Opinions of the Ultimate Racial Skills?

[ThunderTitan]

actualy they get +125% dmg per total because of the req of the ultimate

Double sound better then double and a quarter.

[DaemianLucifer]

Double sound better then double and a quarter.

How about:It does nine quarters

[juventas]

Unstoppable Charge:
I've never been able to use retaliation strike with much success, and it doesn't work on ranged attacks or spells. Therefore, I think Haven's ability sucks. It would be more on level if all retaliations by your units did double damage. Then it would be almost as scary as Nature's Luck. As it is, your enemy can cast spells on the unit, used ranged attacks, attack with the hero, or just ignore.

Arcane Omniscience:
Seems pretty cool to me. The only issue I have is that Enlightenment (required skill) will give you a bonus to knowledge. Does a wizard really need that much more knowledge? Wizard's Reward is useful here, though, since wizards lack spellpower. The Sorcery subskills are mostly useless since you're playing one of the most mana-heavy heroes in the game.

Rage of Elements:
The skill path is incredibly gimped. War machines? Without triple ballista, Deleb's fireball arrows, or Flaming Arrows, it's not worth it. What about Dark Revelation and Wizard's Reward? An extra level is easy to get early on; later on, it would be worth it (level 25+), but you don't get to choose which level you pick Dark Revelation... it's all luck. A warlock doesn't really need +2 to spellpower. Tear of Asha Vision? Urgh.

Enlightenment:
Doesn't seem that bad actually. At level 15 (it's easy to get up to level 15), you get +7 to your primary stat. +7 to spellpower or attack is +35% to your damage. That's better than Expert Attack already. The experience bonus doesn't seem that useful though.

Getting the ultimate:
I get the balancing idea of sacrificing many minor skills to get an awesome skill, but that's only if you knew getting the ultimate was guaranteed. As it is now, there's a 90% chance you won't get your ultimate because: 1) your skill selection won't allow it or 2) it's friggin' impossible to get to level 30. So not only do you sacrifice good skills for the ultimate, there's not even a good chance you'll be able to get the ultimate! A lot of people have said this already. Not balanced at all. Give us at least a 75% shot of getting the ultimate if we have to get crappy skills!

[cornellian]

A great post that I agree for the most part, especially on the overlooked strength of enlightenment (a skill I always pick if offered before 1/3 of the map)..
However, if we had a 75% chance of getting the ultimate, then I think the end games would be more like "+12 sword of superchilling and uberdeath" vs. "+9 lightning arrows of immolating megapain", or simply "nature's luck vs nature's luck" ?

[DaemianLucifer]

Rage of Elements:
The skill path is incredibly gimped. War machines? Without triple ballista, Deleb's fireball arrows, or Flaming Arrows, it's not worth it. What about Dark Revelation and Wizard's Reward? An extra level is easy to get early on; later on, it would be worth it (level 25+), but you don't get to choose which level you pick Dark Revelation... it's all luck. A warlock doesn't really need +2 to spellpower. Tear of Asha Vision? Urgh.

i have to disagree here.Having balistics is a great thing.First,you never have to repurchase it.Second,It does massive damge.War machines is a pretty usefull skill to have.

Enlightenment:
Doesn't seem that bad actually. At level 15 (it's easy to get up to level 15), you get +7 to your primary stat. +7 to spellpower or attack is +35% to your damage. That's better than Expert Attack already. The experience bonus doesn't seem that useful though.

I agree here.Enlightment isnt just the expirience bonus,its skill bonus.Pretty useful thing.

Getting the ultimate:
I get the balancing idea of sacrificing many minor skills to get an awesome skill, but that's only if you knew getting the ultimate was guaranteed. As it is now, there's a 90% chance you won't get your ultimate because: 1) your skill selection won't allow it or 2) it's friggin' impossible to get to level 30. So not only do you sacrifice good skills for the ultimate, there's not even a good chance you'll be able to get the ultimate! A lot of people have said this already. Not balanced at all. Give us at least a 75% shot of getting the ultimate if we have to get crappy skills!

How about if you had a choice in the begining "Pursue ultimate?"?If you choose yes,you only get those skills and abilities that lead towards the ultimate offered.

[ExistUnExist]

So if you know one or more other player(s) is going for ultimate, you can choose no and go for skills that counter ultimate of each faction? that'd be quite a smart thing too actually, but if there's like 2 other players going for ultimate, and you have to go choose skills that counter 2 faction's ultimate, you don't have enough level and main skill slots to do that?

[DaemianLucifer]

So if you know one or more other player(s) is going for ultimate, you can choose no and go for skills that counter ultimate of each faction? that'd be quite a smart thing too actually, but if there's like 2 other players going for ultimate, and you have to go choose skills that counter 2 faction's ultimate, you don't have enough level and main skill slots to do that?

And how would you know someone is going for the ultimate?

[asandir]

i would agree that necro, sylvan and inferno are the best off here ... isn't it odd that the two factions considered the strongest and the one considered the weakest have the most useful/damaging ultimates?? in terms of inferno it adds quite a bit of balance (although it takes a long time to get there), but for necro ..... -6 to morale can be a real killer, and uber handy for the slow necro troops (and the 30k skeleton archers - should have at least that many by the time you get to ultimate ) and sylvan .... 225% damage .... for master hunters .... goodnight!

[vicheron]

Arcane Omniscience - It would be useful if there were more spells in the game or if you gain the ability to cast the spells as if you had the Master skills. The required skills suck. Scholar, Wizard's Reward, and Graduate are useless. Cold Steel is useless and Flaming Arrow is useless unless you get War Machines and Ballista and even then the enemy can easily destroy the Ballista by the time you get those skills. Erratic Mana is also pretty useless considering how much knowledge Wizards get.

Banshee Howl - Very good skill, especially considering how hard it is to lower enemy morale. Some of the required skills aren't that good. Corrupt Soil is pretty much useless, it does very little damage. Cold Steel and Power of Speed both suck.

Rage of the Elements - The skill itself isn't that useful and the prerequisites don't fit the Warlock. The prerequisites don't leave room for you to take Sorcery, which is a must for Warlocks. Arcane Intuition and Wizard's Reward are useless, Dark Revelation is only somewhat useful if you can manage to get it at a very high level. War Machines isn't that bad but Plague Tent is useless since you can't control the tent without the First Aid skill. Grail Vision is only good on maps with the grail.

Ultimate Luck - Very powerful, the required skills aren't bad but there are a few bad ones like Flaming Arrow, Last Stand, and Stand Your Ground. Flaming Arrow can be somewhat useful if you get War Machines and Ballista but a magic skill would be a much better choice.

Unstoppable Charge - Retaliation Strike isn't that useful in the first place. The enemy could just ignore the creature that's being defended. The required skills aren't that useful either. The Enlightenment skills are pretty useless. Grail Vision is only useful if the map has a grail. Guardian Angel can save you in really close battles but Refined Mana is not that useful for Haven since Inquisitor's spells aren't that good.

Urgash's Call - Very powerful, the required skills are pretty good. The Mark of the Damned related skills may not be too useful but it's better than Retaliation Strike.

[DaemianLucifer]

Arcane Omniscience - It would be useful if there were more spells in the game or if you gain the ability to cast the spells as if you had the Master skills. The required skills suck. Scholar, Wizard's Reward, and Graduate are useless. Cold Steel is useless and Flaming Arrow is useless unless you get War Machines and Ballista and even then the enemy can easily destroy the Ballista by the time you get those skills. Erratic Mana is also pretty useless considering how much knowledge Wizards get.

I thought it does give you the ability to cast all spells at higher levels.

[Campaigner]

Arcane Omniscience - It would be useful if there were more spells in the game or if you gain the ability to cast the spells as if you had the Master skills. The required skills suck. Scholar, Wizard's Reward, and Graduate are useless. Cold Steel is useless and Flaming Arrow is useless unless you get War Machines and Ballista and even then the enemy can easily destroy the Ballista by the time you get those skills. Erratic Mana is also pretty useless considering how much knowledge Wizards get.

I thought it does give you the ability to cast all spells at higher levels.

It does, but he means casting the spell with abilities such Master of Blessings, Master of Pain, Master of Mind and so on.

Oh, and speaking of Warmachines and Triple Ballista. Have you tried Imbue Arrow with Meteor Shower or Implosion on the Ballista..?
Only read about it but it sounds insanely powerful. Get it early in a campaign and the following scenarios are a cakewalk!

[GatorG]

Great replies guys.

And Campaigner...interesting...

[juventas]

I've tried imbue ballista + triple ballista + flaming arrow + destruction magic + elven luck. It takes a really long time to get these (almost as long as it takes to get the ultimate, and almost as hard to get). You also have to give up archery, which is pretty bad for sylvan to miss out on.

Ballista does around 160 damage with a hero attack of 10. Flaming arrow allows it to ignore defense and adds 50 extra fire damage. Sylvan spellpower really sucks, unfortunately (it will be at 3 for a very long time without artifacts), so your implosion will do about 120-160 damage. You're better off using ice bolt, since it also does 120 damage at spellpower 3. If you have a high luck score, there's also a really high chance that one of the three ballista bolts will be a lucky shot.

I tell you, it's a one-trick pony, but what a trick it is. The ballista will absolutely wreck any low-tier unit (almost 100 units if one shot is lucky), and the damage is often around 250 because lower tier units have lower defense than the ballista's attack. One round of this will kill 3-4 black dragons. The best part is that if you are an expert of dark magic and imbue it with vulnerability, you can wreck a unit's defense in one barrage. (Each casting is -6 defense, hits 3x)

[ExistUnExist]

vulnerability?

can you imbue mass vulnerability? just thinking you won't have enough ammo if you don't have mass " skill name " (mass decay would kill lower tier units?)?

[juventas]

Sadly, vulnerability only comes in the Area of Effect version rather than affect all the units.

[Orfinn]

Triple ballistia, imbued with meteorshower? Well then you now you have gone too far in powa Insanely powerful, no doubt

[DaemianLucifer]

Sadly, vulnerability only comes in the Area of Effect version rather than affect all the units.

Still you could target 3+ units with this(unles you are very unlucky),so its still mighty fine.

[juventas]

Still you could target 3+ units with this(unles you are very unlucky),so its still mighty fine.

The other sad part is that you have to find vulnerability from a shrine since dark magic is not a specific feature of the Sylvan mages guild. Luckily, it's only level 2.

Triple ballistia, imbued with meteorshower? Well then you now you have gone too far in powa Insanely powerful, no doubt

I thought so, too, but the truth is that elven spellpower is so weak it hardly does any damage. If you think it is more effective with small armies, that's probably wrong too. With small armies, your ballista will kill a unit in one or two shots, meaning meteor shower will trigger only once or twice. The catapult initiative is also somewhat mediocre, so the troops will have scattered by the time you get a chance to fire.

[ExistUnExist]

btw, i think i've managed to get the basic skills required to get inferno's urgash call

wootage
it'll be my first time.. though atm only lvl 19.

(woot, i'm using the gate keeper hero more units gated == GG? )