I don't understand why demons are so powerful and i cannot play others units

[Fergnatz]

Hello,
So i've played the campaign and some dlc and i used the difficult mode...
As soon as i started using demons, i won:
You start by buying arachnids (if i remember well, those are the yellow demons) and the mana gathering center and when you have enough ressource you buy mana pool for level up...
1) room and tech are cheap
2) you can usually start immediatly
3) it leads to spell that are extremely powerful ^^
4) your creature can revive so they keep their experience

So after I was a little bored and i thought i could try another gameplay, using more undead or using orcs and healers, and maybe even traps since they are on the same tech tree...

But it seem way harder... Especially the traps are so hard to build ^^ Even though they are kind of OP when they are built.

So how to play something else than demon efficiently guys ? Can you tell me ?

[Dragon]

The original post makes it sound like Demons need to be nerfed. No, they don't, and God forbid that happens. Doing that would just wreck the game.

The original post omits these facts:

- Demons can't heal, whereas Horde can.

- Undead get free ressing whereas Demons don't; Demons instead have to harvest a lot of mana before ressing. This point is also complicated by the fact that mana used to res demons is mana that then cannot be used for portals or other spells. So a lot of times, using mana to res demons will consequently fubar your army in other ways.

As for point 3 in the original post, spell tech and Demon tech are separate things from each other, so IMO conflating them together as if they are a Demon thing is an unfair way to paint the Demons as OP. One could just as easily say, for examples, that teching into Undead leads to powerful magic traps & doors therefore Undead is OP, or teching into Horde leads to powerful traps and the Arena and the Guard Room, therefore Horde is OP. Whereas in contrast teching only into Demons means the player has no access to traps/doors or magic traps/doors, or Arena, or Guard Room, or Brewery (without one, the converted heroes that Succubi Demons make quickly become useless) so therefore by the same logic, one could say that Demons are underpowered.

Having said that, I do agree that there are balance/pacing problems with the Horde & Undead, which are:

1) As you said, the process to build traps is way too long and convoluted, in exchange for minimal return on time/energy/resource investment since traps aren't that great (but they should be buffed to make them great), and have limited charges before they break automatically, and even with traps up you still have to dump your army next to the invading hero mobs anyway, which makes traps not worth building most of the time since there's no point wasting the time/energy/resources to get them up.

2) The process to res Horde creatures is also way too long & convoluted (but if the devs make it too easy via new buffs, then they better give Demons the ability to heal too, or else Horde will become way more powerful than Demons).

3. Undead take way too long to res. And also, there should be a way to heal undead in battle, such as by having an allied unit poison them in order to heal them. But again, if they give Undead healing, then they must give Demons healing also, lest Demons become underpowered.

So in conclusion and to recap, they should not nerf Demons one iota. But they should:

a) make traps way quicker & easier to build.

b) remove the charge limit on traps. Instead, the game should make enemy mobs have to hit the trap until it breaks in order to destroy it, and until if/when that happens, the trap lives and continues to function forever.

c) make ressing Horde members way quicker & easier to do (but if they do that, then Demons need a buff at the same time, since they can't Heal and so buffing Horde and not Demons would make Horde way better than Demons).

d) give the Undead way quicker ressing and a healing unit (but at the same time this will also require them to buff Horde and Demons so that they don't become underpowered vs. the newly buffed Undead).

[Alias]

I do kinda agree with some of the suggestions you made, but on a few parts i disagree.

Originally posted by Dragon:

a) make traps way quicker & easier to build.

I think the issue is that they require horde units to build (which are often already occupied with other stuff) and that traps are quite late within the tree to unlock. In think some boost here would help so they can start working on traps faster and more efficient.
Although spells help a lot, its again a process which takes time and doesnt realy help in the early game.

I definitely would like it if there is going to be some trap oriented tree. Since atm there are just too much other things that are more essential (especialy since they can now build inside the dungeon which prioritizes having an army above having traps.

Maybe the process of building doors should become faster so there is more time to build traps?

Originally posted by Dragon:

b) remove the charge limit on traps. Instead, the game should make enemy mobs have to hit the trap until it breaks in order to destroy it, and until if/when that happens, the trap lives and continues to function forever.

I never had a problem with the charge limit, just because i dont see traps as being needed to fully bunker in your base. They are mainly as an assistant and tool to weaken out the enemy wave. And for that they are fine.

And limits are needed to balance out the traps. Otherwise you could just have 1 rolling avalanche and cover most of the waves by pushing them back infinitely.

And with that:
The rolling ball and spinning dummy both are effective traps on their own as both involve a stun. The only problem is that they are quite late to unlock within the tree. And once build, are also very quickly becoming too weak in damage. A faster building rate for traps would help at making traps more usefull.
The early game traps are already quite decent. Its just the process of reaching them that isnt (takes quite a bit of time unless you go straight for the traps from the start, while if you directly go for it is going to cause other major issues).

Originally posted by Dragon:

c) make ressing Horde members way quicker & easier to do (but if they do that, then Demons need a buff at the same time, since they can't Heal and so buffing Horde and not Demons would make Horde way better than Demons).

The only thing they could do is make them respawn 50% slower when you lack mana. That way you are still going to want to have some mana, but arent going to be massively deadlocked if you dont. Which is so far what i found to be a major issue with demons.
Maybe this should be an upgrade which costs evilness. After all, research is available within the demon tree anyway which means its not too far away. And i think that even a 500 gold and 200 evilness cost is going to be balanced on that. (if you are facing issues, its better to pay this, than to run out of mana and let the heart die)

Originally posted by Dragon:

d) give the Undead way quicker ressing and a healing unit (but at the same time this will also require them to buff Horde and Demons so that they don't become underpowered vs. the newly buffed Undead).

For undead you can use the magic room spell. Its still not perfect, but it does at least boost the regen rate. The major advantage however is that even at 10% health, the undead can still help at defending. Their short respawn is a major advantage to have.
To be honest, i think the undead already have a very balanced system:
- Free respawns, although when done too fast they lack health, But still, a 10% hp unit is better than a dead one regarding the ability to deal damage.
- Respawns cost no resources. No mana (unless you speed it up), and no units needed to assist the respawn. There is nothing that can prevent the respawn process from getting interupted unless you forgot to build the room.
- The undead can have 16 units which dont take any slot from quite basic research. And the costs for these are low compared to the gain. These 16 units can also be considered as a meatshield.

[Fergnatz]

This more or less sums up what i think.

apart from their out of combat health regeneration (this specific point is somewhat op i think)... but demon are fine and enjoyable
Winning with them still require a specific strategy and good micro management
you need to keep enough mana and use your spells wisely so
i really loved to play like this !

(The start i use is: Spiders/Mana gathering/Mana pool for leveling up (the game is not in english for me so i suppose you can translate)
Then i go for spell, Portal for exploring, then especially Room Efficiency and Mana Shield first. )

But for horde and undead i always lose so i am still experimenting (*sentence edited*)

i'll try some other strategies from now so i'll come back later

That is why i asked advice here in the first place after all ^^

[Blake Walsh]

The strength of demons is obvious, but the Demon tree does not contain the two most powerful ceatures. Here's a summary of the strongest creatures:

• Orc: Any strategy which doesn't start with mass arachnids should start with mass Orcs. Orcs are cheaper and stronger than Arachnids except against heavily armored heroes, and even against heavily armored heroes, they aren't shabby. Orcs are much cheaper than Arachnids. Basically, you can throw together an army of 5 orcs really quickly and smash stuff, you can cheaply replace losses with new Orcs. The Orc opening allows quickly claiming 1-2 Islands of Evilness with no real risk - whatever you lose you just replace, or you plan to lose the orcs anyway. Orcs don't have much long-term viability, but the Mass Orc opening is hard to beat due to the sheer amount of raw "stats" Orcs have (damage output and hitpoints).
  
  The downside of orcs is they don't have a future. They only excel for the opening.
  
  
• Gobbobot: Strongest unit in the game, but only when microed, and even cheaper than orcs to buy/replace. The Gobbobot is one of only three non-hero non-titan creatures that deals area damage and this makes it brutally effective, there's really no competing with a creature that can hit 3 or 4 targets at once, not when it's single-target damage is modestly higher than most other creatures to being with, the Surge ability adds even more aoe damage. Gobbobots have the additional property that when the bot dies you can take the full hitpoint goblin and immediately get it a new suit, there's no cooldown involved. This allows fighting a battle then 3 seconds later being ready for the next battle, with full hitpoints. This does take micro, but if you have the micro skills then Gobbobots are simply the strongest shock troopers, having a rate of between-battle "healing" even better than demons An additional benefit of going Gobbos is you have access to the Tinkerer's Cave and traps: I only really bother with one trap, the "Exploding Treasure Chest", and mainly to bunch up heroes with its lure function, so the gobbobots can hit the entire party with their area-of-effect attack, the tremendous front-loaded damage of Gobbobots can pretty much wipe out an entire bunched up party in a single volley.
  
  I consider the Gobbobot to have no downsides (other than micro), I guess you could say it's a downside that it isn't ranged but for dropping creatures on heroes that's inconsequential.
  
  
• Arachnid: Arachnids are a very flexible creature which excels at killing single targets especially armored targets, at which they are very good even at lvl1. They also generate mana for you at the mana shrine which is excellent. They heal quickly between battles and are ideal for blitzing the Overworld, although not *that* much better than a strategy which just buys replacement Orcs (Orcs have significantly better stats, after all).
  
  The Arachnid has two downsides: it is expensive and it doesn't deal aoe damage. The lack of aoe damage means it can never quite compare in damage output with the creatures that do deal aoe damage. The high cost isn't such a big deal but it does make it harder to buy replacements if you can't afford resurrection mana (of course ideally you just don't let them die, in which case you don't even need a vortex).
  
  
• Lich: The Lich is the final highly massable unit. The Lich is the best aoe damage dealer in the game, with a much larger area of effect than Gobbobots, it even pretty much beats Titans at dealing aoe. The most remarkable thing about the Lich is it's freeze debuff actually stacks, both different liches and multiple attacks from the same Lich, this can reduce enemy attack speed by up to 720%, leaving attackers with only 1 attack every 20 to 30s, it is hard for them to win battles when they are frozen stiff! As an undead creature Liches also enjoy near-instant resurrection, sure they don't have much hitpoints but if you have something to distract the enemy you can just let them fight 9/10ths dead.
  
  The weaknesses of Lich: Fire effects cancel the freeze, meaning you have to avoid Imps and turn off Thayla's Firebomb attack (her normal attack is fine) to get maximum value. Also extremely low hitpoints mean they die easily, though if you can get enemies frozen the Lich's low hitpoints is not really a big deal as the enemy damage output is so extremely nerfed by the freeze. To buy time to get the enemies frozen stiff you can use meat shields like arachnids/orcs, or spells like Frost Bomb or Mana Shield. Finally the Lich damage starts very low, but the damage increase per level is extremely good, making liches fairy weak as damage dealers in the early game but excellent late game.

Basically, good strategies should either use an orc or arachnid opening and then use either Gobbobot, Arachnid or Lich as the core of the army (all are much stronger than the Ironhide+Naga core that the campaign progression encourages, and which is pure weaksauce). All other creatures basically only have a supporting role:

• Ironhide: Truth be told if I could avoid getting this upgrade on the way to getting the Ogre, I would. Orcs are better. Nevertheless Orcs/Ironhides are the best creature to buy if you are losing a fight and need some blobs of hitpoints to soak up damage. Sometimes they survive and can heal up in the hideout.
  
• Naga: A remarkably ineffective addition to an army, a stronger strategy is to bring overwhelming firepower (i.e. area damage) to a fight then heal between battles, using demon healing, gobbobot "healing", or the hideout/graveyard boosted by "magic room".
  
• Banshee: They are reasonably tanky but hampered by slow healing, they have a hard time keeping up with Gobbobots/Arachnids. If I'm lucky enough to get a regeneration tome I like to get a Banshee and give her it, the regen perfectly covers the banshees only downside. Because the debuff doesn't stack and because the ability to kill armored heroes is quite pitiful you don't want more than 2 or 3 banshees at most.
  
• Vampire: Extremely strong when fighting unarmored units as the self-healing is extremely high, it has something of a niche in killing/tanking Bosses, though you don't need more than 2 or 3 of them because they don't deal area damage and aren't good against armored heroes.
  
• Imp: As a very fragile creature that doesn't deal area damage and cancels Lich freeze, the Imp doesn't really have much going for it over Gobbobot/Lich, other than the ability to generate mana. As mana slaves they are decent. Also they have a niche role in pulling heroes on the overworld.
  
• Succubus: My favorite supporting unit to go with Arachnids or Gobbobots. The Succubus is probably more valuable as a worker than in combat, although her ability to beguile enemies is useful IF the enemies are strong, beguiling an Archmage or Master Swordsman does more than an Arachnid would. This makes Succubus most useful on higher difficulties, especially Diabolical. Succubus goes badly with Lich because frozen enemies don't attack anyway, but Imp goes even worse with Lich.

I consider the following to be strong creature combinations (assume Orc opening, if Arachnid is not first creature):

• Arachnids only
  
• Arachnid + Succubi
  
• Arachnid + Lich
  
• Lich + Arachnid
  
• Banshee + Lich + Vampire (use mined mana)
  
• Gobbobots only (use mined mana)
  
• Gobbobot + Succubi
  
• Gobbobot + Imp + Succubi

Not all of these strategies are Diabolical viable: In particular, I've never really managed to make undead work on Diabolical because there isn't enough time to heal between fights.

[Fergnatz]

Thank you for your valuable advices

There were some game concepts that i didn't understand until i read your well written post

I am eager to try some of the strategies your mentioned !

Originally posted by Blake Walsh: