Moro Dark or Undead set?
 

Planning to have some fun with black knights on impossible.

Moro gives +3 Attack and +1 morale to the undead
The undead set gives +1 speed and initiative to the undead.

The thing is, there are two artifacts in the set and Moro has no such slots wheras Paladin Amelie only has one.

So which would you choose - a new companion and the full set or stick with Moro?

That's easy. Speed and Intiative are much more important, you can increase morale in other ways (Necromancer's plague, for example) and the Might skill that boosts undead attack/defense is a better substitute. Trust me, I have just finished The Legend with an all-undead army some months ago, that +1 speed makes a lot of difference for Black Knights and Ancient Vampires (in vampire form), turning them into quite fast skirmishers instead of slow tanks.

A few things to consider.

You will easily get to Adrenaline Level 3, so that can compensate for the speed and initiative. Single stack will always get the +2 speed and +2 initiative.

The real key to damage is the -20% leadership requirement for Black Knights via Black Helmet of the Set of Darkness.

I would get Set of Darkness and the Staff of the Acolyte Necromancer (-15% leadership requirement).

You will get +2 morale to undead if you go with Set of Darkness and Moro.

If you throw in a Dagger of Judgment, that should give you QUITE a killer critical hit percentage thanks to the +2 morale. The higher the base critical you have, the more benefit morale gives you.

Amulet of Death doesn't seem all that great. +5 intellect... for a Paladin? Why do you need intellect for a support caster build? I suppose you might want to go for that Armageddon build?

That said, I suppose it depends on your priorities on how you plan to use these black knights.

Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot you didn't say "solo black knight" build. Hmmm. That said, I still highly advise going for more leadership, since EvilN is based on your raw numbers. So the higher the number of black knights you have due to lower leadership, the easiest it is to revive them.

Intellect is usefull for a Paladin (I am using the ring that gives +5 an takes 20% gold after battle) - to boost spells like Armor of God, Healing, Resurrection, and most importantly, Phoenix. I found even the Adult Phoenix is incredibly usefull in tough battles.

Yeah, for single stack Adrenaline will be sufficient, but why would you do that? It's boring. If you play undead, go all the way! :) You'll learn to appreciate how cool some of their units are. Ancient Vampires and Bone dragons rule, Cursed Ghosts are excellent tanks... Skeleton Archers are not as powerfull as in the Legend (due to nerfed Dragon Arrows) but can still pack a punch in huge numbers. And I think Pirate Ghosts have possibilities too. But the best are the Necromancers, a truly versatile unit that raises fodder, incapacitates spellcasters, casts Plague on the whole battlefield (and yes, it works on Black Dragons too), and is very fast to boot - meaning it will most likely act before the enemy does. The only problem is that its attack hits your own troops too, but that's the undead way - you can resurrect them by life drain or Evlins.

Ancient Phoenix is nearly worthless in Impossible UNLESS you got Level 3 Summoning and like 30+ intellect. Ideally 40+.

Even with said intellect and skills, they are not THAT awesome. Now, in the hands of a mage, they are quite decent, but again, not that awesome. They usually start to fall short around Verona or so.

Resurrection as a spell is oddly enough, not that good either. You get FAR better bang for your buck if you merely get more Paladin Units + Resurrection Skill or Rune Mages.

Phantom Paladins especially with Inquisitor blade is FAR more efficient than any level Resurrection.

Phantom Rune Mage, similar story.

Once again, leadership trumps here. Phantom with Level 3 Summoning is really key.

You are better off maxing summoning rather than getting + intellect skills.

As for healing, no need if you got paladins and rune mages. The marginal difference in +5 intellect isn't usually worth it.

I'll check the formulas and repost here.

Healing only gives you 5% more per intellect.
250 * 0.25 = 63 more HP with Healing.

Divine Armor only gives you Int/3 % more. So 5 more Intellect gives you a mere 1.67% more defense.

Resurrection is
600 * 0.25 = 150 more HP. Not even a single paladin more. :(

Yeah, i agree phoenix is worthless. Even with 65 int mage, ancient phoenix barely survive verona fight againts lv 25 ish hero.

As for int, i agree that int is useless for paladin, yup, leadership is the best way.

Leadership + summoning 3 + phantom paladin/rune mage/inquisitor is much better alternative for resurecting than a lv 3 resurection with the maximum possible int a paladin can accumulate. Though there is a rare case in which resurection is better.

Summoning 3 basically increase 50% the number of your unit summoned by phantom, a no brainer choice if you go for phantoming.

I don't do the exact math, buf from seeing the fact itself, lv 3 phantom that has 45% effect will become 67%, 22% more, that's insanely a lot more (exactly 50% more unit, this means 50% more to the power of its resurection ).

@ck
i think he did mention only black knights, so it's solo black knight.

As for black knight, i agree that you don't really need darkness set, and as a paladin you can't wear it due to lack of artifact slot.

As for initiative and speed, many other things can help (spells and items). Same with critical. Paladin class has prayer which increase critical by 10%, indeed it's half of the +2 morale from darkness set, but still better than nothing.

True. For the other mage players though, I must say, Ancient Phoenix is still useful for the Mage with high int. I don't use Ancient Phoenix to survive per se... I use it to do about 2-3K dmg per hit against 3 enemies, tank, resurrect if he lives long enough, tank again, and possibly hit another 3 enemies again. :) I don't think many spells let me do that much damage AND tank at least one or two hits AND triple burning effect for 35 mana.

Best part is, he can be cast anytime to interrupt the sequence of turns, since it has a fairly fast initiative, it will almost always go after whichever unit you are using.

But yes, even with high int, he basically will die in 2 rounds, revive, to maybe survive, but usually die again. Just a pretty nice way to do 6K (12K if he is positioned for a good retaliation) dmg + tank for only 35 mana! :)

Basically, intellect is a really worthless stat UNLESS you can REALLY REALLY jack it up. Even then, it is only marginally useful. Yes, I'm dissing on the Mage class. :)

Compare all these goodies to the poor stepchild Dragon of Chaos.... makes you wonder what the heck those developers were thinking. They clearly don't play on Impossible mode often. :)

Of course, this all only applies in Impossible Mode.

Morale complements the Paladin Prayer skill (which is probably one of the only skills I will always max haha), so it is a little harder to compare directly. e.g. the Prayer skill works in conjunction with Morale.

In short, Prayer skill with Morale +2 makes Prayer skill have a +3% bonus on top of the 10% base skill. Nevermind the fact that every unit has a raw unit base critical, so that makes morale even nicer.

If you have a lot of high BASE critical, the morale bonus trumps the paladin prayer bonus, however, the prayer paladin bonus applies to the BASE critical, so that isn't a fair statement for me to say!

Critical
15% raw unit base
10% prayer
20% dagger of judgment

45% total base critical +2 morale (30% bonus to criticals) should give +30% so
45*0.3 = 13.5% bonus to critical due to morale.

The Black Knights is one of the only units (if not only) that raises his raw unit base critical as he attacks (Rising Anger skill).

So if his rising anger forces his critical to go up 3%... it is really going up 3%*1.3 = 3.9% or 4% IF he has +2 morale bonus.

In short, if you have a very high base critical with powerful items like Axe of Lightning, Dagger of Judgment, Prayer Skill, Berserker Axe (30% for those Goblins woohoo!), raising morale increases your critical rate by QUITE a bit.

Sometimes, up to +30% more, achieving 100% critical!

The only drawback is morale can be reduced by negative status effects.

As an aside, this is what makes Orc units so nifty. The unit achieves max morale after a kill. So, if your Orc unit has a fairly high base critical to begin with, it is fairly easy to achieve 100% criticals. Makes you want to love those Catapults (which gain +30% base critical when adrenaline rises). :)

I never use phoenix that much as mage, usually i don't waste my turn to summon it, even in this new system.

Yeah i agree morale bonus is better, still that 10% bonus from prayer seems to make significant difference if you're using BK, considering its special abilities.

Umm, you seem to be forgetting that Leadership is gained due to levelling, items (mostly Regalia), banners and 1 skill... while Intellect can be gained with many skills, items, etc. So it's not like I can "go for leadership". It's much harder to increase then Intellect.

I am not playing Impossible, only Hard. It's challenging enough for a no-loss game.

Resurrection skill plus Magic Light increases the effect of the spell Resurrection, so if you are not using Paladins - I am now, because I am going with a Human army, but won't do in my next walkthrough - it is the way to go.

Btw, funny question... I have never heard/seen of anyone using the Paladin's prayer as an attack skill. It is supposed to damage Demons and Undead. I suppose, since the Paladin's Resurrection boosts Prayer, this could be an usefull weapon, just teleport your Paladin into the fray and "pray"... :)

Well, you appear to have different, albeit extremely inefficient requirements. So I suppose the Paladin idea is moot. However, just to point out a few things.

You can always INCREASE effective leadership with Paladin units because the Inquisitor's sword ALWAYS spawns.

You can also increase effective leadership via Phantom by increasing the Summoner Skill, which again, does NOT really benefit from Int proportionally. Phantom raises up the % by Int/3. That's horribly inefficient. Better off raising Summoning to level 3 than waste ANY points on raising/buffing Intellect for the sake of Phantom.

Intellect is one of the worst stats in the entire game because it takes so much of it to be useful in IMPOSSIBLE games. Not to mention, damaging spells tend to be not nearly so good in Impossible games since the enemy is overwhelmingly strong compared to you.

That said, I usually ended up going support mode even with a Mage because there simply wasn't any point. An extra 500-1000 damage is worthless.

Clearly if atlatea and I play and beat Impossible games EASILY without any losses, don't you think our advice is easily applicable to lower difficulty levels?

However, you don't plan to use Paladins... and probably dont' plan to use inquisitors or rune mages either. I highly advise rune mages if you plan to do the demon build. Funny how the archdemons ranked nearly one of the best tank units on loreangelicus' spreadsheet. :)

The problem with Intellect, especially for Resurrection, is that it does not gain a bonus for every 7 intellect like most of the damage spells.

So, Resurrecting based on Intellect is purely linear, and at a pathetically slow rate too. Incidentally leadership can turn the tables big time depending on which part of the game you are, and they are key against all bosses.

Magic Light the Magic Tree Skill is only "really" good at level 1, since each consecutive increase only provides an additional 5% for 4 mind and 5 magic runes as opposed to a nice 15% boost at level 1.

Resurrection Paladin Mind Tree Skill raises the ability by 10% at first, but keeps giving 10% per upgrade, but costs 12, 14, 16 mind runes per level.

I would go with Rune Mages, and don't bother with Magic Light past level 1 unless you really got spare goods.

You probably want rune mages at a minimum as they tend to have similar revival capabiliites as the Paladin but no Area of Effect. However, Rune mages lets your revive level 5s, and lets you revive from a range, as opposed to walking the units to the paladin. Of course, this is with 20 spare mind runes for the rune mage.

If you just do the math, you'd see the difference though.

Anyways, back to your leadership vs intellect.

Metamorphic Axel can do 2000 leadership or +4 intellect. Which one is better for reviving?

2000 leadership means 9 more paladins.

9 paladins means 9*24 = 218 HP healed.

Level 3 Resurrection (mind you, you already wasted magic crystals to get this spell), 600 HP base, so you need 36% boost to heal 218 HP.

36% boost is 7-8 Intellect, OR Level 3 in Mind Tree Resurrection + 2 intellect. Or Level 3 in Magic Light + 11 intellect points.

Throw in Inquistor sword and Metamorphic axel, and the gap is even bigger, requiring 45% boost in magic (9 intellect) to compare.

So, I can get one Metamorphic Axel OR I can
Waste 46 mind runes, 2 slots for +7/+8 intellect and 28 magic crystals.
Or 12 mind runes, 15 magic runes, 3 slots for +11 intellect and 28 magic crystals.

Or you can replace the loss of slots for consuming more magic runes for the Magic Tree. Considering all I had to do was get one Metamorphic Axel...

Or heck, just throw in the Elven Crown, or Marshal's Baton... the idea is that leadership is FAR FAR FAR FAR more efficient in this regard.

If you are using units to revive, leadership is usually more important. -X% to leadership items are very very very good.

Of course, if you are playing on hard as opposed to impossible, who knows. Maybe all of this is moot since it should be easy enough to use any other strategy to win. I've never played Hard mode. :(

Regarding magic light skill, i agree that going beyond lv 1 is a waste of runes.

Play KB TL if you want better resurrection spell, but they have very limited use in AP and CW.

Man, you really must have a lot of free time to analyze this game like you do, do you work or are still in university? Sure, I believe you it is the most efficient way, you have explained it with charts and numbers, but I'd hate to play the game again and again and always use the same unit in every game, just because of the Prayer.

Again, you play Impossible games - I only play Hard. It's enough of a challenge, and since I only get to play maybe 3-4 hours a week it'd take me a lot of time to finish an Impossible game.

I'm a bit surprised at what you say about Resurrection and how it doesn't increase every 7th Intellect point. Granted, I played on Normal with my Warrior, but even she with her not too high Intellect had enough spell power to resurrect everything I have lost even in hard battles. Baal was tough to do no-loss - killing him is not that hard, ensuring some unit is left behind to keep resurrecting your units without Gilbert killing it is harder - but in the end I killed him by going only with one stack of Gorguls and spamming Phantom and Time Back. Gorguls can attack Bhaal without fear of retaliation, often more then once per round, "through" the demons he summons. :)

My question regarding your message is - since my current army build does contain lots of Human units - what is this Inquisitor Sword and where can you always find it? I checked the save game in Excel and did not see it...

From thomas torve, defeat him and you get the sword. In CW, he always appears in elon, however in AP, it is random.

While I am not quite as skilled as impy, perhaps we are both infected by the uncanny desire to think about the game a little TOO much. :)

I work. I'm a pretty analytical guy and oddly enough, I find that doing this analysis SAVES me time in the long run. Perhaps it is my way of getting back at the game for when I played Impossible and ended up running out of gold, or I would be nearly at the end of the game on Impossible, and had no way to beat the bosses, losses or not.

That's right. I try whatever I can to steam roll this game to get back at it! Take that, King's Bounty! ... :)

Nothing makes me more sad then wasting hours upon hours in a battle where it is highly inefficient. e.g. 60 rounds to beat driller with single stack trolls. what the?!? Where one bad move can lead to a restart of a 60 round battle. That's not my idea of fun. :(

I find that is more time consuming and a waste of my time. That is what drove me more and more into learning the game mechanics and seeing the optimal paths of victory.

That said, the analysis isn't really as time consuming as one might think, especially with the excellent user derived manual and spreadsheet development skills. Once you get the game mechanics down, it is pretty easy to see where the optimal points are.

Regarding using similar units over and over again, well, that's the basis of my other thread. "Units you love/hate". :) Seems like the fastest "boss busting" armies are "no retaliation" ones deriving from high leadership.

Or, the ever so insane Black Knights.

Besides Paladins, I do end up using quite a few different units. Although, I think I am near the end of my run and thank goodness. I've spent too much time on this game. :)

I think the key to a solid impossible run is to know some basic templates of power teams. Again, while some units seem like you can't get rid of, there is some wiggle room. Knowing the basic ways to beat the enemy can make it so the battles don't take nearly that long, even on no-loss and impossible. Early game is pretty hard on Impossible, but the other guys here might have mastered it better than me.

But later on, if you have a good killer army in mind, you should be able to do it fairly easily.

In short, an Impossible game shouldn't take longer than a Hard game if you got the right unit mixture. But, it might be more difficult for you to come up with proper combinations in an Impossible game than a Hard game since your margin of error is far far smaller. Plus, some battles might be particularly grueling if you can't get the items or units you need for a smoother victory.

Admittedly, a lower difficulty level would allow for a larger range of units to be played successfully. There is a certain charm to beating up some super Demon with a pack of Peasants. Ok, I haven't done that... but would be funny. :)

Well, the reason why it probably works fine in Normal is because the boss statistics are much much weaker in Normal. Their attack rating is less, so it is easier to receive less damage from them. Their defense rating is lower, so you can deal more damage to them. Furthermore, their HP is lower, so you can blitz them out before they can do real damage. Incidentally, that's the basis of my aggressive boss busting builds. Kill them FAST.

Ah yes, the "attack through the weak unit" no retaliation tactic is great. Of course this tactic is the meat and drink of dragons... gosh I love those units. Thankfully the rune mage lets me use Dragons in more situations than before. That's why I felt they were such a pivotal unit to changing the usable army compositions in Crossworlds.

Atlatea has already answered it. Be careful not to give / sell the sword back.

Of note, the only other item that can reduce leadership further is the Knight's Set. But it seems so rare, not all the items are that great,... and the end goal seems a little mediocre.

I think it was somethign like 22K damage, but with slow melee, one retaliation...

If used with a warrior you could get more retaliations, but, the paladin class will result in more damage, even with the 6750 leadership gap.

But the Knight's Set does decrease requirements for Horsemen and Knights. :)

If you really want some fun and you don't care for a little file modification,then simply replace Moro Dark's "regalia,belt slot" with an "artefact,regalia slot" in - companion.txt file.

Ah, thanks! He's the fallen paladin, right? I remember defeating him in Tekron mines in AP, but do not remember the sword... most likely sold it as I was playing dwarves back then.

Too bad it doesn't work for Paladins. I dunno, the charm of the Paladin are his Talents - he can actually do something to affect your other units while marching (at a snail's pace) towards the enemy. The Knight... it takes a lot of time or a teleport to put him into the fray.

I'm really enjoying Horsemen, I found the Horsemen Shield, which gives +5 defense to Horsemen, and +3 Defense overall - so yeah, I checked, it gives +8 defense to Horsemen. :) Neat... Adrenaline can also really help out in increasing damage. Using Horsemen to inflict the most damage is somewhat complicated, at least moreso then in the older Heroes games.

Orc veteran is slightly better than horsemen in CW. They do more dmg / leadership + no counter. Perfect setup, because while paladin + target tank the whole enemies while that insane orc veteran slaughter them to oblivion.

Horsemen number will dwindle with each counter from enemies, making them somewhat useless in KB CW, though i often use this unit in KB TL.

But Orcs and Humans don't really like each other sadly, and most of my current army is Humans (plus Royal Griffins and Assassins... I wish Assassins were handled like Robbers and would be counted as humans).

I know many units are better in combat then Horseman, their main advantage is their speed, however - only Cerberi come close to that. Besides, I am not trying to put together the best units in my walkthrough - I usually start a game by deciding a "theme", in the current case, an all-human army, and go with that, it's more of a challenge.

The Knight's Set does decrease requirements for Paladins. As it is the only other item that can reduce the leadership requirements for Paladins as far as I know.

Did you mean the Paladin Class can't use it or can't easily wear it? I think they can do it, as the set should only take up all the "frontal" slots of any of the classes.

In my post I was implying that even with the -40% reduction in leadership (inquisitor sword is -20% AND knight's set is -20%) the end goal is too "bleh" for me.

Dealing up to 30K damage? (didn't do the math again for it, but I remember it was not that awesome), only level 4 (not super high attack stat), but slow moving wasn't impressive enough to be worth the effort.

I was just throwing in that it helps reduce the leadership of both horsemen, and knights... (it also does swordsmen, and guardsmen, but I omitted them), as a saving grace to sort of make it worth the effort of finding a random game with those items.

At least with fairies, they can do a lot more, soaring, move fast, fast initiative with the girl power set... even with the lower attack stats, the base damage was much higher (Maybe 60K?), and you can get attack raising items to help increase your damage to get closer to the maximum damage.


So? That's one major advantage of the Paladin Class. The morale skill is designed to make it easier for the Paladin Class to mix and match so they can take the best of each other's races.

I wish Assassins could get buffed. I've rarely seen that "Servant of Death" ability as a mixed blessing.... only as a curse. :)

Ooooh the irony. Orc Veterans, with Moldok the Orc, and some basic skills so they can use Potion of Rage / Speed (the first Adrenaline skill) in the first round... are faster than Horsemen. Once you hit Adrenaline Level 3, always fun to hit horsemen, and NOT get retaliated on.

In fact, combined with Tactics Level 2, Orc Veterans could reach the other end of the field in round 1 nearly every time. :) Although, to preserve my precious pig warriors, I would just stop short of maxing out the distance, and use a Phantom to hit. So evil.

Oh, thanks. So it decreases leadership for pretty much all Human troops then.

I just got the Dress of the Magess btw, and the +30% critical chance for Archmages is really neat. (Oddly, it seems to be more then 30% for me - without the dress, they have 14%, with the dress, they have 53%...) Too bad it doesn't work for Rune Mages as well.

The lighting -fast orc strategy must be neat... Getting to the enemy early is pretty important. I remember, in my Warrior walkthrough of AP, I used Tactics II with my Gorguls to similar effect, calculating the distances so that I could attack and kill an enemy, and then move on to the next. Sometimes, I killed a whole enemy army during 1 round with just my stack of Gorguls, the Bloodlust worked so often!
That must

Yeah orc is much better in CW.

Though i guess that if you have knight set and you can charge to your enemy with maximum distance, horsemen will do much more damage than orc veteran. I don't know for sure though.

its 30% probasbly u have some other things increasing crit chance ( wasnt one of medals doing it?). I remember having 2 those dresses .. With some other items i reached 100% crit archmages ... changed them from shield supporter to powerfull DPS ranged unit, they really hit hard ;p.

I have a medal, yes, but it still doesn't add up. Oh well...

I am thinking on modding the game a bit, btw - frankly, the 20 Runes needed for Rune Mages are too high of a price. Some skills in this game are a must (like Level III. Order and Distortion), and I cannot afford not to get them. So even though I am around level 24, I don't have many excess runes to boost my Rune Mages, who are not that spectacular without this. I am thinking of reducing the runes needed to 10 which is what I think Katauri did in the russian patch as well.

I did the math on it before, and it seemed that even with 100% critical, they were only "meh". About 0.06 damage per leadership?

If they were to increase the shock chance up, that's a different story!

I suppose they do have the advantage that there is no range penalty though.

@BBShockwave
Sounds like you got a +2 morale bonus, which gives 30% bonus. Although odds are, you probably only have 20% bonus, since the medal counts towards the base and there is the natural base. e.g. all the base criticals are multiplied by the morael bonus.

30% * (1 + 30%) = 39%.

14+39 = 53%.

Raising the base critical hit rate works VERY well with morale. It is also another reason why orcs are soooo deadly. Kill a SINGLE unit, and you get max morale. (total 40% bonus to base critical).

@atlatea
Hard to say. Horsemen seem to do more damage on the initial hit, but I don't know how counter-counter attack in fine details. I would say that orc veterans probably do more damage.

with 44,000 leadership, not counting criticals
orc veterans - 8,507 damage
horsemen - 7,692 damage

But, if the horsemen charge, they will do 50% more damage!

I think counter-counter-attack does at least 50% damage too though, possibly more.

If the orcs have enough adrenaline, they gain a +5 attack, which raises their damage up to 9,266.

where is the file?

Well, i mean that horsemen charge from max distance, so it's 70% damage.

Probably the orc will outdamage it in the long run. But horsemen seems fit for army that prefer lightning fast strike that can quickly criple enemy army.

It has 7 initiative, i say that 7 is no joke.

How do you figure 70%? I guess you mean with Haste? I thought the horsemen's speed is 5.

But, orcs counter-attack a counter in the first hit, plus they can use Potion of Rage (for +2 speed). In a weird way, orcs are just as fast (with moldok) and will do more damage than a Horseman!

From main folder go : sessions\orcs\orcs.kfs

or
Unzip the already modded file from attachment to session\orcs\mods .

But if you want to play fair , by not using any modded files , play with a mage ,
since she has enough atrefact slots . :)

Either with haste or artifact, yes.

Problem is, when you use potion of rage, there is no counter counter attack.

Making first initial dmg goes to horsemen as the winner.

Another problem is to become as fast as horsemen, orc need more setup, which means less flexibility.

And if i'm not mistaken moldok cannot use both scale set and slippery cuirass (which means +30% phys resistance). Or scale set + ghost armor (+20% phys. and astral resistance).

Ah, thanks, did not know that. :)