Underestimated Skills/Spells/Abilities

[ShadowLiberal]

I didn't see anything like this when I searched for it, so I figured I'd start a topic about it.

What are some skills/spells/abilities in Heroes 5 that you used to underestimate, until you tried them one day and realized how awesome they were? I'll start with a few of my own.

-Enlightenment: I didn't think the extra stat boost from Enlightenment was really worth it, or the XP bonus. Then one day for whatever reason I chose Enlightenment for Godric. When I got the battle against Godric with Markal I realized just how much enlightenment rocked when Godric kicked my ass because of having like 25+ more defense then me after he added mass endurance on top of his already large defense advantage. I had a hard time putting much of a dent in his army.

-Power of Speed: I always wondered who would waste an ability choice on getting mass haste, when the Light ability to give you Mass Haste also gave you Mass Righteous Might, as well cutting the initiative cost in half for both these spells. Then in the final stage of Markal's campaign I got offered Power of Speed, and since nothing else was better I chose Power of Speed. I then realized just how wrong I was about Power of Speed when it helped me easily crush Godric's army.

-Summoning Magic: I always used to think that Summoning Magic was by far the weakest magic school in the game. I mean fist of wrath & wasp swarm? Destructive magic will always deal more damage. Fire trap? Too random to depend on. Then I played Raelag's campaign on Hard, and realized in mission #3 that I could defeat hordes of tier 6 & 7 creatures with an army of just one tier 1 creature, and a Phoenix & Elemental wall around that one tier 1 creature.

[Arret]

Master of Curses: I was always of the opinion if they reached you, you did something wrong, but particularly for late battles it is amazing.

Empathy: It didn't seem like much at first, but particularly when you get into a mass slow vs mass haste fight with the other hero, this helps immensely.

War Machines I always thought this skill was useless as you can always teleport across a castle wall so catapult seemed like a waste, and of course Ballista was complete trash in HoMM3, so I hadn't gotten around to trying it until after I had run through the base campaigns the first time. Going with ballista in this game though feels like cheating during early creeping. The 100 healing from the tent and extra catapult damage are just bonuses.

[frozd]

War machines + Attack: Since in homm 3 this was crap more or less, then i randomed that knight hero that is a siege master got him balista, triple balista, first aid tent early game and i could creep so fast it was unbelivable. Later on I skilled those flaming arrows in the attack subskill then I was really amazed at how much damage this balista was doing with the - armor and fire damage on top of 3 shots.

[ShadowLiberal]

I forgot to mention one spell that I've found really good.

Firewall: I've found the computer is too stupid to move their units off of a fire wall, that includes both archers, and close up units hiding behind a castle wall constantly choosing to defend on all their turns. Long term you'll deal more damage from this then with a single powerful destructive magic attack.

I agree that war machines can be better than they were in Heroes 3, still, I disagree with the First Aid tent ability being worth it, since you only get 3 uses of it in every battle, which is a ridiculously small number of uses in long drawn out battles, even if it can revive some dead troops.

[mysticc]

What does Power of Speed do exactly? I took it, because there was nothing else worth taking, but what does it actually do? You say it helped you beat Godric's Army, but you didn't say how. thanks!

[Metathron]

Gives you the mass haste spell on advanced level.

[mysticc]

Yeah, but what does that mean? That's just gibberish to me. What is advanced level? Advanced to what? And how is this different from getting it at a Mage Tower in your town or on the campaign map? What does it actually do?

[Metathron]

Gives an initiative boost to all your units when you cast the spell, meaning their turns will come faster. Advanced means the power of the spell is as if your hero had Advanced light magic and the Master of wrath subskill.

The Haste spell with no proficiency in light magic will give a 10% initiative bonus, e.g if your units' initiative stat bonus is 10, it will up it to 11.
The haste spell cast with a basic light magic skill will give 20%.
Advanced - 30%
Expert - 40%

I will sometimes take power of speed with factions who don't have access to the light magic school, e.g. inferno and dungeon.

[Mirez]

I love power of speed when I play inferno or necropolis. It's such a wonderful combination with mass slow.

[mysticc]

See that sucks because I think I got advanced light magic with my inferno hero as well as mass haste already... so getting this was basically a waste then. Brilliant :/

Thanks for the explanation. I wish I knew. I would have picked the other thing.

[Metathron]

See that sucks because I think I got advanced light magic with my inferno hero as well as mass haste already... so getting this was basically a waste then. Brilliant :/

Thanks for the explanation. I wish I knew. I would have picked the other thing.

It's not a waste if you don't already have the haste spell; and if you have only your starting inferno castle, chances are you don't.

[Mirez]

yeah it isn't a waste if you don't have haste yet or master of wrath.
That said you should consider yourself lucky, the odds of you getting light magic as a demon lord is only 2%

[bltbri]

I don't understand the disrespect for Wasp Swarm. I love it! A hero with expert summoning can cripple a dominant stack. Add in sorcery and cast a summon hive, and you can cripple an entire army.

[wimfrits]

I don't understand the disrespect for Wasp Swarm.

There usually are more effective actions for the hero than pushing 1 stack back on the intiative bar.
But every spell has it's uses. Even magic fist!

[Mirez]

I don't understand the disrespect for Wasp Swarm. I love it! A hero with expert summoning can cripple a dominant stack. Add in sorcery and cast a summon hive, and you can cripple an entire army.

It isn't bad early in the game but slow is better in decreasing initiative (not to mention you can decrease ALL units' initiative with mass slow). And well there's plenty spells that deal more damage than wasp swarm. Not to mention it doesn't work on undead units.

[Ridureyu]

Honestly, Destructive Magic. It's not as good as screwing over your opponent's army with some well-placed dark magic, but getting a free shot at a crucial-yet-otherwise-protected enemy stack can really come in handy sometimes, especially when you're outmatched and need to whittle enemies down before they reach you, or are barricaded inside a castle and need to wipe out their shooters, flyers, and catapult. I'd say destructive isn't "useless," it's just that there are usually better options out there.

[ShadowLiberal]

I've recently started to see the power of Armageddon, in combination with one of the few units immune to fire/magic, such as the magma dragon. Dealing 1,200+ damage a turn to EVERY enemy stack on the field, and doing 400+ additional damage from Ignite on an enemy stack whenever it's their turn is awesome.

Still, if you don't have a unit that's immune to fire/magic then there's better magic school options, but in the right hands Destructive Magic can go from mediocre to awesome.

[Ridureyu]

Well,that was just the way to beat Good to Go in Heroes 3, any difficulty. Conflux town, Phoenixes, fire elementals, instant armageddon.

But in general, yeah - if a turn pops up in, say, Heroes V, and you've used all the dark and light magic you really need right now, there's no reason not to pop out an Implosion on those shooters you're having trouble getting to, or even just a surviving war machine. It's not the FIRST option (except early game, where it's a lifesaver), but destruction magic isn't totally useless.

let's see now... Luck is not the greatest skill in any game. This is true. However, units with high damage variance need good luck to begin with. If you're stuck with a hero who started with Luck, the game isn't over. You still gain a benefit from it. It's not like DIplomacy in a map without any random monsters you want.