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Metathron
09-25-2010, 04:03 PM
Still no improvements for them, whereas some of the other units are practically drowning in talents and abilities.

How about giving them at least something, like bear roar that makes a random/specific enemy stack lose their turn or something like that.

Or/And perhaps a skill that makes bears furious when being shot at, which gives them some kind of speed boost or even makes them run up to the aggressor and strike them, then return. A kind of limited/retaliatory version of the HoMM III harpy or the HoMM V blood maiden.

What does everyone else think about these poor, neutral critters?

Warm regards,

PETAG (People for the ethical treatment of animals in games)

rancor26
09-25-2010, 04:53 PM
Well they still hit pretty hard when attack doubled atleast polar bears i never use any other bears.

BB Shockwave
09-25-2010, 05:25 PM
Ancient bears are good too, in early islands. Frankly, they critical very often, do insane damage, and have a lot of HP, they don't need more.

Metathron
09-25-2010, 07:55 PM
The giant hits pretty hard too. Once he manages to get close to someone, which happens once in a blue moon.

rancor26
09-25-2010, 08:30 PM
The giant hits pretty hard too. Once he manages to get close to someone, which happens once in a blue moon.

normal speed 2 and with running 4 isn't actually that bad considering how the AI moves his troops.

Metathron
09-25-2010, 08:53 PM
Who cares? Sure, I get it bears are tanks, but no (meaningful) special abilities? Once they've spent running, they're pretty much there to be whittled away by the enemy. Off the top of my head, I can't even remember any other tank units so stripped of abilities. Nor "many" units I'd rather face in combat. That's saying something.

Saiko Kila
09-25-2010, 09:33 PM
The giant hits pretty hard too. Once he manages to get close to someone, which happens once in a blue moon.

Giants are intended to jump and damage all walkers, not to hit directly. They are to precious for that.

I don't like bears, they do have high priority when I target enemies because they hit heavily. Most animals are bad, only animals I use are royal snakes. Units with no specials? Griffins. They have nothing useful. Berserkers have useless ability. Thorn warriors, unless summoned. Miners. Cannoners are good for nothing. Bears at least can regenerate and have enough HP to make them potentially usable.

BB Shockwave
09-26-2010, 01:49 AM
Griffins are great. They are the perfect defenders with Stoneskin/God Armor. They were my core units in my first Legend walkthrough. Granted, in AP I'd rather use Royal Griffins.

I just noticed, the weakest and most useless unit got another ability - the Peasants now do 150% damage to Plants... not that they'll ever reach one with that speed, mind you.

As for Bears being slow and not having any talents - frankly, so do Black Knights and yet they kick ass. They are both tank units, they don't really need special talents.

The hibernation is a weird ability... I learned the hard way to always act with my bears every round. The AI, if blocked by his own units, sometimes lets them fall asleep too.

Puce Moose
09-26-2010, 04:22 AM
Like the original poster I always liked bears but felt that a little extra attention to them would make them an interesting addition to an army.

I think the bears are ripe for a synergistic effect with another unit. How about a Bear Tracker, who could place a honeycomb on the arena in any location. *any* bear could use an ability similar to greed to instantly teleport to the honeycomb, heal, then gain an action point or two. This would work for both enemy and friendly units, so exercise caution prior to launching that sweet, sweet honey.

Eh, just idly thinking about possibilities here. I'm not sure if the editor will even let us edit units in any capacity, let alone add functionality.

key
09-26-2010, 01:36 PM
I've found that increasing the HP to 200 of polar bears really makes them viable - hibernation now really helps to preserve the unit on lower levels. The leadership req. is also upped to 190.

Also bears get +1 speed with the Orc Tracker present.

Puce Moose
09-26-2010, 03:59 PM
key,

A couple of questions about that file; did you manually edit it or is it something you changed via the editor? Just curious if such things can be done with the new editor.

key
09-26-2010, 05:06 PM
key,

A couple of questions about that file; did you manually edit it or is it something you changed via the editor? Just curious if such things can be done with the new editor.

It's a manual edit still from AP, but it works without any error in Crossworlds.

Saiko Kila
09-26-2010, 07:12 PM
I just noticed, the weakest and most useless unit got another ability - the Peasants now do 150% damage to Plants... not that they'll ever reach one with that speed, mind you.

I noticed that too. I think that all units have new skills and abilities. If you're not going for no-loss (and using griffs seems to indicate that) then peasants are quite useful. They hit hard, and are not easy to eradicate fast. Their strength lies in numbers, as most low levels. For Legens, I did a spreadsheet with all units, and with given leadership, peasant had highest damage. Of course they had low attack, but the damage was so high that the attack value was not important. Warrior thorns come to peasants on their own, and peasants can be teleported to others. Naturally, their damage doesn't stay too long on the high...

BB Shockwave
09-26-2010, 08:39 PM
I AM going for no loss... why would Griffins indicate that? Back in The Legend, I finished the game with them too. Though here, I plan to use Royal Griffins (once I can get them).

And to anyone who said bears suck... Come to my game, seriously - Bolo island is full of stacks with "Lots" and "Pack" of Ancient and Polar bears, I have given up on trying to defeat any of them no-loss and am trying battles elsewhere. They do incredibly high damage, and if you face more then one stack, it's hard to take them out of the fight with slow or dragon kick.

Saiko Kila
09-26-2010, 09:36 PM
Because griffins are weak and always retaliate? Against orcs, which retaliate against retaliation and are physically strong, that means a lot of hurt.

About Bolo's bears - had problems with them too, initially, but my mage was underdeveloped then. After getting some spells... It was hard not to kill these bear too fast. Besides, something good (demanding) as an enemy doesn't mean it will be good as your troop, the same goes with opposite situation, weak enemies can be deadly when you command them. Maybe you have a knack for chickens :P

My recent case is army in tower of Dark Mistikus. There are two - one is lethal and one is only very strong. With lethal one I win without losses easily. With very strong... I tried many combination of my actual troops and nothing really worked. Why? They have 4k of skelly archers and twenty sometime bone dragons. Skelly archers kill 5 green dragons in one shot (or five runemages), dragons poison all troops with heavy posioning, and kill many. My best was to lose only 5 demonologists. My worst - I lost whole army (paladins, demonologists, e.beholders, royal snakes and runemages, I carry 6 runemages, and two ancient phoenixes with ). I had no problems with guys like Hagni or Spider Boss with that army, or invincible other armies. But does that mean that skelly archers or bone dragons are good? Though I admit that bone dragons are better now.

Ancient vampires are trying to be my menace too. One stack of these guys killed my phoenix, which had like 1500 HP, and vampires were damaging 200-300 HP per attack. All that by retaliation - I attacked vampires with phoenix, it missed, vampires retaliated, and again, and again. Vampires have cheat death, which makes them avoid critical attack. It was very disparaging, because I wanted to kill them with mages, beholders, other shooters, and most of them was missing always, because they had high critical.

BB Shockwave
09-26-2010, 11:58 PM
Why are you using Demonologists by themselves - they work best with demons?

Ancient Vamps are evil, yes. And the AI cheats. I used them in my last The Legend Walkthrough (all-Undead game, Bone Dragons, Necros, Ancient Vampires, Black Knights, Cursed Ghosts/Skeleton Archers) and in Death Land, their evasion ability kicked in like, 50% more often for the enemy then my own ones. One way to deal with this is by forcing them to change form, and then using Magic Lock to trap them in that form - usually if they can just reach one of your units in bat form, they will transform.

And Griffins are great units, at least they served me well in The Legend. My first walkthrough, I had Black Dragons, Royal Snakes, Griffins, Orc Shamans and Evil Beholders/Inquisitors. After Royal Snakes, my Griffins dealt the most damage. They have high HP, good defense, just put Stoneskin or God Armour on them and place them in the middle of some enemy shooters and watch them attack in vain.

Of course, in AP they are not that strong compared to some higher level units, but that's why we have Royal Griffins. They double as summoners, and the Heavenly Guardians are awesome - they are very resistant to physical attacks, and the best is, they ignore negative spells. I beat Hagni with them easily, she was wasting her mana by casting Hypnotize on the Heavenly Guardians - the spell works, but then immediatly disappears. :)

Saiko Kila
09-27-2010, 06:02 PM
Why are you using Demonologists by themselves - they work best with demons?

Ancient Vamps are evil, yes. And the AI cheats. I used them in my last The Legend Walkthrough (all-Undead game, Bone Dragons, Necros, Ancient Vampires, Black Knights, Cursed Ghosts/Skeleton Archers) and in Death Land, their evasion ability kicked in like, 50% more often for the enemy then my own ones. One way to deal with this is by forcing them to change form, and then using Magic Lock to trap them in that form - usually if they can just reach one of your units in bat form, they will transform.

And Griffins are great units, at least they served me well in The Legend. My first walkthrough, I had Black Dragons, Royal Snakes, Griffins, Orc Shamans and Evil Beholders/Inquisitors. After Royal Snakes, my Griffins dealt the most damage. They have high HP, good defense, just put Stoneskin or God Armour on them and place them in the middle of some enemy shooters and watch them attack in vain.

Of course, in AP they are not that strong compared to some higher level units, but that's why we have Royal Griffins. They double as summoners, and the Heavenly Guardians are awesome - they are very resistant to physical attacks, and the best is, they ignore negative spells. I beat Hagni with them easily, she was wasting her mana by casting Hypnotize on the Heavenly Guardians - the spell works, but then immediatly disappears. :)

Yes Royal Griffins are quite nice, though they could have summoning on reload, not charge, in my opinion. That would help in longer fights. Runemages can summon Heavenly Guardians too, if there are no lev 1-3 units. Heavenly Guardians are resilient to Stone Skin and other spells, and I keep forgetting about it during fight...

With Divine Armor I have the same problem as with Geyser - I usually don't find that too early. In KBCW, orcs campaign, I found Divine Armor on battlefield, at level 34 or 35, after clearing most of Nameless and Sheterra, that's bit too late to consider using it for level 3 troops :) I'll dump my Royalsnakes soon, I think. Royal Snakes are level 3 like Griffins, they have lower health and statistics, but somehow they manage to survive much better than griffins when under my command. Maybe it's the no retaliation ability.

Since I have death set, I may be trying to use vampires and other undeads. I'll try witch hunters on enemy vampires, I still keep them in reserve.

Demonologists are versatile fighters, range attack and summoners, they can resurrect Lev 5 units, too. They have the same HP as knights and black knights, slightly lower damage, but higher attack which compensates for that, and magic-fire-physical type of damage. Even if they don't damage black dragons as the fully physical damaging units, they can take a lot of beating from them. Against demons they deal 150% of damage, and they get bonus to attack every time any teleport like spell is used (and summon demon and infernal dragon), so fighting enemy demons is easier with them. They are good against gremlin towers, and can even leech life off of them. I use only demons summoned by demonologists or demon portal. That way I don't have to deal with morale.

BB Shockwave
09-28-2010, 06:31 AM
It's the no retaliation - I know, I was using them myself. YEah, you'll always have more losses with Griffins, but hey, that's what resurrect and time back are for.

I'M not sure Witch Hunters will work - they have an intiative of 6, Ancient Vamps, I think, are 6 or 7 so will act sooner.

Demonologists are nice summoners/mages, but they suck at attack. They have a very low range (about 3-4 hexes) for their attack to inflict full damage. I used them myself, but found that their resurrection skill is only effective if you have a lot of them. Thankfully, now you can train them from mages.