Quick question / Stronghold might - blood

[DecayWolf]

I've this:

Defender 3
Leadership 3
Destiny 3
Asalaint 3
Tactics
Counter strike
Parry
Toughness 3
Archery 3
Resilence
Rampage
Cleave
Giant Slayer
Mass life drain
Msss heroism
Heroic Charge

Now let's talk about actives. (3 turns cd)
This is the best castle to choose Heroic Charge, because if you use on ogre and use their aeo attack to hit 2 - 4 enemy units with increased damage, plus resist pain it just a insane bonus of damage.
For instance, let's say he would give 2k per target, each square he would gain 15% extra damage and he walked 6 squared. So he would make 3800 damage per target now, 90% damage gain, and if you hit 2 targets would 7600, 3600 more that it normally would, so this active is definitely good, mainly for this very faction, for might/blood path.

Mass heroism is a must for three reasons: (3 turns cd)
1 - With more moral/leadership, my units will act/attack more often, which means they'll fill my gauge faster.
2 - Most of the units are might oriented, so it will greatly improve their damage.
3 - My hero is might which has a synergy, plus he's blood, which has a deeper synergy...

Life drain: (3 turns cd)
this is his only abillity to keep units alive on PvE battles and get those 0 unit lost screen, besides it's pretty strong, since when you do not lose units, you keep making high damage, so survivability = offensive. But it's a mana cost spell, and might heroes doesn't poop much of if.

So as a alternative for the aboves active abillities if I don't have cyclops to use charge, or if my enemy is too close to use charge, or if I'm too weak to worth to use buffing spells, I'll have Horde strike, which is a active from blood path.

And basically that's the problem, I already 'reached' the maximum of active abillities, but I also want to add pressed attack, since it makes a good damage, more than Horde strike if I had small army number, and it gives 30 gauge points! Since each strike gives me 10.
And you guys know, high gauge points = win. (With my inferno for instance, I get a full gauge every turn.)
Also pressed attack is extremely good for early battles on PvE.

So I'm wondering, does it really worth to pick it up?
What should I remove?

[5M0k1N]

defender if youre going for blood aint worth it IMO (since youre missing the bonus for being blood).
toughness is good but not a must either. having more HP means you gotta heal more to get your units back as well. obviously still a ver nice passive but just not a "must"

[DecayWolf]

Originally posted by 5M0k1N:

defender if youre going for blood aint worth it IMO (since youre missing the bonus for being blood).
toughness is good but not a must either. having more HP means you gotta heal more to get your units back as well (obviously still a ver nice passive but just not a "must")

I was thinking on parry, but toughness seems to be a good idea as well, perhaps better.
Defender level 3 gives me 3 points of might defence, which is alot. (total of 6)
Also might points increase my warcry strenght as it decreases it from my enemy.

I guess I'll remove toughness 3, I'll make a quick math and see how much health I'll lose.

Something about 45 - 57 hp loss (depending on artefacts), if I had 1 unit upgraded for every possible stack.
So if I had 100 units that would be 4.500 - 5.700 health loss.

[5M0k1N]

i mainly played the campaign so that bonus defense wasnt a big deal (it was common for me to have like 50+ defense) but yea in custom maps it might be a big deal

[DecayWolf]

Well, actually this isn't a 'big deal' at all, I just want to make a perfect build, but it's not necessary at all.

the tier 7 represents like 36% of above's value, but overall speaking, seems a pretty high loss, though it also means I'll need more life drain...

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I just wanted one extra point.

__

Well I've decided, thank you for your contribution.

[NamelessOrder]

I play only MP duels so i'm writting from a duelist perspective:

1. If you use an active ability attack like Enrage Cyclops' Slam, you won't get the bonus damage from Heroic Charge, just normal damage which makes your calculations invalid.
   
2. i'm not the biggest fan of blood might Stronghold since it's very susceptible to Mass Weakness (the Tears one has Unfettered which dispells Mass Weakness for free) thus making it weak to Dark Magic users but i know that versus AI blood is a better choice
   
3. Life Drain is pretty weak in the duel mode so i wouldn't choose it
   
4. Pressed Attack is a must in the duel mode and i thin that it's really important in maps as well, so you should definitelly get it instead of Life Drain or Parry for example. Also Counterstrike is pretty weak when you are a blood hero
   
5. some other useful abilities: Blizzard to punish campers (Haven & Necro), Inner Fire to get initiative advantage (specially in mirror matches), Purge (really essential in duels since Stronghold soesnt have access to dispels)

[DecayWolf]

That's disapointing, it supposed to work.

On HoMM V, each point represents 5% extra/less damage, for example if someone has 20 attack and the enemy has 15 defense, You'll inflict 25% extra damage plus talents to calculate the final damage.
On MMH VI I guess each point counts towards 2%, not sure.
A level 30 hero with assailant/defender 3 blood warmonger has 33 attack and 23 defense, while a tears mage with assailant/defender 2, has 8 attack and 18 defense (changes with each hero.)
So generally speaking, a might hero has a up hand of 60% (defense + attack combined), plus the level 15 talents which gives a eve further advantage.


So you're saying they'll use mass weakness. Let's work with numbers shall we?

Enranged cyclop 43 avg base defense and 61 avg base attack, but I'll use only attack/dmg since we want weakness only and not the overall quality.
He'll get 30% extra attack from stats, plus 12% from heroism, so he'll have 86.6 dmg with 72% - 78% chance of getting a luck and and 69% - 75% of getting moral, roughtly avg of 93% chance of getting any effect or avg 147% if the formule is accumulative instead of persentage of persentage, besides if morale trigger the odds of luck will increase, so let's assume we'll get at least one +50% damage either from luck or moral, doesn't matter, at every 3 turns, which gives a averange of 16,6% per turn.

So 30% + 12% + 16,6% = 48,2%.
61 base attack + 48,2% = 90,4 dmg, per creature.

So, I'll assume we'll get -32% from weakness, since it never gives the full effect, due magic defense, which by the way our hero has 8, which would give 16% magic shield, against the spell power of enemy caster, but I'm really lazy to make this math, so I'll assume it's 32%. it won't be so different.
90,4% damage less avg 32% from weakness = 61,4 damage.
In other words, no damage lost. But we still count wiht level 15 might attributes, making them still better for close combat, and since the main advantage of tears os hoping for a close approach...

Indeed stronghold tears is better against mages, but why blood?
Blood is good against might heroes tears/blood.
Blood has a good affinity with stronghold army, which is pure offensive.
Blood has a good PvE tactic, since stronghold lacks of survival spells.
Blood is good against mages blood/tears, though tears are better.

So overall speaking, unless you're aiming to duel against a mage, blood all the way for stronghold.

I mean, a tears necromancer might or magic, is very solid and strong build, but for stronghold, tears only for fighting against mage, if you're an might hero.

Why should we choose might over magic for stronghold?
Because they've 6 might units, and 2 magic units. (cyclop counts as both, though he can easily be blocked, so it's more likely 6/1, plus his active abillity which will force to be in melee.)

Let me explain why life drain doesn't suck.
Firstly he might not be a mage, but choose a blood path, so there's natural synergy.
Secondly the amount of spell power upgrades over the map is fairly enough to make it a very solid option later game.
Thirdly, stronghold needs a spell for survival, to not lose any troop by playing on hard, while he keeps exploring and advancing.

And last but not least, they are might hero, so have less spell power, but his troops will do more damage, which will automatically compesate in two ways.
Firstly - By killing more troops per strike, you'll take a lower retalation, making troops endure longer with high numbers/dmg, so they can keep getting a good ratio of life drain.
Secondly - More damage = more healing. (Remember those 48,2%, previusly listed?)

Also we need our troops alive, so they can keep attacking and filling our gauge.
Generally speaking with a good defense, you'll lose less troops, which will sustain original or close to amount of damage. So defense = offense.

Yes for PvP, pressed attack is a must, mainly if you're not going with legion settings.
But once you've a bigger army size and better overall stats, it lays on it's effect from hero strike, which honestly I'm not sure if I should keep this abillity, since I already have 4 active abillities, while I can use only 3.

Do not get fooled by seeins 7 - 10% from counter strike and assuming it's worhless, you'll use it at least 1 to 4 times per turn, from several turns until the battle, it does helps, mainly for factions with unlimited retalation creatures, for this castle I've choose because I had points to spare, but it isn't worthless.
Let's say you've been attacked 3 times in one round, you've made 500, 3000 and 800 with your retalation strikes, and the battle last for 7 turns.
So on first turn you would make an extra 430 damage, meaning the enemy would lose more troops, decreasing his damage.
On the following turns you would lose your strenght since you're losing numbers, but overall speaking counter strike 1, can deliver thousand of damage, for a passive that cost 1 point? Totally worth it, if I had a unit with unlimited ret or with hatreful strike, even better!

[NamelessOrder]

Mass weakness will be employed by enemy might heroes, magic heroes rather use control spells like Puppet Master. Mass Weakness lasts 5 turns (Heroism 3), and the first 5 turns usually are deciding, and it will more than nullify your Heroism bonus. Just saying that even in might vs might opponent who casts Mass Weakness in response to your Mass Heroism will be ahead.

I'm not saying that Blood Stronghold is bad, i'd say it's ok, still rather weak compared to other races. I just trying to show you that it's relatively easy to counter. Apart from Mass Weakness it's very weak versus Sactuary might blood since both races are very offensive but Sanctuary has higher ini.

Ofc i agree that in PvE blood is usually better.

The thing about counterstrike is that no retal is probably the most common ability in H6. And in most cases your opponent will use defensive units to absorb retal anf then finish the unit with more important creatures making counterstrike not as important as one'd imagine. But yes, it's not a bad ability.

[DecayWolf]

I've changed life drain for inner fire, I can get life leech from arachne, it's not lore friendly but...
Inner would add an extra 20% might plus 5 init, though both life drain stack with each other...

You're right about weakness, but since they aren't casters, they won't be abled to reduce the initial damage, only partially reduce the boost.

So what's your suggestion for an tear build?
Taunt, evasiveness, mass weakness, reinforcement, weapon skill and tear abillity?
This build would cost 2 points more than blood. Overally speaking I don't like stronghold for being tears because, they don't have healers, they a army with 6/1 might, but the shaman would be casting instead of attacking, making them the mostly effective pure might faction in the game.

Also they're good for advancement and make the first strike or attack with everyone.
Since they get an extra speed, when they take the first hit and you can use a goblin trap, so you can advance your troops, and let one enemy unit take the range of yours, when he charge, he'll be stopped whatever you placed the trap, allowing you attack this unit with all your units.
Also their level 4 gauge is extremely good for offensive, since you don't a retalation, which means you could/should use this advantage for killing the most troops as possible.

I was taking a look on Inferno, they've a really solid blood or tears might build, with counter strike 3, plus taunt would make the player skip his turn, because nobody is crazy enough to take 2 hatreful strikes, also there's stand in your ground.

Other might factions such necromancer, probably tears is better than blood (though I prefer mage, for them.), for Haven I prefer tears over blood, and santuary I haven't really seem their might builds, but as mage, blood all the way.

I'm not saying that blood is better than tears, I'm saying that it depends, for stronghold might, I think it only worth if you're going to duel against a mage, otherwise blood has a better synergy, due the castle units, and playstyle, even the blood abillity is way more versatile, and works against anything, instead of mages only.