New Hero Rework Guide / Discussion

My thoughts on, and hopefully a general discussion around, the reworked heroes.

Featuring lots and lots of screenshots since the devs decided not to include any of this stuff in the in-game wiki.

Hero Types

Let's start by looking at the hero types.

1. Mortal Champion. The in-game selector will tell you that you get 20% extra xp for your hero. Nice.
Mentions the support skills and the support ability but doesn't give any details. This is what the skill tree looks like for them.


Essentially you have an option for extra defence or extra damage for non-hero units.
An option for passive xp for non-hero units, the 2nd option here gives 20% reduction in arm upkeep. Very nice for early game economy.
And thirdly, an option gives 10hp passive healing on world map. The 2nd option here gives 10hp and 2 status resist to your army.

These options are all decent.

You'll also get a small upgrade tree for the command ability. Either to make it into a free action or an action that effects 2 units. Both options are great.

I should mention that any heroes you recruit in game will be mortal champions but they won't have the command ability tree.

2. Wizard King. The in-game selector will tell you that you get +2 mana per conduit then vaguely mentions the other stuff. Slightly better conduits are useless. Oh hey, we've made the worst province upgrade in the game slightly better but it won't matter because you will never build them. Anyway, here are your actual skill tree options.


On the left you will be able to increase your spellcasting points. This is a trap. Early game you don't have the mana to make use of it and late game it's lost its impact. Also there is an Astral culture build that allows you to cast in battle forever (as long as you have mana), just to highlight how unimpactful this is.

Next up we have upgrades for the Overcharge ability. This allows you to cast additional spells in combat. It is...ok. I don't upgrade it as there are usually more important options in your tree. It simply does not compare to the Command ability. This is probably better if you don't go Astral for your culture.

Finally, we have the attunement tree. This is why you picked wizard king. Casting a spell every turn will slowly turn your hero into a powerhouse. You will gain 1 strengthened and 1 regeneration for every spell you cast. This synergises with Overcharge but if you put 3 points into this line you can pretty much max it out after 2 casts so, turn 2 in every fight basically. The 2nd upgrade point will boost either offensive or defensive spells by applying either a +2 resistance buff/debuff to spells.

Because the wizard king is all about spells and buffing their personal damage you may want to pick classes this can synergise with - i.e. not support based heroes. Good for early game.

3. Dragon.
TBC but FYI they have completely unique skill trees.

Hero Classes

There are 5 Hero classes to choose from (based on your weapon choice in character creation).
Defender
Mage
Ranger
Ritualist
Warrior

1. Defender

Obviously a very defensive class that gains defence and resistance from it's tree as well as Taunt and Rally at the very bottom (an AOE defensive buff).
This is better than it looks but maybe struggles a bit at low levels. There are 3 main paths to the skill tree. The left side is a trap - The bottom abilities are great but the first 5 levels are just awful. The middle side is good but only once you have established your survivability. The right side is where you should start. Then aim for that grace ability when you enter defence mode and the ability that always puts you in defence mode on end of your turn. You can replace this with a shield that has this ability instead but you'll need 2 Haste Berries. I would just cut across the skill tree if you want those retaliation abilities.


2. Mage

I should start by saying this is my favourite class so there will be some bias here.
Your first choice is between a 1-radius fire ability and a chain lightning ability which should hit 4 enemies most of the time. I like to go for chain lightning because the next right hand ability turns it into a good debuffer (def and res) and much of the mage tree is built to add more and more debuffs to "debuff abilities". If you go fire you can make it cascade and repeat instead - the damage isn't amazing but you can use it more often.

If you opt for the left side you will be given additional damage on your ability.
The middle tree will give you extra resistance or some status resist ignore and accuracy. That 2nd ability will give your magic attacks a 50% damage boost for the turn. I think this synergises well with the fire/lightning skill. I go for the right side (debuff side) and come back to this at high levels.

The 3rd tree gives you another debuff ability that weakens a single target and applies 2x your def shredding debuffs. This one only costs 1ap so you can use it on the move and has a shorter cooldown, the downside is that it does very little damage. Going down the left side adds more debuffs to both this AND the lightning ability (the extra debuffs from lightning side also apply to this) and eventually turns it into a 1-radius AOE. It's better for use on high level units generally. You will become a debuff spamming arsehole and I am here for it. Since pushing out def and res debuffs increase your damage output for not just you but your army I prefer this approach.

I should also point out that these abilities CANNOT MISS and the def shredding side of the skills cannot be resisted. Any extra accuracy you get will be for your basic magic attack. Your basic magic attack will deal more damage to single targets but the skills have great range in addition to being AOE and not being able to miss.

3. Ranger

I find this underwhelming compare to the mage tree.
The left hand side is all about ranged attacks and abilities whereas the right side is more about melee. I think this was built with the sword and pistol in mind but you could go pure ranged if you want.
The ranged ability gives you a choice between low-damage AOE, high damage and unmissable single target shot (cost all ap) and a free action attack.
I find anything giving me a free action hard to turn down. The aoe skill looks poor initially but there are some ways to add debuffs to it in there I think.

The middle line provides damage increases, some def and evasion and finally slip away (instead of dying, teleport and regain 15hp).

The right side is mostly about melee. One of the skills gives you extra damage on next melee attack if you used a ranged attack and vice versa. Hence the sword and pistol synergy.
You can pick up opportunist and slippery in here somewhere. I think it's on the melee side annoyingly.
The melee side ends by giving you +3 fortune on kill and giving you ways to boost damage to make that happen.

This class is mostly about your personal damage and you need a good weapon to make that happen because the skills are lacklustre. Start praying to the RNG Gods.

4. Ritualist

This is the support class. First up is a heal ability which you can make into an AOE or choose some other worse option.
Second up you can summon some vines and upgrade them for healing/buffing/debuffing.
Finally, we have summoning which leads into raise zombie.
The Ritualist is almost incapable of doing any damage by themselves which is a turn off for me but you should make sure to have abilities to use every turn as using their attack is just a waste. Others seem to enjoy healing and healing vines and camping out in the corner of a battle while their enemies throw themselves at their regenerating frontline. Synergises well with the Champion's Command ability when you want to do something other than heal.

5. Warrior

It's a big mess of a skill tree but there are some decent options. The left side is built for a bit of defence with your attack, a bit of give and take. The right side is more your berserker side, they can't kill me if they're dead side.
The fact you can start on one side and cut across is nice.
At the very bottom you have killing momentum which will refund 1ap on kill once per round. So this tree is very much a race to the bottom. Solid from the get go.

6. Signature Skills

All heroes will have the signature skills tree. Every 4 levels you will be able to pick an affinity for one of the tomes which will convery an effect to your army. It will also give you 2 additional options to spend your skill point on but most of these will just slow down whatever you're trying to build towards.
The options you have for your affinity will depend on your actual affinities based on your race and tome choices.

Astral - Non-hero units in your army ignore 2 status resist (stackable). Stacking Astral and having your army ignore 6 status resist is great if you like to bring debuffs on your units.

Order - Non-hero units in your army gain +1 resistance.

Nature - Non-hero units in your army gain +10hp.

Shadow - Non-hero units in your army gain +2 flanking damage.

Chaos - Non-hero units in your army gain +10% crit chance.

Materium - Non-hero units in your army gain +1 defence.

The final version "Paragon of Astral" etc will have a unique effect and a unique skill that you can learn from it. Shadow looks poor to me. Not a fan of the Astral one either - Only benefits ranged units and arcane surge stops when you run out of casting points which is fine if you've got that Astral culture for infinite battle casting points but not great otherwise.


7. Miscellaneous

Any abilities you pick up in game from rewards/quests will appear here. Will show up in the top left of the level up screen if you want to check it. I have seen these disappear on respec and I wasn't paying attention to whether or not I got a skill point back from it.

Ambitions

There are 17 Ambitions to choose from for your Hero. There are a few other ambitions that only your followers can have.

I find its best to looks for ones you can complete or pick up points in easily rather than going for the skill the major ambition provides.

Lawbringer is a pretty good one for early game as infestations are common and there is one near your capital for a quick bump to level 2.

Explorer is good although it will be a while before you can clear Gold wonders.

Conquerer is frustrating! The AI will often suicide themselves 1 turn before the assault on the city and you don't get anything if there isn't a battle when you tear the walls down.

Instructor is the default but I would probably change this. It's fine for getting to level 2 of renown but if any of your units die then they are obviously not going to make it to legendary so the major is quite hard to achieve...unless you go Astral culture with a summoning focus. They can conjure in Phantasmal Warriors and then level them up to whatever at will with a specific resource.

Many of these are quite niche / designed for specific playstyles.




Some extras - Followers only
This isn't the only one but this is all I have a screenshot of for now.

Governer Types

Your main hero will always start with the same Governor type so no need to panic over your choices.



For your followers there are several options but they have a basic structure to most of them.
Renown Level 1 - Structure +5 resource
Renown Level 2 - Structure +5 Stability
Renown Level 3 - Population grants resource
Renown Level 4 - % increase to city resource

For a game where you mostly want to slap down as many research posts as possible it comes as no surprise that the Scholarly Governer is among the best.

The Specialist Governer is great too as any special province improvement now generates knowledge.

Nautical doesn't give you any stability but is great for growth, mana and gold if you spam ocean tiles. Truly the backbone of your economy allowing your scholarly cities to shine.

Final Thoughts

I will start by saying that I like the new hero rework. I'm not thrilled at not being unable to select the class of any heroes I hire or combinations of Class / Governer Type / Ambition and instead have to rely on RNG but it definitely adds replayability to the game.

I do miss being able to cheese my way to accessing certain tomes / pump my up the Imperium Tree but it's probably for the best.

I haven't tried this yet but since being a mage allows you to pump out lots and lots of debuffs to multiple enemies, you should be able to chew through armies with a Chaos Eater or 2.

Warriors and Defenders can also pick up the Chaos Eater ability on their weapons from the forge so they should work quite well together.

Ritualists can keep the army alive and Rangers can....watch on as they never get picked.

What do you guys think? I mostly play Astral and go Phantasmal Warrior spam so can easily overlook some things. What about Rangers, do you guys like them?

[Fendelphi]

@Waffenbruder: I believe dragon classes will be unbound by starting affinity in the next update(so if you want to go Mage, you can pick any affinity, not just Astral Dragon).

[Apothecary Michael]

Well works good enough for wizzard or champion, but what the hell did they do to the dragons? Why did anybody thought it was an "good" Idea to have the classes of the Dragons bound to the affinity of them?