Unkillable heroes

[rgp151]

Am I the only one running into unkillable or almost unkillable heroes on a regular basis?

Typically between turns 100 and 200 I run into at least one hero, sometimes more, that is stacked with practically every modifier and essentially unkillable.

It seems that Invulnerability is extremely common, and it might be the case that Weapon Immunity isn't working right or that the things that are supposed to defeat Weapon Immunity aren't working right. I've had things like multiple Ultra Elite Stag Beetle with Holy Weapon or Magical Weapons killed by a single Air Elemental without doing hardly nay damage to the Elemental. I've had Doom Drakes killed by Fire Elementals.

But anyway, with heroes I recently faced a Zaldron that was I think level 3 (Commander), that had just about every modifier. He had Invisibility, but wasn't invisible, but it may have been making him harder to hit. He had Invulnerability, "Invisibility", Magic Immunity, Guardian Wind, Death, Phantasmal (I think it was called Illusion), plus other stuff like Elemental Armor, Flaming, Water Walking, etc. His ranged attack was 17.

He was 1 shotting pretty much everything. I had Chaos Channeled Stag Beetles and Paladins and with Magical Weapons against him, and I had Warp Reality in effect. I'm not sure if there was maybe a bug with Warp Reality. But anyway, the Paladins were unable to damage him and he wiped the whole stack.

I run into these types of heroes in every single game somewhere between turn 100 and 200. Sometimes they have attacked my capital, sometimes not. Another really bad one was a fairly high level Shuri, like a Lord, with all those same types of modifiers and Regeneration and she had a bow with Death that was again one-shotting every single unit she attacked.

Am I the only one seeing this?

[Aunty Herbert]

Haven't had that kind of encounter so far, so I at least can give you the feedback, that the "it happens every single game to me" part of your question indicates either a very freak storm of statistical exceptions on your side, or you found a difficulty setting, that really messes up the RNG results.
Meeting a commander or lord in the wilds does happen on occasion, though.

[parabolgravity]

I've seen instances where the A.I. benefits more on the to hit and damage roll with the same units and modifiers.
I've also seen A.I. heroes highly resistant to damage while inflicting ridiculous damage or one shotting troops.
I also sent in a bug report regarding a Weapon Immunity bug and posted on the discord after a stack of 2 Elven Lords with a Halberdier and a few other minor units ravaged a pair of my Air Elementals despite not having enchanted weapons, mithril, or adamantium.
In regards to the Weapon Immunity, the feedback I received amounted to "working as intended".

I love the game and loved the original, but I'm getting to old for the A.I. cheese. The double standard is not fun at all.

Regarding the A.I. heroes; I've read similar reports/posts. I think it amounts to the A.I. receiving item offers from merchants and due to the income advantage on the higher difficulty settings, their heroes are equipped with doom/chaos weapons, and armor/miscellaneous items that give them a tremendous advantage (I.E. invulnerability, lion heart, etc). Simply put, these are items that would require a considerable mana reserve and a high casting skill to cast in under 20 turns with the create artifact spell. If this is accurate, it needs to be nerfed or there should be a selection to remove merchant offers; and no, they are not mutually exclusive to random event settings.

In the original game, items like that were only available from merchants at the very end game when things were pretty much already decided, or you might find something moderately nice (but not nearly as overpowered) by clearing a node of absurd difficulty such as being guarded by multiple drakes, wyrms, or top tier flying/invisible units.

[Aunty Herbert]

Originally posted by parabolgravity:

I love the game and loved the original, but I'm getting to old for the A.I. cheese. The double standard is not fun at all.

I have found somewhat strong arguments fo my thesis, that just setting all "Difficulty" ratings to "Master" has very bad results for the internal game balance.
The "AI" can't really deal properly with its amount of free stuff, and a lot of ugly stuff keeps happening. Muha clearly isn't done playtesting this settings.

I personally prefer using the "official" difficulty settings and stay away from any customization so far.
Bjarne.Lindhe was willing to test my hypothesis and is on a personal quest to exactly test out, what custom settings actually produce the effective "highest difficulty rating", in that it allows the Wizards to behave least dumb and then try to make up for it with random OP BS.

My tip to both of you, maybe try a different difficulty setting, and you might have much more fun with the game.
My tip to Muha, if some employee reads that: Put a warning sticker somewhere visible to avoid losing frustrated customers, after having them experiment mostly in game regions, that you have to yet gametest properly.

I do NOT know, how that exactly influences the very high powered random events, like hero, mercenary and especially vendor visits. May be their impact on the game should be toned down quite a bit.

[rgp151]

I do think it has to do with the item merchant and the amount of gold AI wizards have access to. It seems that they are getting tons of absurd items early and often.

I do recall also my very first game when I found Freya around turn 20 and when I tried to trade with her she had armor with Magic Immunity and Regeneration already. I was pretty shocked, like Wow and was hoping I would be able to get it from her. Sure enough, I later came across a hero of hers wearing that armor, but upon killing them and winning the battle I didn't get the item, which was a bummer. But yeah, that one really stood out and seeing such a high powered item so early in the game.

[AlienGeek]

There is that mod on Nexus that maybe would resolve that issue:
https://www.nexusmods.com/masterofmagic/mods/9

[Big Dog]

I haven't played this game yet, but I remember either in the original or in the caster of magic mod you needed to find a way to bypass armor to deal with some high level things / heroes.

[easytarget]

I recall running into a ninja that kicked my butt.

[Jimib4158]

i would bet, could be wrong, that it is usually either magic immune .....or high physical resistence, usually not both.

Make sure your main army is high on both types of damage, magic and mundane

[bjarne.lindh]

Originally posted by rgp151:

I do think it has to do with the item merchant and the amount of gold AI wizards have access to. It seems that they are getting tons of absurd items early and often.

I do recall also my very first game when I found Freya around turn 20 and when I tried to trade with her she had armor with Magic Immunity and Regeneration already. I was pretty shocked, like Wow and was hoping I would be able to get it from her. Sure enough, I later came across a hero of hers wearing that armor, but upon killing them and winning the battle I didn't get the item, which was a bummer. But yeah, that one really stood out and seeing such a high powered item so early in the game.

Yes, since we cant loot items when killing heros we cannot always be sure but I have met many heroes with magicimmunity or invulnerability and since those wizards didnt have those schools it must have been the merchant... It could also be lairloot ofc but I dont think so, for some reason you get very few really good items lairlooting but an insane amount of good spells instead. I have in 17 games only ONCE looted an item as good as what the merchant offers me! And I tend to loot atleast 90 % of existing lairs...

[Mors Avis]

My current "unkillable", running around, one-shotting armies ....

Theria, the Thief
Melee - 14
Ranged - 0
Armour - 19
Resistance - 42
Hits - 10
Movement - 7

She's got Charmed, Lucky, Flight and tons of armour from her Agility trait, resistance, and invulnerability.

I'ts turn 120.

I think my hero has the Branch of Magic.

Originally posted by rgp151:

I do think it has to do with the item merchant and the amount of gold AI wizards have access to. It seems that they are getting tons of absurd items early and often.

I do recall also my very first game when I found Freya around turn 20 and when I tried to trade with her she had armor with Magic Immunity and Regeneration already. I was pretty shocked, like Wow and was hoping I would be able to get it from her. Sure enough, I later came across a hero of hers wearing that armor, but upon killing them and winning the battle I didn't get the item, which was a bummer. But yeah, that one really stood out and seeing such a high powered item so early in the game.

I'm inclined to agree here, having just played a Klackon game where I was drowning in gold. By the end of it, some of the magic items the merchants were coughing up were insane. I could easily see the AI exploiting this avenue behind the scenes.

Any items the AI Wizards might gain by "cheating" almost certainly impact the player's experience.

[Qoojo]

I was watching Dastactic today and he mentioned this exact problem. After turn 100, unkillable heroes and he is a pretty good player and streamer of these sorts of games.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally posted by Archon:

My current "unkillable", running around, one-shotting armies ....

Theria, the Thief
Melee - 14
Ranged - 0
Armour - 19
Resistance - 42
Hits - 10
Movement - 7

She's got Charmed, Lucky, Flight and tons of armour from her Agility trait, resistance, and invulnerability.

I'ts turn 120.

Theria the Thief can become unkillable without too much difficulty.

Had her, running around slaughtering enemy mage cities, solo in 1 game. Of course, this is after she already cleared all the lairs in the area.

She could use a nerf, IMO.

[Mors Avis]

Originally posted by Dorian Gray:

Originally posted by Archon:

My current "unkillable", running around, one-shotting armies ....

Theria, the Thief
Melee - 14
Ranged - 0
Armour - 19
Resistance - 42
Hits - 10
Movement - 7

She's got Charmed, Lucky, Flight and tons of armour from her Agility trait, resistance, and invulnerability.

I'ts turn 120.

Theria the Thief can become unkillable without too much difficulty.

Had her, running around slaughtering enemy mage cities, solo in 1 game. Of course, this is after she already cleared all the lairs in the area.

She could use a nerf, IMO.

At the very least, it would be nice to be able to see what items the enemy heroes have equipped, if only to see if you even have a chance at beating them.

I'd rather pack the game up altogether than waste my time fighting a losing battle with no counter play.

She's only a Commander. So, that gives her melee +3 / armour + 2/ resist + 3 / hits + 3 / +20% To Hit / cumulative

But she's also pulling in an additional:

+6 melee
+8 armour (sans agility bonus) - [appears to be from two +4 items ]
+ resistance is from charmed (but there is at least one additional bonus)

At the beginning of battle, she gets True Sight cast on her, which is the only enchantment I can dispel, not that it matters; I have no blue magic that can touch her.

She also gets Endurance cast on her, from time to time, because movement 7 isn't fast enough, apparently. lol

[Thewizardlord]

I've personally run into such things once and I took him down with catapults.

I think it's important to note that all heroes have the potential to become OP with right artifact,there no point nerfing one by one

Also this is only a "problem" if the AI is getting this extraordinarily early say turn 50-60 and it's not at Master Ai. If you are turn 100+ , certainly 200 and you see this, it's not a problem because as a human you could easily field equally powerful heroes and units.

Sidenote this situation also shows the remake AI is in some ways better than classic since you never had this issue in classic?

I think a lot of people also need a refresher on hero killing tactics before saying a game is unwinnable, even l learnt quite a bit reading replies on how to beat heroes

With all due respect to Das, he isn't really that good

[rgp151]

Looks like another game to be lost to an unkillable hero. Lord Valana with Stoning, Death, Merging, Lionheart, Invulnerability, Wraith Form, Regeneration, Iron Skin, Immolation, and Magic Immunity. 24 shields and 18 swords.

I thought I was going to be able to Crack's Call her, but nope. I guess the Wraith Form or the Merging prevents that. I don't think there is any way to do damage to her at all. In theory Catapults, but I've hit her 3 times with a Catapult and no damage.

I mean I guess I could win by SoM, but I'm close to winning by conquest and not sure I've got it in me to wait out another 100 turns for the SoM.