| New mass spells (Heroes 3 and HotA) | |
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted July 04, 2026 07:41 PM |
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New mass spells (Heroes 3 and HotA)
Hi guys
I have been adding a few mass spells, for a while now, namely Slayer and Magic Mirror.
I also had Fire Shield as a mass spell for a while, but I decided to make it single target again, since all units getting 30% Fire Shields was surpringsly (too) powerful.
Today I decided to make Hypnotize a mass spell. I haven't tested it yet and though it sounds powerful, remember the HP limit it affects are still low and many units are immune to mind spells.
I suppose you haven't tried the above, but what do you think about Hypnotize, Fire Shield, Slayer and Magic Mirror being mass spells?
Do you think other spells should be mass spells or NOT be mass spells?
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted July 05, 2026 06:12 AM |
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First, thank you for continuing post these threads, I need my daily dose of Heroes III cheap chatting.
About the topic, Hypnotize seems a terrible idea cause it will fail if too much HP and will be a tremendous Berserk for several turns when it lands, so irremediablebly broken.
Mass Expert Fire Shield is already a thing with the Ironfist but maybe if you could lower it to mass basic Fire Shield it would be ok (not sure if you could do it with hex-editing, I only know how to do it in ERM).
Slayer OTOH should mass, maybe quite expensive since you would cast it only once per battle and it's generally reserved to neutral superstacks like Azure Dragons.
I have strong doubts about Magic Mirror, if 50% chances your spells turn on you, you won't ever risk casting offensive spells. But I almost never cast damage spells and I'm not sure if it reflects Slow, Blind or Berserk.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted July 05, 2026 07:06 AM |
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Thanks, sadly HC is pretty dead now a days, but I don't want it to die completely.
Yeah Slayer can no doubt be a mass spell, it's quite an expensive level 4 spell so yeah.
Hypnotize as I said I haven't tested it yet, as I just introduced it yesterday. It might be too powerful, but again HP it affects is low and many units are immune.
Buffing the power modifier of Hypnotize is a bad idea, since it will also buff Fangarms.
Yeah I don't know about mass Fire Shield, I found it bit too powerful, even "basic mass Fire Shield" would turn your entire army + war machines and summons into Efreet Sultans!
Hehe sounds like you don't know how Magic Mirror works, I'll leave this here: https://heroes.thelazy.net/index.php/Magic_Mirror 
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted July 05, 2026 10:09 AM |
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Perhaps Hypnotize could also have area effect like Berserk, but I want to test the mass version for a bit first.
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BigPig2
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 06, 2026 09:57 AM |
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Is "basic mass fire shield" any more complicated to do than setting the mass spell flag and typing in the desired values in SPtraits?
Does mass hypnotize warn you when there is no eligible targets when set to mass effect, @phoenix4ever or does it just whiff?
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted July 06, 2026 10:10 AM |
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Hi BigPig
You can alter the damage reflection of Fire Shield in sptraits.txt (It's 20/25/30% by default.) (Efreet Sultans have Basic Fire Shield and Master Genies can cast Advanced Fire Shield.)
To make it a mass spell you need to edit the exe.file
If all units are immune to mass Hypnotize, I believe you will receive a message, saying you can't cast it, but I haven't tested it yet.
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BigPig2
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 06, 2026 03:18 PM |
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Yes, that (fire shield) was my understanding too.
To answer your original question, I wonder what it would be like to introduce area of effect progression depending on the Magic School skill level, i.e.:
- no school - single target
- Basic - Fireball area
- Advanced - Inferno area
- Expert - all friendly/enemy targets
while keeping the spell effect itself flat, for example Haste always giving +3 speed. This would be a nerf to Magic school skills while still giving them some value. I do not know how badly this would mess up AI spellcasting though.
I do not think that would be better than separating, at the very least, Haste and Slow into two separate spells (single/mass target).
Setting Magic Mirror to mass effect is an interesting idea but if I remember correctly somebody on this forum claimed AI will opt not to target units affected by 50% or higher Mirror with offensive spells AT ALL, making it extremely powerful. On the other hand, with mass effect 49% should probably be solid value for your mana still.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted July 06, 2026 04:11 PM |
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Yeah I am sure some better or more interesting balance changes can be made in this department.
My mass Magic Mirror is only 40% like it was originally at Expert.
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