The most effective starting strategy for the Inferno faction.

Well, this ability is still much more useful than the explosion, plus, even though it's a gamble, the damage is decent even in case of failure. They still take damage, and the damage is quite good, especially since you yourself said how easy it is to retaliate.

I haven't used the explosion in a long time, so I can't say for sure how much damage it does, but in general, it's a way to attack without retaliation. The damage of alt demons isn't that great... At least, compared to the maximum. It's very annoying when demons can kill from 5 to 20 creatures with their attack. If they kill 20, the retaliation will be insignificant; if they kill 5, it will be the opposite. But the best demon hero is the one with expert-level mass divine power.

It's easy to retaliate; use neutral creatures in a single stack. When there are 2 or 3 of them, there aren't enough gatekeepers. Although, you can create single imps as a reserve.