Skill build

[DecayWolf]

So, playing H3 campaign for the first time. Shadow Death the new beginning.

Gem starts with First aid and Wisdom.
Since I'm new and all that, I though the game would be minimaly balanced.
I tried the following set up

Gem: First aid, Wisdom, Water Magic, Archery, Luck, Armorer, Logistics, Tactics.
Clancy: Resistance, Pathfinder, Logistics, Artillery, Earth Magic, Offense, Luck, Archery.

For starters, while Water has some useful buffs, it's a terrible school for a mage hero, which can easily acquire 20+ Spell Power, since these points will become wasted.
The damage scale from frost spells is so ridiculous overshadowed by all other schools, it's just ridiculous unbalanced. Furthermore, the spell Mirth seems bugged since my units doesn't seems to trigger morale, like ever, and this campaign I'm fighting necro, so forgetfulness is useless.
Still bless and prayer sound cool, but I don't need 20+ SP for that.
Also clancy's artillery was utterely wasted, since I depend entirely on a castle which has a ballista... Nice game design... Not to mention it has a kinda crap damage...
I mean, I think it's worth on a faction which starts with them, has a higher chance of getting attack parameter on level up, archery skill and luck skill, in order to have a decent damage output, but for Clancy? Wasted skill slot.

Was on map 3, but decided to restart to try a new build.
Currently on map 2.

Gem: Wisdom, Fist Aid, Sorcery, Armorer, Earth Magic and Luck.

I choose Earth because it's one of the schools with the highest chance of appearing on the level up. It also has the highest potential damage. Mass slow is also broken OP. Further more Stone Skin + Shield have synergy with Armorer. My goal is to keep the enemies away and when they engage they'll take forever to kill things, while I murder them with implosion/meteror shower, simple and yet effective.

Still, I got 2 open slots, here is the reason of this thread, help me to decide.
Thinking about.

1 - Logistics.
2 - Archery or Estates.
The good about archery: Extra damage.
The bad: Only 1 ranged unit. Mage hero, so very low attack parameter (level 15 had only 1!).
Estate at least could be helpful.

I know Offense is better than archery for this faction, but the chances of getting Offense with a Druid is simply unrealistic to expect.

Clancy: Resistance, Pathfinding, Archery, Armorer, Water School, Estate.
Last two, possibly: Luck, Wisdom.

The idea for Clancy is having the strongest as possible general, with the support from the best magic buffs which doesn't require that many points into knowledge/spell power to be effective.
Also this build should be about hitting hard and fast. I know I should've taken Offense instead of Estate, but I'm playing on the Impossible difficult (it's very easy actually), having extra cash early, is sort of helpful.
Further more, thus far, Gem is a better overall hero all around, when it comes to the big decisive battles I'd prefer to use her rather than him, so that means he would end contributing more with Estate, since he won't need Offense to clean and get stuff against naturals and minor enemy generals. Still I'm really unsure about this, I have a save file from before taking Estate, so if I need to roll back, I'll be abled to.

It's kinda of a shame that both Gem and Clancy start with useless skills, or rather inferior choices...

Not taking tactics because Gem has slow and Clancy will have Prayer. Also golden dragon is the third fastest unit in the game.
Anyways, opinions?

[Giblets]

Impossible difficulty? yikes.. i barely do it on easy. Some how the computer seems to get hordes of units in such a short time and i'm faffing around with just a handful.
I did manage to complete the elixir of life, but new beginning i struggle with the second level.

Anyway, i wouldn't waste and skills of Estates, there's loads of ways of making lots of money. and Luck is a bit pointless if you've got artifices and visit boosters pre battle.. i do like selecting luck when there's nothing else worth having... but i wouldn't listen to me 'm pretty rubbish as this game lol

[DecayWolf]

Estates is a very userful skill on impossible! :) Completely worth it, besides it still is possible to make a combat beast with it, on secondary class combat heroes, not 100% dedicated to battle,, that is.
There's a couple months since I played this game, probably I did some build improvements by then. However I remember it was possible to make both Gem and Clancy combat hero beasts, though an argument can be made that only one combatant hero will actually be needed, still I remember two being userful to push into to directions different directions, either to kill the AI faster and more efficiently (though player's armies will be split, where AI won't), or to cover & conquer the map faster, which is essential, especially on map 3. (Map 3 it really did paid off, map 4 also has somewhat alright)

I have completed only one campaign on impossible thus far, then kinda got bored... I mean, the game is sort of unbalance but it's fun, if one ignores how atrocious inbalanced it's, also I can live with these graphics, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the story writting is awful, it's really bad. Besides, I don't think there's much more to be seen in terms of new content or challenge to be had, so...

As for AI difficult... First map was the most annoying because Gem start low level, but the map offers the player 3 cities and also ain't hard to acquire more. slightly annoying map, but felt fair and well designed and balanced, once Gem wins the first confrotation battle against the AI, it's only a matter of keep pushing and the map is pretty much over.
Infact I think HoMM 3 has a lot of cases of 1 battle and map is over afterwards, since the AI has absolutely no chance of coming back.

From map 2 to 4 the gap difference keeps getting larger and larger, simply put starting with a over developed hero, is a very one sided case scenario. The map design does not seem to scale very well towards it, not anywhere close to HoMM V, where the hardest difficult can actually be hard in some maps, even with the most perfect build.
On map 4, where it supposed to be a 3v1 battle, it turned to be one of the easiest maps that I've ever played in any HoMM game.
First because the other two AIs were locked behind a locked doors which they couldn't get away, so it turned more into a "watch me destroy your allies, while you tremble in fear"
However, I crushed the AI so badly on this map, that I kinda felt bad for him/them, if it was a human being it would forever remember the humuliating shame.
I guess the first battle the AI had a slightly bigger army, but Gem was so OP that she barely lost any unit, and then she just keep pushing and taking everything from any AI, absolutely nothing could put anything anywhere close to be called as a 'resistance'. The other two AI's never stood a chance...
My point is, impossible can be annoying on the first map on the campaign, but if you build your hero well, it will become gradually easier, extremely easy actually.

[Silver]

Honestly, if you ask me, the only mandatory skill you need to have are:

Wisdom (duh),
Logistics (speed is key in Heroes 3, and it can save your neck when being pursued)
and
Earth Magic (Resurrection, mass slow, mass shield, mass stoneskin, max damage for Meteor Shower, Town Portal town of your choice)

Skills you should avoid are Ballistics (not many Castle or Dungeon towns in SoD), Eagle Eye, Diplomacy, Sorcery and First Aid.

All others are worth considering, although I would place emphasis on always learning other schools of magic too.

At the end of the day, keep in mind that the campaign description is LYING to you:

You DO NOT GET TO CARRY YOUR SKILLS OVER TO THE NEXT CAMPAIGN.

They are randomly generated the first time you start the next campaign, you have to restart the scenario to get a new set of expert skills.

At the end of the day, what matters most is your ability to play the game efficiently, than skill builds, so I would not worry about them too much.

[Giblets]

i think taking Ballistics is great, love having two shots and double damage, skills off enemy units quite effectively. While not many towns have the ability to build one there are always places to buy them.

Skills do carry on from scenario to scenario, obviously they don't cross over to the next campaign because you're using a different character and town, and story line.

[DecayWolf]

Depends.
IIRC Balistics increases damage by attack only (some time last I checked), which then favours might heroes. Some factions has a increased attack chance per level up, than others. Stronghold being on the lead.

There's also so many factions which can build one in their castle. In campaign some maps will not have ballista at disposal, renting the skill useless.

Lastly, ballista synergizes well with ranged units, to overpower the enemy by beating him into submission on a ranged warfire.

All in all, ballista for a might stronghold hero can be a decent enough choice. Ballita for a mage hero with very low attack parameter growth, without ballista on castle/town for the choosen faction would be a terrible choice however. Even worse if said faction does not even have a great ranged units to synergizes with it.

[Silver]

Originally posted by Giblets:

Skills do carry on from scenario to scenario, obviously they don't cross over to the next campaign because you're using a different character and town, and story line.

You use the same characters in later campaigns.

[DecayWolf]

Originally posted by Silver:

Originally posted by Giblets:

Skills do carry on from scenario to scenario, obviously they don't cross over to the next campaign because you're using a different character and town, and story line.

You use the same characters in later campaigns.

Yeah, but I also read somewhere else that the skills previously learned, doesn't matter, because all skills will be randomly generated.