2010

urfetin should be with kents in theory))

Yeah, even with kents he's so-so. Elves are more important here.

and the strength of barb in TE -- well there are no personal stats, I visit heros.by rarely, and when they wiped it right under my nose, then I don't play there at all

The strength of Barb is that the troops there are strong, cheap, and melee. And that bears in Castle are easily set up. And that only 3 stacks are needed for a normal game.

Tiras complements these advantages well, but even without him the strategy doesn't change - same upgrade of wolves on day 1 (if it's not Toad or Buckwheat), searching for a hero with tactics in the tavern and off you go.

A ranged stack is good for slow, prolonged, careful development. In SoD one often has to do this, plus it's tactically simpler, which is why people love Rampart with Castle.

But in TE, where you need to move across the map as a tank to maintain the tempo necessary for victory, approach and brawl hand-to-hand in battles, and break Dragon Utopia on the 2nd week, true tanks like Gosha, Shakhter, Tiras, Fiona-Marika, Brogh, etc., are more valuable.

Again, you can't take archers into Dragon Utopia, so by the 2nd week you already need to assemble 1-2 shock melee stacks. Castle and Rampart struggle with such stacks, and they require a lot of money and building tempo. But Barb can lose 1-2 days of building tempo and still have an army more suitable for Dragon Utopia.

And in cons-hives it's easier with bears than with grands.

Therefore, Stronghold with a choice of hero is rated (by castle strength) somewhere around 3rd-5th place. And Rampart firmly holds 8th place (except for some fans).

Anyway, the latest patches improved the balance a bit, but likely not much. When trading, I usually rely on my personal tastes and those of my opponent rather than the objective strength of the castle.

With a random hero, Necro and Dungeon fall to the bottom of the rating table; otherwise, the ratio of castles fundamentally doesn't change.

I haven't thought much about reverse perks yet; Tower, Inferno, Swamp, Flax, and again Stronghold feel normal there. They simply don't have outright unsuccessful starting heroes. But the other 4 clearly sag - Edric, Urfetin, and whoever is with Necro and Dungeon (besides Gosha-Shakhter) make the start significantly harder compared to the usual.

I won't provide a more precise ranking by strength simply because I don't know it myself, and let there be room for strategic maneuver.

for example about guaranteed spells in the tower

I think I forgot too. Please enlighten me :).