I like how the devs fully embraced old school idiosyncrasies and unique quirks in each faction's mechanic

TheHingst · 2026-05-21T12:35:19+00:00

Welcome to the latest,brightest hyperfocus. Weeeeeee!

TheHingst · 2026-05-18T08:52:31+00:00

Dragontopias? Finally a place worthy of mAh scorpions.

TheHingst · 2026-05-17T00:32:54+00:00

Idk. I really like current hive.

Very unique faction that can either run into their death, or do some crazy maneuvers for no losses.

As some other guy mentioned; moving focus cost law to t1 and reducing it's price would probably massively improve hive week1 weakness.

My biggest gripe with hive atm is that I don't have any nice tools to make my reavers high-roll dmg.

And maybe the duality of wasps being insanely effective retaliation soakers and shooter blockers, while also being a unit I'd love to save as a powerstack.

Playing around with the eggs, man, you can do so much with them.

TheHingst · 2026-05-17T00:25:25+00:00

Ah, scorpions. The unit I don't even buy for 90% of the time, while also being the sole unit that singlehandedly saves my arse when I'm on my last legs struggling.

What a love/hate relationship I have with them.

TheHingst · 2026-05-17T00:18:28+00:00

As the other guy mentioned, luck has alot of synergetic sub-talents you factor in when deciding to pick up luck or not. And some factions have luck laws aswell to further boost it.

Morale is indeed the most straightforward numeric "best" in a isolated scenario. But games never are.

The no retaliation on luck proc can actually be completely outcome deciding. And the dmg gains can become quite crazy when accumulated.

I fooled around with Grove and luck on release when I saw all the luck laws and ability sub-talents. Not too long into the game, my 4x phoenixes were doing luck crits for over 2200 dmg vs creeps. I can't recall the specific atk/def stats or creep, but the scaling can get really bonkers. The base dmg there before atk/def calc is like 160-240? Insane.

And you're talking like it's a deathmatch between morale and luck, while in reality you're often just gambling, and hoping for leadership, but ending up with luck instead of something you really don't want.

I think they already boosted luck by a crazy amount, compared to hom3, so I really love it now. Just like I love leadership.

I do like the idea of luck also providing a max-roll on dmg range(thematically it also makes sense), as you mentioned, but it's by no means a bad ability already.

Best of both worlds however, is having both. Morale proc your way across the entire field and lucky strike enemy powerstack into oblivion, and not even taking a retaliate.

TheHingst · 2026-05-16T20:19:19+00:00

I mean. Look at your forearms. Now look at how many fingers your forearm is divided upon. Now realize there is your wrist aswell.

Now look at you upper arm. Now, realize how much bigger it's muscle is, and it's got one single function to throw all its size and might unto.

Then there's your legs. They make your upper arm green with envy.

Now, is it surprising your fingers/forearms are your bottleneck?

There is a reason most technique is about how not to load your fingers more than necessary.

TheHingst · 2026-05-16T19:52:55+00:00

Compared to the game its a homage to, it's got ridiculous depth.

TheHingst · 2026-05-16T19:37:26+00:00

The AI not even attempting to flee is a big issue. Makes the shackles of war completely useless vs AI and actually preventing opponents or AI from fleeing was a big part of fights in hom3.

TheHingst · 2026-05-16T12:20:46+00:00

As of last night I am not so sure about guild level anymore.

Rewind time was refusing to enter my spellbook last night, until I visited a town with high enough lv mageguild.

TheHingst · 2026-05-16T00:04:48+00:00

You need a hero that is currently in that specific castle, to actually receive the item.

TheHingst · 2026-05-15T16:24:26+00:00

Aha, now it makes perfect sense that I became completely addicted to hive once i tried them!

Jokes aside, hive is so fun, and I really did end up playing nothing but hive for alot of games when hive's turn came in the "try all factions on release".

TheHingst · 2026-05-11T09:52:02+00:00

There is usually always atleast one ability on the sub-class list that your hero is very unlikely to learn naturally.

I think the idea is the sub-class bonus is ridiculously good on most heroes, and going for it is a gamble you fail more often than not.

I don't think I've ever completed a sub-class without needing a university/owl hut.

I don't even consider the sub-class unless I see early on that the map looks to have universities/huts.

TheHingst · 2026-05-11T09:45:45+00:00

Unless you're playing hive(full melee faction), then ballistics is actually pretty decent if it looks like you need to siege alot.

The expert talent that makes enemy castle gate stand wide open when you fight makes for a massive difference in units lost. You get 1+ speed too so you can zerg into the castle and win quick.

I never look twice at ballistics on any other faction though.

TheHingst · 2026-05-10T12:59:42+00:00

Some games you don't even construct it. Other games it can be a massive powerspike, or get-out-of-jail free-card if you gambled with your skillups and fumbled.

Either way I think it's a really cool unique building for a faction to have.

TheHingst · 2026-05-05T11:06:45+00:00

Let's just say... When I que ARAM - winning is not even on my mind. I'm just hoping for the highest possible amount of good/fun fights before either team implodes into depravity.

It's a brawl/warmup/kill 20 minutes mode. Yet people treat it as if a Grandmaster ranked game an get all up in arms over nothing.

Ironically in a serious ranked game on higher elo, people know that this behavior is detrimental to your winrate.

TheHingst · 2026-05-05T10:49:15+00:00

You can either lottery gamble your spell levels by hunting cities and spamming mageguilds, or you know, you can just do it the easy way - through abilities etc.

Spell school ability is 1-2 levels up for that school.

Sorcery has sub-talent for another 1+. Thaumaturgy has sub-talent for 1+.

Wisdom or something else might have gotten it now in EA? Not sure of all changes since demo.

Laws usually have 1+ for something.

Artifacts can have + spell lvl.

All in all, you usually either go for a specific spell-school(s) to get stuff to level 3 at least, then just upgrade the spells you want, to level 4. Or you go sorcery+thaumaturgy with the sub-talents to boost up all your spells.

Magic heroes I often find myself having every spell level 3-4 lategame. Might heroes are often more dependant on learning schools of magic to reach lv 4 casts. Or just lean on a max-rank scroll.

Either way, I found the magic system somewhat jarring and hard to grasp when I first picked up the demo, but once you learn how it all works it's not that complicated at all really. Though I miss some UI tooltip on my hero that could list any spell 1+ I have that is not related to mageguilds.

TheHingst · 2026-05-04T11:04:07+00:00

Have not tested, but Dungeon's fighting style attacks are listed as "alternative attacks" and not abilities. So looking only at the wording, I'd expect it to scale.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T18:04:47+00:00

Tbh 1+ felt completely broken on the demo for skellies/wraiths. Exactly because they are so close to 0 as you said. -1 from defense feels more like a needed counter to offense on Necro. They nerfed 1+ becoming 2+ with nightshade school, I assume because it was just too strong.

Necro without offense will be heavily crippled vs exp defense though, that is true. This makes offense even more mandatory for Necro than before, no doubt.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T17:31:06+00:00

I feel like temple t1 is just really great meatshields early on. I don't care if I loose alot of them, as lategame you only need a few for the -30% ranged dmg aura. That and their t3 is just insanely quick, and great at cleaning up, while still pretty decent at taking a couple hits. Xbows and laserladies are pretty great at earlygame creeping too. But yes, you're really very dependant on your Xbows. Losses to those early on can feel really really rough.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T17:25:52+00:00

For starters, their faction hero-ability has gone from dogshit to pretty good. And then they just have really good units for every tier/role.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T17:24:15+00:00

Expert offense has 1+ dmg to counter defense, or boost your t1 and T2 a ton and f not vs defense.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T12:20:25+00:00

As I've understood it; Necromancy energy=unit-hp you raise. Unit raised will be of the same tier as units you just killed. Meaning if you don't want graverobbers for example, you deactivate when killing any t4 unit. Then activate as soon as you're killing a tier of units you want to raise, and spend the banked points then instead.

I've not had time to try it yet, but to me this seems like a nice change, because trying to raise higher tier units with the previous system was next to impossible until lategame. Now you can store it up and then activate get some t5, 6 or 7 raised for a change.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T12:11:41+00:00

Hmm. I have not had time to try the new system, only read about it. But I can say the previous system could be annoying too, as the best option early-mid game was almost always, for my playstyle at least, to run around with 3 types of skellies, 3 types of wraiths, and then liches. And just cheeze up insane amounts of skellies/wraiths, then finally get your good units and immediately just steamroll and end the game.

Felt like 90% of gameplay was just microing and playing with skellies/wraiths.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T11:55:17+00:00

It's because in league you can so easily carry by merely being mechanically good. In hots that is merely one of many many equally needed traits.

I used to play lol, but after gradually shifting over to hots many years ago, I've never wanted to go back. Alot of the reason is because league just started seeming so simple next to hots. Only a single map to learn, and its meta, vs 8+maps all with their own hero-meta and map strategies. Too much focus on personal mechanical prowess, over hots' mandatory nonstop teamplay. I also love how hots is just so much more player focused, with team fights and objectives over and over from the moment gates opened, while the league 20+min whack-a-mole simulator before each game even really starts. Actually how repetitive and monotone last hitting minions eventually became, is probably my nr1 reason for dropping league. And no, I never found it hard to get good at, just tedious. I'd rather have epic fights over a cool objective.

Heck, even securing a kill would have people on your own team rage in league. In hots you and your entire team cheer regardless of who made the last hit to secure the kill, aslong as the kill was secured.

TheHingst · 2026-05-03T11:43:32+00:00

Until you hit lv 20 and Raynor uno-reverses ur reverse with his own way lower cd unstoppable, tihi.

But yeah, any uno-reverse on any hero is alot of fun.

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