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| Thread: Playing competitively: first steps |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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dreddy
Hired Hero
HC frosh
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posted May 31, 2007 12:17 PM |
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Playing competitively: first steps
Hey all, I've recently browsed a lot of topics here @ HC, and it's quite intimidating to realize that even though I considered myself to be a pretty experienced player, there's no way I'm even close to some of the masters here.
After some consideration, I realized my game's weakest link is creeping: a bad habit I inherited from my previous HoMM 3 hot-seat experiences is a very relaxed style of play, starting to claim mines other than wood/ore in the end or week 2/start of week 3. It's just when we played we preferred no rushing, but rather to fully develop to have a fairly large-scale main battle. 
OK, long story short, below are some creeping and general strategies I've learned one way or another. My request is for some experienced players to revise them, and, if possible, give me further tips/tricks. I've read the HC's manual plus many tips on CelestialHeavens and such so I know most of the basics. The crucial skills I list are general, the other good ones are dependent upon the faction faced. Thanks in advance.
Let's do this two factions at a time, I'm lazy. 
Necropolis: - Kaspar's tent or Vlad's Raise Dead is very good at preserving troops. Another great hero is Lucretia, since Vampires are plain awesome even without her bonus. Using Mark of the Necromancer is very good at getting more mana for Mass Dark spells if possible or the classic, Raise Dead, to further preserve troops. It also is a great combo with ArchLiches' Decay. And, of course, Necromancy is the key for most maps.
Crucial skills: Attack (+ Battle Frenzy for Skellys primarily, Archery and Cold Steel); Dark Magic (+ Masters according to spells given in the Magic Tower); War Machines (+ First Aid Tent) for Caspar; Summoning Magic (+ Master of Life for Raise Dead primarily).
Army's backbone: Skellys, Vamps and Liches; Zombies as meatshields/distracters.
Inferno: DELEB, Grok and Jezebeth. Deleb is possibly the best for small-to-medium maps. Mark of the Damned + Excruciating Strike, as well as Teleport Assault and Luck work wonders. The racial is great at blocking shooters and stealing retaliation.
Crucial skills: Logistics (Pathfinding -> Shift Gating (!) -> Teleport Assault (works wonders on Pit Lords / Horned Retar.. eh, I mean, Demons ) ; Attack (+ Battle Frenzy for early-game when your Imps need to kill quickly before taking heavy losses -> Excruciating Strike; + maybe Archery? Succubi are the only ranged units, it’s nice for them to have a boost); Dark Magic (+ Masters according to spells given in the Magic Tower); Luck (Soldier’s Luck (for Hellfire) -> Wide Hell Gates or whatever it’s called); don’t forget Hellfire (large pool mana guarantees it triggering often, especially with Soldier’s luck), Mark of the Damned and maybe Consume Corpse.
Army's backbone: Succubi, Pit Lords (as spellcasters) and Horned Overseers, both much better when Teleported; Nightmares and Succubi are the main offensive force.
That’s about it for now. I’ll write up Haven and Dungeon next.
P.S. What does “powercreeping” mean?
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“... so when the devil wants to dance with you, you’d better say “never”, because the dance with the devil might last you forever.” /Immortal Technique/
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pomo
Famous Hero
The lone peasant
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posted May 31, 2007 12:36 PM |
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Hey, welcome to the forum
I'm guessing you're still playing without any patches, given that you're talking about battle frenzy->skellies?? You should patch to the most recent version, although many peeps think that Necro is probably one of the weakest towns now.
Re: Kaspar... waste of a hero. You don't need war machines to keep your troops alive, all you need is MotN and raise dead. Plague tent is pathetic and your high def+sp stats as necro won't help your ballista be worthwhile.
Also, far as I know hellfire isn't affected by soldiers luck, although I could be wrong on that one. Soldiers luck is still good to get for nightmare's fear attack though.
Powercreeping btw just means creeping very fast without losing much/anything. It pretty much covers every neutral exploit and effective creeping strat you can think of.
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dreddy
Hired Hero
HC frosh
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posted May 31, 2007 12:42 PM |
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Quote:
Hey, welcome to the forum
I'm guessing you're still playing without any patches, given that you're talking about battle frenzy->skellies?? You should patch to the most recent version, although many peeps think that Necro is probably one of the weakest towns now.
Re: Kaspar... waste of a hero. You don't need war machines to keep your troops alive, all you need is MotN and raise dead. Plague tent is pathetic and your high def+sp stats as necro won't help your ballista be worthwhile.
Also, far as I know hellfire isn't affected by soldiers luck, although I could be wrong on that one. Soldiers luck is still good to get for nightmare's fear attack though.
Powercreeping btw just means creeping very fast without losing much/anything. It pretty much covers every neutral exploit and effective creeping strat you can think of.
Thx. I'm actually all patched up to 1.5, and I still think even with Dark energy introduced Skellies need that +1 avg damage bonus from battle frenzy, you can still get a good thousand of them.
If hellfire isn't affected by Soldier's luck, I don't even know ehat to do. That extra 50 or so damage from it helps like Hell (pun intended) early on. Oh yeah, I forgot about Nightmare's fear attack, good point.
Hmm, with powercreeping, at what time should you capture most of the needed mines? W2 or so?
One more necro question: with Vlad's Raise Dead nerfed, is he effective anymore?
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“... so when the devil wants to dance with you, you’d better say “never”, because the dance with the devil might last you forever.” /Immortal Technique/
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted May 31, 2007 12:44 PM |
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Hey all, I've recently browsed a lot of topics here @ HC, and it's quite intimidating to realize that even though I considered myself to be a pretty experienced player, there's no way I'm even close to some of the masters here.
After some consideration, I realized my game's weakest link is creeping: a bad habit I inherited from my previous HoMM 3 hot-seat experiences is a very relaxed style of play, starting to claim mines other than wood/ore in the end or week 2/start of week 3. It's just when we played we preferred no rushing, but rather to fully develop to have a fairly large-scale main battle.
That's a pretty terrible habit that will result in a serious loss-streak, bro 
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Necropolis: - Kaspar's tent or Vlad's Raise Dead is very good at preserving troops. Another great hero is Lucretia, since Vampires are plain awesome even without her bonus. Using Mark of the Necromancer is very good at getting more mana for Mass Dark spells if possible or the classic, Raise Dead, to further preserve troops. It also is a great combo with ArchLiches' Decay. And, of course, Necromancy is the key for most maps.
Well in general Kaspar is an overkill; You don't need that much preserving power. Raise dead paired with MoTN and you've no casualties , no matter how hard the battle is.. Especially when you rise spectres. These guys get hit rarely due to their special, and can drain mana to additionaly ressurect themselves from casting creeps - excelent since the casting creeps are in general the most difficult to kill without loses. Yes, MoTN + Decay is a wonderful way to regain mana. Vlad's special sucks horribly, all you get from his special at level 20 is 120 hp ressurected more, or so.. not much. He's good only for fast haunted mines.
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Crucial skills: Attack (+ Battle Frenzy for Skellys primarily, Archery and Cold Steel); Dark Magic (+ Masters according to spells given in the Magic Tower); War Machines (+ First Aid Tent) for Caspar; Summoning Magic (+ Master of Life for Raise Dead primarily).
Army's backbone: Skellys, Vamps and Liches; Zombies as meatshields/distracters.
I'm no necro specialist, although, still, I'd call that a bit mediocre. First, you don't need warmachines and summoning both, not even for kaspar if you really want to choose him, second, summoning is not necessary for raise dead since the basic form of it is more than enough - summoning is necessary for other spells like firetrap (way stronger than most ppl think..) and summon phoenix. If you don't like these, pick sorcery and go for magic insight if you have phantom forces in the guild: this spell is simply too important for necros to leave it behind. Ah yes, forget archery. The power of speed perk is kazillion times more important since it gives you what necromancers lack; the way to increase your army's inititative.
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Inferno: DELEB, Grok and Jezebeth. Deleb is possibly the best for small-to-medium maps. Mark of the Damned + Excruciating Strike, as well as Teleport Assault and Luck work wonders. The racial is great at blocking shooters and stealing retaliation.
Deleb is good for any map, taking the speed of her creeping into consideration; Grok is great, Jezebeth is mediocre. I'd try Nebiros, too.
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Crucial skills: Logistics (Pathfinding -> Shift Gating (!) -> Teleport Assault (works wonders on Pit Lords / Horned Retar.. eh, I mean, Demons ) ; Attack (+ Battle Frenzy for early-game when your Imps need to kill quickly before taking heavy losses -> Excruciating Strike; + maybe Archery? Succubi are the only ranged units, it�s nice for them to have a boost); Dark Magic (+ Masters according to spells given in the Magic Tower); Luck (Soldier�s Luck (for Hellfire) -> Wide Hell Gates or whatever it�s called); don�t forget Hellfire (large pool mana guarantees it triggering often, especially with Soldier�s luck), Mark of the Damned and maybe Consume Corpse.
Archery with one shooter? Bah. Forget it. Teleport assault is gonna be hot for the alternative upgrade of pit fiends..(pit spawns). Battle frenzy is not very useful, unless you really want to depend on those familiards. The rest is fine, just don't forget power of speed (again!), since it's much more important that the slight damage boost from battle frenzy or archery.
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Army's backbone: Succubi, Pit Lords (as spellcasters) and Horned Overseers, both much better when Teleported; Nightmares and Succubi are the main offensive force.
Pit Lords won't do much damage after 3-4 weeks due to non-linear damage formula of their spells; the more in the stack, the less powerful the multiplier is. I'd use them only paired with TA, otherwise they are pretty useless unless when playing a game with someone that is likely to summon phoenix (wizards, necros). Use devils: easy to get, strongest damage dealers, and if you happen to upgrade them, you can turn the worthless carcass of fallen cerberi into some fresh demons - sometimes it turns the battle, mind you. And don't forget cerberi, they may be weak but their speed and init allows them to do a first-turn multi-headed strike, and if it happens to be lucky and hellfire-augmented, you'll be amazed how useful it is. I'd leave horned demons for creeping purposes only, they are weak and slow.
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P.S. What does �powercreeping� mean?
Going for strongest creeps quickly to feed your hero with levels and arties.
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 31, 2007 12:48 PM |
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Vlads speciality isnt good anymore, other heroes have raise dead now too so he is not a very good choice. He is starting with summoning tho and thats good point id say he is an average hero.
Kaspar is not too good too since necro has poor balista even in late game. With motn and raise dead you dont need tent so id rate him as average or lower.
My top necro heroes are Zoltan and Orson. Good also may be(but not in my type) Lucrecia and Naadir
Battle frenzy is good in long game , in short game magic skills are better.
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executor
Famous Hero
Otherworldly Ambassador
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posted May 31, 2007 01:07 PM |
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@doomforge
Power of speed actually requires battle frenzy, so battle frezy is recommended for a demon lord  .
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Understanding is a three-edged sword.
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dreddy
Hired Hero
HC frosh
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posted May 31, 2007 01:09 PM |
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@ Doomforge: Thanks for the Power of Speed tip. Is the Mass Haste cast at Advanced mastery with it?
Also, what other Necro heroes do you use except Caspar?
Inferno tips are great, do you know for sure if the chances of Hellfire triggering are affected by soldier's luck?
feluniozbunio: Zoltan and Orson - never picked 'em before, do you really find their specials any good? Zombies are pathetic (Orson), Zoltan blocks a spell after it's been used- good only for those spamming one all the time, useless against Warlocks that can mess you up with a huge arsenal of different destructive magic spells.
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“... so when the devil wants to dance with you, you’d better say “never”, because the dance with the devil might last you forever.” /Immortal Technique/
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Erutan_Revol
Hired Hero
who stays in a treehouse
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posted May 31, 2007 01:12 PM |
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Actually Kaspar is very useful since of his special first aid tent ability
I swept the ground with a large academy army with that
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 31, 2007 01:18 PM |
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Zoltans special isnt very good against warlock , especially in long game. It can be useful in short games. It may be very helpful against academy and mirror in all maps. But his special is not only bonus, fast enlightenment is a very good thing too.
Orson is very good with new necromancy. You all consider zombies as pathetic creatures... Well for me they are very powerful especially with orson and battle frenzy. Raising them with necromancy and joining couple stacks from the map and along with exp defense + hyped defense skill usually triggers in indestructible stack. Of course they are very slow and in big battles opponent may leave them for supper but if you will be fast enough they should be a significant force if you back them up with your spells.
Hehe after i beaten one of the top players with my orson he banned him on his map so that should speak for itself
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dreddy
Hired Hero
HC frosh
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posted May 31, 2007 01:26 PM |
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Edited by dreddy at 13:45, 31 May 2007.
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@ feluniozbunio I'll try Orson, but Zombies in my experience are usually too slow to do anything significant.
Onwards...
Dungeon: Talk about being destructive. The faction’s power lies in releasing their damage potential extremely quickly. Blood Furies are ridiculous, essentially being “shooters” due to high ground speed, even more so with Tactics. Their combo with Grim Raiders (L4 upgrade) is simply OMG. Hydras provide a great meatshield, while Assasins help a lot early on with the poison. Blackies are still the key, getting them ASAP is essential.
It’s still all about Destructive Magic for the hero though. ”Masters” must be chosen accordingly and used to their full potential. Gotta watch out for arties giving +50% dmg to specific spells, they are cheap and effective. Good heroes: Sinitar for small-to-medium maps, Yrwanna and that dude specializing in Lizard Bite attack.
Essential skills: Destructive magic, you guessed it (+ Masters and Secrets of Destruction if you really need it); Sorcery and its perk decreasing mana cost by 20%; Attack + Tactics for the Blood Furies/Grim Raiders combo; Luck + Warlock’s Luck; Logistics + Teleport Assault for the slow Hydras for them to immediately be in the enemy’s face with the six-headed attack. Watch out for Elemental Chains exploits.
Army’s backbone: Blood Furies (careful, fragile!), Grim Raiders, Hydras, Blackies. The Shadow Mistresses are poor shooters, can split ’em up for casting.
Haven: Might, almost no magic. Training has two most helpful transformations: Peasant -> Archer and Footman -> Priest. Both give you more shooters, but it’s essential to have the gold needed, so it might be better to always get it from chests as a Knight. Expert Trainer and Hall of Heroes are musts if you wanna have some gold left to build the ArchAngels quick.
Two main casters are Paladins (split off stacks of one for the Lay Hands ability against Dark Magic wielders) and Inquisitors (not as good a shooter as a marksman, so again small stacks of those durable casters are great. Plus they have Divine Strength, A MUST FOR MARKSMEN (2-8 huge damage range)).
ArchAngels + Paladins combination spells death for the enemy, but it’s costly to get it soon. Early on, especially with broken-before Dougal, marksmen with retarded peasants as the meatshield obliterate slow walkers with the Precise Shot special. Squire’s Large Shield and Griffins’ Battle Dive specials are what gets Haven through powerful casting/shooting creeps.
Klaus is another great hero, while Ellaine is a TREMENDOUS secondary with estates and peasants giving in some much-needed gold.
Essential skills: Light Magic (+ Master of Blessings -> Guardian Angel; another “Master”); Attack (+ Retrubution and maybe Archery); MAYBE Defense (+ Vitality if going thru with Dougal) ; Luck (+ Magic Resistance (esp. against Dark Magic users and Warlocks) and Soldier’s Luck); Leadership – combos with Retribution (+ Divine Guidance and maybe Aura of Speed); maybe War Machines (makes sense mostly for Vittorio, another decent hero).
Army’s backbone: heavily dependent on strategy chosen. Marksmen are a must, especially early on and/or with Dougal, a first-choice hero.
P.S. As of 1.5, are Blackies still affected by your own Irresistible Magic skill?
edit: oh yeah, for Warlocks that +50% mana perk is crucial too, and enlightenment skill is decent anyways.
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“... so when the devil wants to dance with you, you’d better say “never”, because the dance with the devil might last you forever.” /Immortal Technique/
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feluniozbunio
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted May 31, 2007 01:34 PM |
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About dungeon you may take a look at my topic secrets of destructions.
For Haven the best transform is into cavaliers and Vittorio and Dougal being best heroes. Irina might be good too but i dont know how to creep with her early.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted May 31, 2007 01:59 PM |
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k, another comments, if you don't mind..
Quote:
Dungeon: Talk about being destructive. The faction�s power lies in releasing their damage potential extremely quickly. Blood Furies are ridiculous, essentially being �shooters� due to high ground speed, even more so with Tactics. Their combo with Grim Raiders (L4 upgrade) is simply OMG.
Not really, these units were never good, ok, they work great on paper, but in real game you will be amazed how fast they die and how little damage they do despite the fact that they act very often..
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Hydras provide a great meatshield, while Assasins help a lot early on with the poison. Blackies are still the key, getting them ASAP is essential.
Again, not really. Blackies are great units, but there are more important things to get ASAP than them.
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It�s still all about Destructive Magic for the hero though. �Masters� must be chosen accordingly and used to their full potential. Gotta watch out for arties giving +50% dmg to specific spells, they are cheap and effective. Good heroes: Sinitar for small-to-medium maps, Yrwanna and that dude specializing in Lizard Bite attack.
Destructive does the job, the creatures are just an add-on.. doesn't mean that the add-on can't score a decent ammount of kills, or even win the combat for you ofc
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Essential skills: Destructive magic, you guessed it (+ Masters and Secrets of Destruction if you really need it); Sorcery and its perk decreasing mana cost by 20%; Attack + Tactics for the Blood Furies/Grim Raiders combo; Luck + Warlock�s Luck; Logistics + Teleport Assault for the slow Hydras for them to immediately be in the enemy�s face with the six-headed attack. Watch out for Elemental Chains exploits.
Without sorcery destructive is worthless. I'd advise you to check feluniozbunio's thread for a good build-up for warlocks. Anyways it's like that: Racial, Destructive, sorcery, luck, enlightment, filler. Most likely you won't have enough levels to develop the filler well so focus on the first five.
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Army�s backbone: Blood Furies (careful, fragile!), Grim Raiders, Hydras, Blackies. The Shadow Mistresses are poor shooters, can split �em up for casting.
Blood furies are absolutely worthless in endgame and make a terrible backbone of army. When I played this game first, I was utterly pwned just because I've relied on furies and lizards.. begginers' mistake, I'd say.
About haven, your guesses are ok, but the goal for any haven player is simple: to get quadruple paladins via training. If you can afford 4x paladins and survive until you get a bunch of them, you're an instant winner and only academy and fortress may TRY to challenge you in the very end. Check my haven thread
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dreddy
Hired Hero
HC frosh
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posted May 31, 2007 02:01 PM |
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Edited by dreddy at 14:22, 31 May 2007.
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About dungeon you may take a look at my topic secrets of destructions.
For Haven the best transform is into cavaliers and Vittorio and Dougal being best heroes. Irina might be good too but i dont know how to creep with her early.
Just read the first few posts by you and doomforge, lots of helpful stuff but I actually always have almost the same setup as you.
One thing I start to realize is how INSANELY SLOW I used to creep.
My great logic: let's take fewer casualties now so later I'll get my ass handed to me on a silver plate. Good job!
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Doomforgek, another comments, if you don't mind..
That's what the topic's for.
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“... so when the devil wants to dance with you, you’d better say “never”, because the dance with the devil might last you forever.” /Immortal Technique/
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted May 31, 2007 02:25 PM |
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Well it doesn't matter how much you lose.. if the units you lose are worthless ofc. Say, losing scouts if you do not plan using them..
Creeping with dungeon is very easy, you can kill, say, 60 arch liches without much problems, losing like 2-3 scouts or so.. If you develeped your magic good enough to make your hero destroy them without any problems, that is.
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Destro23
Promising
Famous Hero
Keeper of GrongGrong
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posted May 31, 2007 09:16 PM |
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There is another thread a few pages down called "Inferno Insight" if you enjoy playing the faction there is some good power creeping tactics there. As well as hero and final combat builds.
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dreddy
Hired Hero
HC frosh
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posted June 01, 2007 10:07 AM |
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Quote:
There is another thread a few pages down called "Inferno Insight" if you enjoy playing the faction there is some good power creeping tactics there. As well as hero and final combat builds.
Read it some time ago.
Well, finally got to try some of those tactics out.
On "Rise to Power" for Necros, with Lucretia as main hero, got Lvl12 after two weeks using just Skellys, Vamps and Zombies, MotN + Raise Dead. Captured all mines in close proximity. :] Might seem average, but that's the fastest I've ever developed with the undead.
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“... so when the devil wants to dance with you, you’d better say “never”, because the dance with the devil might last you forever.” /Immortal Technique/
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted June 01, 2007 10:39 AM |
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That's ok for the start. In the future you will hit lvl 15 in second week easily It just needs a bit of practice. On some maps you can go even further with the herolevel.
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dreddy
Hired Hero
HC frosh
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posted June 01, 2007 10:56 AM |
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Edited by dreddy at 10:59, 01 Jun 2007.
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That's ok for the start. In the future you will hit lvl 15 in second week easily It just needs a bit of practice. On some maps you can go even further with the herolevel.
One problem with Necros is that I gotta wait a day to get the archers, since Skellys are very fragile and I don't wanna lose any since they are so effective when upgraded.
Plus something clearly went weird: for the first four levels I got Spell Power only (??). The chances of that are 0.45 ^ 4 = 4.1%. I got greedy and went for Summoning Magic to buff up Raise Dead. Stupid decision, concerning that I got Ice Bolt in the castle plus Destructive Magic offered to me on the 3rd level-up, and Raise dead was strong enough on Basic with a +2 SP artie I snatched to raise all my Skellys even if I needed that.
So, although this is good progress, there's definitely room fore improvement. :]
P.S. On a completely unrelated note, this is the largest-scale battle I've seen 
~1,000,000 Titans killed or is it the damage dealt?! In any case, OMGWTFBBQ 
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“... so when the devil wants to dance with you, you’d better say “never”, because the dance with the devil might last you forever.” /Immortal Technique/
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dschingi
Famous Hero
the guy with the dragon golem
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posted June 01, 2007 11:28 AM |
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Edited by dschingi at 11:28, 01 Jun 2007.
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A little tip for the start with necro:
If you put 1 skeleton archer in every empty slot of your army you can get even more mana out of mark of the necro, since every shot of an archer that hits the marked target gives you 1 mana, even if it does only 1 damage. They can also block your other creatures and take retaliations if necessary.
If you have eternal servitude all of the 1-archer stacks will be resurrected after the battle anyway, assuming you didn't lose any other troops.
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open source for an open mind
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted June 01, 2007 11:52 AM |
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Quote:
Plus something clearly went weird: for the first four levels I got Spell Power only (??). The chances of that are 0.45 ^ 4 = 4.1%. I got greedy and went for Summoning Magic to buff up Raise Dead. Stupid decision, concerning that I got Ice Bolt in the castle plus Destructive Magic offered to me on the 3rd level-up, and Raise dead was strong enough on Basic with a +2 SP artie I snatched to raise all my Skellys even if I needed that.
So, although this is good progress, there's definitely room fore improvement. :]
Well summoning can do other things except resurrecting Though cold death is a great perk for the necromancer, too bad icebolt has a 25% chance to pop up at the mage guild 
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