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Heroes Community > Heroes 5 - Temple of Ashan > Thread: The Power of Speed – the Inferno help guide to longer maps
Thread: The Power of Speed – the Inferno help guide to longer maps
alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted March 30, 2008 11:38 AM
Edited by alcibiades at 18:30, 30 Mar 2008.

The Power of Speed – the Inferno help guide to longer maps

I’m no expert player – and not even close with Inferno – but it seems to me that we need a good strategy guide on playing Inferno. I know there is a “Inferno Strategy” thread, but problem is, that much of it can be summed up in one sentence: Get War Machines and RUSH. Now that’s all very fine – when you play on small, 1 vs. 1 maps. But how do you play Inferno on larger maps, possibly with multiple opponents? For me, the quest has been not so much learning how to win with Inferno as how to survive with Inferno. Here, I’d like to share what (limited) experience I have made, and hope that others will add theirs as well.

The two basics: Skill duet for creeping
I know it would be logical with starting with choices for starting Hero, but since that point really related to this, I’ll start here. To my experience, there are two skills that are absolutely essential for creeping: Attack and War Machines. This may seem like a no-brainer, and it pretty much is, but there are a few things I’d like to add to this none-the-less.

Attack – the Flaming Arrows pit-fall
When you say the combination Attack + War Machines, all of us will automatically think Flaming Arrows perk. And Flaming Arrows my seem like an extremely good choice for the Demon Lord – well, it IS a very good choice for him – problem is, you’ll not be able to reach Flaming Arrows before level 14. As the Inferno player will probably not be able to afford picking a lot of Experience from chests (more on this later), don’t expect to reach level 14 very early in game. This means that Flaming Arrows will not be likely to be your life-saver for creeping: At the time you reach level 14, at least basic creeping is over and done with. Furthermore, there is another disadvantage with Flaming Arrows:

Flaming Arrows builds on Battle Frenzy and Excruciating Strike. Battle Frenzy is excellent and Excruciating Strike is not a bad ability (some even consider it a very good ability, which it is, particularly if you use Hero melee attack a lot, something I don’t do – I’ll return to that later) – however, it requires Mark Of The Damned to unlock. Again, Mark Of The Damned is not a bad ability, but it also unlocks Tremors, which is something you really don’t want to happen, as this will block up your skill selection on level up. This means that you have to fully level up your War Machines tree (see below) before picking Mark Of The Damned and being able to build up your Attack Tree. Fully building up War Machines is not a bad idea, but it does require a certain amount of luck on levelling up.

For these reasons, I don’t consider the Flaming Arrows path to be the best for Inferno. It’s a tough sacrifice, but believe me, there is a worthy alternative!

War Machines – the First Aid puzzle
With War Machines, it’s pretty much a no-brainer that you want to go for Ballista > Triple Ballista. The thing is, that when playing Inferno, you will need First Aid. First Aid is crucial for you, because you have a complete lack of ranged power in early game. This means you will suffer losses of some Impoids (= Imps + Upgrades) and Hounds (= Hell Hounds + Upgrades), and you simply cannot afford this in the long run – even only a handful lost in every battle will soon add up to large numbers, and the First Aid Tent will save you from this.

The problem is, that picking First Aid will unlock Plague Tent, which is a complete no-go. Unfortunately, there are no other requirements for Plague Tent once you’ve picked First Aid, so it will start popping its ugly head up all the time. Hence, you need to reach Tripple Ballista before taking First Aid if at any means possible. To complicate things further, Tripple Ballista requires Hellfire, therefore: Don’t pass up on Hellfire if you see it! Fortunately, Hellfire is the best of the Gating perks, with MOTD as second, so picking Hellfire soon is not bad.

All this means that your skill priorities are like this early game:
1. Get Basic War Machines. Stall by levelling up Gating until it shows up.
2. Learn Hellfire.
3. Learn Ballista Perk.
4. Learn Tripple Ballista.
5. Learn First Aid.
All the while, you want to keep an eye open for Attack. If Attack comes along, and your priority pick isn’t there, take it. However, Attack has high chances (15 %), so don’t worry too much about missing it – it will show up later. War Machines (at “only” 10 %) is slightly more rare, but is very likely to come soon – level up Gating to buy times if you’re unlucky, Advanced Gating is also a crucial skill as soon as you have access to Hounds. However, my advice is this: Think twice before learning Mark Of The Damned, as it may disturb your Attack skill tree.

Attack revisited – the beauty of Power Of Speed
I talked above at length about why you should discard Flaming Arrows. Here’s the alternative I think makes it worth it: The combination of Tactics + Battle Frenzy > Power Of Speed.

Tactics is extremely useful for Inferno, because your play style – with many fast units (both Initiative and Speed) plus high Attack and Low Defence means you will want to go for quick kills – and Tactics allows your Hounds, Horses (= Hellhorse + upgrades) and Devils (= Devils + upgrades) to cross on first turn.

Battle Frenzy is also an amazing skill for Inferno. It will increase the average damage for your Impoids to 3.5 before applying Attack bonus – both skill and primary stat. This makes for very serious damage from a level 1 unit. Likewise, your Hounds will be likely to make excellent use of this to boost their damage, and as you do rely a lot on you low level units in most of game, it’s definitely worth it!

Finally, Power Of Speed is an absolute gem for Inferno. First of all, Light Magic is pretty difficult to get, and even if you do, you need some luck to get the Haste Spell. This skill grants you Mass Haste at Advanced level – a whooping +30 % Initiative for all your units, and at the cost of only 8 Mana. With your overgrown Wisdom, which you haven’t got a lot of use for besides powering Hellfire, this is a great tool. And boy, does those Hounds get to strike a lot once hasted – except vs. fast creeps, this will allow you a very good hit’n’run strategy á la Blood Furies.

So, this would be my step 2 of the skill priorities for Inferno:
6. Learn Attack.
7. Learn Tactics.
8. Learn Battle Frenzy.
9. Learn Power Of Speed.
Possibly, stall by levelling up Attack until Tactics shows up. If you have not learned Mark Of The Damned, Excruciating Strike will not show up, and you have one less thing to worry about. That means you can safely learn Battle Frenzy, as Flaming Arrows will not be unlocked. The latter makes it sound like I feel Flaming Arrows is a bad skill – and it’s not – but I do believe you’ll have better use of Power Of Speed in late game. Remember that Ballista is easy to destroy for any spellcaster with Cold Death. One should note that you’ll not be likely to have fully levelled up both Attack and War Machines tree before level 14 – unless your hero starts with either of these skills, which brings us on to the next part.

Choice of Starting Hero
It doesn’t take a lot of knowledge to know that Deleb is a good starting Hero. In fact, she’s completely overkill: Not only does she start with a great skill – Advanced War Machines!, no perks – and has a great speciality, even after being nerfed (Fireball on her Ballista), she also starts with a free Ballista AND Armo Cart, which saves you some 3000 Gold plus means you can postpone building Blacksmith until end of week 1 (it will become relevant once you learn First Aid). This is important, as it allows you to focus on building and upgrading Imps right away.

There used to be a lot of talk about Grok as the best alternative to Deleb (once you find it trivial playing with her, you will look for an alternative). This is because he starts with Logistics and hence had pretty good go for Teleport Assault – however, that’s not so much the case anymore, as Logistics has a host of perks that makes Teleport Assault difficult to reach. You need Swift Gating which is unlocked by the poor Consume Corpse ability, and if you go Logistics, you might want to go for Snatch and War Path instead anyway.

My money lies with Nebiros – not only does he have a decent speciality (always +1 Luck Modifier, and enemies cannot use Tactics – might come in handy), but he starts with a great skill set: Basic Attack + Basic Tactics. This lies the perfect ground for quick Power Of Speed, and gives you good time for learning War Machines.

Alastor has a pretty good special (Confusion spell), but since he starts without this spell, and starts with the pretty useless Sorcery rather than Dark Magic, he ends up being an inferior choice. Marbas actually has some interesting options (I’ll return to that later), but Defence is not the best starting skill, and that will slow down your early game advancement. Likewise, Nymus has a decent speciality and starts with Luck, which is fair, but resistance is not your best friend early game. Jezebeth has some advantages, but starts also with Sorcery, which ruins her. Finally, there’s the issue with Grawl, who has a great speciality (Hounds) – however, don’t go there: No matter how you twist or turn things, Destructive is not a good option for Demon Lords: You will find that your Spellpower is so abysmal (typically: Spell Power 1 or 2 at level 12) that your direct attack will do more damage than your destructive spells.

Secondary heroes you may want to look out for
Here’s a completely other story. Of course, Deleb is a no-brainer, as she brings a free Ballisata and Armo Card, saving you a good amount of money (she practically comes for free if you haven’t bought Ballista yet). Jezebeth is also good, as she comes with a free Succubus AND a free First Aid Tent, which saves you 1500 Gold. Finally, Grawl will bring you 13-15 free Hounds, which can be very valuable early game.

Further Skill Advancement – the 2 % skill problem
One problem for Inferno is that they benefit a lot from a number of skills that are pretty difficult for them to get access to – and have very little use for skills, that have high chances of showing up. Luck, Logistics and Dark Magic all are pretty safe choices for the Demon Lord, and all have good chances of showing up (8 %, 15 % and 8 %, respective). On the other hand, you will want to avoid picking Destructive Magic (10 %), which is likely to be a completely waste because of your inferior Spell Power, and Sorcery (8 %), for the very same reasons. Edit: You may concider Sorcery, however, particularly if you're facing Dungeon, Academy or Necropolis - in the latter case, particularly if you're not good with Dark Magic.

Enlightenment
This is one of the rare skills (2 %) that I think does pretty good for the Demon Lord. The extra skill points are always welcome, and if you go War Machines, this will do nice extra damage for your Ballista. The perks are not crucial, however, but one very interesting side effect is that Intelligence > Dark Revelation will open up for Divine Guidance! It’s a tough call, but if you see a chance of this, it will definitely do you a lot of good in a long game! However, it does mean you have to learn both Enlightenment AND Leadership.

Leadership
Leadership is just as rare (2 %) but is another great skill for Demon Lord. Your key to success is playing fast, and Leadership will allow your units to attack very often. In the rare incident where you get both Leadership and Enlightenment, Divine Guidance will be a lifesaver – however, Aura Of Swiftness is also an interesting option, and even Empathy could be fun, although again, this one requires Enlightenment, and should you succeed in getting both, Divine Guidance is probably the better pick. Finally, Diplomacy > Gate Master is a pretty conventional but solid pick.

Light Magic
This is definitely an odd one out for Inferno. The skill is not easy to get (2 %, sigh), and the spells don’t show up in your mage guild except by chance. However, don’t be mistaken: Haste, Divine Strength, Righteous Might, even Resurrection and Endurance – these spells will definitely do you a lot of good. Not even to mention Cleansing. Light Magic with Demon Lords is a very effective way to surprise enemies. Also notice, however, that with Power Of Speed plus Dark Magic, Light Magic might end up being superfluous.

Defence – is it worth it?
Defence is not the priority skill for Demon Lords, because their units are frail and their low natural Defence means that your tactic is avoiding to be hit rather than to endure. That being said, there are some very interesting options here. Vitality will work very well for you, because you rely a lot on your low level units. Also, Vitality unlocks Power Of Endurance, which, as with Power Of Speed, can give you a solid support and help to make your magic power (or lack of same) less important. Alternatively, you can go for Preparation with Tactics, but this seems less attractive, as you’re really not very likely to use the Defend option a lot with Inferno. So in conclusion, I’d say, if you’re left with the choice between Defence and some other low priority skill, it’s definitely better than Sorcery, Destructive, Summoning, and, depending on circumstances, Light.


I have to finish for now, but I hope people will contribute their suggestions, and I’ll try to write some more later on which units to choose and in-game strategies I find helpful.

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Darkshadow
Darkshadow


Legendary Hero
Cerise Princess
posted March 30, 2008 11:55 AM

Is this really needed?We have the inferno strategy thread.I guess this is helpfull to someone.

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2ndHero
2ndHero


Famous Hero
Floppy Slayer
posted March 30, 2008 12:09 PM

Nice, good strategies here.
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Help and suggestions needed here.

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted March 30, 2008 12:33 PM

I don't agree that sorcery is not useful. Counterspell is your best bet versus dungeon, academy or necropolis. Don't forget demonlords' endless mana pool, further enhanced by familiars, making them the ultimate counter-spellers. Swift mind fits in naturaly with demonlords' high chance of logistics and increases the chance you will block your opponent. The idea is to kill any caster unit with horses and dogs, then counterspell and laugh at any magic coming. Inferno is extremely strong in the endgame. Let your numbers grow and you are most likely the winner.

Another fact is that enlightment is one of those most powerful skills, and you don't want to miss it when it pops up. 2% my a.s.s., just take it.

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Cleave
Cleave


Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
posted March 30, 2008 01:07 PM
Edited by Cleave at 13:08, 30 Mar 2008.

I would never take Light with a Demon Lord (I tried once), Dark Magic is way better for them. If worse comes to worse Vampirism can ensure the safety of the big damage dealers (and eventually Raise Dead but it shouldn't be that useful unless something went really wrong).

Luck and Leadership are great skills to enhance gating reinforcements with perks such as Swarming Gate and Gate Master.

Getting as many Familiars as possible is the best way to ensure that you won't suffer too much from enemy spellcasting (I'm thinking about Necromancers and Warlocks without Intelligence).

I have mixed feelings about Hellfire. The damage is good, but on a map with no wells you may end up lacking mana precisely when a PM could save the day (that time when you are facing huge high Tier neutral stacks and you end 5 mana points short and have to use Consume Corpse and hope Hellfire won't trigger before your hero's next turn comes up).

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nosfe
nosfe


Adventuring Hero
posted March 30, 2008 01:07 PM

Quote:
Alastor has a pretty good special (Confusion spell), but since he starts without this spell, and starts with the pretty useless Sorcery rather than Dark Magic, he ends up being an inferior choice.


last time i checked Alastor starts with confusion

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Cleave
Cleave


Promising
Famous Hero
Raging Blood
posted March 30, 2008 01:14 PM

Quote:
Quote:
Alastor has a pretty good special (Confusion spell), but since he starts without this spell, and starts with the pretty useless Sorcery rather than Dark Magic, he ends up being an inferior choice.


last time i checked Alastor starts with confusion


I just checked in the files (Alastor's internal name is Efion, what were they thinking?) and he starts with Confusion (they call it Forgetfulness). So he's not that bad, Mass Confusion can be a real life saver and his special can be just great when creeping against casters and shooters. If you get Confusion in your guild it may be somehow disappointing (still better safe than sorry.

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted March 30, 2008 01:35 PM

Quote:
and his special can be just great when creeping against casters and shooters.


not without swift mind, which does not come that easily. Without swift mind, he'll most likely have his turn somewhere in the middle of the creeps' turns, which ends up with you having casualties anyway. Alastor is a poor creeper without a set of skills.

Alastor doesn't start with dark magic. It may take him 1 level to get it, it may take him 20 levels to get it, which makes him virtually useless for 20 levels. There is too much of a gamble here.

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samiekl
samiekl


Supreme Hero
posted March 30, 2008 01:35 PM

Alastor is the best hero to use without warmachines. Sorcery is great for demonlords, not useless I'd go attack, logistics with swift mind, enlightenment, sorcery and dark any time of the day. The greatest threat  in creeping is shooters and casters. Alastor disables them easy. Master of mind + swift mind = bye bye.

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted March 30, 2008 02:41 PM

That is true, but in the same time he totally sucks if you're out of luck (no dark mag = pwned)

A solid hero for rich maps where you can level up quickly without much effort, though.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted March 30, 2008 02:54 PM

I must admit I did not consider Counterspell when I wrote off Sorcery. I guess Inferno is actually one of those factions where Counterspell will indeed be a viable option - although, is it really worth it to invest 6  skill levels including the not so mind-blowing Arcane Training (does this reduce Counterspell cost also!?) to get it?

Also, how all-round usefull is the build Sorcery (Arcane Training, Mana Regeneration) > Sorcery + Logistics (Scouting) > Swift Mind - aren't there other perks you would rather go for, like Logistics (Pathfinding) > Snatch? Of course, the bright side of Swift Mind is that you can still have Pathfinding alongside Scouting.

And sorry about the Alastar mistake, I must have gotten that confused (duh!) with something else.
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edwin_yang
edwin_yang


Known Hero
posted March 30, 2008 03:29 PM

nice post!

the counterspell is worth to get if you have the leadership and enlightment(ah..I know it is tooooooo....rare,so you can focus on lion's spirit set in a long run),with empathy and counterspell and your gating creatures which give you a morale bouns, it becomes a killer for magic faction at once...needless to say that your imps drain up the hero's mana too..

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samiekl
samiekl


Supreme Hero
posted March 30, 2008 04:11 PM
Edited by samiekl at 16:18, 30 Mar 2008.

Counterspell its a MUST if you face dungeon (and necro). Together with swift mind. Blocking the first spell is PRICELESS. Why? A smart dungeon player will kill your imps imediately thus removing the chance to be left without mana. Counterspell and swift mind will solve this problem and give your creatures time to do great amount of damage. Add to this the fact that destruction owns demons just as bad as dark does, you'll get the point .
Alcibiades, i dont think any other perk from logistics is more useful than swift mind. Snatch is completely useless because i always have another hero near the main to flag mines, collect resources etc. Sorcery its not useful only vs magic factions, but overall. Because demons have low spellpower and you need to recast that mass slow or mass confusion or any other mass often.
Doomforge, any other hero can be crappy if he's not given what he needs. Going for a warmachines build and not getting warmachines...its the same thing

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted March 30, 2008 06:27 PM
Edited by alcibiades at 18:36, 30 Mar 2008.

I think the usefulness of Snatch really is very map dependant. If you play a map with lots of water, Snatch will save you a lot of time. I also think War Path can be pretty good - and of course, some people may wanna go for Swift Gating and Teleport Assault.
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HartZa
HartZa


Known Hero
watchout graveyards!
posted March 30, 2008 09:49 PM

even thought Destructive isnt very good for Inferno, but it doesnt mean that it would be useless either because there are useful perks. Cold death helps a lot fighting in dragon utopia and any creatures with high hp. You can take at least 2-3 dragons per turn with circle of winter. If you like hellfire then go ahead and take searing flames. Sap magic helps agaisnt warlocks and wizards. Fiery wrath is considerable choice as it is cold steel if you take ice perk.
Hopefully this encourages to use more Grawi which have a good special, but not so great destructive magic perk.

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kermit
kermit


Known Hero
Soul hunter
posted April 01, 2008 12:11 PM

Quote:
I know there is a “Inferno Strategy” thread, but problem is, that much of it can be summed up in one sentence: Get War Machines and RUSH.

The two basics: Skill duet for creeping
I know it would be logical with starting with choices for starting Hero, but since that point really related to this, I’ll start here. To my experience, there are two skills that are absolutely essential for creeping: Attack and War Machines. This may seem like a no-brainer, and it pretty much is, but there are a few things I’d like to add to this none-the-less.



This is all nice and swell but it seems to me that this is precisely just one more of those INFERNO=WAR MACHINES threads. The view on Power of Speed is interesting however and provides for a not so common aproach to late game confrontation. Unfortunately the post does not discuss the strategic adventages that this perk provides on the battlefield, it only explains how to get it not really at zhqt poiunt in battle or vs what type of army it works best.

In my opinion Power of speed is a pretty viable counter to mass slow but casting it first turn won't give you the same advantage as frenzy/pupet on a key enemy unit.



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ChaosDragon
ChaosDragon


Famous Hero
posted April 01, 2008 01:24 PM
Edited by ChaosDragon at 13:32, 01 Apr 2008.

@alci
Agree with all you've said above.

As i've already stated many times in inferno strategy, power of speed (the main reason for using nebiros) and power of endurance (it's the main reason for using marbas besides his natural resist) is very useful for inferno, vs sylvan late game, those two perks often turn your losing battle to victory, it's one of inferno late game weapons or i'd say trump card, however the main problem is againts dark users.

Yeah, battle frenzy is amazing for inferno.

About hellfire, it's like getting asap or never pick it. I mean, pick it early (before lv 3), but never pick it in mid-late game.

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espen15
espen15


Famous Hero
posted June 25, 2008 12:17 PM

inferno strategy is deleb with fiery ballista lot of hellfire  and dark magic

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 25, 2008 12:54 PM

I'll have to ask that you don't resurrect old threads unless you have something useful to say on topic at hand.
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