[ANNOUNCEMENT] Heroes 3: World Tournament - an add-on for tournament games.

1. The iconic status of Tyraxor means you can play him without really thinking. The fundamental difference with Shakti, however, is that if we call a spade a spade, the Dungeon town is trash on its own and is carried solely by its starting hero. In the Barbarian's case, this is not so.

I'll draw your attention to the hero pick statistics in the last CIS Championship. Almost all picks came from the Castle-Rampart-Stronghold-Dungeon set. That's a pretty good indicator that these towns are quite balanced.

You shouldn't confuse the strength of Stronghold on average across the board with the strength of Stronghold in, say, my hands. The fact that I can beat various swamps on Jebus with my eyes closed using them doesn't mean that's how it will usually go.

Moreover, I'm well aware of Stronghold's weak points, first and foremost its very poor respawns. Even on Jebus, you can easily find yourself penniless. Actually, their hitting power is compensation for the scarce resource drops; you have to leave the respawn early and seek fortune abroad.

So if you nerf Tyraxor without giving compensation, people will simply stop playing Stronghold. It's a rather vulnerable town.

uh-huh. I always thought Explorer was the same as Spd [Logistics]. in that case, I don't see the point in taking Nav [Navigation] at all.

Though I'd think twice before taking Nav purely for the speed.

That's a good thing — the skill isn't imbalanced, has its own use, doesn't fundamentally change gameplay, so it will quickly find its niche as a second-tier skill.

Still, the original point of Navigation is sailing the seas. Why invent something that doesn't fit?

It's precisely because of sailing the seas that the functionality of Spd and Nav is similar — at sea, movement points don't depend on army speed.

Removing it entirely wouldn't be good; Spd's functionality is interesting and should be kept in some form. The Nav option seems the most successful to me.

P.s.: And what's planned for Dungeon? After these changes, will it only be playable for nostalgia or with a mandatory Griffin Conservatory unit in front of the town?

Dungeon needs its lower Troglodyte limit raised, like in the latest version of TE — 20-25. Currently it's 15-25, which is very random.

Plus, Laura (Scout + Tactics and more Harpies) is debatable, and maybe some changes in the build tree. For example, Medusas as a dead-end branch.

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4. With Explorer disappearing, shouldn't we think about increasing the artifact bonus on MP?

The second speed skill role will now be filled by Estates.

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I'll defend my opinion on the armored guys. On XL templates, I'll take even a nerfed Brogha because I greatly value scouting. A nerfed Tazar looks worse than Alkin to me, which just means shoving the hero into the trash bin.

That's the good thing, that opinions differ — it's the main sign of balance. To me, even a 3-degree Taz is still better than Brogha and all the others.