Arbitrary hero death

[avenger94]

Apologies in advance, I am still seething.
So, I dont get much time to play games these days, but WBC series has been one that I love and have loved since a child. In the past 2 - 3 years I have worked one one character, gradually building her up when I could. So yeah, she was not as strong as she would have been had I had time, but she was damn good and I invested a lot in her. She was built on Ironman mode just so I could level her without having to play for years at a time.... You can see where this is going.
Today, whilst playing a skirmish against a level 3 AI (cant remember the tier names) she got hit by a Wight and a Slayer Knight and just... Died. Outright. From full 480hp.
This is despite her being at full health, having +11 armour vs Slashing and wearing a set of named magical armour and having the Ultimate Troll Ring. Two hits and dead.
Yeah, so I uninstalled the game and im now considering what to do, but what the hell happened?

[Buldor]

Publicado originalmente por Tetsuri:

Publicado originalmente por riinagaja:

That monk was a barbarian, so using ice with mainly Freeze or Ice Floe against assassins was indeed the plan.

However, there is another way I found to survive late game as a mage, so my second ironman character concept is focused on the save scumming chaos mage. ...Maybe not all too legal to be considered a legitimate build, but it works. Currently with level 19 hero, my retinue and even normal troops if necessary are already combat 50-99 monsters that will be able to counter said high level combat heroes.
...Hopefully, - at least that is the plan. Still working on it since I currently don't know how to train more efficiently than repeating the lizardman repeatable mission. I got him 19 combat thanks to a giant's helm, but travel is still too scary to risk.

Forenote: Not Protector's Mod.

the game is designed for lower level play. Most heroes will do better at lower levels, and will finish the game at lower levels. If you're using units and retinue, then you need charisma, or else you wouldn't be able to bring your retinue units out. Even then, the campaign restricts the amount of deployment points depending on the scenario. The best retinue unit is Archon. A high level one can pretty much solo the game... if your hero level is ~ <30. The only starting unit that can threaten one is a high level minotaur king. It costs 12+ points to deploy just a single archon. 18 points for a level 19 one: 34 combat, 440 hp, 24 speed, 103 damage.

As for high level anything not strength hero. That archon would one shot you. A high level priestess can probably one shot you. So for you, it's entirely a units game. But the higher level you go, the higher the discrepancy will become between a strength hero and everything else. Once you're level 30 plus, a combat hero becomes able to destroy an archon. They can destroy a minotaur king. They will tank whatever units you're making because they have HP. You can't win except for AI making dumb moves. That's just reality.

But combat heroes are also at a disadvantage early game. They are too slow without dexterity, and they can't take hits if they spend too many points in dexterity. That's why they are harder to build and can die more easily Early, and by early, I mean probably the first 25 levels. It's even harder if you want them to cast any spells. They won't have mana/will spellcast fail unless you have some int/other spellcasting skills, which take away from their combat. That's also reality. Note: When I say combat, I don't mean the combat stat, but their overall combat ability= damage, tankage, speed, combat, and hp recovery. Just a high combat stat doesn't actually mean anything.

All this means wat you're trying to do will work for as long as you're not really trying to build to level 40+ and are actually going to finish the game. Certain builds will even feel like power houses for awhile, until they aren't. Charisma "merchant" build's actually quite good with like Empire, as you can just spam out archons and get them in retinue immediately.

A High Elf Archmage has access to the Life Ward + Arcane bomb that was removed for any other combination.

This means you can decimate a high level Str hero, a titan, a base, and several dragons and whatever, in a single spell. Which with the right items, and using arcane to boost range, you can cover the entire corner of the largest map, essentially turning a mage into a tactical nuke every 2mins. Whilst only requiring enough mana to use the 3 spells (range, life ward, destruction). The rest going into health to boost said nukes damage.

[Tetsuri]

that sounds cool. I'd have to try it. 2 minutes is kind of slow though.