Tier-Ranking every Skill in HOMM2 | Heroes of Might and Magic II
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- Опубликовано: 22 мар 2023
- Are you a Diplomat, a Necromancer, a champion of Wisdom? We rank every Hero skill in Heroes of Might and Magic II.
Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars is a 1996 release by developers New World Computing and John Van Caneghem. It is a turn-based, fantasy-style strategy game in which players develop settlements, build armies, and rely on the skills of their Heroes to battle other Heroes.
Developers: New World Computing, John Van Caneghem
Original Release Year: 1996 (Heroes II), 2000 (Price of Loyalty)
All music composed by: Paul Anthony Romero, Rob King, and Steve Baca
Broadcaster: Ross Liberti
Director: Ross Liberti
Editor: Ross Liberti
Producer: Ross Liberti
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I like how with Navigation being S or F depending on map type, the compromise was to put it in Sea tier.
LMFAO.
That's actually pretty clever!
Archery is also a S or F tier depending on your faction/units.
Magician or Sorceress make an insanely good usage of it, but with Mage units it's almost useless.
I think there's an easy solution to your Navigation conundrum: You add a second Navigation icon to the tier list. One icon goes in A tier for water maps. The other goes in F tier for maps with very little water.
Wow, that's a super clever idea... We should do the same for Pathfinding, too (one for maps with difficult terrain and one for maps without).
Even if the map isn't fully covered with water it can be super helpful. If you manage to get early access to a boat and a sorceress hero with navigation skill to go sailing first, you will just pile up on gold, wood and artifacts so fast without any efforts. It really speeds up your early game.
Eagle Eye would be good if you could just learn spells from battle 100% of the time. It would be even better if you could learn the spell without needing the Wisdom for it. And lastly it would be great if you could learn the spell during the battle and use it in the same fight. Alas, that is not the case.
Thanks for watching! Yes, it's a cool idea but ends up not having much relevance.
Unless you're playing against humans, Eagle Eye becomes even worse due to the fact that the AI has strong preferences for certain spells, (like Blind and Disrupting Ray) so this reduces the pool of spells you could possibly learn from it even further.
Great discussion! I found this video very helpful. I first played this game back in the 90s at friends house, and didn't find it again till this year. Thank you!
Thanks for watching!
I am so wrapped this channel exists❤
I've never seen a Royal Mummy named Mark.
I think you made a really good job here.
I would put Estates a little lower..and Leadership a little Higher. But it is a very good list.
I agree with most, but I’d bump scouting to D tier. I like being able to buy a warlock as a scout hero. They reveal more map and have decent movement cause of the gargoyles. Not to mention a 75 dmg lightning bolt is a nice slap to the face to your enemy as you run away afterwards
Nice! Thanks for watching.
Agreed. Being able to identify key points of interest and resources early on can be a real game-changer. The late-game value is sort of meh, but I find that it still has continuous use since I rarely explore the whole map in a single game. Definitely D-tier.
I think scouting is probably not even bad to have on a main hero. You usually aren't looking to get it or anything, but it's probably a lot more helpful than we would tend to think. Lets compare to Ballistics for example. That skill probably helps you out in one or two fights in the game, and may not do that much. Scouting on the other hand, has a chance to be useful throughout the entire game by giving you more information to make your decisions. A really good player can really use that to their advantage.
Also, the bigger your viewing radius, the more you see when you add one more square to it. I mean in percentage of the total amount of squares you see. Hypothecial situation: if the center square was blacked out and scouting let you see one more square on the "inside" of your viewing radius, it wouldn't do much. But because it adds to the outside, it actually adds a lot of squares you get to see. And you get more for every level of the skill. So going from advanced to expert is better than going from basic to advanced. It's like compound interest in terms of what you get out of the skill. Most other skills increase more linearly.
If those extra squares allow you to see a really good artifact or an enemy castle or Dragon Utopia, then it could straight up win you the game. Now, that's a best case scenario and most likely you were going to see those things on the next turn anyway or you would have seen them at the end of your turn. But even then, getting to know about them sooner can spare you movement points running in the wrong direction.
It's hard to quantify how often it's really going to matter, though, but it's definitely a non-zero amount. So I think this is one of those skills that everyone is bound to neglect but it's actually D tier even for MAIN heroes.
I like these Videos from u, no Music, no special soundeffects, knowledge there, not too long, clean overview, clean voice.
U talking fast enough to understand even for me.
But we need and SS Tier.
Personally, I would bump up Scouting to D tier. Scouting is useful for scout heroes like warlocks who can give you an idea on which areas to watch out for, especially if you are playing a map for the first time.
I would also lower Pathfinding to A tier. The skill's usefulness depends on the map. It's not so useful in maps where there are lots of water (like the final mission of "Wizard's Isle" campaign) or there are no rough terrain (like the final mission of Archibald's campaign).
Leadership: If we compare it with H3 Leadership, it definitely deserves to be on S tier. Even walking units can get to the other side of the map much easier this way. Sometimes even Average speed units, this way they can reach out to shooters earlier, faster etc... The morale bonus itself will render Crusaders an even noble hard counters against undeads for example. That raises Knight town to be more valuable, because we know how useless Knight can be in early game.
Necromancy: I'm only playing Necromancer at some case scenarios when the game map is large enough for it to benefit. Regularly not an open ocean map if possible. I play Necropolis in H3 less. Necromancy's role is much increased there to keep up with the cons for Necropolis have to deal with big battlefields, unlike H2's small battlefield and full flying Vampires and Bone Dragons. Necromancy is just there for every Necros and only Necro players consider it S tier. For me, it's D tier at best. It's a purpose skill for one faction and it was invented like that.
Ballistics: This skill in H3 is crucial, but because of full battlfield flyers and overall weaker walls compare to H3 walls of any town, this skill purpose is even countered by Knight town Fortification building. Most case scenarios if you have walkers and don't have effective Archery, then it's Archery secondary skill's placeholder. B tier.
Diplomacy: For people, who's Gold management is on high level in this game or in any Heroes games in general, will always be happy to see this skill. No doubt, it's overpowered in H2, H3 alike. It's a glorious S tier skill. If you play fHeroes2 type of modern version of the game, you will find no problem with the downside of Diplomacy having monsters get enraged. There's no longer such thing in the game if the new implementation is enabled in-game.
Estates: Unlike in H3, Estates is more valuable here in this game for the reason of lacking in other town potential to gather more Gold outside of the Statue and Warlock's Dungeon. Regularly, you are happier to also get Gold-based artifacts. The more the merrier. Estates is important, but we can survive without it if the game dictates us so. I agree with your point, it's indeed an A tier skill.
Eagle Eye: If we play fHeroes2, Eagle Eye not just functions as an after battle spell learning function, but also works like a H3 Scholar, which is handy to trade spells between spell books when your heroes meet with each other. Without this feature, Eagle Eye is obviously F tier, but with this new feature, I think Eagle Eye deserves at least a credit to say that it belongs to D tier at least. Sure, even in H3, Scholar is not that impactful either and by long distance between your town and your main hero is too much and Scholar doesn't have any guarantee to get it's guild content to the goal hero who we really need to learn those perky spells. According to raw Heroes 2 standards, I agree with all your point about Eagle Eye, it's a crap for a secondary skill and it's indeed F tier.
Archery: One of the main core secondary skills I try to learn as soon as possible to benefit crazy monster battles and grab those goodies what they guard. The only niche scenario when I cannot get it I can just do my best and give all my shooters to a hero who actually possess Archery. This skill is super important to me, for Grand Elf and Greater Druid reasons. My beloved town, the Sorceress has access to two early bird and powerful shooters right off the bat, they even stand a lot of chance against flyers. Archery is an S tier skill for me. That skill is vastly a deciding factor in any game and most of the factions. Necromancers probably won't accept the skill, because Power Liches are best used for town defense purpose instead. Clearing the map with effective shooters is a must for me with most factions, but especially when I play Sorceress.
Mysticism: Just not enough, like how it is in H3 Complete. In Horn of the Abyss, it gives you 5 mana each day on Basic, 10 on Advance and 15 on Expert which is a much better thing to use in that game. In H2 standards, it's absolutely not good enough and I learn it rarely. It just covers the out to reach my maximum spell points faster and I already played some unthankful maps where there were no pathways to get to the other side of the map to beat the enemy outside using Dimension Door which was horrible. Those are the times when I actually learn the spell. D tier.
Luck: It's a good thing to have even for Necromancers. The benefits of it is obviously as random as Leadership, but similarly as good as Leadership if not better. Combine this skill with Leadership can render your troops become MVP fraggers in no time. The skill itself doesn't worth as much and if we can get Luck-based artifacts, we can avoid learning the skill itself. I would put it to A tier.
Scouting: Not good, but not bad either. If you can take a look at valuable resources for yourself when you don't have actual view spells in your disposal and don't get caught much by your enemy you see them easier you can read them earlier are absolutely not bad features. Occupying your skill slots however for this skill is only benefitting for you if your hero is not a mage with other alternatives to get some information about your surroundings what you see and of course the information about your enemy. The rest of the times it's not that important which is more commonly happening, than not. I declare it's a D tier skill.
Wisdom: Next to Archery, this is another core secondary skill that I use and it's obvious for me the rest of you need it to not being left out of the "Magic" part from a "Might and Magic" game. Magic greatly influences the outcome of any kind of battle. For your heroes to get from point A to point B in an instant is also super important. Very crucial and a must pick skill. Barbarians lacking of this skill are doomed most of the time. They can only survive much without the skill if they have good immunity or resist artifacts against their opponents heroes. Totally an S tier skill, no doubt.
Logistics: In H2, it's really overpowered, it's crazy. Reach everything before your enemy could within a few days, also visit a lot other objects on the map within a single day is also helping in multiple aspects. Easy S tier.
Navigation: Well, my beloved Sorceress heroines are starting with this skill on Advanced level and very easily can get Expert level within 1 or 2 level ups. Sorceress chicks are great sailors, I love this benefit from them especially if I know that I will start my game in an open ocean kind of map. If not, I just start as Sorceress eitherway, but I might actually buy a different non-Sorceress mage hero just for the sake of saving up important skill slots. I don't mind leveling up the chicks anyway, I'm not looking down much on Navigation skill, when I need it, it's super good. I put it to B tier.
Pathfinding: Well, on penalty-rich terrains I just have to face that Logistics can be negated. Pathfinding is very map dependant, so I wouldn't put Pathfinding to S tier just now. If Logistics is just enough Logistics will always remain a must pick over Pathfinding. Those terrains are only crucial if difficult terrians are present and there's valuable items on that specific terrian. For the rest of the rest of the circumstances, magic will solve movement problems on rougher terrains. Pathfinding for me is rather a C tier skill.
Great analysis of the skills.
Personally I would have prefered if Sorceress got another starting skill, Navigation is too situational and useless in maps with little or not sea, I think that Luck would have been a better starting skill for them, it fits better the Sorceress theme.
Some very bad analysis here on 2 skills: Diplomacy and Wisdom. To even benefit from Wisdom you need tier 3 spells, and tier3 is arguably the worst tier of spells in the game. An even bigger problem is that the skill is NOT useful on its own, you need to invest A TON of resources first, and even then you are NOT guaranteed good spells due to RNG.
Its biggest problem is the opportunity cost: unless the map is huge, it's almost always better to invest into Titans/Dragons to win faster.
Diplomacy likewise is just terrible on smaller maps, because it is only strong at Expert, at Advanced it can only be good if you RNG into meeting good creatures, and it is almost useless at Basic, barring extreme RNG where you get perfect stacks to complement your army, because the price is insane.
great video!
Thanks for watching!
I'd bump Scouting up to at least D-tier, maybe even C-tier... and Navigation down to D-tier. Scouting can be very useful in spotting enemy heroes early so you can maneuver away from them if needed. In objective maps, where you have to find something within a time limit (or even finding a new town before you lose the game in 7 days!) it's super useful, and could save your bacon.
Navigation is only really useful on maps with an extreme amount of water, otherwise I skip it for just about any other skill. If you're only crossing small/medium bodies of water it's not going to help much.
Thanks for watching! Yup, Navigation means nothing if you're in a scenario where sailing doesn't matter. I ranked it where I did because of its sheer impact...
Basic = +50% movement, Advanced = +100% movement, and Expert = +150% movement as compared to Logstics's +10/+20/+30% increase is too huge to ignore.
close to my own ratings and thanks for reinforcing things on the tough ones. Ballistics with some heroes on some maps just not needed.
Thanks for watching! It really depends on your army build. Ballistics is far more important if you have a stronger emphasis on grounded melee units. I typically prefer ranged and flying units, so Ballistics is usually less useful to me than other skills.
@@KhelbensCoinTV Agreed. Am on a standard medium map of the original game, and has been a test. Depends on what the AI does ... I also prefer magic and so melee much less important.
Nailed the ending
Solid tiering, really.
Necromancy doesn't really have much reason to be on the list because only two hero types can use it at all, and Warlock doesn't really gain anything but castle defenders and mule support without a matching Necro castle. I suspect maxing Estates would pay better dividends.
The C in C tier is for "Circumstantial". Ballistics has decent value in early/midgame before fliers get serious- the faster defending turrets die, the fewer of your low-level (usually ranged) units die. On the reverse, Diplomacy is garbage until extreme lategame, but it takes off there. I consider them a lot like Navigation.
Leadership and Luck being in the same tier is sensible.
Mysticism is handiest if you play tall and your opponent plays wide- when you have to burn through multiple enemy heroes and castles with one heavily loaded hero, the slow deliberate regen helps a lot.
Homm 2 was one of my favorites games as a kid. I have a 4k LG c2 oled and I'd play homm2 on it LOL
Love these lists. Subbed. Do you do HOMM3 as well?
Thanks for watching! Yes, HOMM3 content will make its way onto the channel as well.
I like the HOMM 2 content in 2023. My all time favourite nostalgia game
I also think scouting is much better than this video gives it credit for. I just had a situation where my main hero took basic and advanced scouting over expert wisdom because it was early in the game. And that scouting allowed me to crush two enemy heroes whose existence I would otherwise not have been aware of.
Also, later in the same game, I am recruiting heroes whose job is to sneak into areas where I am weak and grab whatever they can. I prefer warlocks for the role for a combination of reasons. One of the reasons is their terrific scouting.
Cool! That sounds like a great use of Scouting. The problem with tier lists is that something has to be S-Tier, and something has to be F-Tier. It just so happens that I personally value other skills over Scouting. That said, if I can't recruit a Sorceress for sailing around and exploring, I'll go for a Warlock for the same reasons (revealing more of the map).
@@KhelbensCoinTV f tier is necro. Skeletons are low tier in your units ranking
eagle eye should be a 100% chance at advanced lvl . and at expert lvl: learning 2 spells extra that aren't cast in combat.
Thanks for watching! The way it is in the game just isn't that impactful, for sure.
Expert Eagle Eye should let you "see" your opponent's spellbook and learn every spell you don't already know from it.
Eagle eye should let you learn spells from enemy with higher precentage and also steal spellpoints.
How do you learn a spell that's not even cast in front of your eyes?..... Talk about realism in fantasy games.......
Hey Khelben. I'm trying to find an online source that provides the probability of each hero class getting each skill upon leveling up. Do you have this information or a link to it? Does anyone reading this have this information? Thank you!
Also, with regards to your rankings here, I agree with them for the most part. I think your position of navigation is fair at C-tier since it's the most hit-or-miss skill based on the map in question. I would make the following changes to your list based on my own opinions and experiences over the years:
- Lower pathfinding to A-tier since it's completely useless on some maps. It can also be useless depending on when you get it on the map in question.
- Lower ballistics to D-tier for the reasons you already gave in the video. Diplomacy and mysticism are way more useful than ballistics.
- Raise mysticism to C-tier since it's always useful, kind of like estates. On maps with no or few wells, as well as distanced castles, mysticism is a game-changer, especially if you need to use spells to win battles. I'm currently playing the scenario Black Forest, and mysticism is allowing me to push out into the map and take out enemy heroes early on. This is huge.
- Raise diplomacy to B-tier for the following reasons: (1) it can help you absorb any meaningful stack that helps your army, (2) it can allow you to absorb high-end creatures that can act as a game-changer vs. a tough enemy hero, (3) it can give you a way to spend excessive amounts of gold in a great way, (4) it allows you to surrender to enemy heroes for a much smaller amount of gold, allowing you to save your army in the process in case you get caught off guard or can't escape a strong enemy hero. Diplomacy has allowed me to win various types of maps when no other skill could.
- Raise leadership and luck to A-tier since they are always useful, regardless of hero or army type (necromancer being the only exception if they get leadership via a witch hut, etc.). They also allow you to off-load artifacts that provide morale and luck bonuses, freeing up room for other artifacts you may want or need.
- Lower estates and archery to B-tier maybe? This is a tough one. If they stay in A-tier, I would put them lower than leadership and luck in that tier.
- Raise scouting to D-tier, or at the very least put it above eagle eye on F-tier. For the most part, scouting is weak. That being said, it can be situational and helpful when exploring certain areas, especially those with rough terrain penalties like desert and swamp.
Diplomacy is the ultimate late game skill. When you have way more gold than available creatures, and you can pick up stacks of 500 (often powerful) creatures off the world map - it can swing the game.
It should also be noted that diplomacy can get you out of a bind if you need to surrender to an enemy hero and you don't want to lose valuable troops. Diplomacy makes it super cheap to surrender and escape with an entire army if you get caught by a faster enemy hero or caught off guard. Using diplomacy this way has literally saved me from failing on various maps.
Good list but morale bringing Leadership should be one level higher than Luck for it gives player the freedom to control the multiplied damage. Pretty obvious winner if you need to take down two weak but threatning ranged targets once. 👍👍 Plus it has erased my worries always in a late game when combining super troops from different factions.
I don't know the exact details of Leadership vs Luck but assuming it's the same as Heroes 3, then Leadership > Luck. Of course it depends on what artifacts you have and army composition, but getting a morale boost on a unit is more valuable than dealing double damage in almost all situations. Double damage might be wasted if you would have already killed or almost killed the unit you attacked, which is usually what you're trying to do and you're not counting on getting that luck boost. You can't use tactically for that reason. Whereas with a morale boost, you can choose to attack another unit or move further on the battlefield or just reposition to block their archers, or you can attack one archer group and then attack another as well, while blocking a third group, etc. The options you get are a lot more valuable than randomly dealing double damage.
Also, you can't get a luck boost while you are just walking, so leadership can trigger more often as well.
I guess a situation where luck would be better is against enemies with multiple retaliations or maybe against Vampire Lords or Ghosts to kill more before they attack back and lifeleech back their losses. But those are very specific situations.
You're right. I tend to equate them when doing tier lists, but your reasoning is sound. Thanks for watching!
Putting Navigation in C. I see what you did there.
Agreeing on pathfinding. Easiliy the best skill apart from wisdom. Mysticism however, I find extremely valuable in early game, where your number of spell points is small, and spells are cheap, and your movement is limited. Mysticism allows you to cast haste/slow/magic arrow in every battle and skip detours to wells. Really helpful, but loses value in the midgame, and is useless in the endgame. If I get it early in a witch Hut, or early offer in a chest, I grab it for sure!
Thanks for watching! Part of why I ranked it so low was its low impact. 2 or so Spell Points per turn can add up but isn't seriously game-changing. I agree it's more valuable in the early game, but I'd want that skill slot for something more impactful if I had a choice.
Check out lexiav heroes 3 skills tier list, he does it from pvp pro level perspective so has quite a different view on some of these. Interesting comparison
As a rule of thumb for tier lists if something is situational, rate it for that situation, otherwise it's place in the tier list doesn't provide useful information. I don't know what game mode you have in mind when making this but if it's single map with known layout then base the ranking on the situations where you consider picking it. There are bunch of asterisks for what I've just wrote but let's keep this light.
To avoid situational evidence, I more heavily weighted the impact of the skill in-game. Navigation is the best example--it's useless on maps without water/ships, but it increases movement points at sea by 50%, 100%, and 150% relative to Basic, Advanced, and Expert whereas Logistics (which seems to be a universal S-Tier skill in this community) only increases movement on land by 10%/20%/30%.
But I get what you're saying. At some point down the road, I intend to revisit all tier lists and will keep all feedback in mind.
Luck should be promoted to Tier A due to it works for Necromancer army.
Thanks for watching! That's an excellent point. I'll stand by my B-Tier rating, but definitely something to consider if we ever revisit these rankings.
I would love if they combined Eagle Eye, Scouting, and Pathfinding in some way. Scouting and Eagle Eye are that useless that Pathfinding could have those effects and it still wouldn't be TOO powerful.
A pro HOMM3 player loves scouting on his main hero, but that's in PvP setting as he likes being able to plan moves in advance. He credits it for winning some tournament games as he was able to get artifacts the helped him win the game that his opponent didn't even know were there.
Packaging skills to augment an existing one is a very interesting idea, hadn't considered that! Yes, I understand that skills like Scouting and Diplomacy have new meanings in games like HOMM3, but this is a HOMM2 exclusive tier list and those skills have different mechanics. Anyway, thanks for sharing your ideas and also for watching! Much appreciated.
I mostly agree with your tier ranking, but I think you underestimate Scouting. You only have a finite number of movement points per turn, and knowing where to go (especially early game) is important. Where the resources, spawns and mines/mills/quarries are, enemy heroes, etc. Otherwise you may waste precious movement points going in a wrong direction and have to backtrack, Scouting lets you spend your movement points more wisely. When you get Dimension Door it can really make Scouting valuabe to have, and it lessens the likelihood you'll blunder into the path of enemies Heroes you're not equipped to fight. I'd rank Scouting as C-Tier.
My go-to skills I always want are (from most wanted to least wanted):
Logistics
Pathfinding
Wisdom
Scouting
Leadership
Luck
If I play Necro (which get Necromancy by default) then swap Necromancy in and Leadership out.
Eagle Eye was an interesting but useless idea, I have 0 clue why they put it into Homm3 with 0 changes. And made specialists for it.
Also used to hate scouting, but it's most useful for when you haven't been playing every map for 25ish years, I would say it's good for secondary heroes and okayish for the main hero, you see enemies and resources sooner. Still not like a priortity pick would peg in C tier, which I like to call "Fuck me it's this or Eagle Eye tier"
@@captainmoonunitsexparty2903 First off, thanks for watching! Second, your username is amazing. Eagle Eye is a good idea that just doesn't have enough relevancy to be useful. I can see how Scouting makes secondary heroes better; if I don't have a Sorceress to recruit to sail around a map, a Warlock is my next choice for the Scouting. They're not completely useless, but something has to be F-Tier in these things.
In homm3 Eagle Eye is sometimes used for puzzle maps
I guess, if it worked for creature cast spells, it would be even viable in normal games
I mean - I agree 100% with your choices. Everything felt "duuh, ofcourse that goes there" and it went! So.... I think I know this game too much.
Thanks for watching! Glad to hear you share my sentiment. Many in the community have shared their own lists, all with reasonable arguments. Not as many agreed with me! Thanks for sharing.
I’d love some insight on necromancy. I personally have found it to be a hinderance on a lot of my games. My favorite way to play Necromancers is bust out vampire lords asap. Then blitz through as many neutral camps and suck up resources. Necromancy only ends up bogging down my hero. Each turn I end up dismissing 1-15 skeletons because they slow down my hero and If I don’t hit camps fast enough my vamps cant deal with the bigger armies. Maybe I’m just straight up wrong and should be saving those small skeletons. Late game I find that bone dragons, vampires and Lichs carry so hard that if I did have a big stack of skeletons they never get a chance to attack.
I’m happy to be wrong here and enjoy changing my play style to be stronger
Don't bum rush first tier mobs. Let them fester and grow for couple of months. Then reap 100 skellies per mob.
Skeletons are the most powerful Level 1 creature. You end up with hundreds, if not, thousands of free skeletons that do massive damage. They don't slow down your hero so much that it becomes a hindrance like zombies do. Plus, if you have bone dragons, they too have the same speed as skeletons. They are the literal backbone of necromancer armies.
Dont forget there are some things you can only get if you have leadership skill
For diplomacy I thought that there was a good chance of neutral units wanting to just turn and flee if you rejected their offer. I know that was the case for HOMM3 but I don't remember if it applies to 2.
Thanks for watching! Yes, I believe you're correct; if you don't have space in your army, the monsters will flee. My issue was that if you do have space, instead of fleeing, there's a 25%, 50%, or 100% chance (depending on if the skill is Basic, Advanced, or Expert, respectively) they'll offer to join for a sum of money. It's a bit annoying early game when 12 halflings want to join for 19,427 gold or whatever and you'd rather just have them run away, because refusing the offer causes an automatic attack.
In HOMM2, any refusal of an army offering to join you, whether through Diplomacy or sheer luck, triggers an automatic attack/battle.
@@KhelbensCoinTV chance of join depends on army power ratio. It's not 100% automatically for expert.
Maybe I'd put Ballistic up to B tier, but only maybe. Totally agree with the others!
Hey, iirc Diplomacy level isn't about the probability creatures will join you, it determines how many of these creatures actually will : Basic Diplomacy -> 25% of the creatures, Advanced Diplomacy -> 50% of the creatures, Expert Diplomacy -> 100% of the creatures. Whatever your Diplomacy level the price is the same and is based on what the creatures would cost if you bought them at your castle. E.g : if you encounter 20 Unicorns, if you have Basic Diplomacy 5 of them will offer to join you, if you have Expert Diplomacy all of them will offer to join you and in both cases the price will be 10,000 gold.
Yes, that's how I understand Diplomacy to work now. Thanks for the clarification! Much appreciated. 🙏
:D Diplo is like 10 tiers above all else you crazy joker
great jokes!
I thought Eagle eye designed just because you need something to avoid
wow.. a Heroes 2 player, good to see. Can you play pvP in h2?
Thanks for watching! Yes, but it's only by hot seat or LAN. I don't think there are any public servers to make it really easy.
Homm2 was the first game i ever played, and i still play it. Yes im that old :P anyway this content is quite nice, ty :) Sub for sure gonna be intresting to see what u have next.
Also when u see that eagle eye when u level up you just get sad
Thanks for watching!
I would like to, not really fight you but, more like give a little...caveat, to your assessment of the Necromancy Skill.
I agree with you that, for a Necromancer, the Necromancy Skill is OP as all heck, especially in the expansion. For a Warlock though, which it's only a 10% chance of learning it, it's not good.
You mention having troops from different armies lowers army moral, having a mixed undead/non-undead army has an even greater negative effect on army moral(for the non-undead troops).
TL:DR The Necromancy Skill _is_ a S Tier skill for a Necromancer. For a Warlock, it's F Tier.
S tier: Logistics, Pathfinding, Archery, Leadership, Luck, Wisdom, Necro
A tier: Mysticism, Estates, Navigation (only 'cause useless on land based maps)
F tier: the rest
Navigation is a weird skill to rank, I'm kinda torn between B or C if we're only taking into account when you can ACTUALLY use it because its an obvious F tier on land maps. A lot of the time I still don't want navigation on my main hero, but if enemy heroes have navigation and are being incredibly annoying then you need navigation.
Scouting is not F tier but tier placement is highly dependent on several factors, so its anywhere between B and D. Scouting is 1 of those skills that's great when you have it, but you don't always want it by choice (witch hut on a small map). I think part of the problem with scouting is actually the terrible AI, because against another player you want every advantage you can get and scouting is essential. It's also more useful on bigger maps where you're less likely to explore everything, never losing value.
Diplomacy is also dependent on the size of the map and how rich the map actually is, so it's anywhere from A to C. Sometimes diplomacy runs your entire army and gives you massive stacks, never needing to spend extra turns ferrying an army to the front lines. But on small maps you usually won't have the income to support it and its nearly a dead skill unless you happen to find stacks already present in your army.
The skill tier also depends on the facts if there are artefacts to compensate the skill. e.g. the importance of the moral skill is vastly mitigated by a bunch of ordinary artefacts that boost morale.
The gameplay is of importance, too. Chosing magic heroes as your main one? You will be far less interested in the attack skill than a barbarian ..
Hey, thanks for watching. I think I"d rather have one skill slot at +3 Morale than have 3 artifact slots taken up by medals. And I think all skills are important regardless of alignment--Wizards and Warlocks need Attack Skill, too!
So my thoughts a little bit different. First, I think that the higher tier - the more this shill should have every hero, so there we have:
- Necromancy. I think it's A tier skill, cuz the only faction this need is Necromancer. Warlocks also can learn it but they don't have special building with extra 10% Necromancy skill. But even Warlock will have it, then the problem with morale don't disappear. So because Necromancers are the only who need it, I would put it to A tier but not S for sure.
- Estates. I would put them from A to B. Why? Cuz you will not take it for your main hero. The only who you want to take it are your secondary heroes. But how can they learn it? Either from LVL up or Witch Hut. The second one is the best way but you may never find it there. If we talk about LVL up, then I'm sure for 100% that you will want to take Logistics, Navigation (for Water maps), or Wishdom to learn Dimenson Door or Town Portal. So the priority of learning Estates from lvl Up is quite low, and it means, that you will learn it from Witch Hut and those LVL up cases when the other option except Estates, are worse. And Knights are the only faction that have high chance of learning Estates, but the thing is, that their army is cheap for recruit, in comparison with the same Warlocks or Wizards.
- Mysticism. I would move it to C tier. Why? Cuz it would be helpful for everyone. If you are a Knight or Barbarian, you will have 1 free Haste for your Rangers, Orcs or Wolves (that is helpful vs Archers and Fly units to bite them in 1st round), or Slow. I'm pretty sure that your main hero will have minimum 1 fight in 3 turns, and having 9 mana, you can use Teleport for melee units to block Archers or capture Castles. If you are Mage and you have lots of mana, then it will have less impact on you, but can be helpful, if you have Warlock with few Gargoyles that will fight with Cold Ray or Lightning. Even Magic Arrow will deal pretty much damage in hands of Warlock. SO it's definitely not D tier, but at the same time, it's not as important, as Logistick, Morale or Luck.
- Scouting. I would place it in C Tier. It's definitely more useful as Eagle Eye. It's useless when the map is scouted, but at the beginning of the game, this skill is very useful. I always hire at least 1 Warlock at the beginning of the game just because of Scouting. They have Gargoyles and can move fast. It's also important to scout as many enemy territory, as you can to see what's your opponent do. And yeah... You need this skill for 1-2 heroes, no more, but it affects all factions. It's is especially crucial for Knights and Necromancer, cuz Knights have 2 units with 2 hets speed, and pikemen they will get after building well and Archery Range if it's abscent. Necromancers can have Vampires but it's also not in the first turn. Sorcerrers have Sprites, Warlocks - Gargoyles, Wizards - Boars, Barbarians - can build Den and hire Wolves in the 1st turn. So Knights and Necromancer should plan their moves and it's hard to do without knowing where to go, especially if you don't know map, and can't see Lumbermill or Ore Mine for Knights, what is crucial for Cavalry or Swordsmen.
"Why? Cuz you will not take it for your main hero." Yeah, you will. Not every map is XL map.
You will never get to max skill slots on a Small map if you know what you're doing, unless it's a heavily scripted scenario like Last Hope, etc.
Navigation in "Sea" tier.
media.tenor.com/J5A9wZzn3ZYAAAAd/robert-redford-jeremiah-johnson.gif
Agreed with most. Navigation is either S-tier, or F-tier, and nowhere else. But that doesn't fit in a general tier list.
Leadership is S tier to me unless playing Necros. But even then it's not bad 'cause you want Black Dragons or Titans in your lineup.
Doesnt diplomacy allow you to buy ghosts ?
In the rarest of circumstances, maybe. I feel like there are certain troop types that are less susceptible to Diplomacy, including Undead, Dragons, Crusaders, Wolves, Genies, and all Elementals, but I don't have evidence to suggest that the AI logically reduces the chances those wandering armies will join you. It's just a feeling. So, yes, a high Diplomacy skill theoretically allows you to recruit Ghosts, but I've never seen it.
@@KhelbensCoinTV i think i did that in the game growing up. I took it always. Cause ghosts were so deadly. But i can remeber wrong. So long ago.
Extremely fringe case.
In H2 we have lack of god skills. We have no good skills for warriors and magic is superb to other strategies. I was shocked when i saw intelligence in H3 :)
I'd move Nav down to D, Diplomacy to F, (I rather get the XP from fighting stuff than have them join me for all my gold, esp if they are not the same troops as mine so I then take that moral hit and if you are a necromancer and pick up non undead, those troops are basically useless because they get get double moral penalty instead of just the one.) Luck to C because unlike leadership you don't get a penalty to your luck for having different troops, so not as useful and finally Estates to B as like you said I don't want it on my main guy. Everything else I'd keep the same. Tho If I'm playing a castle with only one shooting troop like the necromancer or knight I'd move Archery down and Ballistics up since all the rest of your troops are melee, so it only affects literally one troop.
I agree with most. However:
I'd rank diplomacy as A if not S if you're able to fill your empty slots with 1 unit just to prevent triggering it. It's a little nuisance but worth to get around the enraged monsters, which is the only downside of that skill. It's only C if it enrages monsters, no matter what.
I would also swap estates with luck and leadership. Estates has diminishing value while leadership and luck is handy both early and late game. If archery is A tier for the 30 percent bonus, this two with their opportunity should also be A.
As for pathfinding: while it's useful, it's still not on par with total gamechangers like necromancy. Also, unlike logistics, it gives a situational bonus which, while happens more often than not, still not the same as logistics that gives a clean bonus everywhere on land. That would be an A for me.
Scouting is tough. It's more useful than eagle eye if you give it to a secondary, scout hero but not your main.
archery does 10,25,50% bonus damage, and also remove wall penalties. It is better than luck/leadership.
@@Andnie you have 8 fkn skill slots. You always pick Archery, Leadership and Luck. Tiers don't matter for these.
Necromancy isn't a gamechanger unless the map is huge and you RNG into juicy Peasant stacks. And Necro is one of the worst on Impossible difficulty if resources are scarce because it has no native ranged units until tier 5.
Diplomacy likewise is just terrible on smaller maps, because it is only strong at Expert, at Advanced it can only be good if you RNG into meeting good creatures, and it is almost useless at Basic, barring extreme RNG where you get perfect stacks to complement your army, because the price is insane.
I think scouting is cool, but it's just not worth wasting a skill slot on
Thanks for watching! You know, same. I don't think any skill is actually terrible, it's just that I prefer some over others. In tier lists, something has to be S and something has to be F or D or whatever the lowest tier is.
We are living in a world where people are not just making heroes 3 videos, but heroes 2 videos, of all things. What is even going on
Someone has to.
@KhelbensCoinTV I agree and thank you for doing so!! It is much appreciated
Necromancy is only good if you are playing with an undead town because having skeletons in your army reduces the morale of your troops by 2 (1 for undead creatures and 1 for different alignment). So yeah its S tier if the rest of your army is also undead.
Diplomacy has one super strong use. If you somehow can get ghosts you will snowball extremely hard (extra ghosts stay after battle).
It's very hard to get Ghosts to join even with Expert Diplo and massive stacks, I think it's even scripted in HoMM 2 campaigns and some maps so that Ghosts never join.
Heheh navigation at c
Oh noes, your poor potatos are always getting slapped it seems! Now they will be extra crunchy with bones n whatnot!
Necromancy skill is only good if you're playing Necro. Skeletons are otherwise bad for morale.
For sure, any undead will hurt your Morale. It's S-Tier because it means free troops, which I find to be incredibly impactful. Skeletons aren't easy to use since they're pretty slow, but they're a surefire late-game way to drop huge stacks of enemy creatures. Necromancy is how you're going to get that, so it's S-Tier for me.
Diplomacy does not only increase the chance that troops join your army for a fee, but also that troops join your army for free. It is one of the most impactful skills in the game, not only in endgame, therefore it is A tier at least, if not S tier. Archery is not A tier, rather B or C. I think you also underestimate scouting, because you don't atively notice the difference while playing - should be D or even C. I would agree with the rest.
Agree about Diplomacy!
Nah, it's shit if you play stacks of doom playstyle. Literally worse than Eagle Eye on a Barbarian without a spell book.
I picked up three massive hoards of Orc Chiefs with Diplomacy. With a stack of 2.5K, I dropped stacks of 40 red dragons with the KNIFE.
No, Archery is right where it's supposed to be. There are only 3 Skills directly affecting combat: Leader/Luck/Archery, and Archery is the strongest, giving +50%. It can be weaker or stronger depending on the faction and total army composition, but it makes a big impact in almost every fight, it's especially noticeable because the game is very binary in some aspects: If you can kill enemy fliers (or just very fast units in general) before they block your Druids/Elves, it is truly massive, since even 1 puny Sprite or Gargoyle left in a stack can make your big ranged unit stack waste the entire turn dealing with it.
Diplomacy is just terrible on smaller maps, it only shines at Expert. At Advanced it can only be good if you RNG into meeting good creatures, and it is almost useless at Basic, barring extreme RNG where you get perfect stacks to complement your army, because the price is insane.
And the problem is also level up RNG, like you may not get it to Expert in 10 levels after you pick it up, and your analysis did not take the map size, level up RNG, and staggered benefits into account.
It cannot be A tier for the same reason Navigation cannot be A tier overall. It's too map dependent.
Once again, it seems that this is based exclusively on PvE exp.
In PvP, Scouting and Diplo would be significantly higher, whereas Necro would defly be lower
Diplomacy should be D tier and Archery S tier!
Since I published this video, I've come around a bit on Diplomacy and might rank it higher. I agree that Archery is incredible, but it depends on the army you build. I personally prefer fliers and ranged units, so Archery is usually important to me, but I could see how someone who prefers grounded melee units would want to rank something like Ballistics higher than Archery.
@@KhelbensCoinTV the problem is: diplomacy costs a LOT of money and if you refuses, the creatures get offended and attack you EVERY SINGLE TIME. In late game this become boring as hell! THe creatures dont flee away anymore in with your army of 75 black dragons you need to fight 5 groups of 15 mutants zomboes who get offended. Its not a practical skill 🤦♂
@@KhelbensCoinTV and I cant see how someone can rank ballistic hogher than archery. Ballistics is so situational...
- Necromancy is only useful for Necromancers, so due to similar logic as you had for navigation, it can't be S tier. I'll put it in B.
- Wisdom isn't that great. Sure, high-level spells are basically game-breaking, but by the time you have them, the game should basically be over. I'll again put it in B.
- Leadership is better than luck, since if you kill a stack, leadership allows you to go again, while luck does nothing for you. Leadership goes in A.
Everything else is fine.
Eagle Eye is easily the worst skill (with the exceptions of Navigation without water and Pathfinding without rough terrain.) It's never helped me. You are on the nose about Diplomacy. It sucks when you'd rather an enemy party run away than offer to join and attack when you don't accept. I might even hate Diplomacy more than Eagle Eye, even though it has better potential. I have never been able to use it effectively. Both skills need to be at Expert level to get the full benefit, and one is usually choosing other skills.
Thanks for watching! I agree with all of this, and I, too, have never used Diplomacy effectively. My Twitch chat regulars influenced my thinking on Diplomacy for this list; they have had plenty of examples of when it's worked great for them, so I had to respect that.
Necromancy S tier is nonsense. D tier at best. In order for it to be useful, you have to be an expert necromancer, have an undead army to avoid morale issues, and be on a map with lots of weak creatures so you get tons of skeletons. There's like 1 or 2 maps where it might be useful. Ludicrous ranking.
Very solid take, completely agree. Most players are noobs, which is understandable since the game is very old and most played it as children.
Morale isnt a problem of you have lots of dragons 🤷♂️😂
I genuinely value scouting about 5 times as much on Fheroes2.
Increase the resolution just a little bit and suddenly it alleviates a claustrophobia that's not so present in 640x480.
It's a quality consolation prize. Feels super good to have on widescreen or if you like resolutions pushing 600-700 lines (Especially 1024x768 or 720p)
If I'm picking between two low-tier skills it's scouting for me dawg. Navigation and Mysticism btfo in most situations.
I would put logistics In A tier in a game that has unlimited dimension doors, and town portal (Pathfinding in C, as its not uniwersał).
Your movies are nice. You even describe game breaking tactics (As we played we tried not to use them). Heroes 2 become obsolete with Heroes 3 Succesion wars Mod - this i off course individual, as some prefer free heroes 2, but for me H3SW is best heroes game, and frankly best game ever (I always preferred H2 style over H3) - you should explore it (off course H3 skills list (especially magic skills) is breaking this list (welll... all lists) , and scouting is not that bad if you get +2 radius each level as they balanced many things).
Let me give you another opinion: in your movie about Town types, you did not give much credit to elves - off course I agree with most of what you say, but for me, elves+druids+barbarian hero+archery (and full range in h2... heh) kills the game very early. Knight is actually good to as the point of the game is not to play ONLY one race, bu get early advantage, and then usually mix different types as the game progresses (ranger is actually overpowered - twice damage over 2level other units + range+archery. Peasasnt actually are not as useless as most think, as you can have like 200 ot them in the beginning, and everyone puts 1 dmg).... I could go on :P.
The game that has dimension doors and TP is an XL map game, which is only a smaller subset of all maps. Wisdom is next to useless on smaller maps, especially on higher difficulties. You also forgot the RNG. You might get the useless Hypnotize, NOT DD when you build GM level 5.
@@kane_lives All is dependent on the map and random chance, offcourse poor spells might break the game for you... or save if yo get lucky :)
Wisdom is not useless if game takes longer course (just like many other skills) on any size of the map.... yes you ca rush opponent.
I really don't understand your hard on for necromancy. It's only S tier for necromancers (who start with it anyway) as they can restock their cannon fodder after every battle. That's pretty important and helps them snowball. But for everyone else you're wasting a skill point, so you can waste a creature slot so it can waste your army's morale. What? How are 16 skeletons gonna help you win the game? By the time you get a serious amount of them, you already have 20 tier 6 units, so who even cares at that point. For non Necros it's a C, on par with diplomacy.
And you did Mysticism dirty, you don't always get to access a well, many maps don't even have them. Being able to cast a few extra spells can win you the game. It's B tier easily, no way it's below navigation. Navigation Is pretty useless even on maps with a lot of water, as you don't really spend that much time sailing anyway. 2-3 turns and you're back on land, it just never really pays off. But regenerating mana is always a good thing.
What are the other skills that give you free troops?
The criteria for ranking was heavily weighted toward the impact a skill has in-game. Having a way to get troops for free is, in my opinion, more impactful than just about any other skill except maybe Logistics. To your point about getting to, "a serious amount of them," you only need about 200 before they can begin one-shotting enemy stacks. Necromancers also start with the Haste spell, which can be used to get them into combat more quickly. And remember, even if the Skeletons suffer huge losses, most (if not all) are about to be replaced by new recruits thanks to Necromancy.
Yes, I do like Mysticism. I should also note that I don't actually think any skill isn't useful--the issue with tier lists is that something has to be S and something has to be F. You have to run the spectrum or else why have tiers? I had to do Mysticism and Scouting dirty to adhere to the format.
@@KhelbensCoinTV S tier means that it should always be prioritised over other skills, a no-brainer pick. That's true for Wisdom and movement skills, but certainly not for Necromancy.
Sure it does have the potential to snowball like crazy, but it requires the conditions to be just right.
You must get Necromancy and rank it up early, you have to free up a creature slot, conserve the skeletons in battle and have morale boosts. The map must be big with plenty of creeps, otherwise the skeletons are just a burden that never pays off.
For that reason it's on par with Diplomacy. A skill that will sometimes win you the game if stars align, but most of the time it's useless or even detrimental.
Unless I play as Necromancer or hire one, I don't see myself ever picking Necromancy over most other skills, even Eagle Eye and Scouting. Necromancy does nothing if you don't commit to it, it being free units doesn't mean anything when you consider the drawbacks. You're judging it based on the best case scenario, disregarding how inconsistent and demanding it is to make it work.
S tier for Necromancers or if you seriously focus on it, but for everyone else it's F.
The problem with Mysticism is that you can time your attack after a successful siege so that you end up with no movement turns precisely in a captured castle where you recover all the Mana. Or it's Day 7 and it makes more sense not to get a hero supply chain for whatever reason, as on Impossible difficulty that 2500 extra might be too expensive on a smaller map where every fight is do or die and you need the tiniest edge to win.
@@KhelbensCoinTV The problem with the line of reasoning concerning replacing a wiped out Skeleton stack lies in finiteness of stack slots themselves.
It's perfectly plausible to want 1 Gargoyle instead of say 30 Skeletons, because 1 Gargoyle can block an infinite stack or ranged units, making them waste their damage that turn completely.
On the other hand having like 30 skeletons is next to useless in a big battle since you would have to spend 3 turns before they get to block enemy stacks and you can only cast 1 spell per turn, and Haste on 30 Skellies can lose you the game once armies get big.
This tier list is way too map dependent. Too XL focused.
Wisdom is the biggest offender since it is virtually useless on Small maps, especially on higher difficulties. And even on XL you might win faster if you invest into Dragons/Titans depending on what map it is.
You also forgot the RNG.
You might get the useless Hypnotize, NOT DD when you build that GM level 5.
To even benefit from Wisdom you need tier 3 spells, and tier3 is arguably the worst tier of spells in the game. An even bigger problem is that the skill is NOT useful on its own, you need to invest A TON of resources first, and even then you are NOT guaranteed good spells due to RNG.
Its biggest problem is the opportunity cost: unless the map is huge, it's almost always better to invest into Titans/Dragons to win faster.
Scouting is F tier if you know the map and the map is very static or you save/load until you get a perfect turn, otherwise it is very useful.
Necromancy likewise is too weak on small maps, and too weak on Impossible difficulty as well, because Necro is terrible when it has no resources to quickly get to either Vampires or Liches.
Diplomacy in Heroes 2 is bad. Yes it is useful for the ending sure. 5 monster slots. Not 7. Where do you make room? You don't well. I like #3 more 7 slots monsters as well can wait as skipping sucks. That said I do go back to 1 and 2 every now and then still. 3 is the most go to.
You underestimate scouting and diplomacy. scouting c tier and diplomacy b tier. The rest are fine
Scouting also allows you to see exact numbers of monsters, armies and garnisons. This could actually give you valuable information. The extended view range is just a side effect.
I think the reason that warlock start with scouting is because they are scrying. And sorceresses have navigation because they read the stars in their druidic rituals.
I have no recall of scouting doing that. There is an artifact that does that and if you have enough thieves' guilds, it will provide more information. But not exact numbers. Scouting just does sight radius.
Leadership is A, Necro is B. Archery, wisdom and logistics are S, estate is B at best, scouting is B.
So hear me out!
Scouting: it gives you map awareness that can change important decisions! That can be game changing.
Necro: if you play as Necro then okey S, but for anybody else it's D or F. If i run with dragons, i don't want to drag 12 skeleton with me. They slows down heroes, ruining my moral ect.
Thanks for watching! I can completely understand the reasoning. My criteria heavily weighted a skill's impact on a game, so yes, while you wouldn't want the undead penalty on your morale, you have to admit a skill that amasses thousands of free units is pretty cool!
@@KhelbensCoinTV
Idk, in homm2 Necro never felt so as it does in 3. Could be just me, i mostly played other factions, cos dragons still op. Not as much in homm1 but still. And running skellies in an endgame seems off to me. Also combat speed irl is slow. I don't say they're bad. Additionally to that Necro town units in general are bad, but there is the vampire ofc. Depends on what do you factor in overall, right?
How in Gods holy name are you going to make Leadership B but Necromancy S!? Necromancy only serves the undead, it literally sabotages every other faction in the game. But leadership is HUGE for literally every faction except undead. Thise ratings should be swapped
Because Leadership doesn't give you loads of free troops.
@@KhelbensCoinTV but only the necros benefit from those troops everyone else loses turns due to bad morale, leadership gives you extra turns, why give your enemies turns? 🤣
Yeah. This list isn't about how many factions benefit from a skill, it's about the overall impact of it. A skill that gives you thousands of free troops has to be considered incredibly impactful, in my opinion.
If you flip it around, Leadership doesn't benefit Necromancers at all, but that's not really my point. I think Morale and Luck are both impactful, but not as much as the A- and S-tier skills I have listed.
Diplo is an absolute trash tier below F. When they offer Diplo and Eagle Eye to me, I pick the Eye (and I don't even have the spellbook).
Diplomacy on par with shitty ballistic? really? Diplomacy is S or A tier. Yes, you need at least advanced to have any use of it, it cost gold. But it WINS games. You dont aim to buy expensive stacks (vampire lords, grand druids, crusaders, titans etc.)until late game. Your target is low tier useful stacks - elves (and g. elves), orcs, halflings -mostly shooters or very useful melee ones - normal vampires, sprites etc. And the most important thing - it increases your chances that neutral stack will join for free - YES-FOR-FREE. Dont know what the math is but after playing almost all the maps (plus dozens from net) it is meaningful number. There are no drawbacks - if you dont want to buy neutral stack, just split your forces so there are no free unit slots - stack will act normally.
It's an absolute trash tier below sewers on isolated maps when you have to get to your opponent after 2-3 months.
Diplomacy is just terrible on smaller maps, it only shines at Expert. At Advanced it can only be good if you RNG into meeting good creatures, and it is almost useless at Basic, barring extreme RNG where you get perfect stacks to complement your army, because the price is insane.
And the problem is also level up RNG, like you may not get it to Expert in 10 levels after you pick it up, and your analysis did not take the map size, level up RNG, and staggered benefits into account.
It cannot be A tier for the same reason Navigation cannot be A tier overall. It's too map dependent.
Does it increase the chance of the troops wanting to join for free though? No such thing is mentioned in-game.
Wake of Gods fixed so many of these skills. It's worth checking out.
Before watching this, here's my ranking:
S: necro, logi, wis
A: arch, path, leader
B: est, luck
C: ball, myst, scout
D: diplo, navi
F: eeye
Pathfinding is a bit too high. From my knowledge of HOMM3 I know that it does absolutely nothing if you walk on dirt or grass, making it a situational choice.
Thanks for watching! It is definitely situational, but its impact is what vaulted it to S tier for me.
Most maps have rough terrain though, and when you need to flee from an enemy hero on that terrain it will save your life.
necromancery is not that good, because good player don t play one scenario for hundreds turns and don t have thousands of skeletons
All right, buddy. Take it easy.
Diplomacy is insane in Homm2…
Diplomacy is an easy F
100%
necromancy is hot garbage. even if you're playing necro, skeletons are glorified tissue paper, and you're already playing the worst faction.
I really like how they beefed up necromancy in H3 though, allowing your higher ranks to raise higher units. if necromancy in H2 could give me a fat stack of power liches, I'd be all over it. otherwise, pass.
I agree with almost everything you said except you put pathfinding in S tier. Ok on paper I agree no penalty on harsh terrain is good. However when I am playing this game, my main hero that is the hero that I usually use for capturing towns is mostly running on roads because in 99% times the roads lead to the enemy castle. My side heroes usually get the spoils after I capture the town. You are saying here that logistic and pathfinder are equal. They are not. Logistic is the best skill in the game as it favors every single faction and every hero no matter the situation. I went along with this video and I predicted all of your choices except diplomacy (that I think should be B tier, really think about it are navigation and diplomacy equal?) and pathfinder because the value you use it in a scenario is way way way less then you get from logistics ( Logistics always gives you a buff but pathfinder does not). Rant over. TL:DR I usually don't level pathfinder on my main hero till last/second to last because the value it gives me does not compare to the other skills. PS. Would you rather want on your main hero attacking a castle having expert pathfinding or expert leadership/luck?
Diplomacy C Tier... W...WHAT? Diplomacy is easily the most BROKEN skill along side with Necromancy and it is EASILY an S++ skill. Diplomacy completely breaks the game to the point that you don't have to spend gold on recruiting or even building anything in your towns.
You can attack tier 6 units and they will want to join you.
Pathfinding is B, it's really important on the maps with terrain and in mid to late game, but almost completely useless in the beginning of the game or on maps where there is no rough terrain. All other B~S skills are more useful in the beginning.
Estates B Tier, it's useful but there are better skills and 500 gold per day is not a lot when basic caches can give you more and there are artifacts that are on par or better than this skill.
Leadership B Luck D. There are artifacts that you can use instead of these skills so they can be dead weight in certain situations. Leaderships is better because it negates morale penalty and helps against the minus leadership mask and banner artifacts that chests or shipwrecks LOVE to give you, but luck is easily D because unluck almost doesn't even exist.
Ballistics is D because there is almost never a point where it is super useful. Magic, ranged and flying units are all superior to destroying walls.
Navigation is also D, it's great on water maps but they are rare and If you really want to explore water just hire a Sorceress hero and never put it on your main.
Mysticism is one of the worst skills in the game, the only worse skill is Eagle Eye. The abundance of wells and magic towers completely negate the pitiful amount that Mysticism grants you. With the artifact that increases it it would be a D tier but the chance of finding that exact artifact is super small.
Scouting should be solid C tier. Seeing further on the map and wasting less movement exploring less useful points on the map? It's like a less nerfed Logistics, a skill that is easy S tier.
I tried making it as clear as possible that my own personal experiences with Diplomacy are vastly unfavorable but that Twitch chat has continuously provided evidence to its value that I couldn't ignore that, otherwise, I'd have ranked it lower!!
I'm not exactly clear on your point about Leadership B and Luck D since each one has 3 artifacts that boost it by 1. I get that Bad Luck is not a mechanic in the game whereas Bad Morale is, so that's completely valid, but dealing double damage is too impactful for D-Tier in my opinion.
As for Navigation, please remember by stated criteria--the sheer impact a skill has was weighted heavily. Basic = +50% movement, Advanced = +100% movement, and Expert = +150% movement as compared to Logstics's +10/+20/+30% increase is too huge to ignore. That's especially if you agree that Logistics is S-Tier. I understand that Navigation doesn't matter on any land-based map and that most Campaign Scenarios are land-locked, but if you consider Standard Games, its importance increases slightly. Again, it's dependent on the map since even Standard Maps can be landlocked, but the *impact* of the skill still can't be denied. That's why I ranked it where I did.
Your point about Scouting is well-found! Other commenters on this video agree with you.
@@KhelbensCoinTV My ranking for the luck is because you have artifacts and land structures that can increase it. Each point in luck increase the chance to proc is about 4% so at lvl 3 it's "only" 12% chance. While that is actually very high considering that every stack in your army has 12% chance to trigger it I rate other skills higher because of the things I mentioned. Also I must mention that none of the skills except F are bad, they are ALL useful it's just that I based my rankings of them in therm of usefulness from the very beginning. That's why I say that Navigation is D, it's highly situational and chances are you will not have to use it on almost all the maps, even scenario ones in the first few days or first week in which case you have a high chance to recruit Sorceress hero that already starts with Navigation.
Yeah, the problem with tier rankings is that something HAS to be F and something HAS to be S. To your point, there are also artifacts and world map landmarks that can increase Morale as well, but I think you're saying Good Morale is simply more impactful than Luck, which is perfectly valid.
Show me a video where diplomacy won a game. I'll wait.
@@hunam3876 Just play it yourself, I don't know any and I couldn't care less to search for a video for you. I'm talking from my own experience so I suggest you do the same.
balistics, pathfinding, wisdom a step too high IMO
Wisdom could be higher :)
After mage guild level 5 it's a game of magic, not a might
I've got to be honest I have only played Homm3, so my experience may not translate exactly but the idea that Wisdom would be anything but the highest tier (though not necessarily the best) sounds absurd.
lol have fun crawling in the swamp
@@jjcasgg Dimension Gate goes brrr
ok only in late game if you have it xD
OK, so that creature tier list wasn't a fluke, you're just terrible at these. You barely mention the fact that a lot of these skills wildly vary in value depending on whether they are learned by an active or support hero, on the size of the map, on the terrain of the map, and on your faction. Now I'll give you examples. Estates is D tier on your primary hero because it gives you gold, but you waste much more gold by losing units in battles or being slow on the map because you didn't take something actively useful like Leadership or Logistics. Meanwhile it's A tier on a support hero, because now he's passively making you money while sitting around being part of a delivery chain. Diplomacy and Scouting are garbage on small maps, but amazing for your primary and scouting heroes respectively on big ones. Pathfinding and Navigation are both either useless on maps without their respective terrains (or if there's a good road network) or must-haves on maps with a lot of difficult terrain and navigable seas respectively. Ballistics is C tier for a Warlock or Sorceress, with their magic, shooting and flying units, but A tier for Knight and Barbarian, who will just sit there getting murdered by projectiles and magic during a siege, because their mostly melee units can't get to the enemy without it. Same with Archery, which is A-tier for Sorceress and Wizard, but only C tier for single, low tier ranged unit towns like Knight and Warlock.
There's literally no maps without slow terrain....
@@hunam3876 There are maps where there's very little difficult terrain and/or there's such a good road network, that the only prudent use you'll get out of Pathfinding is making your scouting hero capture off-road resource production buildings and collect random loot strewn around the swamp or desert faster.
On small maps you will not even get to maxing out your skills on your main hero if you know what you're doing, unless tha map is a very heavily scripted challenge scenario like Last Hope.
Estates also get stronger with difficulty, on Impossible difficulty you start with nothing and that extra gold lets you develop much quicker.
Ballistics is not C tier for Sorc for the same reason listed above: on small maps the game is often winnable on Impossible before you ever get to Phoenixes. And it REALLY helps to not get your fragile Elf/Druid stacks shredded by Castle turrets. In fact, Sorc might be the best in those situations: GM 2 is prohibitively expensive, Magic arrow is RNG, Sorc's default Bless spell is always useful, unlike Stoneskin/Curse that Warlock/Wizard get.
Archery is definitely not C tier for Knight. You are looking at the entire population, where Knight indeed only has 1 ranged unit. However, on Impossible it's very hard and very long to get there, and Knight's tier 1 is the worst, so unlike Barbarian it has to rely HEAVILY on Archers/Rangers to get anything done at all in the early game.
@@kane_lives Did you miss the whole part where my point was that the tier list would change heavily depending on circumstances before you wrote your big post about how the tier list would change depending on circumstances?
Also I still disagree with what you wrote. Even in those extremely specific situations, both Sorceress and Knight would have more helpful choices than Ballistics and Archery respectively.