Mixing Heroes & Factions

[mr.hackcrag]

What combination of heroes outside of their native town work well?

[markkur]

I've not had other-race heroes very often but I've found that I do what I did in H3; hire Heroes with universal-specials. There are some Heroes that "nearly" fit into other factions.

i.e. Lethos is good in a Necro town because of his' Decay and he's also from the Dungeon faction which has a better % to get summoning...thus he can get Master of Life and become Half-Necro

However there are not many that work that well; Wizards like Nathir with his Destruction/Fireball will work OK in Inferno and Dungeon towns but it's probably better to go with Jhora and her Sorcery since, as a Wizard, she will hit the Magic hard anyway and could work in any faction. i.e. Resurrection in Haven or Puppet-Master in Necro or Dungeon. etc. Ofc Nathir could too but Jhora also brings her Sorcery-bonus to the battle.<L>.

<imo>Gating, Elemental-Chains, Runes, Blood-Rage, Necromancy and Artificing are just too important to overall faction-strength to ignore. However, Knights and Rangers are not near as bad in missing Training and Avenger. Both are difficult to "fully" utilize in the correct town, so neither is a big loss when these Heroes are in other factions.

The worst picks are heroes that specialize in one faction creature. Say Grawl is hired in a Academy; It's bad enough to not be able to "speed" Rashkas but then to have a bonus on the hellhounds when he will likely not see more than what he had when hired... is too much of a handicap.

Since no Race-special can be utilized I always avoid "other" Heroes as my #1.or 2. Although developing a #2 of a race/faction that is on the map is never a bad idea; I wait till I know the faction exists.

The worst mix, of course, is Barbs with anything. <imo>Blood-Rage is too important for Orc troops. But, Urgat like Rutger (Haven) or Grok (Inferno) is perfect for scouting, since it's possible that hitting 2 Dolmans could give...Expert Logistics.

A tip about Grawl above...have a Wizard equip the Rashkas for him. Unfortunately, there's too little of this sort of thing possible.

Btw, this IS a deep game, there could be other combos I've not discovered. I'm no expert and I'm still discovering.. H5 Rocx man!

[mr.hackcrag]

Yeah, like you said, Inferno and Barbs can't compromise, while Haven and Sylvan are fine. I'd add Academy since on many smaller maps, I never use their artifice. Thanks for the ideas. The downside of mixing is that some level ups will improve racial skills you can't utilize.

I've often thought about the effectiveness of different racial skills. It seems like the skills you have a chance to use often, like Gating or Necromancy are better than racial skills you can use less often like Favored Enemy or Artificer, primarily because of the frequency of use, rather than one skill being better than the other.

[markkur]

Yeah, that's true, it's the Epic maps that shed the best light on racials and other abilities. That's one of the reasons why I like to make "long-winded-maps" and dislike the bull-rushes.

[mr.hackcrag]

I'm the opposite. I don't like the so called "epic" maps at all because heroes tend to become so strong and armies so big that winning often boils down to whoever hits first. It's all very anti-climatic. I think part of the problem is with the mapmakers putting super artifacts everywhere and a bunch of stat raising sites. I enjoy maps where those things are seldom or very hard to acquire.

[markkur]

Since I veered far off-topic...

I'm posting a response to your point in the "map-making thread" that I recently created here at CH.

[mr.hackcrag]

Nathir worked really well with the Mark of Fire Fortress units!

I also just finished a map with Krag leading Sylvan troops with great success. His 20+ attack along with the damage boosting Attack skills was deadly for the quick Sylvan units. His special skill is pretty strong too and with "stunning blow" paired with "powerful blow" it made sure that my units got the jump on the initiative.

Kind of unrelated, but Mark of the Wizard also doubles the amount of fire traps, making it easy to flood the field and inflicting a ton of damage.

It's also fun taking control of units with Succubus and then walking them through Fire Traps.

[TheMeInTeam]

Any pure destructive magic caster can be nasty if you mentor them.

Also, Deleb's ballista is some nasty stuff even if she can gate nothing lol. The knight who gets movement/level is also really good on larger maps.

Basically, any hero with a very powerful special and good starting skills can be a respectable choice even off-town.

[Tyber Zann]

I find mixing units/heros is fine so long as iv got leadership, or if the troops r undead, they don't care. Basically, each mix up lowers units morale. Foreign hero, foreign mix of troops, moral plummets. Other than that, there a lot of potential to a multicultural army.

And in response to buddys comment about maps being too epic, I agree. And ur right, too many artifacts, too many boosters. I'm actually making an epic map, but its not too epic. I'm sure the testing community will tell me if it is.