BEST SPELLS IN GAME? | Heroes 3 HotA Spell TIERLIST!

[@Lexiav]

UPDATE: View earth is low B tier in my opinion. Good for terrain scouting, lets you plan next turns, better but overall not very impactful. It was missing from my list, sorry!

[@camper5951]

Not 69 spells I am disappointed...

[@kaloyankrystev7888]

Llllpllllllpll

[@kaloyankrystev7888]

Lkllll

[@kaloyankrystev7888]

Llll

[@kaloyankrystev7888]

Lkllmlllllklmlmllllllk

[@KatyaLemonLime]

"It's basically fireball except it's a donut... Lol" *places in D tier*. ROFL

[@MrSHURIKENCHO]

I was tryping that LOL

[@HarpoMarxTheSpot]

Mmm forbidden donut… -Homer Simpson

[@CinnamonKilljoy]

I lol'd here too xDD

[@cl3arsky745]

its actually useful if your unit is surrounded, so better than fireball

[@gilgamesh4869]

I'm so happy that there still so many Heroes 3 content creators that I can learn from :D Just started playing Heroes 3 again, last I played them when I was 10 years old :D

[@Jimmyvdpost]

Same! The game is so much fun again, never knew there was so much depth to it

[@tudormarin7739]

“In SOD implosion had the animation of shitting on someone....” :)))

[@SuperXD44]

and also the sound of it

[@dannydanny2789]

​@@SuperXD44Need a mod where implosion makes a bass boosted wet fart sound

[@AdmiralSpaceballs]

Didn't the zombe attack had the same animation?

[@SFH_Stuff]

"That spell is good but it requeres water magic which is shit" - you said that too many times, maybe water magic is not that shitty after all

[@juas7439]

Yeah I agree. Water Magic and Fire Magic are good on their own, the problem is that Earth Magic and Wind Magic are above good. And Town Portal is SO OP that it changes the whole game. It should be nerfed in some way or another. I make my own modding of the game and have tweaked the numbers and tiers of the magics to ballance all schools the best way I could, and the best solution I came up with about Town Portal was to raise it's tier to 5 so it is harder to get, make it a non-school magic so any school can use it, and I raised it's mana cost so it ain't easy to spam... But really I am now thinkig of just removing the damn spell from the game, it's effect is very game changing, and tematically it isn't that interesting nor necesary, we already have the classic portal there is no need for another one "but just specific to towns", so I think I won't miss it.

[@SFH_Stuff]

@@juas7439 dont remove it lol, you ll make XL+ maps unplayable. Making it universal for all schools is a good change. Not sure about lvl5 because not many town can build that

[@juas7439]

@@SFH_Stuff Yeah XL maps will take forever, but it is a shame that as soon a someone gets the Town Portal he inmediately can go trough the whole map and gather ALL his army in 1, maybe 2 days. Just by making it universal for all schools takes away the pressure of having to choose earth magic, it is a great change. It is true not everybody has lvl 5 magic school, but also not everybody has lvl 4. Yes this one is a risky change I wouldn't reccomend for HotA. So, I don't remember if they did this on HotA, I haven't played it in 2 years. A good solution that comes to my mind is to reduce it's usage to 1 time per day maybe...

[@michakonieczko6875]

@@juas7439for the love of god remove the damn thing

[@juas7439]

@@michakonieczko6875 Yeah I might, and a way to prevent hero chains would be perfect as well, they are the only thing that truly annoys me on H3, they take me away from immersion and feel like cheating.

[@krisherringe3017]

I really enjoyed your lists. Your enthusiuam for the game is really entertaining (like your stream)

[@michal888ful]

There are two nice tricks with spells that you might not know about: 1. Mass blind - need blind and meteor shower. if you go to the down-left corner od the map, and gryffin attack you from the top you can blind him and other will not attack you beacuse AI is afraid of meteor shower. 2. You can easily kill Chempions with quick sand. You need to cast it multiple times so you can find spot with two "quick sand"ed fields around you. You can stay there whole day and chempion will circle around you forever trying to deal max DMG, but always being stack on quick sand. Of course it is good to have fast unit with no retaliation.

[@idealsAREisomorphic]

Reading your comment reminded me of how much I love arch devils

[@Vandiril]

Can I hire you as my Thumbnail Designer?

[@Lexiav]

You can't afford me :)

[@Vandiril]

@@Lexiav Says the guy using paint LUL

[@rasmussten1206]

I used to watch you league videos when I still played it. Kinda funny to see you show up here, altough I remember the Battle Theme you used for the crowd control URF video.

[@pvv890]

@@Vandiril are y ou like friends as with this guy:D?

[@rasmussten1206]

@@artward556 we both have great taste in video games. Well league is awful right now, but it used to be fun

[@CriminaIlyInsane]

when u clone archangels u can resurrect with them thats op

[@alpgunay9202]

+a speedy army may hit a high attack monster eliminating a retallion thus saving actual armies. an army with no retallion`back like hydras or cerberus would also be helpful by being obstacles to archers if not killed soon.

[@firstone3289]

you can clone archangel only with expert water magic

[@petervlcko4858]

You can double demon too.

[@ArcadianCatharsis]

​@@firstone3289which isn't really that hard to get Water magic in general is pretty strong buffing magic, bless and prayer is strong combo There isn't any great damage dealing spells and utility for map, but cloning a huge powerful stack of archangels that can access the enemy back line easily, that's a lot

[@fireworkspipecleaner]

Chain lightning is s teir because you can actually use it to damage the enimies and wake up your blinded units in the same cast

[@leocosta6485]

I prefere death ripple to wake up them !

[@Nauda999]

yes it is S tier, but I think he is taking about combat combat with map creatures, where AI is stupid to avoid getting many stacks getting hit by single meteor shower. so chain lightning is better vs human, and meteor shower vs AI creatures.

[@cl3arsky745]

its really good to kill an army in turn 1 without the enemy hero being able to retreat

[@Miornum]

Air Shield: 0:35 Animate Dead: 1:27 Anti-Magic 2:12 Armageddon 3:11 Berserk 4:19 Bless 5:12 Blind 6:10 Bloodlust 8:02 Chain Lightning 8:28 Clone 9:12 Counterstrike 9:50 Cure 10:44 Curse 11:23 Death Ripple 12:41 Destroy Undead 14:12 Dimension Door 14:54 Disguise 15:30 Dispel 15:43 Disrupting Ray 16:44 Earthquake 17:17 Fireball 18:11 Fire Shield 18:36 Fire Wall 18:52 Fly 19:25 Force Field 20:09 Forgetfulness 21:06 Fortune 22:23 Frenzy 22:45 Frost Ring 23:31 Haste 23:40 Hypnotize 24:23 Ice Bolt 25:47 Implosion 26:13 Inferno 27:08 Land Mine 27:23 Lightning Bolt 28:38 Magic Mirror 29:05 Magic Arrow 38:20 Meteor Shower 29:39 Mirth 30:29 Misfortune 31:18 Prayer 32:00 Precision 33:07 Protection from Air 33:30 Protection from Earth 34:05 Protection from Fire 34:32 Protection from Water 35:03 Quicksand 35:20 Remove Obstacle 35:59 Resurrection 36:10 Sacrifice 36:48 Scuttle Boat 37:31 Shield 37:53 Slayer 38:42 Slow 39:17 Sorrow 40:02 Stone Skin 40:34 Summon Air Elemental 41:03 Summon Boat 41:55 Summon Earth Elemental 42:10 Summon Fire Elemental 42:40 Summon Water Elemental 42:59 Teleport 43:30 Titan's Lightning Bolt 44:01 Town Portal 44:40 View Air 45:12 View Earth in comments Visions 45:48 Water Walk 46:28 Weakness 46:48

[@mindyourlanguage2066]

It took seeing this comment to realize this video has been in alphabetical order all along -_-

[@DOGEreal]

Seems like someone's bored.

[@Real_MisterSir]

Great list, love the in-depth analysis of the spells! Also have some other tier list suggestions: Unit tier list Artifact tier list Dwellings tier list Unique tier list (different town grails, artifact combos, etc) Map locations tier list (artifact shops, tree of knowledge, library, arena, school of war, etc)

[@arnigeir1597]

I'd put clone higher, even the basic version can let you either do a solid attack to draw a retaliation on a big stack or put out another 1-stack for the enemy to deal with, it also requires very little power to be effective.

[@garyco766]

It can also be a poor man's resurrect if you have arch angels and ton's of mana.

[@bosspoke]

@@garyco766 Cloning mighty gorgons and getting 2 strikes on a big tiered stack :)

[@arnigeir1597]

@@bard99332 the enemy is likely to have something to poke the clone away, however, clearing mobs or using it on something fast at the end-start of round can be devastating, mainly with Angels.

[@zes7215]

wrr

[@josephvanwyk2088]

THE ONLY SPELL that deserves S tier alone is Town Portal. Try playing a giant map without it, or with a hero that got no logistics. Makes you life x7 harder.

[@ArcadianCatharsis]

Well... Try playing a small map with it. The bigger the map the better the Town portal and earth magic.. But the smaller the map the better is dimension door and air magic

[@ArcadianCatharsis]

And honestly, air magic isn't even imo reuqired, dimension door can be used one time per day even without air magic, often times that's enough

[@abalamdepaimon6891]

town portal coupled with expert+ earth knowledge. almost impossible to lose a game after having that hero.

[@P4nda420]

counterstrike is actually very good spell for vampire build

[@Nik_M11]

Please just make more tier lists ! They are amazing just like you mr streamer !

[@zes7215]

wr

[@IamNotMeButWhoAreYou]

Teleport is nice for castle sieges when you don't have flying units or ranged units - then you can teleport your Ancient Hydra/Ancient Behem. stack or Skellies behind the enemy wall when the enemy is turtling and trying to Castle-tower farm your army....... unless they have changed something in HotA and you can't teleport behind the enemy castle walls.

[@brianmayabella5992]

Each faction have different style. Even a teleport or counterstrike spell can be an S tier to certain faction like fortress or castle. But as an overall, its not a must spell like every faction would want to get it

[@martinkunev9911]

Water is not so bad. I think you're underestimating bless, cure, prayer, clone, teleport, weakness. Half of the argument why they are bad was that "you don't get water magic" which is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would change the following: bless, cure, prayer -> A summon fire, visions, teleport, clone, weakness -> B death ripple, summon water, summon boat, fire shield, earthquake -> C hypnotize, misfortune -> D

[@sydorovich2532]

They are only actual if you ban town portal, flight and dimension door from the game. It all comes down to the opportunity cost.

[@SarielSol]

Clone with archangels is overpowered, better than resurrection. Mass cure is great against blind, mass slow, curse. I play castle most of the time and water comes right after earth.

[@Winnetou17]

Interesting list, but I don't fully agree with it (of course, nobody does :)) ) - Death ripple, in very rare circumstances, can also be used to unblind your unit(s). In this case, the low damage would be a plus. This is not a complaint, just a mention - frost ring does the same pitiful damage as fireball (what a lame joke fireball is, sheesh), but in most circumstances it targets all the same units (sometimes even better, as it doesn't affect your unit or a blinded unit). But it's cheaper! Because of that, I would say it can belong to bottom tier C - frenzy tier B and clone tier C ? lol, NO. Just... nope. Clone is superior in most cases, as cool as frenzy is. Having 82+ attack arch devils is quite something. But because of the penalty, and that it lasts only one turn, it's very situational. Clone is more versatile. It can be used to double the damage of a/the power stack. It can also be used to remove a retaliation. Or to make the enemy waste an attack or a spell to remove the clone. Or to block. I'd say that Clone is top tier C or bottom tier B. Frenzy... mid to bottom tier C - dispel, given it's usage, seems too low in the tier list. It's actually useful, and it's not used at once-in-a-bloodmoon rarity. Maybe low B ? - earthquake to be below truly useless spells like magic mirror and inferno... come on... With no balistics, no teleport and a turtling defender, it's quite useful. Still very rare situation, but I'd say not rare enough to be knocked out of the C tier - hypnotize: absolutely not! D tier all the way, every day. Every single time when you try to use it you get "This spell will affect no one!". The definition of blue balls fully encapsulated in this spell. Actually, not D tier, but F tier, all alone. Worst spell of the game. Change my mind!! (maybe using a link with the example Lexiav mentioned) - isn't disguise actually useful in multiplayer ? - stone skin isn't a bit too high as leading the A tier ? I know that receiving less damage is nice, but I fail to see why is bloodlust so much lower. Isn't usually better to be on the offensive, that is, to boost your offensive capabilities ? Same for curse and, especially, bless. The only really good thing for stone skin is that it's earth magic, but you shouldn't value too much a spell because it's on an A tier type, which type is A tier because it has A tier spells, which are A tier because the type is A tier and so on. It's overpromoting or overdemoting like that. - mentioned above, why is bless so low, especially in comparison to curse ? It's kind of the same thing, except bless is more consistent! And you even have a specialist for Bless, and it actually does something. I get that advanced/expert curse on 2-x damage creatures, like storm elementals, will reduce them to 1 damage, which, from 5 average to 1, that is 5 times less. That is better than Bless, but it's also much more rare. In average, because of frequency/consistency, I'd say that Bless is better. Anyway, nice list. Nice comments too.

[@kane_lives]

LMAO, did you even watch the video, patzer? Water spells are low value because water is the worst school and spellcasting has an opportunity cost - better spells are competing for the casting time and mage guild slots. Notice how there are ZERO S-tier water spells in the list.

[@qkhuve]

Seeing your latest video where you cloned minotaurs I believe that you may have re-evaluated the clone-spell ^^ Also: Mass cure is excellent against might+blind-heroes. Mass forgetfulness can be very helpful early on in the game against monsters. To me water magic is more useful than many think.

[@Adri9570]

prayer = hastestoonedlust 💨🗿🩸 Just in case someone still doubts about the coolest school of magic ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)

[@thebbcjoke]

Forgetfulness is way overpowered when defending against a siege.

[@bosspoke]

Yeah, I also think people underrate water magic. And prayer also underrated in this video. Yes, it is dificult to get being tier 4 spell, and you have to be expert water mage, but if you do and you cast prayer, it is the best buff spell in the game. Sure it gives one less speed than haste, but that 1 speed won't matter much and it also gives attack+defence, while also not possible to counter with slow.

[@destructionman1]

But it's hard to get mass forgetfulness in the early game

[@bob8mybobbob]

The number of times he said “this would be a good spell, but you’d have to go for water magic” was honestly funny.

[@homm3watcher581]

I won't quibble with much of this list but I think it is disgraceful that magic mirror is ranked ahead of 10 other spells - it should be above disguise only, unless you're counting when faerie dragons use it to reflect your implo onto your power stack - then it's S tier Kappa

[@csabaszasz4466]

I have to agree with this list. Funny you never mentioned clone -> arch angels for the double resurrect niche

[@jagoob]

Great list. I would argue though I think hypnotize is way more niche than even teleport or clone and really does nothing 99% of time other than one possible specific scenario where hypnoing a 1 stack is more impactful than any other spellcast. Also I would maybe bump prayer to bottom of A even though you usually need a prison water hero for it +5spd/+6atk and def is still best buffing spell in the game.

[@crimsonlightbinder]

hypnotize is basically unusable. The power needed to use it is always behind the army sizes. when I saw it put ahead of clone I literally rolled my eyes

[@Adri9570]

@@crimsonlightbinder Almost every water spell was lowered in the tier list because of the need of the not-so-overall-useful Water Magic skill. If you already had the skill or wasn't a problem for you I would bump up 1 tier all those water spells that are only usable or highly influential when the Expert Water magic is present. This would make Clone and Bless the best water spells and prioritize Clone over Hypnotize.

[@generalharness8266]

@@Adri9570 Prayer, Bless, Clone and Teleport are all very good water spells.

[@AeonQuasar]

Disagree with Fly, Water walking, Fortune, Firewall/Forcefield, Clone and Disquise* (*if against AI) *Fly* = If allowed on maps, it often breakes the map. Incredible powerful and a S tier for sure. Also you go for Expert Wind only for Haste anyway, so *Water Walking* = a weak unexpected semi fly magic that are rarely banned on maps. Can be used for tons of trap posibillities, by hiding outside of sight but on a coast and trapping a enemy hero inside your castle for no escape. It can also for mobillity, especially useful for support heroes. I say top C tier or lower B. *Fortune* = If you have water magic + a lot of ranged units this can really make your day in a fight. Not insanely powerful, but on specific low magic maps it can be deadly. Low C tier. *Firewall/Force field* = Directly up in A tier for beating 50% of all natural guarding creatures with only a pixie in your party from the start. Cheap shot tactic, but useful. *Clone* = The tactics you can use this for if you use it on the correct creatures. Insane. A-tier at the very least. *Disquise* = Saved my support heroes multiple times. Generally the heroes picking up units from structures a unexpected hero appear and I scare it away with the spell. Also worth if you play on a town portal banned map to keep your main capital to be captured. It sometimes scares the AI away. Totally useless in pvp. C tier against AI. Also *view earth* was not included and that's imo more usefull then the View air, only to get the terrain in advance. Top A Tier/Lower S.

[@hommhommhomm]

Clone below hypnotize feels weird. I mean how many times you've used clone and how many times hypnotize? Otherwise looks great!

[@semanticac.9320]

Agree, Clone should be at least B tier.

[@hommhommhomm]

Maybe hypnotize to C? Half of the C tier looks better than hypnotize, including teleport, force field, disrupting ray.

[@quananginh9446]

clone is the go-to spell to use with Arch Angels

[@GreetTheSacredCow]

Bro I just spent like ~4 hours watching your tier lists. Amazing content.

[@hundvd_7]

I really don't think Stone Skin belongs to the same tier as Curse Both are amazing for defense early game, but Stone Skin loses its power for late game as a whole, while Curse stays effective for lower level units in the late game, too.

[@Tibor0803]

At some case scenarios, the combination of Stone Skin and Shield spells will render your tough power stacks tougher and that allows you to be durable enough to even turn the tide in a battle. It already happened to me several times just by using these two spells which often occurs together in one single purchase of Mage Guild together.

[@DOGEreal]

I would fully agree with you if every time you said "Curse" you would say "Stone Skin" instead, and every time you said "Stone Skin" you said "Curse" instead.

[@DOGEreal]

I'm not going to be fighting a Horde of Gnolls in late game with 20 Archangels, never. But Stone Skin never loses it's value while fighting neutral creatures. Not to mention Fire Magics is miles worse than Earth Magics.

[@alanperel1799]

We all have that "mmmm" moment between 'view air' & 'view earth'

[@niemaszglowy]

In one of my recent plays with friends my Archdevils got magic mirror from Genies and a friend of mine tried to implo those devils. He got his several angels annihilated and thought he missclicked that implo destroying his own stack, it was a good laugh xD

[@Dragonphoenix25]

Or doing the Dragon Slayer campaign, Faerie Dragons scenario. Trying to neutralize those pesky dragons with your big magic hero just to see your spell bounce on your own army, pretty annoying! It's still bad since it's random, but still some niche situations where it's annoying to face

[@connybengtsson9304]

Great video! Keep up the Good work!

[@danielgrobbelaar9672]

I love how much you respect your opponents!

[@zastaphs]

You commentary for Fire Shield is so accurate lol, love it :-)

[@petervlcko4858]

Fire shield on expert fire + sorcery specialist + fire orb = 30% fire dmg +(30fd * 0.5)% + (30fd * 0.30)% in total 54% damage return. Hero level for 30% sorcery specialist needs to be 20. So fire shield can be even higher but unlikely. Still is pretty nice.

[@michalszulc339]

Really enjoyed this. Keep it going!

[@dimitaraleksandrov6381]

Really like all your tierlists. These take a lot of prepration and contemplation beforehand I suppose. I am adding my top 5 A list spells before I have finished watching. Let's see how many I get right: 1. Slow 2. Town Portal 3. Implosion 4. DD 5. Haste Thank you for the great content and keep it up! :)

[@Rattopaz]

Teleport is a solid A for me, it can be very useful since you can port a solid slow/melee stack to stop enemy shooters from shooting or you can use it to port your shooters away from melee range, force field it's also an A, on some battlefields it can be a game changer, useful to stop enemy units or can be used to make your ranged unit stacks untouchable, it can let you win impossible battles. Stone skin is a C for me, decent on low levels give some protection to your units but once you get better spells you don't really need it anymore. Fly is also a S, not as good as Dimension Door but still an OP spell, usually, I ban these 2 spells since in most maps are like cheats for me.

[@tavish1658]

I always believed mass haste and slow should be tuned down, because it's a shame that tier 1 spells are so impactful late game, while some tier 5 spells are useless. They should've added mass cast spells as tier 4 and 5 spells instead.

[@petervlcko4858]

Yes, my thoughts exactly. 2 or 3 speed up/down. No more.

[@darkholyPL]

Best unit per level tier list when Lexiav? You could add second best and neutrals in there as well, to make it more interesting.

[@plzletmebefrank]

I feel like Destroy Undead needed half or more of the neutral creatures to be undead as well. Then you could at least create interesting maps in which it plays an actual role. I think I'm still gonna try making a map where a powerful computer controlled Necro is in the middle of the map and can go out and hit everyone else and see how that goes... But... I don't know how well that'll go.

[@890lli]

Love this channel!

[@crimsonlightbinder]

dude, why the bias against clone? I mean, I dont understand why clone is not good. It has the potential to be the biggest damage dealer and biggest resurrect er (Arch Angel, ofc). Can you please explain, your initial explanation was not very good

[@TheTrainFollower]

first of all you need water magic to clone anything decent. then you need hell of an army for it to be worth it...unlike implosion that you can cast even if they killed ur powerstack

[@tmyxd]

Not that it makes any difference tier wise, but just wanted to point out that for mass Forgetfulness one would only need Advanced Water Magic or at least that was the case in SoD, not sure if it was changed in HotA (still haven't used the spell :D)

[@Winnetou17]

Nope. Like all other spells, it's mass when the skill is at expert.

[@petervlcko4858]

They fix it in Hota but it was enough to have advance water as you said. It was bug.

[@MyHydralisk]

17:34 war machines are immune to implosion. So yeah - they cannot implode your ballista (btw you meant catapult I presume)

[@rightdamask8705]

Thanks for the breakdown!

[@EdMcStinko]

Destroy Undead early in a mission against large groups of undead is excellent, the problem it is kind of useless otherwise. Great list, this is actually really helpful thanks.

[@yifuhood]

mass cure and dispel is the center of water magic! every hero should have earth , might hero should have water when facing magi hero. that is why there is recanter cloak for might hero

[@niewpisze7493]

Lexiav today: Yeah, bless in my mage guild.

[@ferenczsoltpall8374]

Destroy Undead can be sometimes usefull when fighting a wide spread lich stack (PVE) and you have no other means like haste/tactics, so I would place it a little bit higher, other than that really solid list.

[@webbowser8834]

Destroy Undead is a godsend in the Shadow of Death campaign where you're fighting Necro and nothing but Necro, but the fact that it's ONLY useful vs necro holds back a lot of the utility you can get out of it. You might be able to argue low C tier just because of how nice it is when trying to rush down a necro player before they can get going, but that really is its only use. Death Ripple on the other hand is extremely good at week one creeping, allowing a necro player to pretty much bypass their terrible early game.

[@_unknown_guy]

18:53 so I came here from kzbin.info/www/bejne/mn_PqIyeiNqHfbc where fire shield basically won the game...

[@MatteNcs]

Thanks for your thoughts and explanations.

[@DarkflameEmperor]

It's sad but looking at the schools of magic, water from a potential perspective had so much potential. Feel like they didn't really try balancing the schools all that much because water magic could be really good. Cure / bless / teleport / etc. It's kind of weird how many buffs and unique effects on in that school and how meme-worthy they are.

[@txgoldrush]

Clone, Prayer, and Teleport are great. Teleport is great on Hydras

[@hommhommhomm]

What do you say about clone? Didn't understand the epic usecase description

[@Lexiav]

There's a new hero in Horn of the Abyss, Eovacius. He is a clone specialist. His first cast of clone creatures 2 copies instead of 1! He's really cool and alot of fun to use :D He alone makes clone seem op. But anyone else using it seems weak compared to other available options.

[@vladimirroman4011]

@@Lexiav Have they nerfed cloning archangels to resurrect?

[@hommhommhomm]

@@vladimirroman4011 I don't think they nerfed that

[@balintkereszturi538]

OMG I love these tier list videos, thanks so much for making it!!

[@Str0b3l]

How did you make this amazing thumbnail?

[@Lexiav]

Talent

[@MaegnasMw]

Blind is even more potent, with expert Fire Magic the blinded unit does not move when "unblinded" (either by sure/dispel or if you attack it!), so no retaliation from blinded units for the Fire Magic Expert! Pretty neat - plus, once you attack, you can blind them again, if you have enough mana! Counterstrike useless?? Well, try it on your BIG stack of Mighty Gorgons and they come back and say it's useless again, if you can! It may not be used in so many cases but it sure has its uses and it CAN be a killer, in specific settings! Disguise is not exactly useless, if you want to be really sinister. Most people would use it to "mask" their weaker units so they don't get attacked, if you have a strong army and all enemies avoid you you can disguise your strong units to weak ones and let the enemy come to you! ;-) Forgetfulness with Expert Water deprives ALL shooters in thge field of ALL their shots (if they nerfed that too in HotA then this is reason enough for me NEVER to install this PoS attempt at bettering an already great game!) Prayer is not just speed increase, it is stat increase AND damage increase! Basically, Prayer, especially at Expert level, is mass Haste, mass Bless, mass Shield and mass Bloodlust with no real side effects. Perhaps this is why Angelic Alliance casts it, at Expert, when equipped? Have you noticed that the least desirable school of magic, according to you, landed most of its spells in solid B or mid C? Clearly has its uses, yes, it is no Earth Magic but it is rather closer to Air than it sounded. The thing with Water is that it is the rarest school on offer when leveling up (unless, HotA, of course, you know...). If it was offered a bit more often, imagine summoning boats out of thin air, or having Adela wreak all kinds of havoc with her Bless specialty, or Loynis with his Prayer, or Alagar with Ice Bolt and so on. Water is NOT a bad school, the modern play style in competitive matches may have made it look like that but it is not bad, at all!!

[@Winnetou17]

You are actually wrong on several things: - Blind has nothing to do with the ability to move of a unit once is unblinded. Basic or Expert blind, in all cases, the unit that is unblinded can move on that turn. The trick to not let it do that is to attack it and blind it using units with higher speed. The unblided unit will take it's turn only when it would normally do so, or immediately if that time has passed. Say, you attack a blinded speed 7 creature with a speed 5, the blinded creature will immediately follow. But if you attack that same blinded speed 7 creature with a speed 10 creature and have another speed 9 creature that will come next, you can blind it back on the creature with speed 9's turn. But you don't need expert for this. Expert only makes it so it doesn't retaliate at all (which is nice, not complaining) - counterstrike would actually be nice if it would be a level 1 or 2 at most. Spending 24 or 20 mana... and getting the spell in the first place = useless. By that time you usually have much better options (ones that don't involve losing units first) - for disguise it would be nice if you could choose what to display - forgetfullness is like you say, but it doesn't work on those that are mind spell immune: storm elementals, ice elementals, liches and titans. Not to mention that the badge of courage gives you mind spell immunity, and this is a rather low-level artifact - prayer does not increase damage. It does increase the attack rating, but I assume that was included in the "stat increase". More exactly, it increases attack, defense and speed by 2 (no water / basic water) or 4 (advanced / expert water). Bloodlust, precision and stone skin increase by 3/6 and haste increases speed by 3/5. It's certainly very nice to have them all in one cast (plus that it's not dispellable by slow), but in many cases you only need the speed. Then haste is clearly superior by being cheaper and giving a bigger bonus. And unless you play with Loynis, it's also much more reliable that you'll have haste. The nice thing is Prayer is also that it stacks with bloodlust/precision/stone skin and haste. All in all, what is say is nice, but mostly only works versus the (mostly quite dumb) AI. In PvP, I agree mostly (not all) to his list. And I do think that for castle, going Water Magic is quite ok, as they have higher chances for all the good water spells. Same with fire magic on inferno.

[@MaegnasMw]

@@Winnetou17 point by point: About Blind, I was wrong about the moving thing but my main "goal" was to point out the "no retaliation" thing, my bad. CS IS expensive AND you usually get it later in the game, being lvl 4, when you are looking for more useful things, like Town Portan or Chain Lightning or Resurrection. If it was lower lvl, even 3, and a tad cheaper it could be more useful and desirable indeed. It does have its uses though. Never thought of that about Disguise, just thought of it as a "come hither" spell to lure mid power armies to attack me when I am super strong. Good point! Forgetfulness IS a mind spell so it has the limitations of the "class", so no Titans and all the rest you mentioned. Works well on regular shooters though, up to and including Sharpshooters - they go "silent" immediately! I guess Prayer is an acquired taste? Quite pricey but it delivers. And upping attack increases damage, no? So, indirectly, it does increase damage. Speed is indeed the most sought after effect in spells but it is not the only one and being able to cast more spells in one "go" is a definite boost in your combat situation most of the time. Now, if WM was a bit more often a choice with leveling or the spell was, say, lvl 3 or even 5 mana cheaper, this could be perhaps a different conversation. I don't think we disagree on so many things, just in style of play. I guess, I could be wrong, that you are more oriented towards multiplayer matches against other human players while I mostly go against the AI (no need to have internet on or to find other players at the time you want to play and all that) so our needs and our priorities are different.

[@Winnetou17]

@@MaegnasMw Yeah. I'm not into multiplayer either, or not now. But Jeebus Cross or whatever they play, doesn't seem to be my thing... too much creature banks, too little town building. I get it that it's good for fast games. I'm into (very) long games.

[@nemlas85]

I feel Forgetfulness is really undersold. it is the main reason to have Water magic on a side hero, because it is the most efficient way to mop up shooter monsters from the map without any losses.

[@TISZALAEGERSZEG]

I think the main reason for expert water magic is Prayer by far, and then cure or dispel or bless. Mass haste is better than mass forgetfulness against a shooter stack because it is less mana with almost the same results, and you don't waste a slot for water magic. By the time you reach forgetfulness you already have an army which can deal with any shooter stack, so haste is a much better spell all around, from level 1. It seems useful but not really.

[@sinisa5567]

@@TISZALAEGERSZEG Mass haste better? In normal situations you wont even reach them on first turn except if you have high speed unit. And how many of those you have, when faced against 2+ ranged units stack? Forgetfulness is a god send when dealing with many ranged stacks.

[@TISZALAEGERSZEG]

@@sinisa5567 Yeah, it is good against the AI

[@fastsync1]

In most of the templates you start your turn by casting view air in mid/late game. Never underrate the power of vision we get from view air in heroes 3. In my view it should be solid S tier spell. It is way better than all other spells you put higher in A tier.

[@ArminHaba]

can we please agree that fly is atleast A-tier? Just think of how broken a hero would be if he was to start out with that spell. By no means does it match DD, but I'm not sure if it is so heavily outmatched by implosion, and I sure as hell would be happier about fly in my magic guild than about any of the elementals.

[@HizhevskihMaxim]

Some feedback about frenzy, you cant deal infinitely more damage, it has the cap, which is, if i recall correctly, 60 between attack and defence . You cant deal more damage than that.

[@Winnetou17]

Somebody said it, thank you! Attack and defense modifiers are capped at 80 difference. But unless the hero has extremely high stats, having 80-130 attack is totally not common. Also, I feel like it synergizes very well with the (Arch) Devils. 26 base attack, 28 base defense. With expert frenzy it gets another 28 * 2 = 56 attack, and with very high speed and no reliation, you can really abuse this. And having 80 more attack means +400% damage or basically you do 5 times more (150-200 for an arch devil)

[@Winnetou17]

Actually, I was wrong. It's 60 difference when the attack is higher, for a max of +300% (4 times total) damage, and 28 difference when the defense is higher, for a min of 30% damage dealt. So you remembered correctly :)

[@m2wojtek]

Ok. My changes: Shield to A, Visions to B, Fly and Lighting bolt to A, Clone to A, Waterwalk to B - it is cool, you don't need water magic to use it properly. Rest is +- ok

[@korianterikuussa418]

At 27:25 do you have link for that game? Sounds like a pleasant final battle xD

[@lutre598]

Your knowledge is amazing and im glad someone do heroes 3 content and guides. But sometime i struggle to understand you as you talk so quick. Not because english but because the speed.

[@sam9657]

For the hypnotize use case mentioned, would it be better to just kill the fast stack?

[@georgedimulescu7303]

You don't need to decrease defence and then apply frenzy. All you need is to reach the 30 atack over the enemy defence to reach the 2.5x cap limit. Good enough defence and crusaders one shot the enemy tear 7.. Hard to get expert fire and lvl 4guild but the defence 2x into attack will be enough most of times. Math: 30 attack 30 Def crusader Vs 50 attack 50 Def black dragon means you do 2 times less damage coz of -20 less attack compared to enemy defence. Frenzied however 30+30*2 =90 you reach the damage cap of 2.5x instead of 1/2 x so basically with frenzy you do 5 times more damage than without in this example. I'd like to see a one shot in your games is pretty fun...even op in some cases an S spell that completely turns battle arround

[@jorne6863]

I think expert water magic is better than fire. Expert teleport, clone, bless. I dont think Berserk and Frenzy are worth it even in expert. Yeah berserk can sometime save games but very situationnal and I would say frenzy alone is not worth clone, bless and teleport for me. Armaggedon in expert is not that needed even if the spell is pretty good.

[@DOGEreal]

Berserk is still OP, Armageddon, curse, firewall, Sacrifice, Frenzy. You use is many times, also in final battles.

[@KRisGT97]

Awesome content! However I do not understand why all the hate towards Water Magic. There are some decent spells which you put low tier as they are simply Water Spells, but having Water Magic gives you the improved versions of them all and it's not that bad. I would still rank the Magic Schools like this: Earth Air Water Fire

[@crimsonlightbinder]

yup, I have the same feeling. Clone is potentially literally the biggest damage dealing and ressurecter spell in the game at the same time and castle gets it pretty often

[@csabaszasz4466]

I have to disagree. Fire magic has frenzy and curse which are much better than let say weakness or prayer. Also don't forget blindness. Water magic is the lowest of the bunch no matter how you look at it. Earth > Air > Fire > Water. Get it when you have nothing else. Clone is useful for angels to double resurect. But then again, water has nothing like frenzy, armageddon, curse or blindness.

[@Winnetou17]

@@csabaszasz4466 LoL, comparing frenzy and curse with weakness or prayer. Not biased at all! How about frenzy and curse vs clone and bless ? Would you say that the fire spells are much better ? When you choose clone and bless you know for sure that they will always work. Cannot say the same about frenzy and curse. In most situations clone is clearly superior to frenzy, as it can 1) stay more than one turn or 2) eat one retaliation or 3) force the enemy waste an attack/spell. While also doubling the damage of the stack and not risking anything for the initial stack. What you should have mentioned is blind, berserk and curse. But in blind's case you don't need fire magic for most of it's "featuers". I'd say that it matter much what castle are you playing. If you're playing as stronghold or fortress, I really don't see armageddon as a plus. Getting fire immune units is not trivial. Castle is pretty good with water magic. Same as inferno with fire magic. For all the others... it depends, I'd say.

[@nemlas85]

@@Winnetou17 to add to that, mass forgetfulness can be situationally more effective than blind.

[@kennethpatricktura7146]

I feel like Im gonna be dead drunk if we drink everytime he says "its very good"

[@dracsharp]

Easy tweaks: Water magic: You can cast up to two water magic spells up to level 2/3/4 based on skill level. Only 2 water, not water + something. Anti magic removed from earth and added to water and can be cast on enemies to counter resurrects for example. With new rules can be casted twice a turn. Water is now an effective counter/buffer spell list, with better early game. Fire Magic: More damage!!! Luna is a good example that fire can work. Inferno should be a top 2 damage spell. Fireball should be a 1 level earlier meteor shower. They even have the same cost.

[@crimsonlightbinder]

lol, come on, water magic is not that bad as this guy makes it out to be. but I agree that anti-magic should be water. It would just sit nice next to dispel :))

[@KaijuKrusader1]

There’s that one scenario in the Dragon Slayer campaign with the 3500 Nagas. Berserk was the only real way to get past that.

[@malterkaroly9075]

Slow, haste, dimension door, town portal, resurrection, and don't need anything else.

[@Bzoet0]

How does Hypnotize steal spell priority if you need spell priority to cast it in the first place?

[@Winnetou17]

I think he meant in the subsequent turns. I'd still say it's D tier (like most level 3 spells). High investment with extremely extremely niche cases. And that serpent fly example only works in the early game when you most likely either don't have hypnotyze or don't have enough spell points to make good use of it. And late game it won't work on anyone meaningful, as everything will have much more HP.

[@dracsharp]

Would you like to make changes to the spell list? Water magic seems pretty hopeless, especially with 3 spells tied to water maps and remove obstacle. I would like to see double cast for water magic, so if you cast a water magic spell up to 2/3/4 level based on your skill rank, you can cast another up to your max skill rank. So with expert water you can clone and prayer, and with basic you can double magic arrow or ice bolt. This would help its early and late game as long as you have mana without making the spells better. There is one spell i would move to water magic. Anti magic, and allow it to be casted on enemies to counter resurrection. This way water magic would be an effective anti magic / buffer spell list, like it tries to be, and earth would have a counter.

[@Adri9570]

Idea for tier list not made yet: Best Mage Guild Remember that the different factions have restrictions to their available spells in town mage guilds.

[@petervlcko4858]

Imo inferno because i like fire spells but others could prefer air spells so tower, for earth spells dungeon. Necro has high chance of lvl 5 to get sacrifice while can not make use of it. 😂

[@petervlcko4858]

Sacrifice should be changed into if unit dyeing from enemy attacks it resurrects you paired unit. What i am doing here 04:44 morning 😂?

[@quananginh9446]

before you, all I ever knew was MeKick

[@endzor]

fire wall is good when moona use it, many B tier spells is A(not hypnosis, hypnosis sucks, its D tier!) and i think all elementals is real bad because rare and hard ( a lot of spell power needs) to use. frozen circle D? what about adelaida? Edit: elementals good at really late game

[@lorandpetok6044]

Hi, Lexiav, Did you consider making some tutorials on how to improve ones gameplay? I'm mainly referring to the general planning behing the movement of heroes. I tried learning by watching some of your videos, but i'm sure there is more to it that i missed just by watching and i think others would be interested too to get some other insights :)

[@Lexiav]

Yeah, I'm planning to do tutorial/guide type of content in the very near future!

[@1337STREETFIGHTER]

I demand units tier list (all of them, obviously) xD!

[@Dan-uf2vh]

prayer gives more than haste: it increases attack and defense

[@Dragonphoenix25]

It's like having a little less powerful Haste + Bloodlust + Stone Skin triple buff. On Expert Water with a Might hero army, it's pretty strong.

[@DaimyoJubo]

what a mad lad , is anything safe from geting tierlisted?

[@Glory264]

I mostly agree with the list, maybe i would change a few spells in tier list based on my gameplay but other than that it's a solid list.

[@guidosillaste4297]

if you put the conditions right the magic arrow deals 19k damage factory campaign.

[@anturnix1148]

Death ripple, what near always kills max 1 unit per stack, damage your units, and cost lot of mana- B tier. Forgotten making fighting for AI troops without any looses - C tier. i know it water magic, but clone, bless, teleport, and forgotenfulles is best spells from water. But good tier list :)

[@mm.4712]

Hey lexiav, quick Question. If in a pvp one player summons fire elementals he cant summon any other elementals. but what about his/her opponent? Can they still summon any kind of elementals or are they locked in "my choice" of elementals. I was wondering because most players will have earth magic but only a few have water or fire. so i were to summon fire elemntals first my opponent should be able to keep up with me due to him/her not having expert water/fire magic.

[@balintmiklosy9138]

I'd probably swap Chain Lightning and Meteor Shower, but that's really up to personal preference I guess (and I just recently changed my mind on that too). Really solid list.

[@Nauda999]

I think Chain Lightning is better than Meteor shower in most cases, really hard to avoid getting many hits on your minions with lightning.

[@bosspoke]

I was surprised that the summons spells were ranked so high, and especially summon earth. Have I underestimated them all these years? I mean, when do you have time to cast them? You'd probably want to spend casting turns on mass spells and implosion/other dmg spells as a mage, and it is not very effective as a might hero, right? Would you cast summon earth/fire/air/water first in a fight to get the extra creature from the get go? Would you spam the spell for alot of extra creatures? And I think prayer is underrated. Yes it does require the water school and for several heroes, that won't be desirable, but certain factions do like water and for them prayer is going to be a go to buff-spell. IT IS better than haste once you have it with expert. Yes it has one less speed, but that isn't a very big difference, while it also provide extra attack+defence, and cannot be countered by slow. And slow is something it sounds like everyone is going to have, because earth magic is so popular and useful.

[@kane_lives]

>I mean, when do you have time to cast them? Later in the fight when most of the armies are gone and you already got AntiMagic on your power stack.

[@bosspoke]

@@kane_lives Hmm yeah I guess you are right. When damage spells and buff spells don't do anything anymore, I suppose summoning can be a good alternative to create an extra obstacle for your opponent.

[@PokeStatsStudios]

Whenever I make a map I always disable Dimension Door, Town Portal, Fly, and Berserk. Makes the game more interesting, in my opinion.

[@Lexiav]

Sounds good!

[@ericoluizgarcia3365]

teleport won't get you inside castle walls at basic level though @17:50

[@wdaraamut]

cool video. i wanted to say after watching this for 3 minutes from the start, that I am pleased that you slow down a bit and speak more clearly :)

[@hundvd_7]

Wow, looking at S tier, it really drives home how much more powerful Earth is compared to the others

[@IamNotMeButWhoAreYou]

Also you rated Haste lower than Animate Dead, even tho AD usually is used only by one faction (Necro) while Haste is used by all factions, and haste can change the fights if you start with mass -expert haste and most of your melee units can all reach the enemy the first combat turn, that is a major advantage, also you can block the enemy shooters more reliably and your shooters can attack before the enemy would have a chance to block them.

[@IamNotMeButWhoAreYou]

All factions other than Necro would preferably use Resurrection instead of Animate Dead, because that way they keep the resurrected units after the battle - and with AD non Undead units are lost at the end of the battle..... unless they have changed something in HotA....

[@Metrdrutu]

Force of field C tier, don't let Yog know.

[@hungrymikepencetd5686]

Make a unit ability tier list pls :D

[@petervlcko4858]

It’s funny to see bloodlust c tier. It really gives 6 attack (not 5) which is 30% and also in same time see in many players to value offense very high. It basically is the same thing plus if you level up fire magic you have more things up the sleeve. Idk people very underestimate fire magic school. Expert bless give +1 dmg to max dmg, expert curse -1 dmg to min dmg. Which is brutal. Not sure how it works with solid dmg creatures like nagas, angels but if one web i saw recently I correct it should curse especially take away 20% and then -1 dmg. I would like to see some test video on it. If it is true it will put angel into 39 dmg which is very nice.

[@Greaty848484]

8/11 S tier spells are earth spells hmmm

[@Lexiav]

Yeah :D It's no secret to anyone that earth is op. The fact that earth is this good, makes the rest of the earth spells more appealing aswell. For example even if water had 1 best spell in the game, the fact that you would have to invest a full school of magic to get it would make it unappealing. The more stuff you package together the better the rest of the packages contents become.

[@Greaty848484]

@@Lexiav wow, i posted some meme comment and you reply with an essay, thanks i guess

[@cosmincatau6750]

I agree 95% with this. But i DO NOT agree that a mass counterstrike spell is a low low D tier. Should be at least mid C tier ! Many fights are run on the ideea of "taking the retaliation of a unit!" and mass Counterstrike can make this very problematic ... unless u have mass dispel ...

[@baristika]

even if you use dispel, counterstrike will be dispeled next round ...

[@Jebu911]

No summon boat? Also water walk is pretty nice poormans fly on some water maps.

[@mihaid6450]

I remember expert dispel also removed summoned elementals

[@FrozenZerg]

I think Fly should be that low in the list, of course it's not as good as Dimension door but it's still extremely useful, also it reduce the movement speed consumption on bad fields.

[@Terminatedd]

Fly let's you fly over water, garrisons, border guards, border gates, enemy stacks & rush enemy castles. It's atleast A tier. Otherwise a great tierlist!