How does the faction balance seem to you guys?

[Alamar]

I've only been playing a few hours and I'm wondering what everyone thinks of the balance between the factions.

Are there factions that start fast but don't have a lot of "staying power" in a long game? Are there factions that start out really slow but are monsters during the end game? Which factions seem stong and which need a lot of work?

I know [for sure] that I haven't played enough games to know yet so that's why I'm asking for everyone else's opinion.

Thanks.

[Paradox]

Can anyone really tell at this point? You'd have to play every faction quite a lot for a few games to get a real feel for what they are capable of, because there are always different maps and different circumstances which can effect wether or not 1 town does good one game or bad the next.

I'm still playing with Haven and i got my copy the day it came out. (not even bored enough of them yet to try a different faction)

[Crags_Legacy]

So far, imho, Undead>all. 1st day build Skelli yard 2nd day upg to archers, lvl up, get raise archers, youll never return home. Watch for Sylvan endgame, if you are favored prey its pretty much over, plus, their advancement towards the ultimate is a dream list of good skills. So id say Undead overall and early game, sylvan close second with a very powerful endgame.

[Wolfshanze]

So far, imho, Undead>all. 1st day build Skelli yard 2nd day upg to archers, lvl up, get raise archers, youll never return home. Watch for Sylvan endgame, if you are favored prey its pretty much over, plus, their advancement towards the ultimate is a dream list of good skills. So id say Undead overall and early game, sylvan close second with a very powerful endgame.

This is mostly true, but for a small map I wouldn't want to be the Necro guy. Necro in my opinion is definately the WEAKEST player early-game of all the factions, but, having said that...

YES... once you get "rolling" with Necro and make it into the mid and late game (on larger maps), the Necromancer is unstoppable with a 1,000 skeleton archers, 100 Vampires that never die, a score or more of Liches and the ability to resurect them all on-the-cheap with the Animate Dead spell.

2nd to the Necro I would say the Sylvans definately feel to be a hugely powerful race... those sturdy double-shooting Hunters can kill you fast.

[Blue_Camel]

agreed.. in the scenario in the inferno campaign where you start going through the elven lands i had a big fight with a sylvan hero that i SHOULD have won, however at one point in the battle his master hunters targeted my strongest stack and got luck on both shots. that resulted in Agrael dying and me restarting the scenario. hunters scare me to death.

[Crags_Legacy]

This is mostly true, but for a small map I wouldn't want to be the Necro guy. Necro in my opinion is definately the WEAKEST player early-game of all the factions, but, having said that...

YES... once you get "rolling" with Necro and make it into the mid and late game (on larger maps), the Necromancer is unstoppable with a 1,000 skeleton archers, 100 Vampires that never die, a score or more of Liches and the ability to resurect them all on-the-cheap with the Animate Dead spell.

Im not too sure myself, altho i was refering more to the fact that undead can cut off loses from day 1, while other -if not all- races have to face the loss of some of its early forces in order to conquer mines etc. This really weakens you in heroic scenarios, where the balance between reinforcing and building can make your gameplay paralyze for a week. The undead player is always adding forces, and ranged ones. Maybe you lose the odd meatbag (zombie) or a bait (ghosts), but nothing too serious. 200 skellies for week 2 +40 waiting at home IS serious tho. I always get Kaspar and his magic tent-o-patching as starting hero, its such a huge boost early game. With all other factions i have found major troubles in month one, except with undead. Theyre just steamrollers.

Im not too sure myself cuz i can see skellies weak untill a certain proportion is reached, but i think it would be more accurate to say that maybe its the midgame where they least shine, given their mediocre unit setup and weak tier 6 & 7. Endgame= 5k skellies

imho anyway

[Gaidal Cain]

The Academy is a pretty slow starter, but if it can find the gold and resources to finish it's town and get some good miniartifacts, it'll be difficult to go up against. Some of those artifacts are damned powerful.

[Romanov77]

Inferno looks a bit weak...expecially the poor horned demons, as well as devils....

[HulkaS]

But those Pit Lords guys with fireballs and metoers shower.

[Orfinn]

agreed.. in the scenario in the inferno campaign where you start going through the elven lands i had a big fight with a sylvan hero that i SHOULD have won, however at one point in the battle his master hunters targeted my strongest stack and got luck on both shots. that resulted in Agrael dying and me restarting the scenario. hunters scare me to death.

A tip, use gating forces and use the phantom spell both on gated and normal then you can gate even more with the phantom ones. It saved me against Gilraen and his huge army! Also spend your time on building up your defence skill, as well as luck, logistics, destruction magic and offense which have served me very well.

As far as I have played with Inferno, Sylvan and Haven they are all powerful in their own way, noone are weaker or stronger it all depends on map, skill of player, hero etc, etc. They all have a shiny medal and a bad backside.

[SteveJobs]

This is mostly true, but for a small map I wouldn't want to be the Necro guy. Necro in my opinion is definately the WEAKEST player early-game of all the factions, but, having said that...

YES... once you get "rolling" with Necro and make it into the mid and late game (on larger maps), the Necromancer is unstoppable with a 1,000 skeleton archers, 100 Vampires that never die, a score or more of Liches and the ability to resurect them all on-the-cheap with the Animate Dead spell.

Im not too sure myself, altho i was refering more to the fact that undead can cut off loses from day 1, while other -if not all- races have to face the loss of some of its early forces in order to conquer mines etc. This really weakens you in heroic scenarios, where the balance between reinforcing and building can make your gameplay paralyze for a week. The undead player is always adding forces, and ranged ones. Maybe you lose the odd meatbag (zombie) or a bait (ghosts), but nothing too serious. 200 skellies for week 2 +40 waiting at home IS serious tho. I always get Kaspar and his magic tent-o-patching as starting hero, its such a huge boost early game. With all other factions i have found major troubles in month one, except with undead. Theyre just steamrollers.

Im not too sure myself cuz i can see skellies weak untill a certain proportion is reached, but i think it would be more accurate to say that maybe its the midgame where they least shine, given their mediocre unit setup and weak tier 6 & 7. Endgame= 5k skellies
imho anyway

I am new to HOMM V, but I used the same basic strategy as I used in HOMM III with Thant, instead I used vladimir, until you get an additional point or two in knowledge it can be a bit slow with spell points, but once you hit ~30 spell points you get to raise dead 5 times, which is usually way more than enough to destroy any trash or any players with zero losses. Even with very little knowledge, if you can get to the soul link skill early...it's basically infinite mana against the ai. It gives you much earlier access to a lot of things, as a necro, I feel weak until I get at least 20 spell points. Once I get there, it's much easier to begin ramping up. It just becomes an avalanche effect with skeletons, in battles that you are "way" underpowered, you can soul link a stack protecting your skeleton archers and turtle in a corner, and raise the dead as long as you need, until the stack power is manageable.

I did this early game vs 8 black dragons, I had 40 vampires and about 350 skeleton archers. the first turn of the battle the black dragons decimated half of my vampires. I figured the AI always went after ranged, I didn't know if the black dragons hit more than one stack with their breath so I didn't turtle (like in HOMM III) so I gave him free reign on my skeletons and I soul linked them. I slowly wittled the dragons down and rezzed my whole army, I lost something like 30 skeleton archers (because of how the turns shook out) and I think I broke about even on mana.

I didn't try soul linking the dragons (since all my guys were beating on them) I don't know yet if the results of soul link are based on the number of creatures dying or damage dealt or what.

I destroyed people doing this in HOMM III, and it seems like they gave me even more tools to destroy people in HOMM V once I figure out exactly how it all works