Unread postby Tyber Zann » 18 Sep 2013, 20:38
OK. Let's see what we got with these new dudes and dudette. I haven't played too much new inferno, so most of my reasoning for these judgements is from fighting them and reading their in game stats. The menus here help too, but the names are outdated so it gets confusing. I'll try to use the current names. 10 lashes if I forget and use an old name. Here we go.
1) Imp. Those little *******s. A magic users bane in large numbers, these things are notorious for depleting enemy mana reserves. So which upgrade is better? Well, their stats are almost identical. The old familiars have more reliable damage (2-3 vs 1-4) (this is more important for heroes that are less likely to use light magic). The new Vermin have 1 extra movement speed, a great little boost for helping get the first hit. So who got the better ability? They both steal mana from enemy heroes. While Imps simply destroy/throw away the mana, the upgrades pass it on. Old familiars give the mana straight to their hero, and from what I remember, that extra mana is added to the heroes pool regardless of their maximum (this can bring their mana above their max). So what to Vermin do with all that juice? They give it to your casters, and what more, this is an activated ability, which mean you can use it whenever you want. I'm not sure if its uses are limited, but I know that the Familiars can only steal once, and it happens automatically at the beginning of their first turn.
There are 2 important things to keep in mind when desciding which one is more useful.
1, the Familiar steals twice as much mana per theft as the Vermin (.25 vs .125 each (rounded)). Thus means it has a much greater impact on the enemy hero. Sure, the Vermin can do it again, but it would have to do it twice to match the amount of mana stolen, and it would likely have suffered casualties before its second theft. It would take longer and is riskier, and gives the enemy hero more opportunity to use their mana before its gone, and it occupies the Vermin so that they aren't fighting.
Now we must descide if giving mana to your casters is worth the tradeoff. It really seems like its not. The Inferno on has one caster, the Pit Fiend/Lord. This unit is awesome, but, is very slow. By the time a Pit Lord has exhausted its mana, it is usually within melee distance of an enemy, and they excel at fighting as well. It can be useful to have them keep using fireballs and meteor showers, but it comes at a price. Remember also that the alternate Pit Fiend upgrade is not a caster like the other 2. If you descide to use Vermin, you must also use Pit Lords to take advantage of the stolen mana.
And so, it looks like the Familiar wins. It's pretty close, but Familiars can steal more mana faster, and give it to the person who needs it most, your hero. Demon lords don't usually have a lot of mana, so stealing/consuming corpses is how they keep it up. Once you get the hellfire ability, the extra mana will become much more useful than extra casting from Pit Lords.
Familiar wins.
2) Horned Demon: The Inferno tank. Which upgrade is better? For once I think I'm siding with the upgrade that deviates from the units "tank" role, mainly because the Inferno has a stronger tank down the line. It's not entirely necessary to use Horned Demons as well.
So you've got Horned Overseers and Horned Grunts. Overseers have a little more defense, Grunts have a little more initiative. It's the abilities that make the difference. Overseers can explode. Well, not really, they basically cast fireball on themselves, hurting everything except themselves in the 3x3 damage radius. This can be useful, but since they're usually tanks, sitting close to your other units, iv almost never used it effectively, and have seen the AI use it foolishly several times.
The Grunt got a much better ability. "Leap", allows them to jump as far as twice their movement range and land on an enemy unit, inflicting greater damage than usual (+10% per tile covered), but is then more vulnerable to damage (can't tell if its just the retaliation or until their next turn). Anyway, this is great, cause it allows Grunts to actually make it to the fight before its over. In many cases, they can actually tank on the front line, stealing enemy units retaliations, giving your Imps, stallions and devils a few free hits over time. This ability can even kill crucial stacks like shooters or block them off. And so the Grunt clearly stands out from the Overseer.
Horned Grunt wins.
3) Hell hound: A normal melee unit, before upgraded. You've got the Cerberus or the Firehound. Again, almost identical. Firehound gets 1 extra defense, Cerberus gets +1-1 damage. They both have "no enemy retaliation" and "3 headed attack". The Firehound, however, gets one more awesome ability. "Fire Breath", just like dragons. Firehounds can spray damage across an impressive area, and effectively rush shooters and casters under guard, damaging anything near its head when it attacks.
Firehound wins.
4) Succubi: Inferno's only shooter. Which upgrade is better? This is a strange one. I try to not let a single ability tip the scales, but sometimes it does. This is a really close call, so ill be as objective as possible. So, Mistress or Seducer? They both kick ass in very different ways, and which one is better will depend on your hero. The old school mistress is like a normal shooter, except she gets "chain shot", a ranged attack that behaves like "chain lighting". She also has "Ranged retaliation", which allows her to retaliate to ranged attacks with a chain shot. This makes them deadly shooters. So what did the seducer get?
Seducers trade the chain shot ability for an ability called "seduce", which is basically a weaker version the Puppet master spell, but even if it works for only 1 turn, its worth it. It's not foolproof though, and does have a problem that I haven't seen mentioned. Basically, the effect of "seduce" depends on the power of the target, relative to the power of the stack of Seducers (I'm guessing its calculated as a combo to unit tier and quantity). Basically, the stronger the target stack is, the shorter the effect, and if the stack is too powerful, it will not work at all. And of coarse, each seducer stack can only use this ability once.
So, while it is certainly a great advantage to turn one of their stacks against them, it is important to look at the above details. Think about how you normally use puppet master. Target their strongest stack, both taking it away from them, and unleashing it on them. The seducer can't really do this (unless their power is that great, in which shooting would almost be better). I mentioned before that this would depend on your hero, and here's why. If your demon lord has dark magic (which is the only magic school they can use effectively under normal circumstances (their odds of getting light magic are very low) and frenzy/puppet master, that will work much better that the seducers ability. Sure, its great to manipulate even more units, but because of its limitations, the normal spells are just better, and having mistresses with chain shot pays off more. This is even more true if you have the "archery" perk. So now we have to descide, whos really better. Well, the seducer is only better if you have no dark magic, or if your facing inferno troops, since the chain shot does not spread to demonic units. The mistress is simply more deadly most of the time. She can chain shot every attack, and the seducer can only seduce once.
Mistress wins (unless you are facing inferno/have no dark magic).
5) Hell chargers: evil unicorns?? This is an assault unit, a fast heavy hitter with moderate endurance. Let's look at the upgrades. Nightmare or Hell stallions? They both kick ass. Stats are close, Stallions do I bit more damage and have 1 less initiative. How bout abilities? They both have a chance to inflict fear, which works like bash, knocking ATB to zero, and it also makes them run away, which is great for getting tanks out of the way. Here's the difference. Nightmares have a "fright aura" which penalizes all adjacent enemies with -3 morale. This is a great bonus, especially if the enemy has low morale to begin with. The Hell stallion trades the fright aura for a "searing aura", which inflicts fire damage to all adjacent enemies at the beginning of each of their turns (damage = 10x # of Stallions). This is also awesome, and coupled with the stallions greater damage, this makes them deadlier.
Hell Stallion wins
6) Pit Fiend: Inferno tank/caster. This is another of my favorite units, right up there with the vampire and golem. Pit Fiends are powerful units, lots of damage, lots of HP, great casting ability, limited only by speed (they are slooooowww).
So which upgrade is better? Let's see.
Pit Lord or Pit Spawn? They are quite different, and both kick ass. The Pit Lord improves on the Fiends Casting ability, adding more mana and the "meteor shower" spell, making them deadly ranged units. Then, when the enemy closes is, the Pit Lord is a more than capable fighter. It's Vorpal Sword ability always kills +1 unit with each attack (1 more than usual, with a minimum of 1 kill). This is very effective against high tier units, and makes the Pit Lord an extremely deadly unit.
The Pit Spawn sacrifices all casting ability in exchange for much better combat stats (including +20 HP), and replaces the vorpal sword with the blade of slaughter, which adds +2 damage per unit in the stack that it attacks. (Attacking a stack of 50 units will add 100 damage), this works best against lower tier units. On top of that, spawns also get 50% magic proof.
So, this is a tough call. Probly the toughest yet, for any unit. Either one is a great choice, and depends on other choices. If you opted for Vermin rather than Familiars, their ability goes to waste with Pit Spawns. It depends on your enemies. Magic resistant? Magic users? More or less high or low tier units. There are so many variables that on a technical level, its a draw.
Pit Lord/Spawn.. Draw.
7) Devil: Bobby Bouche, little girls are the devil!!
So which one is better? Archdevil or arch demon? This is another tough call.
Archdevils have 1 more speed and initiative than arch demons. Arch demons have a bit more attack, defense, and HP. It's pretty close, so what about abilities? They both fly/teleport, and each has one additional ability. The old Archdevil can summon Pit Lords to replace fallen ones, up to and including the amount that entered the battle (they cannot summon more than you started with). Within this parameter, the number of Pit Lords summoned is twice the number of Archdevils who use the ability (the info doesn't specify, but I think this works on Pit Spawns as well, but still summons Pit Lords as replacements (this is what happened when I fought Biara in the campaign)). The summoned stack is treated like a gated one, and does not count toward your army. If all your other, real units die, the summoned Pit Lords will vanish with any gated creatures that remain. This is an awesome ability, and drives enemies to great frustration, as they often try to kill Pit Lords quickly to prevent them from casting. So what about Arch Demons?
Arch demons trade summoning Pit Lords for the ability to "teleport other". Any unit, friend or for, that is within the Arch Demons movement range, can be instantly teleported to the nearest possible tile to the Arch demon that used the ability. You can use this to snatch enemy shooters or casters away from their tanks, or to recover your foreword units, like Cerberi, to give them more.chances to kill. This is a great ability. Both upgrades have great abilities. I personally prefer to be able to summon Pit Lords, but teleporting other has so many uses, I'm gonna have to call this a draw as well. Kind of anti climactic, but hey, its how it is.
Devil... Draw.
That's the list. I'm less familiar with inferno than other factions, so if anyone has anythingto add, please do. Thanks.
Coz I really love knights and angels! 
