Posted October 09, 2023
Just felt inclined to share what I think is the biggest potential cheese in current version of Hero's Hour.
Game's always promoted fun over balance, and personally I appreciate that approach, even if it makes late-game rather boring. Doesn't hurt people who like to find the most broken combinations as much, though (hey-o!)
Welp, Creation no longer lets you keep elementals summoned by Elementalism. Units you get through Avatar are pretty low tier. Devour and Anima-bombing (if you play long enough to see a high-level AI Hekoni, you better appreciate the ensuing !FUN!) requires a substantial army (and economy) to work.
Summons have always been good. So I figured, "well, Rogue DLC gave us Echo... yeah, why not."
Arcane's Thezania got reworked as well, and she's absolutely perfect for it. She has a skill branch in the middle that goes Pyromancy (moar spells and greater power) -> Echo -> Fire Heart. As a cherry on top, side-dip is Avatar (though not worth more than 1 point early on, IMO).
You can also drop a point or two into Creation on the other side, but that's basically all you need to rooflestomp anything.
With Ziggurat, you get effectively unlimited mana to clear around your town. If you capture another - convert it. Both for Mana, and weekly Academy level-up. It adds up very quickly. That also gives you access to another Antique Shop, and you really, REALLY want to be on the lookout for Mesmer's Set pieces (they let you keep 50% of summoned units) for the absolutely-ultimate-can't-touch-this end result.
Which is "spam vulcanwing summon until your game FPS drops to single digits" (see attached). Echo cascades are absolutely hilarious with summons (though it won't ever echo "powerful" spell versions, sadge), and even though this doesn't proc any other abilities that require caster's action (so no, you can't keep those summons with Mesmer's), this is still "over 9000!" broken.
Most fights will end before you run out of summon mana, and it's not hard to hit 500% spell power (I think that's max, can't budge it higher) as BASE stat, before Sorcery kicks in. Oh, and you get tons of stat buffs through your Aethermancy investment, that conveniently needs to be maxed out for other skills anyway.
Adding 100+ vulcanwings to your army per battle might be a bit too much (on top of all the blazes and Creation elementals I don't even look at anymore), but it sure is fun.
At that point you can send just your hero and curbstomp the most powerful army any opponent can throw at you. GG.
Game's always promoted fun over balance, and personally I appreciate that approach, even if it makes late-game rather boring. Doesn't hurt people who like to find the most broken combinations as much, though (hey-o!)
Welp, Creation no longer lets you keep elementals summoned by Elementalism. Units you get through Avatar are pretty low tier. Devour and Anima-bombing (if you play long enough to see a high-level AI Hekoni, you better appreciate the ensuing !FUN!) requires a substantial army (and economy) to work.
Summons have always been good. So I figured, "well, Rogue DLC gave us Echo... yeah, why not."
Arcane's Thezania got reworked as well, and she's absolutely perfect for it. She has a skill branch in the middle that goes Pyromancy (moar spells and greater power) -> Echo -> Fire Heart. As a cherry on top, side-dip is Avatar (though not worth more than 1 point early on, IMO).
You can also drop a point or two into Creation on the other side, but that's basically all you need to rooflestomp anything.
With Ziggurat, you get effectively unlimited mana to clear around your town. If you capture another - convert it. Both for Mana, and weekly Academy level-up. It adds up very quickly. That also gives you access to another Antique Shop, and you really, REALLY want to be on the lookout for Mesmer's Set pieces (they let you keep 50% of summoned units) for the absolutely-ultimate-can't-touch-this end result.
Which is "spam vulcanwing summon until your game FPS drops to single digits" (see attached). Echo cascades are absolutely hilarious with summons (though it won't ever echo "powerful" spell versions, sadge), and even though this doesn't proc any other abilities that require caster's action (so no, you can't keep those summons with Mesmer's), this is still "over 9000!" broken.
Most fights will end before you run out of summon mana, and it's not hard to hit 500% spell power (I think that's max, can't budge it higher) as BASE stat, before Sorcery kicks in. Oh, and you get tons of stat buffs through your Aethermancy investment, that conveniently needs to be maxed out for other skills anyway.
Adding 100+ vulcanwings to your army per battle might be a bit too much (on top of all the blazes and Creation elementals I don't even look at anymore), but it sure is fun.
At that point you can send just your hero and curbstomp the most powerful army any opponent can throw at you. GG.
Post edited October 09, 2023 by Lukaszmik