Changed the A1 Warlock for Cyclops, which still doesn't fly and takes up a lot of points (but less than WL) but does seem to work better. Funny that. A2 is back to Manticore but I don't think it's a very good unit.

I want to change gears a bit now and examine all the heroes in the game to understand what makes them tick and ponder if things could be changed for better balance from my limited knowledge. There's a lot of them so I'll start with the top 2 tiers first and come back later for the rest.

T1
Barb - 2 AP Speed. 1 AP Chaos. Makes me wonder if all you need to be a top tier hero is 2 AP Speed and a 1 point Bonus/Malus.

According to the K4 heroes statistics page this is the only hero that didn't get any changes at all so that's interesting.

I feel like any extra AP after that is a bit of a "meh" thing, probably Leadership unless you happen to be facing down a Summoner where you might pick up Demonslayer? Hmm. I wonder if the weird 5 AP Renown3 is actually picked at all.

Thief - 2 AP Speed. 1 AP Siege. If you get an extra point at 6 then Venom Blade adds a lot of punch. I kinda like this guy better than the Barb now that I think of it because Siege units tend to be slow where the Thief isn't.

I noticed the 2 AP speed is actually a change from the original having 3 AP speed so that might have been an oopsie change there - I wonder if he's less bonkers with that.

Wizard - Hmm, I realize Teleport heroes are considered better than non-Teleports which is why we have noTeleport as a gamerule, but clearly it's not something that would instantly propel someone to top tier solely given the position of the Alchemist. So I do wonder exactly which of the Wizard's spells makes him superior over his competitors - I want to say Phantom Steed and Fortify?

Summoner - Teleport hero combined with crazy powerful Summons means you can zap half across the map and bamf an entire army in the blink of an eye. 1 Pt Chaos as icing on the cake. That being said I'm not sure about what the proper spell learning order is - Teleport -> Minor Demon -> Demonic Horde?

T2

Shaman - Berserker is his main niche but Jihad and Evil Eye are pretty good and Fortify from the spell is nice since it's not a common bonus. Also a hero where the spell learning order is difficult to me.

Priest - Grp Hits from Mighty feast is probably his main draw, Archon summon is solid, lovely utility spells like Bless and then a couple of the minor buffs (Fortify / Bravery) to round things up if you have leftover mana. Kinda the all-rounder of Heroes

Monk - Mind Control is pretty cost efficient buff/debuff. If I'm not wrong KHeroes version adds Bless making him share that niche with the Priest. I wonder if Wrath of Kali or the Critical Hit/Body Control self-buffs is a better route past that.

I'm a big fan of the Cyclops because of his archery immunity and 20 movement so that he outpaces the Golems/Elephants handily and works well in a hero stack even at just +1 Trample.

The Manticore is so-so in my mind because he doesn't have high strength (8 or 9) or hits (3 or 4) or archery skill. I much prefer the Lamia for the 4 hits and the fact you only need 4 of them to get 100% disease so they work well in a hero stack.


Heroes:
The #1 most important thing for any hero is the XP table. In other words how fast does the hero reach L6 (when spells double and where most heroes tend to finish by late game) AND how many AP do they get by the time they reach L6. Take a look at the Wizard and Alchemist (2 teleport heroes). The Alchemist needs 12 XP vs 10 to get teleport and 25 vs 18 to reach L4 and 80 vs 60 to reach L6. Medium quests reward 7 XP so you can figure out how many quests it takes to level up. Taking 1 or 2 fewer quests really matters since it means you get there faster AND you allow other heroes to be questing (since only 1 at a time can quest).

The #2 thing is the extra stack move (speed, +X move, teleport) and how much it is for what it costs (AP to get the skill, mana if it's a spell etc). The 2 vs 3 speed for Barb/Thief is a big reason the Ranger is not tier 1.

The #3 thing is as you guessed, does the hero have a 1 point bonus/malus skill. This lets you eliminate a bonus unit from your hero stack and put in an extra battle unit which can turn a battle.

The #4 thing is a important power battle skills that often decides a hero stack battle (extra hits, medals, lifedrain etc).

The #5 thing is versatility. (A) Can you reasonably build your hero in more than 1 way (ie not exactly the same way every time). ( If you get a 2nd hero of this type do they still have value (this does matter because 1 in 5 times your 2nd hero will be the same as your first and you don't want to turn down heroes if you don't have to).

T1:
Barb/Thief: You definitely take speed 1st. Then you build the Chaos/Siege skills to +5. Where the Barb is slightly better here is that there are a ton of +1 and +2 chaos items (and almost no siege items) and if you get one from a ruin/quest it means you only need to get to +3/+4 chaos to have +5. Also if you team your Barb/Thief with a spellcaster who has Chaos/Siege you might be able to get away with just +2 in that skill if you also get an item (say +2 chaos from a spell, +1 from an item means your Barb only needs +2 to give you +5).

When it gets to the secondary skills the Barb is the big winner (Leadership/Morale for 2 vs 3 for Thief). So if you go on to L7 the Barb really outshines the Thief. The Barb also has better strength/hits and one more unique skill. If you bless your Barb he goes to 7/3 and then the game lets you take +3 strength so he becomes the only unit in the game with natural 10 strength (if you do it the other way around the bless won't take him from 9 to 10).

A 2nd Barb is better than a 2nd Thief since as I mentioned, you can build his Leadership/Morale and team him with the 1st Barb to get multiple skills to +5 (chaos on 1, leadership on another). The renouned skill is only ever taken on a 2nd Barb.



Wiz/Summoner: You are definitely taking Teleport 1st. Then for the Wizard you are taking the Phantom Steed spell for the +4 group movement (vital) and flight (handy). The Wiz himself moves 28 with flight at this point so he can really get around searching ruins/questing or helping multiple stacks in 1 turn.

Other than that, it's all dependent on the game situation. If you have a lot of mana (cities/crystals) then your Summoner should go directly to Demonic Horde as his 2nd skill then improve Chaos to +5. If there isn't a lot of mana, it's the other way around (Chaos, then demonic horde). For the Wizard after his teleport & steed you take either chain lightning or fortify as needed.

Banishment/Shatter/Dispel/Magic Arrow are really situation dependent and only ever taken on an 'as needed' basis and never just taken to 'have them'. The lesser Summon spells you only ever take if the map is VERY mana poor so that you can't afford Demonic Horde because they aren't a great deal for their cost.

T2:
Shaman: Jihad is his best spell because of the +4 group move. It should be taken first to get him moving (this is esp true if you have a Thief in your set since you can team them together to reach +5 very easily with very high stack movement as well). Then you are taking Evil Eye because it's cheap and it's very powerful (esp at L6 when it doubles). At L6 it's 80% as powerful as Berzerk but for a fraction of the cost (against works well with Thief who can then get his poison skill since this provides the curse and poison).

After that it's situational again. Berzerk is amazing but costs a ton of mana and AP points so you should only get it on an 'as needed basis' Fortify is nice because it's cheap and can let you reach +5 in a city or defend better in the open so it's well worth taking. At this point you have used up your skill points through L6 and need a MASSIVE mana pool so it's likely you can't cast everything so he's really limited in that regard.

Priest: Bravery first for the +2 move. It's not much but every bit helps and more importantly at L6 this spell + Archon = +5 Morale. Then you are taking Divine Aid to start the Archons coming.

After that it's situational. Mighty Feast is great but you only need it for big hero battles and it uses so much mana that unless you have a huge income you won't want to run it all the time. I prefer Bless (esp if there are no/few bless sites) and Dig. Dig is nice because you get 20% reduction for 1 turn so you can upgrade/build a bunch of things for only 4 mana then turn off the spell. At L6 it's 40% which really helps if you are rebuilding cities or buying Dragons. As always Fortify can help in the right situation (need to reach +5 in a city) but otherwise not worth taking.

Monk: IMHO the most versatile hero in the game because there are so many ways to build him and team him with other heroes/strong units and his XP table and AP points are crazy good. Body Control is always your first thing to take. +3 str +1 hits means he is immediately 8/3 (9 if blessed) and moving 24. At L6 that's 11/4 (12 if blessed) and 28 moves. With just this spell going he can solo 80-90% of the cities (+1 more strength from leadership so 9/3) and ruins on his own starting at L3 when he reaches 8/3 when teamed with a Dragon for flight.

Then you build based on your other heroes/armies. Normally Mind Control next esp if you took a +3 or +4 fear unit instead of +5 Green OR if you have +3 morale possibility (from a unit / a Barb who takes Morale / items or some combo of that as I've gotten there with this spell + Elf Calv + +1 morale item).

I know many players prefer to take +4 move twice next instead of Mind Control so they can move 32 with Body Control and then they attempt to solo all the ruins/cities with crazy fast expansion using just the Monk while they quest with a 2nd and 3rd heroes. I've tried it and it does work esp on the largest maps since Mind Control will come next after taking +4 move twice.

Critical Hit is very useful too if you go the solo Monk route because of the Trample (a 9/3 +1 trample unit is very good and a 12/4 +2 trample unit that is immune to archery is insane). Many many times I've had my Monk at 15/4 thanks to a few strength items (they stack unlike other item powers) and add in the trample and he can beat whole stacks on his own, even good stacks when he's 15/4 trample +2 at L6.

Wrath spell, Bless spell and Siege skill are all very situational. If you have a Shaman, the Monk can build siege to get to +4 or +5 (if you don't have a Thief). If you have good Acid units (Black, Balrogs) then Wrath is a very nice spell to have at L6. Bless is useful only if map lacks bless sites obviously.

KGB

KGB wrote:

Do you ever summon Archons before 6? Even just once to get a Morale unit ASAP? Good point about the Dig, it makes me feel kinda silly that I never thought about just flipping it on when I need it and then off.


Wow, that's crazy. I honestly had never thought of using hero solos before now because they always get placed in the back due to how the game works. I was wondering if you unstack the dragon just against the off-chance that it might accidentally die depriving you of flight if your luck doesn't hold out but then again - I assume if the dragon dies that means your Monk would have died as well and better your Dragon than the Hero.

Moving on to T3 - this is supposed to be the tier that's "outclassed by heroes above them" so I'm going to try to guess which ones they're supposed to be.

T3
Ranger - The competition would be Thief/Barb as the other Speed heroes, I guess. That 3 AP Speed really slows him down too much I guess but I got to say - let's assume that he got 2 AP Speed (or everyone's Speed is 3 AP) - the rest of his kit doesn't really seem that impressive still? Like he doesn't have any Bonus / Malus for 1, Group Warding is supposed to be his niche but it's a terrible one and his spells are all the low impact ones.

I'm looking at him and like the best thing I can come up with is hoping to get him 2nd/3rd, getting 8 stray (non-quest) EXP, getting like Missiles + 8 and throwing him in another Hero stack to get him to be 2nd last on the list and act as a bodyguard meat.

Incidentally it strikes me that the XP charts are just kinda bonkers with seemingly no real logic behind their design - like from D&D I generally expect non-Magic users to be the least EXP and vice versa but here you have Wizards having one of the lowest EXP charts while Paladins and Rangers are sky-high, crazy. True that W3 and D&D are different games with their own design ideas but I do wonder whether there's any reasoning behind how the XP/AP charts are formed.

Warrior - this is interesting. I'm really not sure who the Warrior is outclassed by since I believe he is the Renown niche hero and that's the only reason you would ever pick a Warrior. After that he kinda just camps in a city generating mercs until someone comes to end his life which I guess is what Missiles+5 and Fortify+2 is for if you somehow have spare AP left over since with no Speed or Move boosts in any form questing is a pain in the ass for him.

Unless it's a very loose "from a lateral thinking point of view, he's outclassed in unit generation by the Summoner" thing.

I wonder if there's anything that could possibly be done with his design to solve his one-dimensionality - super awesome starting stats?

Necromancer - Now this guy, I am definitely sure Summoner is supposed to be his replacement counterpart. No teleport is a bummer, Ghostly Chariot is kinda like a Phantom Steed variant. Lifesbane is his Demonic Horde counterpart that's cheaper but also weaker. I guess he does have Evil Eye over the Summoner... hmm, come to think of it, he's like a hybrid of the two (Ghostly Chariot + EE + Lifebane)

I wonder if Necromancy is worth anything because it is in theory manaless free unit generation - you do need a bunch of easy neutrals to farm though and it's kinda bad at lower numbers. If the XP chart were dropped to Shaman level, I wonder how much of a push upwards it would be.

065227N wrote:


Yes, definitely you can summon Archons before L6. If you get the Priest as your 1st hero you almost always have mana for the Archon spell every few turns. Even 1 helps because with the morale spell you will reach +4 Morale which is big in the early game. But if he's a 2nd or 3rd hero and your first hero also uses/needs mana then you probably aren't summoning or you are only summoning 1 of them.

065227N wrote:


I do unstack the Dragon because many neutrals have archers/halfings/elven archers in them and a ground unit fares much better esp since +1 hits items are very common to find making the Monk immune.

Not sure if you know but there are 8 neutral sets on random map games (one of which is randomly selected). 3 of them are strong and have a lot of money. Those you can't solo with the Monk because he will be killed against Dragons or Assassins. But the other 5 contain very easy to beat units for him to solo once you unstack the Dragon. I typically don't use the Monk on the strong neutral sets because of that.

T3:
Ranger: Your right about his inferiority (3 ap speed, no 1 ap bonus). But he does have one thing going for him over the Barb/Thief and that's his cheap mana cost True Path spell. The extra +4/+8 move on top of his speed means he can get stacks going 30-40 on his own with move bonus on all terrain so that's always my 2nd skill taken after Speed.

Then you have a choice of Dig (see: Priest) or you can invest in Leadership at 2 points per plus. Since like all heroes he starts at +1 you only need 6 AP to get to +4 (+5 if you find an item). Group Warding is very situational but at least you can take it more than once if you really need it but I find it not worth the investment for the reasons you stated.

Warrior: I tend to think of the Barb has his competition (high strength/hits and both have renouned). Obviously the Barb really outclasses him. On the plus side he only needs 40 XP for L6 which really help since he can barely move on his own (really needs a Speed/Teleport partner when questing). At L6 he will have +5 renouned and 4 extra AP. I *always* spend that AP on +5 engineering since he won't ever be moving around or in combat.

Your Warrior should not be killed in his city since you can fill it with mercs he brings and if you do take him, you must invest in good merc 3. Moonguards, Gnoll Calv, Cyclops are popular 3 turn units and I've even seen players go with Iron Golems even though the cost is crazy high in terms of points in your army set.

Necromancer: Lifesbane and Evil Eye are his 2 big skills to get in either order depending on game situation.

After that none of his skills are really that good. His other spells are so niche that you surely can spend the mana better elsewhere. Necromancy looks good on paper but isn't great in reality because it only works when you attack. It also means he needs to be in and win a lot of battles but he doesn't bring much offense (no way to reach +5 in any of the positive skills) other than Evil Eye so he tends to be killed when facing enemy heroes/strong stacks.


XP Charts:
You have to remember that 12 of the 15 heroes came out in ROH the predecessor to DLR. The XP charts were pretty much set in ROH and never changed when DLR came out even though many of the hero skills changed in the 1.02 patch when a bunch of new skills were added to the heroes. The final 3 heroes (Barb, Alchemist, Summoner) came with DLR but they also underwent a bunch of changes in 1.02 without their XP table being changed.

I suspect that the original design and XP tables made the cheap positive bonuses (leadership/morale/fortify) more expensive since those could reach +5 while the negative ones were limited to -1. So the designers probably thought they were over powered not realizing that movement trumps bonuses esp with custom army sets where you can load up on +4 and +5 armies in regulars to counter leadership/morale/fortify quite easily.

When I rebalanced the K-heroes I tried to keep the XP tables more or less intact to keep the original design flavor but modified some of them that were really badly done. In some cases it didn't go far enough because over time it still put the heroes into 4 tiers instead of only 1-2 tiers. On the other hand, I have played games with no teleport or speed heroes leaving just the other 9 and then the T3/T4 heroes can be used.

KGB

[quote="KGB" post=3677]Not sure if you know but there are 8 neutral sets on random map games (one of which is randomly selected). 3 of them are strong and have a lot of money.[\quote]
I sort of vaguely recall it - it's tied to the "Sides" choice that determine the 8 default factions of a game right? Or is it completely random? How do you tell which ones are the strong ones?


Interesting - guess I'll keep that in mind when I look at the last band of T4 heroes


Hmm, just as a mental exercise - if the Speed / Teleport heroes were still usable but learning Speed / Teleport were banned, would their position on the tier list change significantly?

This old link shows the 8 neutral sides and what to expect
web.archive.org/web/20120625012441/http:...ru/war3/neutrals.php

The game chooses 1 at random or you can specify when creating a random map.

If Speed/Teleport were not selectable by agreement then I suspect the hero list would essentially change into 3 categories:

1) Heroes who can mass summon good units (Summoner/Priest/Necromancer/Warrior). Games would revolve around doing this.
2) Heroes with good group move spells (+4 or better) that include a stack bonus (Shaman/Bard/Paladin). Needed to fight those summoned armies and kill those heroes holed up in cities.
3) Everyone else.

With the exception that I believe the Monk would be in a class by himself as a tier 1.5 since all his benefits would still remain.

KGB

Well, time to finish up the rest of the heroes

T4
Bard - I guess this must be one of those times where the whole "overestimated positive bonus for 1 AP" heroes comes into play since he has almost no changes made to him for the K4 version despite being T4

One thing that stands out is that he has two major +Mov spells (major as in adding >+4 Mov where minor would be like the Priest's Move that adds only 2) but you're paying a lot more mana and AP compared to just getting speed.

Anyway, I guess the concept of having multiple buff/debuffs spells as your main gimmick just isn't viable competitively? Like because it's too hard to maintain over a long time compared to just dropping 20 for a Demonic Horde. Some of his spells have combinations that make sense "logically" but is questionable in terms of gameplay I suppose like Song of Stone's Fortify/Engineering.

Maybe it might help if he had a faster XP chart? Bards are usually one of the fastest leveling classes in most games.

General - The Bard but with no magic. At least he's been changed to have one of the lowest XP charts in the game but I guess there's no angle to boost this guy if he can't get Speed, has no Summons or utility spells to get a level 6 spike.

Kinda interesting how those two are rather similar in my eyes - I guess the best "design" for a primary non-magic focused hero would still be to have a single very good spell like Thief's Venom Blade because it just adds so much to a class.

Vampire - One thing that strikes me is that this guy has a very high starting strength and is the only hero with 1 AP Fear. I guess that isn't worth that much when most people use G. Drags but this could be a chicken and egg thing where people use that unit instead of Red Drags because the sources of the other maluses are just much stronger.

I honestly don't know how to judge his spells. Would he be too OP if his useless Manslayer was changed to 2AP Speed? I think he would probably jump to T1 just for having 2 AP Speed and it would make 1 Speed hero each focused on each of the 3 Malus though the important thing is not becoming more awesome than the Thief/Barb.

Paladin - He's built around the Questing ability gimmick but it's fundamentally flawed because it's useless when you don't want him to be the 1st hero as there's no Speed/Tele and it's kind of an annoying "AP tax" because he has the highest XP chart otherwise so it feels super forced.

If we just remove Questing and drop his XP chart to the 300 level, I wonder if he would turn out a lot more solid? It does make me wonder if Questing would be workable on a hero that does come with Speed (but it would't fit the Paladin feel so not him).

Alchemist - I guess it's already discussed earlier. If Wizard has utility and Summoner has sheer summoning power then I guess the Alchemist looks kinda bad because he's awkwardly somewhat middling in those areas after the obligatory first Teleport learned. I wonder if it would be OK if he had 21/22 Mov (since he doesn't have any Grp Mov spells), a lower (350) XP chart or if the Golems were 1 AP.

A good synopsis of the T4 heroes and it shows you essentially understand why/how the heroes are categorized. A few extra notes on these heroes:

Every hero in this tier needs a buddy hero with Speed/Teleport. Without that other hero they just can't acquire XP fast enough to matter. That's essentially what Tier 4 is, heroes who require a buddy to level up.


T4:
Bard: His biggest problem was he was so slow to level up not his versatility (which might be best in game or 2nd to the Monk). The change to his table was for the key level 6 when his spells would double in power. He probably needed his L2/3/4 at 5/10/22 as well.

While you can take both +X move spells in practice you never do since they are mana hogs (as you noted). Most build him to reach +5/+5 in leadership/morale at L6 since you can get to +3 leadership and +3 morale for 5 AP points (or fewer if you find items) then get +2 more from the 2 spells for 3 more AP (with 1 left over) at a cost of 9 mana a turn. The alternative build is to go for the +hits spell since it also has +X move but then you need to spend 4 AP to get +5 leadership. Really late game (or as a late game hero) you might just get the Engineering spell to reduce costs and cast when required.

General: Funny you should mention a spell for him. In my 1st version I gave him Eagle Scouts (summon 2 Eagles for 5 mana) and players found this to be too over powered because they'd be summoning 4 Eagles (36 moves) on turn 2 if they started with 8-10 mana in their set and then flying all over razing and capturing and constantly summoning more Eagles. It shows how even a minor change jumps a hero from bottom tier to overpowered. So I removed it since he isn't really a magic user and instead dropped his XP table down really low.

Otherwise he's essentially the Bard without spells which has a place if you are going heavy mana users on your other heroes. His focus is on getting +5/+5 in leadership/morale because if you want renouned or engineering there are far better heroes for that.

Vampire: Mana Drain is useless in 1v1 game since you spend 3 to drain 1 (2@L6). But in 4+ player game it shines since it generates positive return with the annoying issue that as players get eliminated its value decreases. Gaseous Form is interesting with the group move and invisibility but has a huge drawback that all units are then vulnerable to archery. Bite and Lifedrain are his 2 best spells. Manslayer is a niche skill only useful against Elephants (classified as Man) if you don't have Trample skill.

The hard part of using him is how to build him. Bite is a nice spell but the big component (curse) isn't really needed early and the poison part is very weak even at L6 unless he's paired with a Thief with Blade or a Shaman/Necro with Evil Eye. That normally makes Lifedrain his 1st spell but that won't come till L4 and costs 9/turn so he's slow to do anything. Building up Fear for +1 is only recommended if he has a +2 or better Fear item or is paired with another hero with a Fear spell so he can reach +5 Fear at +3 on himself.

Speed for 3 might help him be T2/T3. For 2 it would be too much because it would just make that many more heroes who don't have speed/teleport look even worse.

Paladin: The questing skill would be WAY better if it was a group skill so he could double his buddy heroes XP too. Or if the game allowed you to start him with Questing built in (this is a sad oversight or many heroes could have been more interesting if they say started with +1 Chaos or +1 Fear instead of +1 Leadership). Or if the game allowed you to select your hero to guarantee getting him 1st. Otherwise as you noted his XP table hurts him because of the high L6 requirement.

His most important power is Heroism which you take 1st (after Questing obviously) for the obvious group move and so he's individually strong (esp @L6). It also allows him to reach +5 Leadership really easily (+3 himself or +2 and a +1 item etc). Then based on how things develop you can build his Morale to +3 (or +2 and an item) then take Bravery to get to +5 or take the individual Leadership as mentioned above to get to +5 Leadership. The goal is 1 of them at +5 at L6 and potentially both if you get the right items (or have Unicorns/Archons/Silver/Gold units).

Alchemist: Higher individual move would help a bit but not much. Adjusting his XP table would help a bit too but the bigger issue is that his bonus skills (Fortify/Leadership) cost a ton so you'd never take them so he defaults to taking engineering / shatter / income which are so situational that they might not be needed. So he really just has Teleport and Golems as his only 2 'must have' skills.

KGB

P.S. Because no-teleport games are so popular (esp in PBEM), I created alternate versions of the Summoner/Wizard/Alchemist that replaced their Teleport spell with another skill and adjusted their XP slightly. These aren't widely available other than to a few players I played PBEM with because we wanted access to skills like Shatter/Dispel/Banish/Summon Item etc. I don't rank those because they don't have widespread use.

Kind of a very old bump, but I just noticed that most army set discussion is on no-Tele games - what would a Teleport allowed Army and Hero set look like?