Upgrade choices

[lumpoor]

I know it's been discussed to death already, but in the other threads the information is spread out and stuff.

If people could tell about their choices and why it'd be great.

One choice I'm wondering about is between vampire princes and vampire lords. Everyone seems to choose the princes, which baffles me. A long time ago I heard someone say princes are better, and I was "OK" and after that, on the will of asha campaign, I used them.

I thought, if torpor triggers, it's better than no enemy retaliation in every single way. Other than being no enemy retaliation it also blinds them and increases damage done.

When I used them, the torpor triggering chance wasn't so high. I've heard it depends on the hp of the vampire stack compared to the hp of the enemy stack? When the enemy stack has alot of hp (and is therefore big), that's where you need no enemy retaliation the most, and there it also has the biggest chance to fail.

Everytime I attacked with my vampire princes, I thought, "please torpor trigger". Sometimes it triggered, but sometimes not and then lots of vampires died.

And then I realized. The only reason to why I wanted torpor to trigger, was because of the no retaliation. I didn't really care about the blind or extra awakening damage. And if torpor just turned into a chance of no retaliation, I might as well get lords with 100% chance of no retaliation.

I mean, maybe with soldiers luck vampire princes would be better, but I usually don't get luck for necromancers.

Also, pit spawns vs pit lords. People seem to choose pit spawns, but if the main clash is in the first or second month, and extra ranged attackers is better than a better meleer imo. Of course, due to spellpower scaling, a big group of pit spawns is better than a big group of pit lords, isn't a small group of pit lords better than a small group of pit spawns? Vorpal blade also fits this, since it is also better for early battles.

And if you have unicorn horn bow, are arcane archers still better than master hunters? Why in that case?

[Asheera]

Torpor triggers a lot And about blind being weak and you wanting only no retaliation... that's just wrong, sometimes I blind 3-4 enemy stacks before the first one gets to act again. That's some serious 'damage' on the enemy troops.

Yes it does depend on the HP of the target and the Vampires. But that doesn't affect much the outcome, especially since the base normal chance starts at 25%, and the Princes have triple chance to trigger Torpor. From this base 25% it's only a minus of 3% per amount of times the target has HP more than the Vampires... so if the target has 3 times more HP (which is kinda a lot btw... think about it for a moment), it's a 19% base. But Torpor triggers three times as much than usual.

Also Torpor can trigger on Vampire retaliations, No Enemy Retaliation is useless in that case.


Not to mention Princes have better stats (and the extra HP is no joke)

[lumpoor]

Ok, thanks. Guess I'll have to start to use the princes again :/
They're uglier too. Got some acne problems...

[Mirez]

I only get princes when I'm using lucretia and have soldiers luck otherwise I prefer 100% no retaliation

I don't see why people would get pit spawns... like you said another melee user whoop ti doo, sure blade of slaughter can deal some damage against high numbered stacks but pitlords can deal a lot of damage if you bother to gate them first, as long as you keep your vermin stack high they can keep casting fireball for quite a while

[EvilNed]

I just went up against a group of 40 vampire princes with a secondary hero. He left the field with only 24 defenders!

[Banedon]

The problem with Necro is that they don't have any spectacular units. Skeletons, Zombies, Ghosts, all the way up to Bone Dragons, all of them deal bad damage. Vampire Princes are the closest Necro has to an outstanding unit, and so I'll use them. 100% no retaliation is one thing, but if the Vampire Lords aren't hitting for a lot in the first place they aren't going to regen a lot either. If you're against neutrals, then there's a good chance the Vampire Princes will regenerate to full, even without "no retaliation", if you prod them a little with Raise Dead. If you're against another player ... then you can't expect to take no losses anyway.

As for Pit Spawns and Lords, it's a different reason. Pit Lords have low initiative. They're not going to act much, especially if you Gate as well. They also happen to be level 6 units, so they have a different job - to kill. Pit Lords don't kill very well. They don't have infinite mana, they have low speed and low initiative once they run out of mana, etc. I find Pit Spawns able to deal more damage; their Gated stacks are stronger, too. The Vermin -> mana siphon -> more Fireballs idea is cute, but impractical. Familiars get their mana drain for free; with Vermin you have to sacrifice your move. Since Familiars / Vermin deal some good damage + absorb retaliation, it looks rather silly to me to give up all their other combat potential just to keep the not-very-often Fireballs firing.

I suppose if battles are small enough, Pit Lords could see some use, but not otherwise.

[Mirez]

if you gate your vermin first you'll have 2 huge stacks capable of siphon mana, you'll be able to cast every turn allright
besides the battlefield is a little bit to crowded as inferno as it is, every unit (except for devils/arch demon/succubi) has another gated unit on the field, I din't like those 8 tiles extra on the front line
besides I love vorpal sword, suddenly those 5 red dragons guarding that monolith aren't that scary anymore, I always considered it one of inferno's best points that they can fight against high level creatures without suffering to much damage, sure it's a waste of exp if you send a 2nd hero with 5 pit lords to defeat high level creatures but it saves you a lot of losses

[Banedon]

Well it's not like the Fireball does a lot of damage later in the game thanks to logarithmic progression ... I'd Gate as much as possible too; what could be wrong about that? You throw out lots of disposable, hard-hitting creatures that obstruct the battlefield (which impedes you both, should mention that).

Vorpal Sword is great, but the Pit Lords are rather slow. I don't like it. If I'm going to rely on physical attacks with them then I don't see why Pit Spawns aren't better, especially since Archdevils can raise Pit Lords from any unit that dies.

[Derek]

The only way Pit Lords see action is with teleport assault, and a good Demon Lord has more nefarious things to be doing over that.

A few upgrade questions:
Is there a good reason not to take Firehounds over Cerberi? The arcs always seem to hit about twenty units, which makes them lovely for quick and easy damage.

Foul Hydras seem just better than Deep Hydras. Is there something I'm missing here? Regen at 30-50 health hardly seems worth it--the acid blood makes them dangerous to engage in melee(a deterrent, anyways).

[Banedon]

I think Cerberi have their uses early in the game when you're facing mostly neutrals which you might have to hit-and-run - it is one extra damage after all. For Foul Hydras and Deep Hydras ... it's a good point, but I've not used either creature often enough to comment beyond that.

[EvilNed]

I kinda like Pit Spawns too. But sometimes I try to keep two stacks of them. One Pit Spawn and one Pit Lord, but this becomes obsolete once you can raise Pit Lords with your Demon.

[Minnakht]

After you cast Mass Forgetfulness most of the enemy won't retaliate anyway, and I think tht the Princes have more speed, enough to do first-turn attack on large creatures. Or something like that. I'm not a pro.

I am sure all good Necromancers should have Master of Mind, though.

[danhvo]

100% no retaliation is one thing, but if the Vampire Lords aren't hitting for a lot in the first place they aren't going to regen a lot either.

You make it sound like Vampire Princes do more damage than Vampire Lords.

I use Vampire Lords, to simplify things. No Retal works on all creatures, but not so with Stupor. And where Stupor doesn't work, neither does Confusion.

[Midas]

IMO, some of the alternate upgrades are imbalanced to the other, e.g
War Dancer with that blue turtle neck, the "Agility" just pisses me of, and it doesn't really make much sense that Agility adds to...Defence!

Arcane Archers and Master Hunter= more chance to do Luck! if not, The Arcane Archers will just do more damage!, also a bit Imbalanced, or the Djinn, Blood Sister with Blood Maiden, Skeletons! oh those damn Laboratory runaways! (I'd also say the gremlins, but now I realize why I'd take Master Gremlin than the Saboteur)

It seems to me that Nival wanted to balance things here and there, but in turn overdid it...

[Orfinn]

UBIsoft and Nival got just too tempted to overpower stuff, alot easier that way. Got to get the realeas up fast you know.
Anyway, I've given up on H5. It screams IMBA.
I could try it one last time but then it depends on one thing. Are there ANY user made mods that balances out the different units to the point they should be? Same for the dwellings.

Necro units or dwellings should cost much less that would fit very well for the quantity philosophy Necropolis try to go after. War dancer should, lets say get more hit points and attack than Wind dancer. Just some examples I've had in mind for far too long.