There is no reason to ever have a Modeus unless you use cheats

[cbinetti]

A Modeus, without using cheats for money for nothing at least, is not worth it. It does fire damage, like a locked cultist, does less of it before you know it, has much less xp and has no offensive special abilities. It does have Fire Ward, which is nice, but this does not overcome the huge advantages of locked cultists or even perhaps locked sorcerors over modei. Locked Demonologists and Locked Pandemoni are useless outside of cheating too. For that matter, Doppelgangers seem pretty useless in a non-cheating game as well Succubi. Incubi and locked witches and locked hags all have value though. End-stage classes are usually less effective than locked classes for Legions casters, a rule that extends I believe to many of the caster trees, with a partial exception for undead, whose archer-casters are great. Only Incubi are effective amongst end-stage Legions caster classes and I think that Witches and even Hags are better than Incubi at times.

[︵djolaf]

I totally agree with this. I remember opening Disciples 2 for the first time and I saw that Legions had new upgrades for casters. For modeus, I thought that now Legions can have a caster that's as strong as a lich, but the Undead now got an archlich which has completely bonkers damage! So, this made Modeus completely useless, since now he's as powerful as a lich, but requires so much more XP to get and upgrade.
I like the idea of Hags and Succubi, but the entire polymorph mechanic is a bit glitchy and Succubi have 40% chances to hit, which is disgustingly low.

[Vambran]

I understand but its part of game balance. Empire along with Dwarfs have the strong Fighters. Undead have strong casters. ECT.

I think for legion they wanted them to have the best Large Units.

[︵djolaf]

Yes, there is a balance, but I believe the OP's point was that there shouldn't be a unit that you NEVER want to pick, because he's simply the worst in any situation!

Some units are weaker but upgrade really fast, so you might want to pick them in longer games, some units take a long time to upgrade but have a special ability that is really useful, or something else. Modeus has nothing special, needs more XP and is just a bit better than pandemoneus in terms of damage and hp. He could have something interesting, like initiative or chances to hit, that would make him a more useful option. This could be made in a mod or something, if people are interested. And there are already some mods that make things more balanced, I just never played them, so I can't tell you more.

[cbinetti]

I think that you understand my point. I do not take mods into consideration because the available ones change the game too much. The core game in Rise of the Elves has relatively few flaws and I prefer to play it as is. It is more balanced than many mods. There is the mage leader nerf issue, but I have not noticed it that much, I am not sure why. As for Modei, I would rather have even Doppelgangers over them. Admittedly, I would take Hags or Incubi usually but Doppelganers could be interesting. My problem with them is that I just do not think that they belong in the front row and so they are backrow cloggers competing with my locked cultist and sorceror units and my Counselor and Arch-Devil heroes. But I would take them over Modei unless i am playing myself and using cheat codes. When you take the Modeus branch, you give up your opportunity to take another end-game unit but you do not gain anything over locked low-level units like cultists or sorcerors. I prefer locked Hags or even Witches to Succubi. I know how many people prefer Incubi but that takes a long time to get Incubi and 65 percent chance to hit is inconsistent when I want to lock down one unit. I like 80 percent chance to polymorph better. Also, incubi are useless against werewolves and they do not help much against heavy armor, witches take care of both. Witches are harder to use but you do get them very quickly and they save you lots of money in upgrade buildings if you do not bother to upgrade them to hags. If You invest in a strong frontline, a locked cultist and locked with combination can work well.