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| Thread: Is there a niche for vanilla Frenzy ? | |
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 08, 2016 05:56 PM |
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Edited by b0rsuk at 17:58, 08 Sep 2016.
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Is there a niche for vanilla Frenzy ?
Heroes of Might and Magic 3, level 4 Fire spell.
Expert Frenzy - unit loses all its Defense Skill, and 200% of lost Defense SKill is added to Attack Skill.
Archdevil waits.
So an Archdevil deals 35 * 0.975 = 34.125 damage on average to a Golden Dragon, which is just 1 speed point slower and 1 def point higher. At the start of the next turn, another 34.125 damage. Next turn, he takes 45 * 1.05 = 47.25 damage on average.
If Archdevil is frienzied:
Surplus attack is 27(dragon) - 26(att) + (28*2 frenzy) = 55. 55 * 0.05 = 2.75, for a total of 375% damage modifier when you add normal damage.
Archdevil waits and deals 35 * 3.75 = 131.25 damage. Then another 131.25 damage, total 261. Hmm. Might be enough to kill them all before dragon attacks! But archdevil would take 45 * 2.35 = 105 damage. Worth it ? This doesn't include attacks from other monsters.
* * *
Another scenario, Archdevil vs silly Archangel who didn't use his superior speed to attack Archdevil first.
Normal damage is 35 reduced by 4 points of defense (10% damage), so 35 * 0.9 = `31.5.
Now because they hate each other, it's 1.5x multiplier for 47.5 total. 2 times, because of wait, so 94.5 .
Frienzied:
52 surplus offense, so total damage modifier is 360%. 35 * 3.6 = 126 damage, then another 126 damage, total 252. Not enough to kill them all but they would be almost completely beaten.
Archangel hitting frienzied archdevil would deal EXACTLY 125 damage.
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So Frenzy seems to trade those creatures, because other stacks are going to gang up on archdevils. Not that great for a level 4 spell at expert.
It might be good in solo scenarios like a single stack of archdevils vs Armageddon Dragons. 0 defense skill won't increase damage from spells.
It might also be good when you're certain nothing will reach your shooters.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted September 08, 2016 09:53 PM |
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Frenzy is an okay spell imo.
Of course you need to be almost certain the unit won't get attacked as it is literally defenseless. It's perfect for units with high speed and no retaliation, like Arch Devils. But could also be cast on units like Hydras and Harpy Hags, as long as you are certain they won't get attacked while frenzied.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted September 08, 2016 10:10 PM |
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Check out sacrifice for an easy way to regain your AD stack, and then they say only 200 hp was a bad thing.  But as you say Castle probably won't wait with his AA's, if anything they'll just get blinded after he cast his spell or lose his first round spell entirely.
However, in principle what Frenzy does is that it removes tier (or level if you want) barriers.. the hit point and damage points pr. growth of various creatures does vary between levels, iIRC level 7 units only stand out on the hp pr. growth, department. Add to that, that damage is superior / equal to hp pr. growth for various units and you can e.g. see 40 frenzied crusaders one-shot 15 AA's.
That's assuming the AA's have already retaliated and the crusaders hit a better than avg. damage.
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sirironfist
Known Hero
King of the ogres
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posted September 08, 2016 10:42 PM |
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I've seen frenzy deciding games because you can take out the most important stacks of your enemy at once. Especially in the case of the enemy having much more army a trade can be worth it.
Also, it is extremely powerful in battles against neutral creatures if you have arch devils for example. Just wait, cast frenzy and take out a stack.
That it is so useful for arch devils makes sense because Inferno is meant to be aligned with fire magic.
You can even cast it on a cloned stack and do crazy amounts of damage.
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 08, 2016 10:51 PM |
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Edited by b0rsuk at 22:59, 08 Sep 2016.
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I agree about Sacrifice, it's a truly top tier spell. I did the math on it years ago. The only wrong thing about it is lack of documentation. It doesn't display how much you're going to revive if you sacrifice it. Most of the time it's overkill. The way I remember Sacrifice is especially good with imps, because Spell Power is multiplied by number of creatures. But base HP also matters.
Clone - correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Clone also copies enchantments on the creature ? So if enemy doesn't take care of frienzied monsters, he's going to regret it FAST.
But overall I think Clone is the better spell, and they both do a similar thing - vastly boost damage potential. With Clone you don't have to take extra damage, quite the opposite it protects your real stack.
Does Frenzy use Defense Skill from hero bonus ?
It seems Frenzy is designed for high end creatures. On pikemen, you can get +10 attack on expert but Bloodlust would give you +6 with no downside. I wish Frenzy worked on Efreet Sultans, because Fire Shield would make enemies very uncomfortable attacking them.
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sirironfist
Known Hero
King of the ogres
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posted September 08, 2016 11:02 PM |
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b0rsuk said:
I agree about Sacrifice, it's a truly top tier spell. I did the math on it years ago. The only wrong thing about it is lack of documentation. It doesn't display how much you're going to revive if you sacrifice it. Most of the time it's overkill.
The way I remember Sacrifice is especially good with imps, because Spell Power is multiplied by number of creatures. But base HP also matters.
Clone - correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Clone also copies enchantments on the creature ? So if enemy doesn't take care of frienzied monsters, he's going to regret it FAST.
But overall I think Clone is the better spell, and they both do a similar thing - vastly boost damage potential. With Clone you don't have to take extra damage, quite the opposite it protects your real stack.
No, clone does not take over buffs. That's the annoying thing if you cast a mass spell, then clone a stack the cloned stack wont be buffed.
Clone actually deserves to be level 5 if you ask me. Cloning titans for obvious reasons or arch angels for a second resurection can be very useful.
Since maps and circumstances are often so unique in this game it's always a tough question to say which spell is better. But clone will give you more satisfying results in most situations I guess. 
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted September 09, 2016 12:42 AM |
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b0rsuk said:
Does Frenzy use Defense Skill from hero bonus ?
Yes it does. Otherwise it'd be somewhat rather weak if you ask me, only good for higher level units. Fortunately it's the same case as with the AB special that only gets better the stronger the two heroes clashing are.
Once you've high stat heroes, which are typical, expert fire magic frenzy allows 4x damage. I haven't done the math, but standard Frenzy could probably do the same for you.
Anyway that is why in my opinion it's so nice that the damage pr. growth across the tiers are so similar.
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 09, 2016 08:26 AM |
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I don't know, Clone is easy to take out if not used carefully. A Barbarian can cast Magic Arrow and destroy it. You could destroy it with Fireball, but it's a waste of mana because it deals almost no damage anyway. You can use very badly damaged stack of level 1 to kill it. Players tend to cast it on very fast units to disallow countering. But sometimes your fastest / most desirable unit is as fast as unit of the other player and HOMM initiative system likes to alternate units...
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 09, 2016 09:03 AM |
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Clone also doesn't take over debuffs either, though.
I can remember that I got pretty obsessed with Clone while playing The Lord of War map which starts with your Barbarian getting Water Magic by way of a Scholar (Barbarians cannot get Water Magic the regular way). In case you didn't play that map, you will for example fight against insane forces, but the amount of damage a thousand ABs led by a 50-attack hero will do is amazing, and Cloning them is just amazing as well.
You can always make sure that you can move your Clone immediately when you cast the spell in that moment when all units faster or equally fast than your intended original either have already moved or waited or it's your turn with the last one.
With AAs, it allows cheap Resurrect Trues (and depending on the amount of AAs Cloned pretty beefy ones as well); just cast it on your AAs, when it's their turn. Beat the hell out of something with the Original, then use the Clone to Resurrect eventual losses. Since the Clone is always creating a fresh image after a Clone has been destroyed, you can always Resurrect with a new Clone.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 09, 2016 09:31 AM |
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In my XXL map TEW4, where most spells are rebuilt, Frenzy can be cast once per battle (for each side) and the targeted stack HP will be halved. But is also combined with AI dynamic stats (they grow with time, in order to offer constant challenge) so for example, a group of titans with 800 HP will have their HP down to 400 if attacked by a frenzied stack. Quite devastating, that's why allowed only once. Further frenzied attacks will have zero effect.
Bless spell, for example, increases the damage of the stack by 5% every turn it remains applied (percentage modifiable through research), so the main priority is to dispel it now, if you let it going, that stack will become a killer.
The problem with the majority of spells is that they don't take in consideration the natural growth of both monsters numbers and Heroes stats in a game. When you face 10 elves, a magic arrow is great, 10 month later you meet 1000 elves and even a big Implosion will be less effective than cloning your main stack, or mass haste, not to mention forgetfulness etc.
So the optimal solution, imo, is not necessarily to change the spells, but make them dynamic, through research, map locations, exploration percentage or whatever. Follow player progression and adapt to map growth. Also is a natural way to create a distinction between magic and might heroes, by allowing the first to more advanced features through magic research.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 09, 2016 10:36 AM |
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I have to say that I strongly disagree with "research" in Heroes, because there is no reason whatsoever, once you have introduced it, to not apply it to more than making spells more effective.
In H5 spells are made more effective by abilities (subskills). H5 rearranges the skills (following the path H4 treaded). Skills that seem excessive in 3 (or more) levels are made a subskill. For example, Archery, is a simple subskill or ability in H5, instead of a skill.
This way is used with spells as well. Mage Guild delivers only "basic" spells; if you want to expand on them, you will have to pick an ability of the magic school the spell is in. For example, Destructive Magic is the school that contains all damage spells. Basic abilities will add an effect to destructive spells of a certain element. For example, Master of Ice will make all Water damage spells lose a turn (or the equivalent of it, since H5 has no turns in the strict sense).
Since you can pick one ability only for each skill level, this works quite well.
I'm not against research in Heroes per se, but using it only to increase spell efficiency seems a bit arbitrary. You could GET spells via research, you could research better or different War Machines, you could research better weapons and therefore increase damage and/or attack of your units, you could research armor to increase HPs and/or defense of your units, you could research stuff to increase EVERY creature stat, to make heroes move faster and so on.
You could even research for more creature growth, more mine income, town upgrades and even more slots for hero skills.
This is no problem, AoW does this all along and even more so in AoW3.
But the question is, of course: you need a resource for research to define your research speed, because it's obviously not your Battle Mage who is doing it.
I'm also not sure you really need ALL spells to be useful ALL the time. I mean, you have obviously a LOT of spells in 5 levels of mage guild, and there is nothing wrong with level 4/5 guild spells doing a certain amount of damage per power point AND creatures or even HP percentage to have a late game damage spell.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 09, 2016 11:08 AM |
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The problem is that the experience required for advancing, lets say, from level 30 to 31, takes probably 2 months of intense fights. You gain +1 spell power, great, now your implosion gets from 800 to 820 damage. But by that time, stacks of monsters on the map doubled in size. See the problem?
So for me the distribution and the grow of spell power/spell damage is not following the mechanics applied to map and AI growth. It is realistic until level 10-15 or so, and then it nullifies because the amount of experience required to level up is insane. To "fix" that, you have to come with ideas, research or whatever.
This is even more important now that we know how bugs work in Heroes (3 at least). The game can't handle large number of armies, after 32000 your stack vanishes or freezes game. So where you can't increase the number, you increase the stats (dynamic growth) and spells damage consequently.
JollyJoker said:
you need a resource for research to define your research speed, because it's obviously not your Battle Mage who is doing it.
Not so hard. Each map size should have a wealth coefficient then add to it number of towns, mines, treasures, AI players and so. The base price should be calculated on this. The resource is obviously gold, however for creature stats, I would add other resources as well. Gems for titan upgrading and so on.
Note that thread is about Heroes 3 vanilla, not about how we would design a new spell system. Fix the one already in place.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted September 09, 2016 11:43 AM |
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I know all that - the problem is, that players are never satisfied when things are limited, and with all Heroes games, 3 no exception, there IS a limit of use, because when you go beyond the limits, the results get warped too much. For example, the higher the hero attack becomes, the more devastating the aforementioned Ancient Behemoths are.
Or take Mighty Gorgons. With their special, the higher the number the more likely it becomes that they will kill the maximum of 10% of creatures of their own number, rounded UP. So you only need to make a map with enough MG dwellings, and you will get an army of MGs killing everything via death stare.
The simplest solution is - to simply accept that. There is nothing you can do with 100.000 Black Dragons you couldn't do with 100.
For the XP problem - I seem to remember that the actual XP ladder in H3 is hard-coded, is that right? So it can't be changed (otherwise, simply change that, but that's so simple, it would have happened already, if possible).
The most reasonable thing, however, is, to accept that the game wants you to finish maps before your hero reaches level 25. Also, Heroes isn't Total War; you are not supposed to field giant armies. It may be FUN (but fun and competetive play are two different things, and for FUN you do not need to balance things). The economy changes from H2 to H3 are NOT good, by the way, because it's too easy to amass armies (and to turtle in your town, if there is just one town for everyone).
Yes - true. Creatures get more in the course of the game, while spells are not getting more powerful. Damage and Resurrect spells should have a "growth" as well (but not buffs and debuffs). On the other hand, I'm not really sure whether you are supposed rule by destruction. Magic - for me - is more about battle control, because otherwise magic is too much just making the hero the 8th stack doing unretaliated damage.
The problem of H3 is more that Might has battle control as well, PLUS there is Resistance, PLUS there are artifacts against Magic. One way to get that right is this: buffs and debuffs work only 100% when the casting hero's power is equal or greater than his opponent's. If it's lower, for each point difference the probability for the spell to work drops by X%. X might be different for enemy and friendly creatures (that is, for buffs and debuffs).
So, if you have a hero with 15 power against a hero with 5 power, and the better hero Blinds the Behemoths, with 10 points of difference, Dispelling might work only with a probability of 50%.
OR: buffs and debuffs may cost more mana, depending on the difference in power. Add X% mana cost for each point of power difference - this might end with the Might hero depleting his mana VERY fast.
If you think about it, Heroes used to be a fairly simple and fast game - especially for MP it should keep that way. You can always balance things for short stuff
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 09, 2016 02:15 PM |
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Salamandre said:
In my XXL map TEW4, where most spells are rebuilt, Frenzy can be cast once per battle (for each side) and the targeted stack HP will be halved.
In my thread, where the word "vanilla" appears in subject, discussion of mods is not encouraged.
The meaning from urbandictionary.com:
Quote:
Preferring an activity or thing in its basic and unmodified state. Refers to vanilla ice cream. Used when expressing a preference for having something the traditional way.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 09, 2016 02:24 PM |
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Well, the vanilla frenzy does not satisfy you, hence you open thread too see what can be done about, right? So you ask for modding the vanilla frenzy, but when mods are discussed, is not about modding?
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b0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 09, 2016 02:27 PM |
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I was asking because maybe I'm missing something. I did a google search including searching through heroescommunity.com and I could barely find any mentions!
In SP, it's not a popular spell because people have an aversion to casting spells that may cause losses. Frenzy very much increases the risk of losses.
But I've played more Heroes2 in multiplayer than Heroes3, so I thought it was worth asking. Maybe the spell is super popular in multi, I thought.
I haven't yet made my mind if the spell needs a change or not. The concept always intrigued me.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted September 09, 2016 02:32 PM |
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Frenzy, as prayer, has a cap. Once your hero or your creature went beside this cap, increasing attack will do nothing, but only exposing you to full retaliation, as now you have 0 defense. And of course, the game does not warn if the cap is active or no, so you are in the unknown.
The only parameter which has no cap (at least not easy to achieve) is the damage.
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