Heroes of Might & Magic 4 Defense Thread

[Jason Liang]

I beat all the campaigns and messed around with the scenarios a ton, but I never played HOMM 1/2/3/4 in mp aside from messing around with siblings.

Just curious how would you rank the homm 3 towns? I seem to remember thinking inferno was shit, and maybe fortress was bad?

I never had the expansion packs so I never played with those.

For HoMM3:
S - Conflux
A - Stronghold, Rampart
B - Necropolis, Fortress
C - Tower, Dungeon
D - Inferno, Castle

Pretty much the same for LoWM even though there are differences.

Stronghold I explained in the post you quoted
Rampart has the best lvl 3 (Grand Elves), fast lvl 1, Unicorns are very underrated, good sponges in Dwarves and Treants and one of the fastest units in the pegasus
Necropolis is actually super cheesey in LoWM, but Skeletons are slow and kind of frail, Zombies are useless except to sponge, Ghosts are awful, Vampire Lords require you to hoard them to break and they NEED the upgrade, Liches are too expensive and grow to slow to deal real damage, Death Knights are fine but overrated, Bone/ Ghost Dragons are weak. In LoWM Vampire Lords can't be hoarded so when your stack of skeleton archers go you die.
Fortress is held back by the bad mage guild, but high defense heroes are great and Earth and Water are good spell books. Lizardmen are a great mass range unit, Winged Serpents are pretty tough for a fast flyer and the Dispel is useful sometimes, Gorgons are the 2nd or 3rd best unit in the game, Wyverns at least are fast and cheap and high growth.
Tower is too expensive as luj1 said, but they *can* hard counter Vampire Lords effectively. In LoWM, Gremlins, Gargoyles and Iron Golems are a solid early squad and you can do a lot of superior tactics with them. But 4-6 units are too expensive and almost not worth building. Naga are ok but expensive and overrated. Titans are mighty but they die to the other top units.
Dungeon is also way too expensive and has bad units over all except the mighty Minotaur Kings. In LoWM they attrition very well and strike hard early but are too linear and predictable strategically.
Inferno does not have good units except archdevils but they do have a good mage guild, are fairly spongey, and have some cheese tactics like Efreeti + Armageddon. In HoMM3 I really like the gates to trump logistics. In LoWM the imps' ability to drain magic points is actually very strong, and they have a different unit (hell horses) that replace efreeti.
Castle is my least favorite town, with only 2 units I consider ok - Griffins and Swordsmen - and even then its an expensive town. Slow, frail, average damage units, and even Griffins, Swordsmen and Archangels are quite frail. If you charge Angels they get absolutely gangraped and butchered. Stronghold absolutely destroys Castle.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Just curious how would you rank the homm 3 towns? I seem to remember thinking inferno was shit, and maybe fortress was bad?

Conflux is op regardless of circumstances. Necro is pretty op, but not nearly as much and it depends on the map and the hero you pick (there are heroes that boost them into "definitely op"). Even if if you apply common handicaps like no extra skellies from necromancy and what not, they still remain above the curve though. They also got sucker kicked right in the balls real hard in HotA, while conflux was severely nerfed at a glance, but in reality remains op regardless of circumstances.

Inferno is shite and has literally one trick in its sleeve. Said trick is also lame, cheesy and doesn't help them much most of the time.

Other than that if a pretty free game tbh and you have to start factoring in context like map, hero picks, your skill level, difficulty level and so on. Factions like tower or stronghold suffer immensely on higher difficulties.

If you're not playing on a (near)competitive level then the game is balanced well enough to mostly give everyone a fighting chance, assuming you take conflux out of the equation.

Homm 2 warlock and necro were the best I think but it wasn't nearly as unbalanced. I think knight was the weakest again but they weren't unplayable(or hard mode) like homm 1.

Knight is still very much unplayable in 2 if you're talking about "serious" games. Warlock is 2's conflux and it's not only about the dragons, same as conflux is not only about phoenixes.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Conflux is op regardless of circumstances. Necro is pretty op, but not nearly as much and it depends on the map and the hero you pick (there are heroes that boost them into "definitely op"). Even if if you apply common handicaps like no extra skellies from necromancy and what not, they still remain above the curve though. They also got sucker kicked right in the balls real hard in HotA, while conflux was severely nerfed at a glance, but in reality remains op regardless of circumstances.

I think Conflux isn't quite that OP, until I read about the game on the internet I always assumed the town was kind of lame. It's not like Inferno or Necropolis where the weaknesses/strengths are really obvious. You need to have a grasp on how to exploit Conflux. Since the game has been analyzed so much it's hard to imagine a world where someone doesn't automatically dominate with Conflux.

I agree with your other points though, but I'll add that other towns depend on what you're good with. For instance, Castle seems to have a pretty variable position on where it ranks, some think it's pretty strong, others think it so weak they place it next to Inferno. It ultimately depends on which you understand the strengths and weaknesses of best.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Conflux is definitely lame, but it's broken af and doesn't have a skill ceiling at all. Even various HotA nerfs, though seemingly severe, didn't help. They just made it less retarded. Necro does need some skill, if only because their t2 and 3 is crap. But, like I said, they'll do ok even if you just pick a decent hero and don't play like a tard.

For instance, Castle seems to have a pretty variable position on where it ranks, some think it's pretty strong, others think it so weak they place it next to Inferno.

No one who has the slightest idea thinks that, though

I'm wondering how Factory will rank over time. Other than having a couple really good heroes and decent early game they seemed really shite to me.