Sorceress Max Strength

[Moonknight]

Should the Sorceress really have a max strength of 45?

The combo of speed, ruin hunting and being able to get strength of 45 (and usually 50 b/c with movement can get to a strength ruin quickly) is making this the hero of choice way too often now.

She can be a one person wrecking machine very quickly, especially if she gets powerful items.

[Moonknight]

Oh yeah, and add in that she starts with walking on water!

[KGB]

So what would you be suggesting? 41 max? I doubt that would make much difference nor would 37 max.

I'd like to see all the heroes be slightly overhauled again. It's nice that for instance the Dwarf Engineer can get a 3rd hit. A few other heroes should be able to do so too (Pally since he runs out of things to do quite often once he reached max leadership).

The Waterwalking is fine. It makes her unique and interesting. It's also cool to have a hero who can get really high fast movement to potentially do ruin hunting.

On the other hand she does get out of control very quickly because XP from ruin searching is really really over valued compared to XP earned from battle.

My suggestion would be to reduce ruin XP by 50% if you are guaranteed success (12+ UL on L1, 22+ UL on L2, 33+ UL on L3). That would slow down her and Ranger/Pally's that rocket up levels compared to the other heroes who can't get that massive XP boost from ruins due to low UL.

KGB

[Benis]

Personally I would say the problem lies more with the randomness of power in the different artifacts. A sorceress that is top leveled in everything is absolutely fine, it is when she gets hold of extra hearts, 4+ in chaos and a boost in leadership that the wrecking ball really starts. Right now the randomness of what you do get in the ruins you search can get to be game changers.

I wouldn't mind seeing an overhaul to the heroes though, right now some are a bit too one dimensional (Valkyria and Dread Knight) while others have too many angles to play at that some aspects never get used. Fiddling a bit more with all the upgrades would be fun and add more incentive to try out different heroes for different purposes (maybe not limit all the non-logistic based heroes to 2 group move or all but the assassin to group ambush above 10 for example). Personally I think the Sorceress is fine, like KGB said it isn't her battle value that is her greatest asset, she is a different choice that fulfills a specific niche which is interesting and, I think, helps the game be more entertaining.

BTW, shouldn't this be in the wishlisting part of the forum?

[KGB]

I don't think you can do much about the items in L2/L3 ruins. By the time your searching those you need to be getting good stuff. There's not much difference between getting a L3 item and hitting on some good flying allies.
L3 is meant to be game breaking. If you think L3 ruins give out too good rewards then one thing that could be done is to increase the risk from say 33 to 35 to be successful.

Another issue is many maps have put too many ruins on them. That's a map problem and not a Sorceress problem. Ones like Airstream have dozens of L1 ruins that can be searched really fast allowing 1-2 heroes to level up to ridiculous levels by turn 5-6 if you hit sages (L1 ruin sages are SO useful in the early game).

Biggest problem right now is that those heroes who can't search ruins and or move slowly (Barb, Valk, DK) struggle to be useful on a lot of maps because what ever level you take them at is often all they will every achieve because there isn't enough ways for them to earn XP.

KGB

[Chazar]

Biggest problem right now is that those heroes who can't search ruins and or move slowly (Barb, Valk, DK) struggle to be useful on a lot of maps because what ever level you take them at is often all they will every achieve because there isn't enough ways for them to earn XP.

That seems easier to fix than fixing all those maps: just increase XP earned from battle! Battle XP seemed too low to me in any case.

[Moonknight]

So what would you be suggesting? 41 max? I doubt that would make much difference nor would 37 max.

I'm suggesting max should be 25. I think that would balance her out.

Agree that I'd like to see a whole new redesign of heroes and more XP for battles.

[KGB]

I'm suggesting max should be 25. I think that would balance her out.

That's pretty dramatic. So instead of being able to take +4 strength 5 times (20-40) you'd propose +5 strength 1 time (20-25).

Question then becomes what do player spend the other 4 points on. Right now players split the points between move and strength with the occasional water leadership. My guess is players would purely invest in movement so she'd be roaming around even faster hunting ruins. Then the other points would be spent on negate walls (to help her take weak neutrals) and water leadership or the flight skill.

I think it would be the same problem (or worse due to faster movement) minus the fact it would be harder to pick off cities with that low strength until she gets items like Ragnarok or leadership/chaos etc.

Another possibility might be to change +3 strength 5 times (20-35). That gives players more places to spend points.

KGB

[smursh]

The 20% extra xp at start is probably bigger issue. If you are careful you can level her earlier than other heroes, then the increased strength/speed/ul kick in and leveling accelerated. Slowing those first couple levels will give the game time to develop before you see a massively powerful fast moving sorceress turn the game on its head. This is same reason barbarian starts at -15% xp, otherwise he gets too strong too fast as well.

[KGB]

Thematically though the extra XP via intelligence makes sense as does a dumber Barbarian.

Does an extra 20% really make *that* much difference? It takes 1000 XP to reach L2. So when other heroes have 835 she is at (835*1.2) = 1002. The window is actually pretty small that a hero is at 835 vs 1000 when you get 250 per city captured plus 75 for a L1 defender = 325 per city. The only way she gets to L2 faster is if she and a normal hero both end up taking 3 cities with L1 defenders (normal hero ends up at 975). How often you think that happens? If you think it happens a lot then a minor bump in battle XP (say 100 for a L1 unit) gets both heroes to L2 at the same time.

I still believe ruin XP is the problem. There's a reason that those hereos who can't search ruins end up stuck at what ever level you get when you buy them unless they get into a LOT of battles. Cut the XP in half for any ruin that has a 100% success rate. The game could even increase ruin difficulty levels to 12/24/36 from 12/22/33 to make it even riskier to open those L2 and L3 ruins.

KGB