NAF – New artifacts with unique properties.

Ring of Machine Affinity?

The ring already exists, but it rarely appears

Added 21 minutes ago

Why is there a special attitude towards machines?

The thing is that in Heroes 5, the War Machines skill is not a priority, but a secondary one; it is rarely developed, and players prefer to focus on developing Luck, Attack, Defense, Magic, etc. This skill is essentially weak compared to the others, and one could forget about it, ignoring the obvious imbalance, BUT:

1) There are, at least, 5 Machine Hero characters who initially possess the basic skill of controlling machines, i.e., they need to develop it in any case.

2) In the game, 4 slots + a building (forge) are allocated for War Machines, i.e., you can't just ignore their presence

3) The catapult is extremely useful in sieges; sometimes, a successful (or unsuccessful) catapult shot greatly affects the outcome of the battle.
I'll add that without a catapult, it is often impossible to destroy the walls of a city. After all, not everyone plays as Orcs, and not everyone has the Earthquake spell.

4) If we look at the skill wheel, we will see that for machines, each race has 6 skills: 5 basic + 1 racial
This once again emphasizes that machines are still needed in the game.
http://www.might-and-magic.ru/articles/_/heroes-of-might-and-magic-v/heroes-5-skills/h5_war_machines

5) In order to upgrade a Super Skill, 2 races need to upgrade the War Machines skill. We are talking about Orcs and Mages

Added 35 minutes ago

we have a mod for adding artifacts here, not a balance mod

And here, I agree with you 100%. After all, this topic is devoted to new artifacts that it would be advisable to introduce into the game without disrupting the balance. And what do we see:

- For the Attack skill, developers have created 18 artifacts that directly or indirectly affect attack! + several combined artifacts that further enhance the effect

- for the Defense skill, 16 artifacts + several combined artifacts

- for the Luck skill, 9 artifacts + several combined artifacts

- for spells of various schools of Magic, about 28!!! + several combined artifacts

- for Morale, about 12 artifacts have been created! + several combined artifacts

- for Sorcery, 14 artifacts + several combined artifacts

- for Resources, including money: 5 artifacts and 1 combined artifact

- for Logistics: 4 artifacts. No combined artifacts.

- for Initiative: 14 artifacts and several combined artifacts

- for Knowledge 14 artifacts and 1 combined artifact

- for Experience 2 artifacts and 1 combined artifact

And finally, for machines, there are only 2 artifacts and not a single combined artifact! Moreover, 1 of these 2 artifacts rarely appears (on most maps, it doesn't appear at all)