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What has been your favourite hero before this point?
Within this version of WBC3, which race do you prefer playing the Summoner, and at what level cap do you think their gameplan is most effective? Do you put points into any skills besides Summoning&Arcane Spell Trees for higher level spells? I assume the army of choice would be Daemons.
Heroes reduces the chance of assassination against them by half the hero level. So a level 50 hero reduces the Assassination % by 25%-points. So in my opinion, the Assassin "falls off" as the level limit increases. They will reach the attack speed cap and they need to constantly invest in the Assassination skill if they want to duel enemy heroes, or divert their investment in other stats/skills, making them less effective at what they initially did.
Also, since Assassination is 1000 "true" damage, a high level, high health characters(Dark Dwarf, Dwarf, Swarm, Warrior class, in any combination) with a high combat stat can potentially outlast and kill Assassins. Especially if they have access to Healing.
Another way is to focus on debuffs. Disease, Fear and Awe(and Terror) can be pretty powerful tools in terms of debuffs. Against Assassins, which rely a lot on attack speed, I would say using either Fear or Awe is pretty good. The issue is that Assassins have high Dex, and so a high resistance. And if they pass the check, they become immune to further psyche conditions for a while.
Other debuffs, that cant be resisted, would be from spells. Freeze will debuff both speed and attack speed, making kiting a bit easier/gives you a chance to reach safety, or potentially let you fight the assassin. An Ice Floe focused hero(Barbarian Monk, maybe?) can kite most enemies to death, but require a fairly high level to do so(18 in Ice Magic for a decent duration and effect of both Freeze and Ice Floe, as well as high Mighty Blow for damage bonus).
Assassins have fairly low health(relatively), since they want to focus on Dexterity for the attack speed. Certain units and spells will chunk them pretty hard.
And then there is the option of simply ignoring the assassin "counter play" and simply focus on winning directly. The assassin is not a strong economic leader, nor a leader of armies. As the level limit increases, your potential economical, army boosting and spell casting strengths are enhanced greatly, to the point where you can outplay the assassin hero(since they require a lot of constant micro to do well, often at the expense of base building/leading armies effectively, because they constantly need good targets to be worth the effort).
In my opinion, there are far more scarier combinations, at least at higher levels of play(level limit 50 or so). Assassins are extremely potent at what they do, but 1-dimensional and falls off at a certain point.
Some examples(note that these heroes does not necessarily lead their race army):
Dark Elf Archmage.
- Has synergy in summoning magic(and is the primary offensive focus), but due to having access to both Alchemy and Divination as well, can benefit most armies(great for economy and for boosting xp).
With Illusion magic, you can also control enemy armies through fear, awe and terror, or slip into the enemy base with Invisibility to release a horde of Imps and Eye of Oros(excellent at soaking attacks), then teleport out with Summing's Home Portal. And Dark Elf heroes have Lore, so they got plenty of mana.
And even if Assassination is not good for hero duels at higher levels(at least as a tertiary skill), it is still a good skill for dealing with regular units. So once you have all the core "caster" stats and skills up and working, you can become a semi-slayer too.
You dont get healing spells, but you can brew healing potions through alchemy, so at least you can keep yourself alive(also, being able to summon Golems is great for armies that usually lack crushing damage).
Overall, it is very hard to counter a high level Dark ELf Archmage, because it can practically do everything.
Wood Elf Summoner.
- Less diverse and flexible, but focuses on air and cavalry superiority. With 10 points in Sky Rune, every flier you produce(or summon) has +50% extra hits. Plays really well with the Barbarian faction, due to their strong Pegasi and their access to Summon Mana3. Access to Nature Magic means Entangle(great for escape or for catching enemies), and Summon Unicorns(which also benefit from summon mana upgrades) which helps keeping your cavalry and fliers healthy and free of disease and poison, as well as providing the Awe debuff. Summon Treant is also great early game, due to the very good building skill and access to crushing damage, which barbarians lack.
The hero is harder to rush than you might expect, because they can immediately summon a swarm of high tier imps due to their large mana reserve(being Elves, they have access to the Lore skill).
Minotaur Elementalist.
- Horde Army focused. Works great with Swarm and Undead, as well as Fey. Why? Fire Breath. Skeleton spam with Firebreath and Dark Mithril upgrades can destroy bases really fast and is not a big investment. Swarm Scorpions, with their high attack speed and movement speed, high health, decent combat and resistance to piercing makes them similar capable for base razes.
And then there is the Fey. Can you imagine the sheer terror of seeing a horde of Spriggans(+100% attack speed) with Fire Breath+all the upgrades? Even just a level 2 Fire Breath will deal 20 damage(15 for the spell, 5 for Faerie Blade), and attack every 0.7 seconds or so.
On top of that, you have minor AoE heal(perfect for horde armies, as they dont have many hits to begin with), and XP booster, access to slows(from Ice magic), access to building repairs(to save resources) and can potentially become a powerful Ice Floe fighter, due to the Minotaur's access to Might Blows. You even get Lore(due to Elementalist class), making you less reliant on Intelligence(you still want 20-25 though, for the regen). By comparison, a Minotaur Pyromancer is far less flexible and with far less mana.
One thing I disagree with in the dropoff of the Assassinate ability, unless you're considering very high hero level ranges like 100+ where Ferocity&MightyBlow&WeaponMaster may situationally be better for duelling (and even in this case, assassinate is still better vs. units) . There is no viable hero build that is capable of reaching over 1000hp by level 50. For example, Dwarf Warrior with the stats 52str, 3dex, 3int, 5cha with all points in Constitution (+52) does reach 1546, but is utterly worthless. The closest viable build I could determine was a Dark Dwarf Healer with a 4 20 20 25 stat spread, and skills of +15Elcor's Aura, +6Healing Magic, and Constitution +32. This build, while remarkably tanky and generally usable, only reaches 758hp. I built a custom map which I've used to test melee build duelling, but I've never found anything that can contest an assassin build, except another assassin. I don't think there's anything under the sun I haven't tested, but if you've got a favourite I'd like to try it.
With regard to merchant discounts I agree with you here, however having undisputed map control through the early game lets the assassin take and hold more mines, while common strategies like SkeleRush turn them into an economic leader with free gold. As for being a leader of armies, the buff spells they offer their troops will be less specialized, and they don't stack the leadership skill, but by being able to "safely" engage on the front lines their leadership aura bubble is almost always where it needs to be, and they can force other leaders out of that useful range.
Dark Elf Archmage for the purpose of Illusion is something I hadn't considered before, and still lets me dip into the coveted Assassinate skill. You mention your use of Lore as a skill, and that's one which I've always been prejudiced against from my own experience as I've always felt more limited by mana regen than mana cap, but with Alchemy tossed in for potions you've figured out another way to circumvent that. How much do you normally invest in Lore, especially considering the 4 spell trees you're taking? Overall, it seems to have exactly the MASSIVE UTILITY that I asked for in the first post, and seems like something I should practice with a little bit. How deep you dive into each spell tree, and have you ever tried adding Arcane on top of it all? What order do you typically stick your hotkeys? I imagine those F keys are very busy.
The Minotaur Elementalist is the most interesting build to me, as being able to remove the Assassin's ability to run away, and ice floe for kiting seems like a mana-intensive (and short lived) but very interesting piece of counterplay. If firebreathing works with the fey, then that is indeed a very scary army to wade into for any melee build. I'll be building and playing one of them right away. What's your preferred skill spread on them by level50? Do you go beyond +8Ice and +6Fire? How do you deal with mana loss, especially if you either fire off these spells and your opponent runs away for 55 seconds, or you wait too long and get hit with drain mana?
I'm pretty impressed by these builds, thanks so much for sharing.
Fendelphi's Wood Elf Summoner as Barbarians is particularly good. Daemon Summoners playing as Daemons get more early-game power due to Might of Ctharos research and Succubus Souls, but the build is riskier and gets less mid-late game power by comparison. These two builds also deviate in power a lot between different hero levels. Daemons get more immediate power whereas the Wood Elf gets greater power at higher hero levels. Not sure I'd bother with nature magic though unless going for super high hero levels. I'd say either of those are the best Summoner choices.
I'm not sure I agree with assassins falling off as heroes get higher level, though I do agree that assassination becomes less potent at super high hero levels. I'd agree there is a fall off point for dexterity, but there isn't one for the assassination skill. Every point increases the chance by 1%, so this accounts for two enemy hero levels. Assassins do require a lot of continued investment into the skill to make it worthwhile, but I think it pays off. Not all of the assassin's points need to be invested into assassination to keep it relevant since each point invested effectively increases assassination chance by +0.5%, accounting for the enemy's hero level.
I don't think HP-investing heroes and high combat heroes counter the assassin. High HP only means that the assassin needs to strike twice, so all of that HP investment buys 1 or 2 seconds. Likewise, assassination chances don't change according to the target's combat stat, so combat offers no defence against assassination. Healing isn't potent enough to counteract assassination (too much time is required to cast a spell mid-combat too), though Life Ward should buy a couple seconds (if applied before combat). The HP gained from super high hero levels will help to make assassination less relevant though, so assassins do drop off to some extent, but I'd say it's more to do with the default HP increases than the assassin skill itself.
Some of the counters to the assassin hero come in too late to be effective. Buildings aren't as effective against assassins as one would think, especially if items are involved. Map domination is an immense advantage and unless heroes are super high level, this factor will usually end the game by itself. There's nothing except towers to stop the assassin from running past everything and assassinating the hero directly. If the hero invests in dex to get some speed (or other things), then likewise they lose out on their own powers in the same way as the assassin's investment in non-assassination skills. Those builds are very cool and some can easily contend with assassins, but I'm not convinced they can counter them entirely, especially the builds with a lot of spread-out supporter-style skill investment.
Arcane magic has an excellent chance of countering a non-Fey assassin due to destruction. If a spellcaster can focus on HP bonuses and arcane magic (such as a Dwarf spellcaster due to natural constitution), they can potentially one-shot the assassin. Fey assassins get around this by being invisible though.
You dont need that 1500 health value, because those last 500 means nothing really. A more balanced approach will still net you roughly 1100 health, and gives you other skills and attributes.
As for Assassination skill. As I said, when playing the Assassin, you HAVE to focus on that, because that is really all the hero brings to the battle. Which means the majority of your macro and micro will focus on that. If you start to take skills like gold income or focus a bit on one of your racial skills, your efficiency at dealing with enemy heroes decreases drastically.
In a level 50 match, they kind of have to have 50 points in assassination(25% chance to assassinate against equal level heroes), because otherwise they risk losing to magic or melee hits from other heroes(even with 25% chance, odds are they themselves might die to a critical hit/deathblow from a high combat hero, as the Assassin often need to strike 2-5 times before triggering the Assassination). And by level 50, most martial heroes are close to the same amount of attack speed. If we consider the Dwarf Paladin above, you will probably have to hit it 4-10 times to actually kill it(Life Ward), with it hitting back something like 2-7 times. The reason why Combat is important here, is that you risk getting crit yourself. If your opponent can live long enough to strike you 2-7 times, they might just hit you hard enough to kill you. In custom battles against the AI, they usually have horrible stat and skill allocation, so that does not say much to be honest.
If you start to add tertiary skills like magic or demoltion on an Assassin(even if that does give you more flexibility and something to do against buildings), you rapidly lose your ability to decisively win melee fights against heroes, because your damage relies on the Assassination skill itself. If you only invest 30 points by level 50(to get a bit of magic or maybe some economy/army skills), then you only have 5% chance of assassinating the enemy hero.
Of couse, 30 is enough for dealing with most non-hero units, so you still have that, but then again, most heroes at level 50(except for those who focus purely on economy) can deal with non-hero units fairly easily(either through magic or martial prowess).
Then again, that Minotaur King might just Deathblow you before the Assassination triggers...(been there).
An Assassin rushing towards your, running past units, just to kill you, is just as terrifying as a Monk or Warrior or other high level Martial character, since they can do the same. They might take slightly longer(since they rarely hit for 1000 damage) depending on your health pool, but they are usually tougher as well, so can better tank high level tower hits or incoming magic attacks. If you are a squishie mage or economy hero, it really does not matter, since 2-3 hits is all you can take anyway. Still talking about level 50.
As for Lore. Lore is very strong in my opinion, since it helps counter rushes for casters. You start the battle with a % of your max mana, meaning a decently high Lore skill will give you several early spell casts. This could be mine fillers(which summoners have access to), scouting with Eyes of Oros, defense against enemy rushes or even start a rush yourself(a wave of 30+ level 5 Imps with more than 70 health each, after 1 minutes is difficult to defend against, as in the Wood Elf Summoner). A single point in Lore gives as much Mana as 3.33 Intelligence. So even a modest investment(like 5-10 points) will give you a decent amount(50-100 extra max mana).
Of course you still want a reasonably high Intelligence to get a decent base regen and casting chance, but I have never wanted more than 30. Summon Mana research takes care of the regen.
Also, if you have items(if allowed), a lot of the casting chance can be covered through that. If that is not allowed, the Dark Elf army has both Summon Mana(mana regen) and Meditation(casting chance) research, so you can compensate a fair if you play as them(and the Archmage has a lot of tools that they like, like Transmute, exp boosts, cost reduction, Golems and early mine-fillers).
As for heroes investing in Dex to run away from Assassins(or at least give them a chance to get to safety). I dont see this as a detriment, since Dex is probably the most important stat in the game for every hero that moves around on the map. Aside from the combat aspect of it, it also speeds up your economy by vastly improving your capture rate. For casters, being able to "dump" your magic and then run to safety more often, due to a high speed stat, makes them have a bigger impact on the game.
Or in case of heroes using Alchemy, run up(fast), cast Aquire, run to the next, etc..
As for Nature Magic for the Wood Elf Summoner. It is only a 5-8 point investment(if you want Treants. Also, Bramble Wall can be fun/exploitive). And the Unicorn brings a lot to the Barbarian army through the Group heal/cleanse and the Awe aura. Your massive hordes can now be sustained, meaning it will usually keep growing rather than being reset.
Also, 1-2 Unicorns are quick enough to follow your army, or rather, just slow enough to show up right after the combat has started, making them less likely to be targeted. And with the Summon Mana upgrade, they get to cast their spells fairly often. So not only does the enemy have to deal with Imps and Pegasi that has more than normal health, they also get healed if you dont try to focus down the Unicorns that support them, which is difficult, because Awe removes ranged attacks and lowers attackspeed.
As an added bonus, you can use them to heal/cleanse your hero and retinue as well.
Anyway, in my opinion, one of the best ways to counter the assassin is access to Divination and Illusion. Divination lets you spot an Invisible Assassin(in case they have access to Illusion spells) and Illusion lets you become invisible yourself, making you untargetable(very few assassins have access to Divination). If you deny them the engagement, their reason for being on the field diminishes.
Which is another reason why I think Archmage is a very strong class(at higher levels). They can easily get to where they need to go(Invisibility), cast their spells(summons or Aquire), then either teleport home or cast invisibility again and move on.
Fendelphi, I think we may be speaking past each other just a little bit. I'll try to clarify the points I made in the previous post.
Testing two custom heroes against one another using multiplayer is pretty easy. Here's a crappy youtube vid showing how I do it: https://youtu.be/5IeFLMkdpYI (capturing from WBC3's crushed resolution is hard). In the video, the Paladin died 5/5 times, without it being close. An investment of 39Constitution is required to make it above 1000hp, unless you're pumping strength. This left the Paladin putting 9 points into Healing for LifeWard, and Ferocity +3. I believe as it sits, it's pretty conclusive that Constitution is not particuarly useful against Assassinate, as even Ferocity/WeaponMaster builds tend to be a better gamble in melee, only usually losing 9/10 times. If you think I built the Paladin wrong, please post your specific build so I can redo the tests for my knowledge.
This method doesn't lie, but there are many, many combinations in this game. If you have any build that you think can beat or match the assassin in melee, I'd love to test it and see you test it yourself.
Never would I take the Wealth skill on an assassin, but the Assassinate skill literally generates gold. This is an entirely secondary benefit to its use as a combat ability, but is what I meant by SkeleRush and other early game attacks generating gold for them. In the video example given, the Orc Assassin is built with 40Assassinate (meaning 44% chance), 6 Chaos Magic, 6 Demolition. I usually don't start taking Demolition until after level50, but I wanted to show that it overall does very little harm to the build as it can generally only be defeated in melee by other assassins. By choosing 6 Ferocity and dumping more out of his INT and CHA, the assassin could be a significantly better duellist, but I think that's going too far in one direction and would rather have troops starting at lvl3, better price discount values, and plenty of mana regen for using Morph Stats on big hordes while never losing the DrainMana option.
All that said, I don't want to seem too contentious or pretend that we disagree more than we do. You make a very compelling case for your Summoner and Archmage, both of which I want to try once I'm finished the Minotaur Elementalist. That Archmage's answer for everything approach is incredibly appealing, and being invisible is a great answer to an assassin meeting you in the field. I know that without items, I never have access to true seeing.
Speaking of, you mentioned items and that is something I rarely consider. My friends and I stopped playing with items about a decade ago, because we thought it pushed balance even farther in the favour of assassins with cast-on-hit and extra attack speed being the biggest reasons. I haven't put much thought to them since, so what are your favourite items, and do you feel they're worth the bonus to your build? What items do you think are the best for your variety of mages, and which items do you fear the most? What do you think the most powerful item in the game is?
Also, do you mind giving me the specifics of your Elementalist and Archmage build, like stat&skill distributions? So far the Minomentalist I've been enjoying in skirmishes has only gone 6 fire, 8 ice, and stuck the rest in Ferocity and Lore. I got one game in with a friend last night, and given the time to tech up, Lore feels more useful late game than I expected. The early game mana is nice too, but I wasn't pressed with a particularly early rush to feel that effect yet. I don't doubt its importance in that role, given your insistence.
Thanks for the writeup, I look forward to further correspondence and more time to test your builds. Whew... what an essay this has been.
I'm actually pretty mad about this, because you can literally see the same thing happening with the dwarf. It's just such a stupid thing to say, especially having gone through the effort of making a damned video for it.
I still can't figure out why my video is being compressed like this, but I've made an updated one with sound.
https://youtu.be/zaBUZNi7O3E
edit: and, now despite having sound, it's cut all to hell. I thought windows movie maker was supposed to be simple, but I've just wasted a bunch of time only to get trolled.
Absolutely they do, I agree with that, but I'd also say that the assassin can afford a little bit of investment in other skills.
Warriors are very strong, I'd like to see a video of a fight between a warrior and an assassin. Lots of people have argued either way and it would be interesting to find out which would win.
I don't think buildings are too much of an issue unless they've been garrisoned by another warrior or assassin, in which case they may give all the advantage needed. Spellcasters and support heroes could find it really hard if they have an assassin in their base within the first minute of the game. I agree that warriors or monks are just as terrifying and also tend to dominate for similar reasons, and these classes do better against buildings due to superior stats too.
Yeah, I think items are even more favourable for melee classes too. I remember the assassin build which kept casting life ward and call lightning on hit. That meant that even armies couldn't beat melee classes as they'd keep getting bolted by lightning every few seconds. It reminds me of this in TPC 0.8.7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUiW5ppEcWk
This is true, dexterity is the de-facto standard stat, but what I mean is that it's less good when against melee heroes unless you're a melee hero yourself. Being able to move a bit faster as a spellcaster is handy but it takes away from some of the spellpower and it still leaves you vulnerable to melee builds because chances are, they've invested a lot more in dex than you have and hence can move faster. Any non-Summoner, non-Destruction wizard or merchant hero that moves outside of their base is potentially already dead unless they have home portal or invisibility.
I don't mean that nature is a bad investment, quite the contrary. I think it's good to have, especially for higher level heroes, but I also think that it's something which lower level heroes won't be able to afford quite so much.
I'm glad you've managed to get it to work, that's good to hear! Have you also downloaded 0.8.9a and 0.8.9b? Those will fix a few bugs. There's also another mini-patch located in the Discord channel too. 0.9.0 has still got a way to go yet. We're implementing a lot of special mechanics and changing some of the pre-existing systems. Currently, conversion, combat, armour and the resource cost scheme have been modified. Each race will be more comprehensive and unique than ever, whilst being more intuitive to play and easier to pick up by new players too.
My bets on assassin counters are still on summoners, the constitution + destruction combo (arcane magic. Any dwarf with arcane magic can pull this off) and other melee classes. Mino elementalist doesn't get the time or resources to produce an army before the assassin makes its move and I'm not convinced that ice floe will do the trick. Maybe it is enough and my concerns are unfounded? Even if it doesn't beat an assassin, I think it's still a good build nonetheless. Archmage does have some cool counterplay but I don't know how it's going to defend its base at the start of the game. Would summon guardian work? Is there enough investment into summoning to be able to counter the assassin via imps? Also, something else I've wanted to find is: can the invigorate spell break through the attack speed barrier (1 attack per 0.4 seconds)?
Fendelphi shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion but don't worry about it, I'm sure he must not have noticed or that there's been a misunderstanding.
I scrapped Windows Movie Maker and I'm figuring out how to use Shotcut instead. I didn't expect that this thread would lead to me making videos, but any learning is good learning.
....and I clearly have a lot more learning to do.
Agreed, demolition is usually a skill I don't pick up until after level 50, but having it available for high level play around 75-100 is hilarious, because you can tear down the starting towers of the enemy base very quickly if their hero isn't present. Mighty Blow is a skill which is better in general, but the assassin doesn't really deal conventional damage.
Yep.... that's about how I remember them being. Yeesh.
I haven't downloaded those a&b additions, so thanks for the heads-up. Specific question - The "Dark orcs of toragnor" have a research at their ancestral hall to have wraiths, but I wasn't able to spawn any. Is that broken, not implemented, or intended some other way that I don't understand? There's a ton of variety added in TPC that I'm going to take a couple of years getting used to.
Yep, looking forward to getting more games in when I can and trying out each of these.
Good question, requires testing like Firebreath. I'll get on it in a couple more days.
I made this thread to learn from a discussion, not to win an argument. As long I'm honest, there's no shame in changing my opinion when given new information. Fendelphi, I'm frustrated that twice in a row you chose to not answer my questions, and that you made a poorly thought out accusation at me. However, it was wrong of me to immediately level my own accusation at you, and for that I'm sorry. I'll stick to what I said before, having a discussion with someone who appreciates the same niche game as myself is nice. It's a rare interest to have in common, and it's likely we are more similar than we are different.
It's a typo, the research unlocks their production at the ancestral hall, rather than their summoning.
I agree, I like a good, friendly discussion. It's nice to know what works and what doesn't. I hope Fendelphi can find the time to clarify. Regardless, this thread has been very informative.
It is hard to see how close a fight is, if you cant see the numbers after all.
Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of people(on different fora for different games) present videos or screenshots as evidence, and then all it shows is a modded or bugged or otherwise inconclusive result. So maybe I am just a bit jaded in that regard. Sorry if I came off as aggressive, was not my intention.
Anyway, much appreciated with the new video. It makes for a much better viewing, and I can see the numbers move now. :)
As for Warriors, I have always been under the impression that Weapon Master is kind of pointless unless you have a lot of Mighty Blow or a powerful weapon(preferable Crushing or Cold), because it will only ever do Critical hits(not Deathblows) and so will not hit very hard(in case of the video, a 27 hit becoming a 54 hit, then modified by armor). Am I mistaken here? Are Deathblows possible through a Weaponsmaster crit, or will they only occur when the regular attack "crits" into a deathblow? Regardless, the skill functions much better when you actually have some base damage to apply it to.
I did a quick test with a level 50 Minotaur Warrior(30 Mighty Blow, 5 Weapon Master, rest in Constitution and Ferocity, 35 Dex, rest in Strength). He dealt 482 damage(enemy heroes health) in 2 hits. I ran it a few times, and he always killed his target in 2-4 hits. No items.
Which takes us back to the "scaling with level" question. Once both sides have 35 Dex(not much point in going above), the way to increase damage is either through Strength, Mighty Blow or Weapon Master(well, and Assassination). And at a certain point, Weapon Master wont scale any more, and you could argue that investing more than 25 points into it is kind of wasteful(since the extra 25 to "complete it" could be put into Mighty Blow to enhance the effect overall).
As for rushes at high levels, remember that towers scale with level. So they hit that much harder and have that much more health. I once more did a quick test(level 50), and the Dark Elf tower dealt 65 base damage. If you then add 2 archers(range+damage) and 2 skeletons(to increase fire rate and accuracy), you deal 85 damage per hit. A squshie hero like the Rogue types cant hold out for long against firepower of that magnitude. ;)
For clairfication, this is without the "tough starting towers" rule.
As for Dex(and speed), since very few characters goes beyond 35 Dex(and the speed it gives), speed debuffs can be a big help at higher levels, as it will give you a distinct advantage. I havent tested if Entangle and, say, disease or another speed debuff stacks, or if it only takes the most powerful/recent one.
As for items, that is another reason why the Archmage is a lot of fun. Once you get to rank 8 Alchemy, you can disable all enemy items for a short while. So those heroes who rely on proc effects(which on the steam version does have a cooldown btw.) suddenly have none for half a minute.
And speaking of Assassins, Divination(Archmage access...) has a spell that gives nearby units the ability to steal xp from whatever they kill. Combine that with the Assassins from the Dark Elf army, and their 2 research skills, and you can quickly have high level Assassins running around, getting stronger and stronger(With a higher and higher Assassination chance). So that is another way of dealing with high level heroes. Spam them with high level assassins until you get lucky.
You can do the same with Gnolls, but they are not nearly as fast.
Also, just to clarify. I am not saying(in the slightest) that Assassins are bad. They are not. But I just dont find them as terrifying as some of the other class combos out there, because they are so 1-dimensional. Somewhat tedious to deal with, sure. And if you dont keep a watch, they will have their way with you. But as long as they dont get the jump on me, I feel like I have always dealt with them fine.