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Heroes Community > Heroes 5 - Temple of Ashan > Thread: Duel Tactics
Thread: Duel Tactics This thread is 18 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 · NEXT»
Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted December 28, 2008 12:17 AM
Edited by Elvin at 23:26, 01 Jan 2009.

Duel Tactics

Since lately there is an active interest in duels some tactical discussions might have merit. As you very well know handling yourself in the final battle is half the game even though it's only a small part in heroes. In a real map you have to consider creeping, efficient map movement, risks, skills that may be needed to break the garrison sooner as opposed to skills that would be of more use in a final battle and of course how early or late that battle will take place. In truth the one who controls the adventure map, its dwellings and its riches controls the game even if he has less final fight skills.

In a duel the above are considered inconsequential. All start at the same level with equal opportunities and army strength, therefore the analysis of this thread has a narrower focus. To be a good duelist you must:

* Pick an effective combination of skills for the battle.
* Assess which artifacts will help you most either complementing your build or hindering your opponent's.
* Have a certain mastery of tactical combat.

Dfortae one of our best duelists though inactive at the moment had made an interesting post.
Quote:
It's mainly statistics and logic.  You do things that will produce the most damage in the shortest period of time.  Whether this is protecting yourself with endurance, doing direct damage with destructive magic, or simply charging across with paladins.  You must remember about units getting separated and stranded (a bad thing).  You must use terrain to your advantage (choking off movement locations).  You sometimes sacrifice units to make the enemy waste a powerful counter attack.

It takes time to figure all this out but having a solid foundation of logic and reasoning really helps.


While the basic principle is simple there are many ways to go around it. You can make sure you act before the opponent with swift mind and/or divine guidance to force him on the defensive, make him fight his own forces, dish out extra damage from a ballista, protect yourself so you can keep dealing damage. Crippling his main damage dealers fast is of utmost importance most of the time. Then you should of course consider that some units are better used against certain enemies or under certain circumstances - for instance it's unwise to attack champions with executioners unless their retaliation is spent, instead they can do a great work at butchering those pesky imperials. Just an example, doesn't apply in all situations.

Duels are not pure skill however, chance is crucial factor. Favourable starting initiative can win a game before it even begins, especially when the units are hard hitters and they also enjoy a good hero attack boost. Then there is the matter of which artifacts and spells were available at your disposal. [Consider rune of charge, divine vengeance, armageddon, cotn and word of light out of this discussion.] My builds are influenced by them just as they are by the faction I face.
Which brings us to the next step.

Builds are often a game of paper, rock and scissors. Light counters dark, cold death counters flaming arrows or phoenix, tactics counter tactics, resistance counters harmful spells in general, mass deflect missile counters ballista, elemental balance counters phoenix and so on. Some are good to have most of the time, others have a more specific use and may prove ineffective outside of it. One clear example are the shatters.
Suppose you get dungeon vs stronghold. What are the options?
Dungeon may get both summoning and destructive. It may pick only one of them. It may pick dark. It may skip magic altogether because it got flaming arrows and good initiative arties. According to your opponent's choice your shatters may benefit you greatly or waste several of your levels.
Conclusion? Getting into the opponent's mind is handy If you can guess what he is aiming for you have the upper hand by default.



Anyways you get the main idea, let's get the conversation going And to make things more interesting I will occasionally post chess-like situations to see what you would do.

For instance how would you handle the game here if you could control the dwarves for one turn and had all runes? If this is confusing ignore the devils acting next in the atb bar.





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Asheera
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Asheera
Asheera


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
posted December 28, 2008 12:30 AM

It's very late here so unfortunately I'm not going to comment on this, but I'll try to solve the 'puzzle'

Harpoon Strike on Nightmare and then wreak Havoc with the Thunder Thanes with Rune of Battlerage
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veco
veco


Legendary Hero
who am I?
posted December 28, 2008 12:31 AM
Edited by veco at 00:33, 28 Dec 2008.

What I would do is to pull the Nightmares with Harpooners one tile and make an opening for ThunderThanes with rune of BattleRage

As for generals tactics and tips... I don't have any in mind right now but will post some tommorow I hope
Maybe use of Brisk Raiders instead of Grim Raiders vs Inferno which I displayed in a replay earlier?

edit: ah, I was too slow! I blame it on link pasting
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Asheera
Asheera


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
posted December 28, 2008 03:00 PM

Ok I'll add some nice strategies and combos which I find great:

Last Stand with Dungeon + powerful Destructive spells or an uber Phoenix Make your units last longer while blasting the enemy with your spells or Phoenix. It has a 2% chance to pop up, but it sure is nice when you get it.

Empathy with Dungeon Another 2% chance skill that is very useful for Dungeon, with Empathy your hero will act a lot more (especially if you also have Sorcery), so make sure you have enough mana to use this ability to its full power.

Warlock's Luck + Swift mind + empowered area spell with Dungeon If first strike is a lucky spell the game could as well possibly be over at this starting point.

Last Stand with Sylvan + Resurrection + Pristine Unicorns again, a very nice combo which could annoy your opponent quite a bit. Not to mention you also have the Dryads which have the ability to resurrect themselves as well (and Last Stand helps them in this case)

Enlightenment + Stamina with Stronghold Not only will you get 2 Defense, but also 10% more hit points to all your creatures. The skill has only a 2% chance to pop up though, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to have it. After all, in my two games in the Tournaments I had it both times

Mark of the Wizard + Resurrection with Academy It's so frustrating for your opponent to see that he somehow manages to defeat your army, when suddenly BOOM many of your creatures are back, and in time there will be more and more (as Wizard's mana pool is rarely used up entirely). Be careful not to resurrect the same creature too many times though, it will decrease its hit points too much.

Empathy + Divine Guidance with Haven Your units will act so often that they will fill up the entire ATB bar. Especially if Morale favors you as well (since you have Expert Leadership, it's guaranteed you have some high Morale value there)



These are just from the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more interesting combos


Oh and btw, I can't believe I once managed to get Retribution with Academy, which requires two 2% skills... so, just keep in mind that any combination is possible... so when planning your level-up points, expect the worst but be prepared and hope for the best as well
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted December 28, 2008 03:09 PM

One of the more interesting academy builds radar used against me was flaming arrows with artificial glory, nothing scarier that a damaging ballista with good morale. Most exotic builds are a gamble so it makes a game special when you get them right
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JoonasTo
JoonasTo


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
posted December 28, 2008 03:22 PM

I should note here that the duels are 90% luck if neither player does something really stupid.
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radar
radar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Castle/Haven player
posted December 28, 2008 03:27 PM

In my opinion things like lucky strikes and resistance should have a cap applied so it would work like incorporeality.
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phoenixreborn
phoenixreborn


Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
posted December 28, 2008 03:38 PM

Quote:
I should note here that the duels are 90% luck if neither player does something really stupid.


Radar duels are more luck...Elvin duels feel tighter.

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JoonasTo
JoonasTo


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
posted December 28, 2008 03:56 PM

Elvin's duels are almost as much luck.
You can't change hero level upping for example. 7 spellpower warlocks FTW!
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phoenixreborn
phoenixreborn


Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
posted December 28, 2008 04:02 PM

This is true of the regular game.

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JoonasTo
JoonasTo


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
posted December 28, 2008 05:09 PM

I never denied that.
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Final_Boss
Final_Boss


Adventuring Hero
The Necropope
posted December 28, 2008 07:29 PM

Very good thread Elvin!

I'll contribute with some necro things:

Mass Decay + Mass Haste: We all know the counter to Mass Haste is Mass Slow, but there is also a soft counter: mass decay. Why? Cause the faster the target moves the faster it dies! For example: If some necromancer with 18 sp casts expert mass decay on a stack of inquisitors the spell will deal (32+8*18)x5=880 points of damage, not bad, but if the same necromancer casts it on griffins then the spell will deal [(32+8*18)x5]*1.5=1320 points of damage. Now add expert haste to those griffins and it is [(32+8*18)x5]*2.1=1848! But if you even add things like multiple stacks, high positive morale and turns spent waiting then the damage done is so high that it looks like a mass empowered implosion with emerald slippers. The drawback of this counter is that mass decay must remain active for 5 full hero turns (10 initiative), which is a lot of time to be honest, but the spell will kill a lot of enemy creatures before it is completely countered.

If a demon lord gates a lot of reinforcements and then uses power of speed, cast mass decay! Whoopsie!

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Lexxan
Lexxan


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Unimpressed by your logic
posted December 28, 2008 07:41 PM

Quote:
I should note here that the duels are 90% luck if neither player does something really stupid.


Lol, like my Paladins charging into Elvin's Nightmares 1 second after the battle comenced lol
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted December 28, 2008 10:34 PM

I think you've got things wrong. If it was 90% luck me and final boss would be barely above average in duels, besides even if I joke about Elvin luck you cannot seriously claim that a player is luckier than another. When you have a calculated game and know your options a game is rarely one sided even if sith happens. Joonas mentions 7 spellpower warlocks. Fair enough but then why restrict yourself to a build that depends on spellpower? There are many others ways to make them effective, it's called adaptability. And in how many games will that happen? One out of thirty? Fifty? It's never happened to me and trust me when I say that I have played many games.



@Final_Boss
Yeah I like that one Or even better mass haste + regeneration on your high level units. Likewise it works for ignite.
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JoonasTo
JoonasTo


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
posted December 28, 2008 11:09 PM

Yeah but you can't see how your hero develops in primary skills when you level up. (At least I can't start counting those +1 bonuses and keep sane.) And changing afterwards is expensive and not very comfortable.

But that those never happened to you just show what it means to be unlucky.

The main reason to my unluckiness is probably that I haven't played enough to even the odds. I have had maybe 5 duels where I was really lucky and at least 10 where I was horribly unlucky and another 10 where my opponent was just so lucky that I had no chances. Then there are a lot of games where I encountered unluckiness and his luckiness on a smaller scale.

But I play for fun and am accustomed to my unluckiness in general at everything I do so it doesn't really bother me. Just something to brag about.

Fun fact is that I had a game with empathy and 8 morale. My enemy had 3 morale(I had the ring with -2) and empathy. Now this would look perfect wouldn't it? Except that then you get into the game and find yourself getting morale only four times in a long match and him getting over 16 times. That match is one of the worst cases I've had. should have taken sorcery instead. I don't need to tell you that match ended quite horrible defeat.

But even with my usual unluckiness I've got more victories than losses. Thank you for that Azzie.
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted December 28, 2008 11:12 PM

Usually my game slows down sometime during lvl ups so I can still check
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Asheera
Asheera


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
posted December 28, 2008 11:15 PM

A 7 Spellpower Warlock at level 21 is not that a tragedy (without Enlightenment and artifacts, that is)

On average, a Warlock has around 9 spellpower for level 21 (again, no bonuses from adventure map locations, artifacts or enlightenment)
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JoonasTo
JoonasTo


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
posted December 28, 2008 11:19 PM

Well the thing is that I had arcane excellence so taht means I really got five.

But 9? I usually have around 13 or so without skill bonuses. Should I consider myself lucky with most warlocks?
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Asheera
Asheera


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Elite Assassin
posted December 28, 2008 11:23 PM

Well you have that Planetarium now, so you have 13 with or without it? And also, you start with a minor artifact which could have increased your spellpower as well.

Warlock has 45% spellpower to his stat distribution. 45% of 21 is 9.45
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted December 28, 2008 11:27 PM

Let's just drop the issue, so many artifacts that can remedy the situation. It will never happen again in this century anyway.
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