't bother to split my units up, unless they were non-shooters/casters and moving meant getting closer to the enemy. Point is, both these special abilities stink and the titan upgrades need some variety!

True, I agree. I was just saying though, Stormcaller is better than Call Lightning, and since that's the only difference between Titans and Storm Titans the choice should be obvious.
But if you're gonna make a duel preset with 2 stacks of Titans, you should make 1 of them Storm Titans and one of them Titans, just because it makes your army look really cool like that :p

As for the red & black dragons, even though you provide valid reasons in favour of the blackies, I must confess I'm partial to the red fellas. In single player, the AI rarely chooses to harm them with spells, and casting spells on them (Vampirism; Divine Strength, Haste, Regeneration...Does anyone else love Light Magic with Dungeon??) is just heaps of fun, and in this respect the blackies fade. But I'm sure it's a whole other matter when you're up against a live & cunning opponent.

Hmm.. I just always choose the Black Dragons, so never would've noticed if the AI doesn't think like that.
And Dungeon does have creatures with Light Magic spells that would work perfectly on Red Dragons..
So I guess you're right
Does that mean that because they made one feature of the game (AI) crap, another feature isn't as crappy as it should've been?

Pit Lord vs Pit Spawn: Early to mid game the lords are better IMHO, middle to late game...well, the spawns rule, because a single stack of pit lords does really puny damage with their spells when compared how much they could do in melee, and I don't have the room to split them up anymore either, especially as they are large creatures.

Hmm, you may be right about this. For late game, they still have Vulnerability though.. But I have to say that I only ever thought Vulnerability was useful was when I used it with Imbue Balista and had my balista shooting 4 times in one turn. That reduced enemy creatures' defense to zero pretty darn fast.

Emerald vs crystal dragons: their specials are actually not the same. Prismatic Breath works like the Thunder Thane's lightning attack, it depends on luck (which I will pretty much always have with Slyvan) and may hit lots of units. So to me, these upgrades need no tweaking, or nothing major at least. I use them both equally.

Ah, well I believe it was www.heroesofmightandmagic.com where I read that those abilities were the same. Should've known they made a mistake, it seemed so illogical and that site doesn't really have very information anyways (for instance, their advice on the Master Hunter is "This upgrade can wait." )

Earth vs Sky: I agree, there is no competition, Earth sweeps the ground with Sky. The only situation where Sky is potentially better is in a siege where castle walls prevent most your units from moving to attack your enemy, so the Sky daughter will be able to cast chain lightning. But that isn't anywhere near enough, they need an additional edge.

I agree, but even in town sieges I usually opt for Earth Daughters, for two reasons:
1. I'll have my cyclopses destroy the gate so I can get in fast.
2. I'll usually have the Catapult perks when I'm playing Stronghold anyway, because they need an edge in sieges. Stronghold creatures may be sturdy, but the Barbarian hero's defense isn't as high as his attack value and centaurs usually die pretty fast so all you've got for ranged is your ballista and Cyclopses (and in your case Sky daughters, but they take two turns to cast one Chain Lightning).

But are we seriously going to get a patch for this game? Wasn't there mention of it right after the game was released? I guess they're just big fat liars or I'm just being a pessimist thinking a (non-critical!) patch is unlikely to arrive 9 months after the game's release.

Let's just hope that means they're working on a new game and not being lazy bastards

[Elvin]

@Macros
Please, master gremlins are there to resurrect golems Rather effectively I might add.

Elementals dead before they even make it to the enemy? You are doing something wrong, besides most factions will have to come to you not the opposite. Besides imagine the combination of elemental artie, warlock's luck, motw x 50%. That's quite good.

Djinn Sultan v. Vizier: Depends really, a slow or confusion at the right timing can be heaps better than a minor boost to luck.

Call Lightning does more damage, stormcaller is pretty pathetic in comparison. In multiplayer you rarely have over 10 titans.

Familiar v. Vermin: That is totally wrong. The point is how much less mana the opponent has, not how much you have.

Succubus Mistress v. Secuder: Bad initiative though, by the time they seduce they can be severely weakened.

Pit spawns rule, period

[Macros the Black]

@Macros
Please, master gremlins are there to resurrect golems Rather effectively I might add.

Eh.. Never noticed them resurrecting many golems. Besides, Steel Golems are just there as a tank, Magnetic Golems have different purposes but they're still not really a very important creature in your army (unless you're going with the Armageddon strategy, in which case you don't even want Gremlins in your army). So it's far from as useful as disabling a ballista. And don't forget that Saboteurs have better statistics than Masters.

Elementals dead before they even make it to the enemy? You are doing something wrong,

That's what I was thinking..

besides most factions will have to come to you not the opposite.

Maybe, but unless you know for sure the enemy doesn't have destructive magic or creatures with destructive spells you're not gonna keep those guys close to your own troops. So that argument is mute, imo.

Besides imagine the combination of elemental artie, warlock's luck, motw x 50%. That's quite good.

I know, it would be really good. But too many times it happens that I can't get the buggers to stand where I want them at the right time, and then have my hero cast a spell before the poor guys are destroyed or the enemy moved away. Just in my experience, their ability works against me more than it's helpful :/

Djinn Sultan v. Vizier: Depends really, a slow or confusion at the right timing can be heaps better than a minor boost to luck.

It's just too dependant on luck, imo. Anyway, I like it most when they cast Decay
I'm wondering.. does having Soldier's Luck make your Sultans cast the better spells more often?

Call Lightning does more damage, stormcaller is pretty pathetic in comparison. In multiplayer you rarely have over 10 titans.

That's true, I guess, but I never once had a use for Call Lightning. It's just too weak, even if you have to suffer retaliation I'd rather just melee if forced.

Familiar v. Vermin: That is totally wrong. The point is how much less mana the opponent has, not how much you have.

Yes, but Familiar and Vermin both take mana from the enemy hero. So that makes no difference for choosing which of them you want.

Succubus Mistress v. Secuder: Bad initiative though, by the time they seduce they can be severely weakened.

Yes, that is a problem. Obviously, it also lacks the ranged retaliation that would have made the enemy think twice about targetting them. It's a small sacrifice for an otherwise superb creature.

[Wolfsburg]

I dont know if you guys agree, but I always choose Gremling Masters in early game. Turtling them with obsidian golems is a wonderful way to face neutral opponents, even some heavy walkers. They get retaliated non-stop and when they think they have sustained some damage, you reduce your losses with Grem's repairing skills.

First week: Gremling Master is a must have.

Mid- and Late Game: Saboteurs all the way.

[Metathron]

I'm sorry, but after TotE Master Gremlins have become an obsolete troop for me.

First of all, saboteurs have far better stats, and secondly why would I go out of my way to build the costly golem dwelling, when I can surround my saboteurs with gargoyles, a far more maneuverable troop than the sluggish golems, and in the process save the gems for the titan dwelling.

Nope, no contest.

[Mirez]

1) Battle Mages; aside from the fact that they look pretty tough, why would anyone opt to have these guys over the Archmage? Seriously, their spellbook is a joke and aside from being able to do a few more hit points worth of damage in melee I'm just not seeing why you'd want these guys. Aren't they supposed to have some kind of dampening field that protects neighboring stacks from damage? Doesn't stop my guys from getting fried by a fireball or a chain lightning spell...

yeah they sux

2) Elemental Gargoyles; so one of their benefits is... a vulnerability to all things elemental? Huh? Lest this aura of theirs is supposed to extend to those they are attacking (which I haven't seen), wtf?

dude they rule, use mark of the wizard on them, let them fly near the opponent's creatures and circle of winter away

3) Goblin Witch Doctors; they carry a tambourine and jinx enemy spellcasters maybe 5% of the time if their luck is good. Other than that they're even more useless than regular Goblins (whose attack is much cooler... witch doctors do damage by kicking people in the shins)

looks are irrelevant, and the chance that there defile magic ability works is way higher then 5%, it can also weaken the spell or make it cost more, I'd say it's pretty handy and deff not useless troop

4) Vampire Prince: They're pasty and can be retaliated against. Anything else I should know?

I agree, I'd much rather have vampire lords

5) The other Pit Fiend upgrade (name escapes me); so they can't cast spells and they're just as slow as Pit Lords. Armor aside, why would you want a bunch of demons that might be able to do some damage if they can mosey across the battlefield fast enough to catch up to everyone else?

50% magic proof is nice, and blade of slaugter can deal MASSIVE damage against big stacks since it gives the pit spawn +2 damage for every creature in the stack
yet I'd rather have pit lords, casting is nice and so is there vorpal sword, you can abuse both when splitsing the units in as many stacks as possible

Call Lightning does more damage, stormcaller is pretty pathetic in comparison. In multiplayer you rarely have over 10 titans.

storm caller is way better the call lighting, call lighting is only usefull when your outta ammo and you aren't in range for melee,
stormcaller rules, when place it on your opponents shooting squad, he'll have to move em all away

[konfeta]

Battlemages are late game troops. Unless you have the Sar-Isis set, they will do much, much more damage with their attack than your Archmages will with Fireball.

[Mirez]

taht's BS, there melee damage is pathetic and they'll die superfast, you can split your arch mages up into more stacks and massively cast fireball

[Metathron]

You can't afford to split them up in late game when you'll have other troops fill up your slots, unless you want to go deep into enemy territory with only the archmages.

Anyhow, for me at least, the battle mages are the better troop for late game.

[konfeta]

taht's BS, there melee damage is pathetic and they'll die superfast, you can split your arch mages up into more stacks and massively cast fireball

1. Who the hell melees with ranged troops? What does that even have to do with anything?
2. They have less chance of dieng than Archmages because you can actually afford to protect them with your own stacks.
3. Any caster stack spell damage get's outpaced by their physical damage as they grow in size.
4. Splitting Archmages in late game? Epic LULZ is to be had by anyone with even a drop of competence when they fight your "mighty" Archmage army.

[PhoenixReborn]

Call Lightning does more damage, stormcaller is pretty pathetic in comparison. In multiplayer you rarely have over 10 titans.

storm caller is way better the call lighting, call lighting is only usefull when your outta ammo and you aren't in range for melee,
stormcaller rules, when place it on your opponents shooting squad, he'll have to move em all away

Right just like you move away from that scary Banshee scream!

[winterfate]

@PhoenixReborn: LOL!

@haloswift: There's no way any half decent player is going to move his ranged units, even if it means getting the range damage penalty (at a spectacular 1% per Storm Titan) and 10*(Storm Titan stack size) damage each round for 3 rounds. I'm not sure if the AI would move them...but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

Look at this way: Which scenario seems more probable:

Assume 10 Storm Titans casting Stormcall on Arcane Archers and High Druids in adjacent squares (because I play Sylvan a lot. )

A. Arcane Archers take 100 damage. They then shoot an enemy stack for 90% of their normal damage, probably slaying said stack in one shot.
B. I move said Archers. I take no damage, you then send a unit to tie up my Archers, you probably win the match, unless I'm lucky. Even if you don't tie me up, I lose a turn.

Stormcall is too weak to be of any real use. Heck, Call Lightning is borderline (rarely doing more than the Titan's physical attack).

And, trust me when I say that most players online rarely move their ranged units. I myself have kept my Arcanes inside of a 340 damage Firewall. Battles devolve into math games basically. Am I doing more by moving away or staying put?

But, I'm starting to rant. I'll leave this here...