I would put the inferno grail higher for one reason. The fact that each week is an imp week not only allows you to recruit more of these creatures. This also means that the enemies will not have a chance to gain the growth bonus of their creatures. And that there won't be a plague week.
It would be killer grail if necropolis had the opposite to tower - cast cover of darkness all over the map.. Could you imagine the annoyance of the opponents :DDD
@@KiwiImpactSaint when I play I take screenshots of the view air and view earth maps sometimes as a reference. I assume this type of playthrough would make use of such methods. For me it would feel really frustrating not even being able to see the exact shape of the terrain while moving around. The only benefit might be that scouting skill actually becomes very powerful.
IMO the idea is good - but it *should be applied only once*. +20% necromancy is OP - and the described ability should replace it or lower it to i.e. 5%.
I'm more in love with the fact that people still actually play this game. I started playing it on release and I still play it till this day with the same mates I began playing it with. I make my own maps now though. If anyone wants to try one, hit me up. Made a World of Warcraft map
Hi, I would like to play with some guys that dont leave :) when I played online it happend too often when more players were involved. You can add me on steam "joeyloey" or if you dont use steam, you suggest different way :)
Deity of fire actually does give a decent bonus. If you're playing necro. All those free imps become free skeletons. The imps that spawn around the map also become free skeletons. ...That's about it.
The Deity of Fire should have a hidden mechanic where if he takes off his shirt it raises troops morale. It's getting hot in here, and I'm not talking about the Magogs.
You forgot that it actually has hidden mechanic! You will never have a bad week or weeks that can support your opponent. If it enable in map, that new spawning creatures will be friendly for your town and they more likely to join your forces.
Yeah, imps might be a wimpy thing, but one should also consider that when you change ever week to the week of the imp, it can no longer ever give that boost to an opponent's units' growth.
Technically week of the imp will be a loss for inferno and a huge gain for necropolis since they can just roam around the map for stray imps and turn into freaking skeleton soldiers
I think it would be an interesting idea if the Skyship gives vision over the whole map and the Grail Building of Dungeon gives vision over the whole underground
skyship works because it's in the sky and it can see everything, but how would that work? As a person who likes dungeon, this idea makes completely no sense, especially since not all maps even have underground
Defending your grail town is actually VERY important, of course this is versus AI since vs human players you should already win if there is a single grail in the game. But if you are outnumbered, watching the enemy heroes crash vs your +10 defense and attack fortress is pretty key.- On the other hand as there is no fog of war in heroes 3 the skyship is the one that's pretty irrelevant. By the time you get the grail you will have already pretty much have explored the entire map. The only point is cover of darkness.
Few things worth mentioning about HOTA expansion grail buidings. Aurora Borealis works different than in AB/SoD in that regard that it gives you all spells that can "spawn" in conflux (you won't get curse, death ripple, animate dead, armageddon, sacrifice and titan lighting bolt) also you need to build corresponding mage guild level to obtain spells from that tier. Lodestar works quite odd because it affects all cove creatures not only those which belongs to player which owns the grail building, it even affects monsters on the world map.
I actually rank the Soul Prism higher than the Skyship since the usefulness of the skyship is directly affected by when you get it as Skyship gets worse as you explore more of the world. Skyship would be hugely beneficial if you can somehow get it in the beginning of the game (either a custom scenario, blind luck, or you rushed to get all the obelisks) but would become less and less useful as the game progresses (and almost entirely useless if by the time you've gotten it, the map has been revealed by exploration or a cartographer). The Soul Prism, meanwhile, is a very powerful boon early game, and remains consistently useful late into the game.
What's probably worse, is that in the one vanilla scenario where you start out with the Grail Building, Good to Go, it's a super tiny map that doesn't even have an underground.
The Deity of Fire's strength is not in making every week Week of the Imp. It's in preventing every week from becoming week of (insert any non-Inferno unit here).
I remember after watching this video me and my friend were playing on hotseat and we both chose conflux and after our enemies started to give us a hard time I found the grail and I told my friend that we are saved because grails are amazing ( I didn't know that before watching this video) and because you can share a mage guild we both got town portal and defeated our enemies, so thank you for this wonderful video I can't wait to see more!!!
Excellent video with great nuance (morale is always better than luck, for instance, i.e., rampart vs. castle) - I appreciate that you ranked where the Horn of the Abyss grail building falls as well - great job!
In my random scenario games, I always like to have at least one conflux town. In case I have the Grail, I can access all the spells in the game. Some times the entire map just does not have Town Portal which is annoying. Expert logistics + Fly + Town Portal + Dimension Door = Able to move to any spot of the map in one turn. Best.
I have played this game for 15 years and I had no idea until today that the grail gave any bonuses besides the creature growth and +5000 gold/day. Great video.
It was long time to play this game , possibly best game this series. My Favourite Town was Necropolis And Fortress , if right map and stragegy , Fortress is quikkis Town to get fastest troops and strong army. When playing with step brother , we take largest map and difficult is Impossible. It was fun to start none resources. Ouh man! lost of good memories this game. Over thousands hours to spend this game.
Theres heroes 3, with 3 parts (shadow of death, and 2 others), and then heroes 3 complete, which combines those 3 versions into one game, and has the conflux team added. You probably have one of the 3 original games before complete came out
@@markmalkowski3695 yes I do have the original disk when the game first came out. So my version is incomplete I guess. I am going to have to figure out how I can get the other parts.
You usually don't get a Grail. In almost all templates it isn't worth it, except in extreme situations, and also some templates. One template is Duel, it's one of the most commonly played templates in the entire Homm3 HotA community, and in Duel there is only 1 obelisk, and so if you find that 1 obelisk and dig it out, you now see the entire map.
There is the unique quirk of the Deity of Fire, being that it is actually stronger for the Necropolis player, than the Inferno player. When it causes every week to be week of the Imp, it means that any hero with necromancy can farm great amounts of skeletons (or liches if they have the necromancy artifact set). For this reason, most Necro players who find the grail, will put it in an inferno town (if available to them) instead of their Necropolis town, because the constant imp farming is even better for them than the +20% boost to necromancy.
Your videos are so well edited and entertaining to watch. Please do more HoMM 3 content! I absolutely love it. You remind of AoE2 youtuber Spirit Of The Law. Take that in the best way possible.
consider a template where the grail is placed in the contestable middle of the map where most goods like artifacts and utopias are, and you don't have easy, steady access to scout out your opponent's lands because the way there is crawling with his own supply chain and main hero. Skyship lets you spy on pretty much everything the opponent does. Skyship isn't of great value in maps where the Grail is a cherry on top of an already beaten single player map, where you pretty much steamrolled the opposition and found the Grail while cleaning up the remainder - but then again, if you're already in a won game, do you even need the Grail?
@@ZerglingWasteland Please explain to me how can you find the grail without first going to your opponent's zone and find the obelisks on his side (and probably fight him in the process)?
@@ZerglingWasteland On a fair template your opponent will have half or maybe a third of the obelisks, without visiting them you would need to dig quite a lot to find it. Instead of wasting hero movement you could put it to much better use.
I agree with your list, however Lodestar wont affect the starting hero movement points on adventure map, as native terrain bonuses are applied only in combat. Moreover bonus speed from skills and artifacts (Sir Mullich, creature specialty, Pendant of Swiftness etc.) wont affect starting movement points of hero at all...
Yep, this is exactly how I would rank them too. True, Inferno could buck to go above Rampart and Castle because it blocks enemy bonuses and plagues, but the luck/moral bonuses allow you to skip artifacts that would give the bonus in favor of archery artifacts or whatever your strategy is. I agree to a T.
I'm still with eLsain in this because it's often happening that you get at least 1 or 2 morale boosting artifacts. Same effect faster than via Colossus and Castle has way higher chance to get Mirth spell compare to other town's mage guild. Not like other towns has more definitive unique capability via grail, but for sure Conflux did not deserve all spell perk. The town itself is already overpowered as it is.
Very true, sonetimes when i dig out the grail i am going to conflux town (despite fact that my fav are dungeon and castle as towns and units) just to get spells (mainly town portal and flight) even if it means having extra 50% growth of shitty units.
Interesting take. I have several things I'd thought to mention: - the benefits vary a lot based on when you get them. For example, if you get the benefits very close to the final, decisive attack, then The Collosus of that Rampart one might actually be the best as they can help you in battle. In this same scenario, Aurora Borealis and especially the skyship can be truly worthless (though less likely for AB as you probably don't have ALL the spells, but it might be that you have all the GOOD spells) - morale usually, statistically mops the floor with luck. With morale you truly do twice the damage, while luck only gives + 100% base damage, so in certain (not rare) situations, the overall benefit can be as low as 20% extra final damage. However, there are cases where luck is better. These are: when you already have +3 morale, but only +1 or lower luck, getting more morale is useless, while getting more luck does help. Not all creatures can have morale, but everybody can be lucky. On that note, maybe you or your opponent has spirit of oppression, and in that case, again, luck actually gives a bonus/benefit. There's also this one case where morale is weaker than luck: attacking non lethaly some griffins. With luck, you might kill the stack in a single attack and get 0 return damage. With morale, you take retaliation damage for the 1/2 of it, and your next attack most likely will be weaker. And you might get a second retaliation too. - defense has a higher value than attack, as you only need to have 28 more defense than the attacker and you receive the minimum (before other modifiers) of 30% damage. However, this is sooo situation dependent, that I'd say it can be argued endlessly in any direction. Still, having a bonus to both should be better, in case you already have enough, say, defense for Fortress or attack for Stronghold. Though for attack to reach its maximum potential, it needs 60 over the defending creature.. As a side note, attack is extremely good if you have a ballista, as it increases its base damage too. But you don't have ballistas in siege defense.
Putting the dungeon grail as last (and completely ignoring how it synergizes with the dungeon heroes) and at the same time placing the skyship so far up the list considering by the time you have the grail most of the map is already revealed shows some fundamental lack of knowlegde about the game.
Maybe im misremembering but I thought Inferno grail was op because it didnt just double the weekly growth, it double all available imps for purchase, so if you had 10 weeks worth of imp production it would be doubled to 20 weeks worth, so leaving it unbrought would raise imps to the exponent of 2, and in a few weeks you would get getting 1000s more imps EDIT: Yea i just double checked, its monthly not weekly but it doubles all available imps, which means in a sufficiently long game the grail can give you more imps than you could ever afford. Easily in the millions and billions
@@Aeroldoth3 Every month, the "Creature of the week" event doubles the creatures available for purchase, and that grail makes the first week always be imp week.
I've lost a game with a grail. A 1v1 with my friend who cough me off guard and attacked my town before my main had time to come back with most of the army. Alt was not strong enough to defend and he attacked on the 7th day. So there you go :) not having Town Portal really sucks
What also makes the Aurora Borealis so insanely powerful is access to ALL spells, even the Titans Thunder from the Titans combo artifact, to heroes that don't have the wisdom secondary skill. That was nerfed down in Horn of the Abyss along with all necromancy skills and boosters cut to half strength.
and to top Conflux off, the firebirds reproduce at the fastest rate and are actually really cheap for how strong they are. Actually the entire city has a big growth and you are mostly lacking gold to hire all the armies. I always have a hard time deciding on Necropolis or Conflux is i just want to have that godly feeling when playing.
There is a small map in HoMM3 where the Grail will always spawn randomly in front of your town. I was playing Conflux using Luna (wisdom & fire magic). Within first week I happened to found the Grail and obtained all spells. I ended up flying Luna to all neighboring towns and Armageddon the enemies using multiple stacks of fire elementals in my army. Beat the map in < 30 days.
The problem with the worldship is that unless the grail map is exceptionally detailed (such as on a border edge or along the edge of two or more regions), you’re going to need about 75% of the world map to be uncovered before you can find the grail. The other issue is that the 5K gold/day isn’t as much of an issue anymore with Golden Goose gives 7K/day and you can have multiple geese as long as you can find the parts.
If you're playing with the Sorcery specialist of Dungeon and you get Guardian of Earth you are pretty much guaranteed to defend well. I personally would have given it +20 spell power and also disable all enemy spell immunities during the siege, such as Orb of Inhibition, Recanter's Cloak, specific spells immunity artifacts, as well as all creature spell immunities/resistance/enemy hero resistance to 0. I would have also given access to all spells to the defending hero during the siege, and at expert level as well.
The Inferno grail probably helps Necromancers more than the Necropolis grail since it causes new wandering imps to spawn on the map each week. So you get more monsters to turn into skeletons in the long run.
@Soller That player probably has health increasing artifacts so the 4k skeleton stack actually has +12k health compared to normal. Good luck spending your mana on implosion just to fight skellies that they get for free every fight
you should also point out for inferno that it negates the chance of any other non inferno towns to gain a weekly bonus...very rng but still makes a difference also damn conflux so op
between attack and defense, defense is only as good as attack as long as it eliminates attack bonuses which register 5% increase in damage; anything above that and it's effect is reduced to a 2% damage reduction (which becomes really nice if armorer is involved)
it is 3% of dmg reduction per point of D when D>A. On paper it looks worse, however You must take in account EHP (effective health points of the units). Long story short, each point of Defense gives more bonus than previous one, while each point of Attack gives the same bonus (unless used to counter Defense of the enemy). They both had their uses. On the side note Armorer secondary skill is just flat boost to EHP after A vs D calculations, just like Offense is bonus to actual damage dealt. Armorer specialty is where things get super OP though, as on higher levels (20+) it strongly mitigates/almost completely negates any attack advantages enemy can have.
same, I was only surprised a little bit by the skyship, because when you find all or most of obelisks you discover most of the map anyway, and as far games go as more useless it become
@@Skorpion1991most of the time u need just 1 or 2 obelisk to dig grail. If you cant dig it without collecting all obelisk just to find it will be pointless anyway.
If you found and digged up the grail... most probably you already KNOW a good portion of the map... so I really don´t think the skyship is worth anything. It even says that these spellpoints do not leave with the hero leaving the town.
Problem with Deity of Fire is that if your oponents happen to be or own Inferno town as well, they will benefit from Imp increase as well. I mean, its not a huge buff, but its a buff anyways (and buffing your oponent? This isnt Souls game) Also while Guardian of Earth might be least useful (and I admit, your reasoning is sound), its still looks so awesome Im gonna build it anyway (same goes for Carnivorous Plant) xD
Heroes 3 towns look better then heroes 6 and 7 towns I just don't get it how did they go so much backwards in time what has happened to glorious 3D towns from Heroes 5.
Another con to the stat bonus grail buildings, is that you generally get the grail toward the end of the game, when your stats are already relatively high.
Interesting I always thought the dungeon grail is better than the fortress and stronghold ones, because it is largely independent on the units defending. With mana vortex, and usual earth magic - resurrection centered dungeon heroes it is usually much easier to defend the town with a mediocre hero and a couple of units than in a fortress or stronghold town.
One thing i think that the game should have with the grail, is to find all the grail monuments before u can dig up the grail, as it is now i have seen the computer finding the grail, and i have also seen it carrying the grail to my own town, yes i sometimes play with computer players
Guardian of earth will be much better if it boost visiting(Garrisoned) heroes' Knowledge temporarily. +3 makes a difference. +6 will be great. Since the mana vortex means you can get additional maximum SP from the knowledge boost, and you can take the extra SP anyway with a stay.
I'd say morale is easily better than luck, but I rather have the luck building. At the point I get the grail it's lickely I already have morale as secondary on my battle heroes, but I never/ rarely pick luck. So morale from the grail won't do anything/ have a reduced effect, while I could fully profit from the luck building.
I think that skyship got a bit over ranked. Considering that you have to search most of the map to find grail in the first place this is not such a huge boost. It's still more useful than most but I personally would have ranked it 1 or 2 spots lower. Making necromancy more busted in a late-game definitely is better, but I agree that aurora Borealis is the best tho
Doesn't Skyship negate all darkness generating effects? Like Necropolises, clovers of darkness, or special abilities that generate darkness around heroes in mods like WoG? I think for those cases it is very useful.
@@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ I don't remember from my experience, but from reading online, apparently it doesn't help. I mean, when you build it, you do see everything. But by the next turn, the darkness from those buildings is back. Apparently there's no darkness against a lookout tower. I guess it simply gives its vision every single turn, while the skyship gives you the vision once when you build it or when you capture it.
As a Conflux fan, yeah, Aurora Borealis is pretty broken. Having access to DD, Fly, TP, Arma, and mass berserk at a snap of the fingers is so fucked up. But then again, so is the Prison of Souls...
You ranked Cove third, I would rank it below Inferno. It only affects Cove creatures but it affects all Cove creatures on the map, friendly or foe and even neutral. If one of your enemies has more Cove towns then you, you are giving him a major bonus then you're getting. Not that this matters to me, I only build it in Towers, if there is any on the map. And I will finish the match in a second if I can see where all my enemies are going and where exactly their towns are.
can't you just use view air for that? i always find myself to own that spell without knowing it anyway, plus expert air isn't an uncommon secondary skill to own
@@Tempestissiman You're right, combined with View Earth to get the structure of the map, View Air can and will increase your efficiency in pursuing enemies. Yet, one thing is to know there are 4 heroes around this town, another to guess wish one is carrying the army...
Conflux is frustratingly powerful in terms of magic, even though Tower is the "Wizard" faction... Conflux just has elemental beings... Not magic. Meeh.
Actually they were magical being, Diety or lesser deity who taken a humanoid form/multiversal being from Elemental/Magical Plane to Material Plane. You cant kill a diety in magical plane, but when they visit in material plane. They become materialize thats why they can be seen, touch or hurt them. PLANESwalker was the term because they can travel across different planes or verses
I would put colossus as #1 and necro #2. Skyship #3 The skyship vision is a utility. It makes life easier but doesnt make you stronger. Technically a good player would play exactly the same regardless if he has skyship
It seems like you've likely written this comment at 3am, considering you literally make no sense, and if you thought about it for a few more seconds you'd likely have deleted this comment. A good player needs to see a good object, in order to see he can have the Skyship to help him, if he doesn't see he can randomly dimension door into something and that something is most likely a worse object. So the good player would have to have extreme luck to be able to guess where the good objects are. And also colossus is just expert leadership, it's definitely not better than the necro grail.
Imps are fast and they join you most of the time so you can mass them like skeletons. Morale is better than luck just like negative morale is worse than negative luck.
@@lilnato3084 i got one or two of the pieces. there was a distinct rock or something and it happen to be within a day or 2 from my base. so i spammed heroes and dug. he immediately surrendered and we started a new one. one time that same cousin though... he found armageddons blade? the sword that gives you the ability to cast AND immunity from armageddon. (but that one was BS because a mob that was suposta be guarding it wasnt close enough)
Would the sees all of map benefit of tower really useful when you get the grail? When I get the grail I’ve usually already mapped out most of the map anyway.
Build the Deity of Fire to flex on your enemies. Oh I’m sorry, are all the imps on the map bothering you? Gee, I hope this doesn’t happen every single week from now on
"If you've got the grail you pretty much already won the game" Say that to my enemy bot that used the grail in Stronghold which I conqurred 2 days later xD
Airship is doom. Revealing the entire map only extends your waiting by x10000 every time you end your turn, with all the opponent heroes in sight, moving around.
You only need 2 obelisks to identify the area where to dig, IF you can see it on the map. So next time try this, go to two obelisks, then try to work out it it's in your territory or not. If yes, then get 3 heroes and go digging. If you are lucky, it will be in the first hole you dig - true story.
@@ingerasulffs All you have to do is save your game, then use the grail treasure map reveal cheat, then reload your saved game. You won't have Cheater! on your title at the end of the game. Just make sure you save it BEFORE you use any cheats.
skyship is t9 due to wisdom giving only +to max mp but you dont get mp regain on battle start so 40/40 or 40/240 gives no diffrence, 2 map reveale is one time show.... necro smoke is breaking it so yea.... skyship worst in game
I've lost a game 1v1 against my friend with the grail. You may ask yourself how? Well, I was Inferno, so not the best Grail bonus, he had Fly and Town portal, I had nothing. He attacked while my main was out of position and killed 2 weeks of my army. My main was too weak to capture my capital back and there you go.
Skyship is my least favorite grail building. You can buy a map for 1000 golds. Most of the random generated maps (xl) has at least one or two. It's easier to find than grail.
The problem is with the cartographer, not with the Skyship. It shouldn't be so easy to get a map of the land, especially since there's no fog of war (how the hell that one non-magic paper shows me the movement of my enemies?). Also, for some reason, Skyship also reveals the underground.
Never get to benefit from the grail lol I either end up getting it in the very late game in which I'm already winning or kill everyone before finding it... can someone suggest a map in which it is actually a priority?
It is nice to find early, but you need to luck out and have it in the lands you have vision on. No need to find all obelisks- it is possible to just open several obelisks, find distinctive terrain, hunt it down , count the squares to the centre of the puzzle map from it, and then dig out around that centre till you find it.
no he didn't. He said all grails increase unit production by 50%, so they all give you 1 extra of whichever your best unit is. It's not unique to dungeon grail.
"Aurora Borialis? At this time of day, on this part of the map, localised entirely to your conflux town?"
Yes!
@@wholesomebaker5410 May I see it?
No.
NWCalreadygotone
@@wholesomebaker5410 , the house is on fire!
I would put the inferno grail higher for one reason. The fact that each week is an imp week not only allows you to recruit more of these creatures. This also means that the enemies will not have a chance to gain the growth bonus of their creatures. And that there won't be a plague week.
agree !!
*plague month
Downside, your opponents will get many more imps too
@@komuschi assuming they have an inferno though
Sandro and his 80k skeletons agree
It would be killer grail if necropolis had the opposite to tower - cast cover of darkness all over the map.. Could you imagine the annoyance of the opponents :DDD
It's a bit too much but I could imagine Cover of Darkness for all the towns you own :)
I think I would just quit the game if that happened. It would be almost unplayable.
Perpetual darkness is an optional gameplay setting in WOG. It’s not unplayable, just all players progress a lot slower.
@@KiwiImpactSaint when I play I take screenshots of the view air and view earth maps sometimes as a reference. I assume this type of playthrough would make use of such methods. For me it would feel really frustrating not even being able to see the exact shape of the terrain while moving around. The only benefit might be that scouting skill actually becomes very powerful.
IMO the idea is good - but it *should be applied only once*.
+20% necromancy is OP - and the described ability should replace it or lower it to i.e. 5%.
I didn't really even know about the bonuses being that different before. Shows how often I actually bother digging up the grail.
I only knew all but conflux because I love the cheat codes and fully build structure cheat semi often in story mode.
I'm more in love with the fact that people still actually play this game. I started playing it on release and I still play it till this day with the same mates I began playing it with. I make my own maps now though. If anyone wants to try one, hit me up. Made a World of Warcraft map
ye, link me the WoW one
Hi, I would like to play with some guys that dont leave :) when I played online it happend too often when more players were involved. You can add me on steam "joeyloey" or if you dont use steam, you suggest different way :)
I'd love to play the WoW map, would you mind to send it?
Yea! I would love to try all of your maps, sir!
Share the map
Deity of fire actually does give a decent bonus.
If you're playing necro.
All those free imps become free skeletons. The imps that spawn around the map also become free skeletons.
...That's about it.
Its a nice strategy but not practical.
Everything becomes free skeletons, really.
Its all Skeletons!
It's useful for everyone. Because it just cancels plague weeks. Hah!
Kreegans and Necros are allies. Seems legit
The Deity of Fire should have a hidden mechanic where if he takes off his shirt it raises troops morale.
It's getting hot in here, and I'm not talking about the Magogs.
Please elaborate again. I think it's an important part. I don't think I've heard it before.
You forgot that it actually has hidden mechanic! You will never have a bad week or weeks that can support your opponent. If it enable in map, that new spawning creatures will be friendly for your town and they more likely to join your forces.
Yeah, imps might be a wimpy thing, but one should also consider that when you change ever week to the week of the imp, it can no longer ever give that boost to an opponent's units' growth.
Technically week of the imp will be a loss for inferno and a huge gain for necropolis since they can just roam around the map for stray imps and turn into freaking skeleton soldiers
If he took his shirt off it'd be week of the simp
I think it would be an interesting idea if the Skyship gives vision over the whole map and the Grail Building of Dungeon gives vision over the whole underground
U mean gets vision of the upper part of the world and dungeon is the underground vision of the map, that would make sense :)
That's a really good idea. Pitch it to the HotA devs, I say.
skyship works because it's in the sky and it can see everything, but how would that work? As a person who likes dungeon, this idea makes completely no sense, especially since not all maps even have underground
@@dawidek4267 It's guardian of earth so it's logical it would have knowledge of what's going on underground.
@@the_neuron no its not
Defending your grail town is actually VERY important, of course this is versus AI since vs human players you should already win if there is a single grail in the game. But if you are outnumbered, watching the enemy heroes crash vs your +10 defense and attack fortress is pretty key.- On the other hand as there is no fog of war in heroes 3 the skyship is the one that's pretty irrelevant. By the time you get the grail you will have already pretty much have explored the entire map. The only point is cover of darkness.
Few things worth mentioning about HOTA expansion grail buidings. Aurora Borealis works different than in AB/SoD in that regard that it gives you all spells that can "spawn" in conflux (you won't get curse, death ripple, animate dead, armageddon, sacrifice and titan lighting bolt) also you need to build corresponding mage guild level to obtain spells from that tier. Lodestar works quite odd because it affects all cove creatures not only those which belongs to player which owns the grail building, it even affects monsters on the world map.
I actually rank the Soul Prism higher than the Skyship since the usefulness of the skyship is directly affected by when you get it as Skyship gets worse as you explore more of the world. Skyship would be hugely beneficial if you can somehow get it in the beginning of the game (either a custom scenario, blind luck, or you rushed to get all the obelisks) but would become less and less useful as the game progresses (and almost entirely useless if by the time you've gotten it, the map has been revealed by exploration or a cartographer). The Soul Prism, meanwhile, is a very powerful boon early game, and remains consistently useful late into the game.
What's probably worse, is that in the one vanilla scenario where you start out with the Grail Building, Good to Go, it's a super tiny map that doesn't even have an underground.
The Deity of Fire's strength is not in making every week Week of the Imp. It's in preventing every week from becoming week of (insert any non-Inferno unit here).
yes, true
But keep in mind it can be used against you due to skeletons
I remember after watching this video me and my friend were playing on hotseat and we both chose conflux and after our enemies started to give us a hard time I found the grail and I told my friend that we are saved because grails are amazing ( I didn't know that before watching this video) and because you can share a mage guild we both got town portal and defeated our enemies, so thank you for this wonderful video I can't wait to see more!!!
I heard the Conflux is very broken in general, but the Aurora Borealis really took the cake, improved it and solved world hunger in five seconds.
Magnus the Red would be happy.
On big maps where you have a lot of towns, you can get all the available spells, so sometimes their Grail is useless in that term.
Excellent video with great nuance (morale is always better than luck, for instance, i.e., rampart vs. castle) - I appreciate that you ranked where the Horn of the Abyss grail building falls as well - great job!
In my random scenario games, I always like to have at least one conflux town. In case I have the Grail, I can access all the spells in the game. Some times the entire map just does not have Town Portal which is annoying. Expert logistics + Fly + Town Portal + Dimension Door = Able to move to any spot of the map in one turn. Best.
One missing component is a method of infinite movement. I only know of the cheat code, but I assume there is a relic equivalent.
Nice to see new videos of heroes being uploaded and it getting lots of views.
I have played this game for 15 years and I had no idea until today that the grail gave any bonuses besides the creature growth and +5000 gold/day. Great video.
lol
1st place: Conflux
2nd place: Tower
Last place: Everything else
It was long time to play this game , possibly best game this series. My Favourite Town was Necropolis And Fortress , if right map and stragegy , Fortress is quikkis Town to get fastest troops and strong army. When playing with step brother , we take largest map and difficult is Impossible. It was fun to start none resources. Ouh man! lost of good memories this game. Over thousands hours to spend this game.
I always said "Conflux has the most OP grail building even if it only put Town Portal in your mage guild"
TP + Exp Earth MGC.
Otherwise, TP is primarily useless iMO.
Advanced is good enough. Also Conflux can build a Magic University, then any hero is one levelup away from being a nightmare
I have played this game a ton and have never even seen this conflux town. Perhaps my disc doesn't have this update?
Theres heroes 3, with 3 parts (shadow of death, and 2 others), and then heroes 3 complete, which combines those 3 versions into one game, and has the conflux team added. You probably have one of the 3 original games before complete came out
@@markmalkowski3695 yes I do have the original disk when the game first came out. So my version is incomplete I guess. I am going to have to figure out how I can get the other parts.
The airship could be very good, but usually when you get the grail, you've already uncovered the map.
You usually don't get a Grail. In almost all templates it isn't worth it, except in extreme situations, and also some templates. One template is Duel, it's one of the most commonly played templates in the entire Homm3 HotA community, and in Duel there is only 1 obelisk, and so if you find that 1 obelisk and dig it out, you now see the entire map.
There is the unique quirk of the Deity of Fire, being that it is actually stronger for the Necropolis player, than the Inferno player. When it causes every week to be week of the Imp, it means that any hero with necromancy can farm great amounts of skeletons (or liches if they have the necromancy artifact set). For this reason, most Necro players who find the grail, will put it in an inferno town (if available to them) instead of their Necropolis town, because the constant imp farming is even better for them than the +20% boost to necromancy.
Your videos are so well edited and entertaining to watch. Please do more HoMM 3 content! I absolutely love it. You remind of AoE2 youtuber Spirit Of The Law. Take that in the best way possible.
Didn't expect to see a Spirit of the Law reference here. Neat
Guess we all grew up playing aoe2 and homm3
Only saw two of your videos so far, but I'm a huge fan of the 'do have fun with the game you are playing' mentality! :)
Skyship is useless. By the time you find the grail you will have revealed most of the map anyway
consider a template where the grail is placed in the contestable middle of the map where most goods like artifacts and utopias are, and you don't have easy, steady access to scout out your opponent's lands because the way there is crawling with his own supply chain and main hero. Skyship lets you spy on pretty much everything the opponent does. Skyship isn't of great value in maps where the Grail is a cherry on top of an already beaten single player map, where you pretty much steamrolled the opposition and found the Grail while cleaning up the remainder - but then again, if you're already in a won game, do you even need the Grail?
@@ZerglingWasteland Please explain to me how can you find the grail without first going to your opponent's zone and find the obelisks on his side (and probably fight him in the process)?
@@themanofiron785 most people don't find all obelisks before digging, just enough to make an educated guess where to dig
@@ZerglingWasteland On a fair template your opponent will have half or maybe a third of the obelisks, without visiting them you would need to dig quite a lot to find it. Instead of wasting hero movement you could put it to much better use.
@@themanofiron785 half the obelisks is enough especially since the artifact location on the provided puzzle map is always close to the center
Finally some good fucking _content_
So the wildly unbalanced and overpowered Conflux has the best grail build? Color me shocked...
I agree with your list, however Lodestar wont affect the starting hero movement points on adventure map, as native terrain bonuses are applied only in combat. Moreover bonus speed from skills and artifacts (Sir Mullich, creature specialty, Pendant of Swiftness etc.) wont affect starting movement points of hero at all...
Yep, this is exactly how I would rank them too. True, Inferno could buck to go above Rampart and Castle because it blocks enemy bonuses and plagues, but the luck/moral bonuses allow you to skip artifacts that would give the bonus in favor of archery artifacts or whatever your strategy is. I agree to a T.
knight started off with leadership, so no point for having colossus morale boost
but if you switch to a superior fighting hero like barbarian or overlord you get a lot more value.
And u can carry more negative effects, such as mixing top tier troops
Nope it is still good because you can have a bigger variety of troops in your army which is actually very relevant if you use Expert Diplomacy.
I'm still with eLsain in this because it's often happening that you get at least 1 or 2 morale boosting artifacts. Same effect faster than via Colossus and Castle has way higher chance to get Mirth spell compare to other town's mage guild. Not like other towns has more definitive unique capability via grail, but for sure Conflux did not deserve all spell perk. The town itself is already overpowered as it is.
@@Tibor0803 Mirth ? Who will cast mirth ? There's literally a dozen better spells
I've played this game on and off for over 15 years since I was a kid. I never knew this "grail" thing was a thing, I never knew..
I don't even knew it exists xD
Very true, sonetimes when i dig out the grail i am going to conflux town (despite fact that my fav are dungeon and castle as towns and units) just to get spells (mainly town portal and flight) even if it means having extra 50% growth of shitty units.
I used to play the living crap out of this game back in the day. Might just pick it up again after watching these videos.
I'm just posting to help the author, don't mind me
Conflux is OP and even their grail is OP...
100% yes makes sense; often want to argue rankings but this one; don't see how can do it. :)
5:30 Ah, Superintendent Chalmers, welcome
@@tomh4754 Yes!
@@MrLisreal May I see it?
Interesting take. I have several things I'd thought to mention:
- the benefits vary a lot based on when you get them. For example, if you get the benefits very close to the final, decisive attack, then The Collosus of that Rampart one might actually be the best as they can help you in battle. In this same scenario, Aurora Borealis and especially the skyship can be truly worthless (though less likely for AB as you probably don't have ALL the spells, but it might be that you have all the GOOD spells)
- morale usually, statistically mops the floor with luck. With morale you truly do twice the damage, while luck only gives + 100% base damage, so in certain (not rare) situations, the overall benefit can be as low as 20% extra final damage. However, there are cases where luck is better. These are: when you already have +3 morale, but only +1 or lower luck, getting more morale is useless, while getting more luck does help. Not all creatures can have morale, but everybody can be lucky. On that note, maybe you or your opponent has spirit of oppression, and in that case, again, luck actually gives a bonus/benefit. There's also this one case where morale is weaker than luck: attacking non lethaly some griffins. With luck, you might kill the stack in a single attack and get 0 return damage. With morale, you take retaliation damage for the 1/2 of it, and your next attack most likely will be weaker. And you might get a second retaliation too.
- defense has a higher value than attack, as you only need to have 28 more defense than the attacker and you receive the minimum (before other modifiers) of 30% damage. However, this is sooo situation dependent, that I'd say it can be argued endlessly in any direction. Still, having a bonus to both should be better, in case you already have enough, say, defense for Fortress or attack for Stronghold. Though for attack to reach its maximum potential, it needs 60 over the defending creature.. As a side note, attack is extremely good if you have a ballista, as it increases its base damage too. But you don't have ballistas in siege defense.
Putting the dungeon grail as last (and completely ignoring how it synergizes with the dungeon heroes) and at the same time placing the skyship so far up the list considering by the time you have the grail most of the map is already revealed shows some fundamental lack of knowlegde about the game.
Maybe im misremembering but I thought Inferno grail was op because it didnt just double the weekly growth, it double all available imps for purchase, so if you had 10 weeks worth of imp production it would be doubled to 20 weeks worth, so leaving it unbrought would raise imps to the exponent of 2, and in a few weeks you would get getting 1000s more imps
EDIT: Yea i just double checked, its monthly not weekly but it doubles all available imps, which means in a sufficiently long game the grail can give you more imps than you could ever afford. Easily in the millions and billions
What are you saying... the number of available unbought imps to buy doubles each week, sort of like getting interest on your imp "savings"?
@@Aeroldoth3 Every month, the "Creature of the week" event doubles the creatures available for purchase, and that grail makes the first week always be imp week.
@@Vitross Huh, I'll have to go back and check that out. Thanks for commenting that!
Just keep in mind necromancers can use the inferno town advantage due to skeletons if necromancer has a necromancer set then can raise liches
I've lost a game with a grail. A 1v1 with my friend who cough me off guard and attacked my town before my main had time to come back with most of the army. Alt was not strong enough to defend and he attacked on the 7th day. So there you go :) not having Town Portal really sucks
What also makes the Aurora Borealis so insanely powerful is access to ALL spells, even the Titans Thunder from the Titans combo artifact, to heroes that don't have the wisdom secondary skill. That was nerfed down in Horn of the Abyss along with all necromancy skills and boosters cut to half strength.
and to top Conflux off, the firebirds reproduce at the fastest rate and are actually really cheap for how strong they are. Actually the entire city has a big growth and you are mostly lacking gold to hire all the armies. I always have a hard time deciding on Necropolis or Conflux is i just want to have that godly feeling when playing.
There is a small map in HoMM3 where the Grail will always spawn randomly in front of your town. I was playing Conflux using Luna (wisdom & fire magic). Within first week I happened to found the Grail and obtained all spells. I ended up flying Luna to all neighboring towns and Armageddon the enemies using multiple stacks of fire elementals in my army. Beat the map in < 30 days.
Which map is this?
The problem with the worldship is that unless the grail map is exceptionally detailed (such as on a border edge or along the edge of two or more regions), you’re going to need about 75% of the world map to be uncovered before you can find the grail.
The other issue is that the 5K gold/day isn’t as much of an issue anymore with Golden Goose gives 7K/day and you can have multiple geese as long as you can find the parts.
If you're playing with the Sorcery specialist of Dungeon and you get Guardian of Earth you are pretty much guaranteed to defend well. I personally would have given it +20 spell power and also disable all enemy spell immunities during the siege, such as Orb of Inhibition, Recanter's Cloak, specific spells immunity artifacts, as well as all creature spell immunities/resistance/enemy hero resistance to 0. I would have also given access to all spells to the defending hero during the siege, and at expert level as well.
LoL, wtf, the last thing you mentioned, totally not OP
The Inferno grail probably helps Necromancers more than the Necropolis grail since it causes new wandering imps to spawn on the map each week. So you get more monsters to turn into skeletons in the long run.
in reality you can cast all the spells you want but you're never going to kill those 4k skellies in month 2 knocking on your door
BRUH WHY YOU GOTTA STEAL MY HAIR?! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!
@Soller That player probably has health increasing artifacts so the 4k skeleton stack actually has +12k health compared to normal. Good luck spending your mana on implosion just to fight skellies that they get for free every fight
However those skeletons will be obliterated by Ryland with Expert Diplomacy and all of the neutral stacks in the map
Don't forget destroy undead spell
you should also point out for inferno that it negates the chance of any other non inferno towns to gain a weekly bonus...very rng but still makes a difference also damn conflux so op
between attack and defense, defense is only as good as attack as long as it eliminates attack bonuses which register 5% increase in damage; anything above that and it's effect is reduced to a 2% damage reduction (which becomes really nice if armorer is involved)
it is 3% of dmg reduction per point of D when D>A. On paper it looks worse, however You must take in account EHP (effective health points of the units). Long story short, each point of Defense gives more bonus than previous one, while each point of Attack gives the same bonus (unless used to counter Defense of the enemy). They both had their uses.
On the side note Armorer secondary skill is just flat boost to EHP after A vs D calculations, just like Offense is bonus to actual damage dealt. Armorer specialty is where things get super OP though, as on higher levels (20+) it strongly mitigates/almost completely negates any attack advantages enemy can have.
It's 2.5% dmg deduction
Indeed its the other way around: Defense increases in efficiency if it superior to enemy attack
Played this game for years on years since I was a kid and never knew about grail buildings?!?
I just knew that the Conflux one was gonna be N°1
same, I was only surprised a little bit by the skyship, because when you find all or most of obelisks you discover most of the map anyway, and as far games go as more useless it become
@@Skorpion1991most of the time u need just 1 or 2 obelisk to dig grail. If you cant dig it without collecting all obelisk just to find it will be pointless anyway.
If you found and digged up the grail... most probably you already KNOW a good portion of the map... so I really don´t think the skyship is worth anything.
It even says that these spellpoints do not leave with the hero leaving the town.
Bosque y Castillo: Daremos moral y suerte! :D
Conflux: Toma todos los hechizos papu
Good video... I agree pretty much exactly... Thanks :)
Problem with Deity of Fire is that if your oponents happen to be or own Inferno town as well, they will benefit from Imp increase as well. I mean, its not a huge buff, but its a buff anyways (and buffing your oponent? This isnt Souls game)
Also while Guardian of Earth might be least useful (and I admit, your reasoning is sound), its still looks so awesome Im gonna build it anyway (same goes for Carnivorous Plant) xD
As someone that's obsessed with that dumb steamed hams meme, I appreciate the superintendant Chalmers nod
Heroes 3 towns look better then heroes 6 and 7 towns I just don't get it how did they go so much backwards in time what has happened to glorious 3D towns from Heroes 5.
Another con to the stat bonus grail buildings, is that you generally get the grail toward the end of the game, when your stats are already relatively high.
Interesting I always thought the dungeon grail is better than the fortress and stronghold ones, because it is largely independent on the units defending. With mana vortex, and usual earth magic - resurrection centered dungeon heroes it is usually much easier to defend the town with a mediocre hero and a couple of units than in a fortress or stronghold town.
The computer cheats like a madman with digging up the grail!
One thing i think that the game should have with the grail, is to find all the grail monuments before u can dig up the grail, as it is now i have seen the computer finding the grail, and i have also seen it carrying the grail to my own town, yes i sometimes play with computer players
Guardian of earth will be much better if it boost visiting(Garrisoned) heroes' Knowledge temporarily.
+3 makes a difference. +6 will be great. Since the mana vortex means you can get additional maximum SP from the knowledge boost, and you can take the extra SP anyway with a stay.
in hota Aurora Borealis also doesn’t allow to learn spells not available for this town, so no Armageddon for example
As he said, when you found this thing, you already won
We all still watched because we like lists
I'd say morale is easily better than luck, but I rather have the luck building. At the point I get the grail it's lickely I already have morale as secondary on my battle heroes, but I never/ rarely pick luck. So morale from the grail won't do anything/ have a reduced effect, while I could fully profit from the luck building.
I think that skyship got a bit over ranked. Considering that you have to search most of the map to find grail in the first place this is not such a huge boost. It's still more useful than most but I personally would have ranked it 1 or 2 spots lower. Making necromancy more busted in a late-game definitely is better, but I agree that aurora Borealis is the best tho
Doesn't Skyship negate all darkness generating effects? Like Necropolises, clovers of darkness, or special abilities that generate darkness around heroes in mods like WoG? I think for those cases it is very useful.
@@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ I don't remember from my experience, but from reading online, apparently it doesn't help. I mean, when you build it, you do see everything. But by the next turn, the darkness from those buildings is back. Apparently there's no darkness against a lookout tower. I guess it simply gives its vision every single turn, while the skyship gives you the vision once when you build it or when you capture it.
Mb its fixed with the time, but cove bust working on the neutral creatures too, so it's not a bad in mixed army at all
As a Conflux fan, yeah, Aurora Borealis is pretty broken. Having access to DD, Fly, TP, Arma, and mass berserk at a snap of the fingers is so fucked up. But then again, so is the Prison of Souls...
You ranked Cove third, I would rank it below Inferno. It only affects Cove creatures but it affects all Cove creatures on the map, friendly or foe and even neutral. If one of your enemies has more Cove towns then you, you are giving him a major bonus then you're getting.
Not that this matters to me, I only build it in Towers, if there is any on the map. And I will finish the match in a second if I can see where all my enemies are going and where exactly their towns are.
can't you just use view air for that? i always find myself to own that spell without knowing it anyway, plus expert air isn't an uncommon secondary skill to own
@@Tempestissiman You're right, combined with View Earth to get the structure of the map, View Air can and will increase your efficiency in pursuing enemies. Yet, one thing is to know there are 4 heroes around this town, another to guess wish one is carrying the army...
@@franciscojeronimo5881 that's a fair point
Conflux is frustratingly powerful in terms of magic, even though Tower is the "Wizard" faction... Conflux just has elemental beings... Not magic. Meeh.
Actually they were magical being, Diety or lesser deity who taken a humanoid form/multiversal being from Elemental/Magical Plane to Material Plane. You cant kill a diety in magical plane, but when they visit in material plane. They become materialize thats why they can be seen, touch or hurt them. PLANESwalker was the term because they can travel across different planes or verses
I thought tower was the "ranged" faction??
I would put colossus as #1 and necro #2. Skyship #3
The skyship vision is a utility. It makes life easier but doesnt make you stronger. Technically a good player would play exactly the same regardless if he has skyship
It seems like you've likely written this comment at 3am, considering you literally make no sense, and if you thought about it for a few more seconds you'd likely have deleted this comment. A good player needs to see a good object, in order to see he can have the Skyship to help him, if he doesn't see he can randomly dimension door into something and that something is most likely a worse object. So the good player would have to have extreme luck to be able to guess where the good objects are. And also colossus is just expert leadership, it's definitely not better than the necro grail.
Imps are fast and they join you most of the time so you can mass them like skeletons. Morale is better than luck just like negative morale is worse than negative luck.
one time vs my cousin i got the grail on week 1. he was so mad. good times.
1st week? how😂
@@lilnato3084 i got one or two of the pieces. there was a distinct rock or something and it happen to be within a day or 2 from my base. so i spammed heroes and dug. he immediately surrendered and we started a new one.
one time that same cousin though... he found armageddons blade? the sword that gives you the ability to cast AND immunity from armageddon. (but that one was BS because a mob that was suposta be guarding it wasnt close enough)
@@jimmyjohnson8233 which map ? (I mean For the bugged Guardian of the Armageddon sword )
@@Anomaliateam no idea sorry
The DoF grail has uniqe effect, its alwys raises my morale by5, when ever is see itt, 😁
Aurora Borealis?!
At this time of the game (5:48),
at this part of the video?
localized entirely within your Conflux?
Would the sees all of map benefit of tower really useful when you get the grail? When I get the grail I’ve usually already mapped out most of the map anyway.
Carnivorous plant also look so small and lame compared to others, they really did rampart dirty with this one.
+2 morale is way better than +2 luck. Imo +2 luck is pretty decent, perhaps the first desirable bonus (counting from the bottom)
Deity of fire is actually amazing for necropolis
Build the Deity of Fire to flex on your enemies.
Oh I’m sorry, are all the imps on the map bothering you? Gee, I hope this doesn’t happen every single week from now on
It also irritates that on maps where Fly, Teleport, or Town Gate spells were dissabled, the Aurora Borealis has almost no sense at all.
Best grail building is the one you own.
True
"If you've got the grail you pretty much already won the game"
Say that to my enemy bot that used the grail in Stronghold which I conqurred 2 days later xD
id put skyship lower: if you've found the grail, most of the map is likely already explored.
Airship is doom. Revealing the entire map only extends your waiting by x10000 every time you end your turn, with all the opponent heroes in sight, moving around.
i never bother finding grail on xl maps because there is too many obelisks
You only need 2 obelisks to identify the area where to dig, IF you can see it on the map. So next time try this, go to two obelisks, then try to work out it it's in your territory or not. If yes, then get 3 heroes and go digging. If you are lucky, it will be in the first hole you dig - true story.
@@ingerasulffs All you have to do is save your game, then use the grail treasure map reveal cheat, then reload your saved game. You won't have Cheater! on your title at the end of the game. Just make sure you save it BEFORE you use any cheats.
skyship is t9 due to wisdom giving only +to max mp but you dont get mp regain on battle start so 40/40 or 40/240 gives no diffrence, 2 map reveale is one time show.... necro smoke is breaking it so yea.... skyship worst in game
I've lost a game 1v1 against my friend with the grail. You may ask yourself how? Well, I was Inferno, so not the best Grail bonus, he had Fly and Town portal, I had nothing. He attacked while my main was out of position and killed 2 weeks of my army. My main was too weak to capture my capital back and there you go.
Deity of Fire + Diplomancy will be fine.
Also Deity of fire + Necro heroes
Also can the Inferno deity of fire prevent a plague week? If yes then it could be useful in not losing units or being slowed Down
Yes, it does prevent month of plague. But that's a bonus for everyone.
how to make the city view windowed like you do?
Skyship is my least favorite grail building. You can buy a map for 1000 golds. Most of the random generated maps (xl) has at least one or two. It's easier to find than grail.
Playing with cartographers is like playing with diplomacy, it's considered very close to cheating.
The problem is with the cartographer, not with the Skyship. It shouldn't be so easy to get a map of the land, especially since there's no fog of war (how the hell that one non-magic paper shows me the movement of my enemies?). Also, for some reason, Skyship also reveals the underground.
Personally I find the guardian of earth to be the best grail building, that’s a massive boost to all your damage spells.
Or the enemy's. I lost "The Gauntlet" to it before, attacked into a Deemer with surprise Guardian of Earth as Inferno. Nightmare.
Never get to benefit from the grail lol I either end up getting it in the very late game in which I'm already winning or kill everyone before finding it... can someone suggest a map in which it is actually a priority?
It is nice to find early, but you need to luck out and have it in the lands you have vision on. No need to find all obelisks- it is possible to just open several obelisks, find distinctive terrain, hunt it down , count the squares to the centre of the puzzle map from it, and then dig out around that centre till you find it.
AFAIK, Aurora does not provide Armageddon spell. Nor does Flux mage tower itself. You can never get an Armageddon spell in Flux city.
A hero with expert fire magic, expert sorcery, and expert intelligence with some nice Phoenix stacks and Armageddon is just an absolute powerhouse.
Moneare for the win.
You forgot about very important part of dungeon grail that it gives you more black dragons.
no he didn't. He said all grails increase unit production by 50%, so they all give you 1 extra of whichever your best unit is. It's not unique to dungeon grail.
Yeah but if i have skyship i will forget where i was so i will go to the same spot again and again
is there a way to play a game in 16:9 aspect ratio instead of 3:4?