Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps.

Glanced at it briefly. Purple could theoretically have visited the white tent in 95.6.0, but didn't, as the hero near the tent was killed prematurely.

…..oh, how interesting......and this is one option.....in my game, the Hero on 97.7.0 didn't visit the tent because it was blocked by a tower, which requires you to first kill the hero in castle 129.51.0.

So, it seems I need to first kill the hero at 129.51.0, then distract the hero at 97.7.0, open the path for him, and then leave......and wait for him to visit the white tent. Then I can eliminate him.

In this case, the purple hero can indeed escape from the cursed land....

If I can't find the cell on the cursed land, I'll have to replay the last 3 battles......well, that's quite a task :)))

By the way, I also discovered some artifact in an inaccessible area. I don't know how to use those "Prospects" (or whatever it's called)...I hope I can figure it out later......what kind of artifact is there?

Thank you to everyone who participated...

1. I really had to replay the last 3 battles and give the enemy the opportunity to visit the white tent....after which the HERO left the cursed land....
2. Unfortunately, all the interesting parts of this map, with these battles, are over......the remaining battles are very easy...and the map looks rushed in the second part.

Map Name: Lord of Destruction
Author: marcel33
Download: from the maps4heroes map catalog

This map had been on my radar for a long time, even before it was uploaded to maps4heroes in English. Originally, the map is Polish, called "Pan Zniszczenia," and is an attempt to adapt the world of Diablo II into Heroes realities. Unfortunately, I am unable to personally evaluate the level of adaptation since I have never properly played Diablo. "Pan Zniszczenia" is very popular within the Polish community; if you wish, you can find many streams and comments. By these metrics, it's something of a Polish-style "Paragon." From the reviews, one can conclude that the map is considered one of the most difficult in Poland.

In general, the premise is somewhat intriguing, although it also evokes a certain skepticism, as hype often surrounds things that aren't actually the best. When I sat down to play, I didn't bother analyzing the map in the editor; I planned to breeze through it, but that wasn't the case :)

As the Gameplay showed, the map is quite strict and demanding. Its main characteristics are as follows: the game is divided into 5 acts, each with its own level bosses; army distribution throughout the scenario is very measured; there is a general poverty of money and resources (you don't have to be a pauper, but you have just enough for the bare essentials and nothing more); and the exclusion of resurrection and clones from the gameplay (a resurrection scroll is given for the final battle, but it turned out not to be needed there anyway). Among the map's downsides: complete staticity. Among the pluses: it is a timed map, which to some extent offsets this very staticity. The fact that you can lose on this map if you don't act quickly is, in my opinion, an undeniable merit.

If one tries to draw parallels with other maps, many things come to mind regarding specific aspects, ranging from the resource management of "Limes Inferior" to the logistical puzzles of "Wayfarer." But the main and quite unique feature of "Lord of Destruction" is its specific combat component. If you remember, at the beginning of "Vengeance Is Mine," there was a line of battles against dungeon heroes where each hero was slightly stronger than the previous one, and you had to sweat to cope with minimal losses. Well, here the combat component is built entirely on this principle from start to finish of the Walkthrough. Add to this the mentioned time limit, and the result is a map of very decent quality.

As I said, I initially played quite sloppily because the start in "Lord of Destruction" seems deceptively simple. In short, I lost some army here and there. Consequently, in the second month, I hit the final boss of the first act named {Andariel}, lingered near her for a bit, and broke through, sacrificing almost my entire army. After that, there was no point in playing under such circumstances. Following this, I approached the map with full seriousness and replayed it from the very beginning. Practice showed that the generation of the starting save is very important here. Hero leveling, the mages' guild in the starting town, artifacts in graves and on the black market near the Castle village—all these moments are of great importance for completion. From the middle of the game onward, you can lower your concentration a bit, but at the start, literally every centaur counts.

I'll briefly go through all five acts.

In the first act, the game smoothly accelerates from something very simple with fairly banal kiting of neutrals to increasingly serious trials. Potential problem areas: the hero {Countess} is the first hint of what this map will be like; also quite troublesome black dragons near the black tent, the garrison before the exit to the cursed land, and in the finale, a very tough boss {Andariel}, who will try every way possible to ensure you don't leave the battle without losses. I should also note that it is critically important for the game to constantly collect archers from caches; without this collection, the map cannot be completed further, which the author himself tells us explicitly.

The action of the second act unfolds on sand. There are two strongholds: the developed Lut Gholein and the village of Caldeum. In the first town, there is a tavern and a fairly extensive pool of available heroes. Considering that the author gives us Loynis at the start with prayer—a special ability of very questionable quality, especially one who levels into magic stats in a scenario where piercing power is paramount—it makes sense to take another main hero. In the tavern, I bought Orrin and Nilu, and during the Walkthrough, I added Elleshar and Kyrr. By the way, in defense of Loynis, I must say that I was surprised by the effectiveness of his special ability, which I had never paid attention to before. At level 20+, he gave centaur captains a bonus of 8 to stats and 7 to speed! Impressive, but not enough to remain in the leading roles throughout the game. Key moments of the second act: {Radament} with an animate dead, freeing Jelu, wandering through corridors with useless blind alleys, and in the finale, the most powerful boss pairing on the entire map: {Summoner} and {Duriel}. I suffered fairly serious losses at the last boss (100 snipers, 20 phoenixes, 5 gold dragons), but there is such a festival of randomness in that battle that I saw no way to squeeze out something more reasonable by the 4th month of the game. This Duriel responded to blindness or paralysis immediately with Armageddon's Blade, even though he had plenty of other spells in his book. I have never encountered this before.

The third act gives a bit of a breather. We take a Rampart in the center of the map, sail away from the Leviathan, and farm the swampy part of the map. The zone is built on the same principle as the previous ones: two strongholds, one of which is a full-fledged Castle and the second a village. We collect pieces of the cursed armor and can visit a hidden area with cows and a shield from the Father of Dragons' power set. I cleared the Act 3 territory thoroughly, collected all upgrades, and leveled up all heroes significantly, especially Orrin. At the end of the act, there are three moderately difficult battles with adjacent heroes, and immediately after that, Mephisto in the Necropolis. The Necro is quite tough, casting haste on cooldown, so Elleshar went into battle first with 7 phoenixes, draining all of Mephisto's mana using "Chinese tactics" and bombing almost the entire army with ice arrow. After that, Orrin stepped in and finished off the enemy.

The fourth act is the shortest and is completed within a week of game time. The main boss of the level is {Diablo}. He has two henchmen: {Izual}, who constantly wraps himself in anti-magic, and {Hephasto} with Armageddon's Blade. The stronghold in the zone is finally a full Castle with archdevils, whom we can add to the angels previously collected from conservatories. After some preliminary preparations, Elleshar took out the first henchman with one archdevil bought at the refugee camp (remember, the map has no resurrection :) ). "One man is not an army" does not apply here. The archdevil once again confirmed its reputation as the most imba unit in the game. {Hephasto} was defeated by Orrin, who caught Armageddon resistance from red boots and a necklace. {Diablo} was defeated using a tactic similar to the battle with Mephisto: Elleshar first, Orrin second.

To start the fifth act, you need to solve a logistical puzzle and reach the snows via long dashes. The author gives us Dess in prison for this purpose, but I didn't need him since I already had a leveled Kyrr by that point. In this zone, there were a couple of unpleasant ambushes, tough guards in the Sescheron citadel, the demon {Shenk} on the road, and a very tough boss {Nihlathak} in the underground, whose arsenal contains only two spells: explosion for about 90 SP and dispel (and there is no sphere of constancy on the map). I prepared a complex breakthrough scheme for this boss. Orrin went in first with phoenixes, djinns, and snipers. The task was to destroy the ballista with phoenixes, buff the snipers with same-type spells so they had enough power to one-shot dragons, finish off liches on morale, and pay them off. Elleshar went in second on a double-man with magical elementals. Fight fire with fire, as they say. While the elementals are under a force field, fast units are wiped out by explosion (resistance is quite strained), and the rest are finished off in hand-to-hand combat. In the end, I was eager to complete the map within 6 months—twice as fast as the time allotted for the game. After a series of manipulations at the very end (for example, dismissing cyclops with 8 speed), Orrin managed to reach the final boss named {Baal} on the last move point at 6.4.7. The boss himself is not particularly difficult, but the desire to finish the map before the 7th month set conditions for a wall-to-wall fight, and after several attempts, I finally managed to pull it off.

Overall, this is one of those rare cases where I enjoyed playing on a static map. In this regard, "Lord of Destruction" goes into the same collection as "Ray of Light" and "Vengeance Is Mine".

As a memory of the map, I've kept a video illustration of the struggle with randomness in the first act from my unsuccessful attempt at completion. In the final Walkthrough, the garrison was fought differently and in a more stable manner.

As it turns out, the author also has a Diablo III adaptation, but for HotA. I looked at it briefly in the editor; it looks very promising. It's possible that this is even a contender for the best map for HotA at the moment. But so far there is only a version in Polish, although according to the author, an English translation is currently in progress and expected soon.

Marlo_Stanfield, Yes, it's a good map. I should check out the HotA adaptation, at least the beginning. I somehow missed it.

It's interesting that you have far fewer archers than the Polish streamer I briefly watched, but you have more effective garrison breaking in terms of losses. And on the second attempt, what was the timing?

I played Diablo quite a bit back in the day. I even had a leveled sorceress up to level 97, farming Baal runs in single-player. It was the first game I had installed in two versions, one for farming charms.

Yes, I forgot to mention that the current English version of the map differs in several aspects, making it more challenging compared to what procjon, Kiszak, and Fantom streamed. The first streamer played the beta version, and as far as I understand, it was essentially a different map. Kiszak and Fantom played a newer version, but it was still not the latest (Fantom also played on HotA and without a time limit).

As a result, the garrison attacked about a week later and with a much larger group of creatures, which led to the phoenixes desperately attacking the Azure faction.

Map Title: Lord of Destruction
Author: marcel33
Downloaded: from the maps4heroes map catalog

I'll add my two cents.
I recently finished this map as well, and it took me 9.5 months because I wasn't in a hurry: I deliberately didn't give my main character the "Pathfinding" skill (even though almost the entire map consists of deserts, swamps, and snow), I traveled to the most remote locations, and sometimes I lost a day or two with my main character to leave guards for the outposts and level up the last ones.

I'd rate the map 6-7 out of 10. Overall, I would describe the map as corridor-like, mostly based on battles with neutrals. It will appeal to those who enjoy a relatively leisurely playthrough. At the same time, we are limited in restoration magic, so battles must be fought with minimal losses so that we have enough strength for the next stage.

The author tries to "slip" us a prayer specialist as our main character, but as often happens, experience suggests that we should immediately switch to other specialists: Orrin, Mephala, Nila, Gunnar, Kir, Gundula. I also immediately leveled up all the logistics experts and the navigation specialist, which allowed me to quickly pass the section where they are needed on the water. The delay in the playthrough occurred because I was trying to level up everyone at the same time, not knowing what would ultimately be useful. Ideally, we only need to have two main characters: Orrin and one of the two armor specialists - Nila or Mephala. The advantage of Nila is that she can immediately retrain the magic she has learned to others, and she also gains intelligence for battles more easily, and she also excels in "wall-to-wall" battles. Orrin, given the main strike force in the form of snipers, is very good in ranged battles. Logistics experts, with the mandatory "Pathfinding" skill, can clear the underground with false branches on their own, which will save a lot of time while the main character simply travels to the right location.

Regarding skills, it is definitely desirable for the main character, whoever they may be, to take logistics (you have to travel a lot and for a long time), attack (we have a number of strike forces of the contact type), shooting (snipers - the main strike force), and standard earth + wisdom + water (although Gunnar traveled the entire map without water). The remaining 2 slots can be filled as desired: "Pathfinding" for faster passage, tactics (it helped me more than once), defense (it will also be useful in all battles), intelligence (I took it out of habit, although Nila only needed it a couple of times during the game). I started leveling up the intelligence specialist for a possible "Trickster," but it never came in handy.

As for the battles, I didn't experience any particular difficulties on the map. The most difficult were the battles with 2-3 heroes and garrisons in the first half of the map, where losses were inevitable. For some reason, I remember Marius (Andariel), who seemed impenetrable, but after reinforcements and a lot of morale, I managed to defeat her with small losses.
In essence, almost all battles boil down to the need to maximize morale and luck (with artifacts and objects), and to catch random double damage on golden dragons and double shots from snipers in battle. If this can be combined, and especially in the second round, the battle is practically won. It is also desirable to use azure dragons: they can absorb damage under Nila, block archers, and (hopefully) inflict fear on the enemy. I didn't have any major losses in any battle, and I never used "hit and run."
If you approach the battles in this way, you will have enough strength to pass the next stage without losses. Losing more than 10% of the strike force is unacceptable; it is better to take someone to absorb damage.

Regarding magic, as mentioned, there is a lot, but little is used: slow, prayer, bless, blind. I didn't use most of the other spells during the game.
I think we will have access to "sacrifice" (an analogue of resurrection), but I didn't find a use for it in battles.

In my opinion, the author could improve the map a little:
- in the description or at the beginning, it would be good for the author to give initial instructions regarding magic: there will be no restoration or clone magic, nor berserk, so fight carefully and without losses; tactics or shooting are more important than fire magic or intelligence, for example. You understand these things closer to the middle of the game, when you no longer want to change main characters.
- perhaps it would be worth adding the ability to create wizards from the purchased fanatics, while reducing the attack power of some other units,
- it would be nice to release 1-2 enemy heroes to liven up the static map. Or, as an option, create a zone where you would have to "run around" with a logistics expert. The map is motionless (except for the floating Thazar),
- as an option, it would be nice to give the floating Thazar some useful artifact for the passage. At some point, he sails with a navigation specialist, then we enter a new zone, and this hero is simply forgotten. But it would be possible to give him a quest artifact, and then you would have to defeat this hero, albeit later,
- again, in a corridor-like map, it would be nice to hide unique specialists (Gela, Orrin, armor specialist) in prisons and free them as you progress. The availability of almost all heroes in the tavern makes the game much easier.

Jelu's run on the First Blood 2.5 map without removing the sphere of prohibition. The recording was shared by scars of reality; his comment is below:

When I played it for the first time, I relied on random chance more than ever before. It took about 40 minutes, I think. The abilities didn't drop 20% of the time, as stated, but probably once in 20 tries. Plus, you need to get maximum morale/luck. Overall, it's quite a hassle.

There don't seem to be any other recordings of this battle on YouTube, except for the one uploaded by Marlo, so it might be of interest to some as an alternative. However, this can only be done in the later stages of the game when we already have a considerable army. I played this map for the first time, so I only reached Jelu in the middle of the 6th month.
Why he combines the sharps into one stack is obvious. Plus, right before the battle, I hit him once with another hero to remove everything unnecessary from the field: wizards, a tent, and other junk he had.

However, I still completed it a little differently, in 2 attempts. In the first attempt, I used another top-tier hero with only fanatics and 1 white dragon (you can add 1 archer for extra morale) and paid him off. In the second attempt, I finished off with Desso with the same army as in the video, but with different artifacts: cursed armor and the Cloak of the Lich King, to get at least some skeletons. These "basic sets" are extremely important as a source of resources. In the end, I managed to make at least a small profit.

Jel's run on the First Blood 2.5 map without removing the sphere of prohibition. The recording was shared by scars of reality, his comment is below:

Well, 6 months is a long time. I think that by the 12th month, even the auto-battle will handle it :D But the battle itself was conducted skillfully.

Six months is a long time.

Is there a way to defeat Jela with a red orb and a sniper bow earlier? I mean, with a smaller army. I'm not a pro, but it seems like the damage was already less than needed, so I had to wait for several morale boosts/lucky breaks. Or is there a way to build an army with equivalent damage in a couple of months?
This isn't sarcasm. I'm genuinely interested in what experienced players think. Maybe there are other, more original ways that I don't know about. I don't have that much experience, so I'd be happy to listen to any advice. :)

The April battles map is also quite interesting. I've been trying to solve its starting puzzle for a very long time, but I can't seem to figure it out. It's obvious that you need to take 10 wood and stone as a starting bonus, but even then, there aren't enough logs to build a dwelling for the troglodytes in Kiffa – two logs are missing. And without that, you can't build harpies, and you need to build them by the fourth day of the game. You could also trade 775 harpies for one log, 100 gold, and 50 peasants, but there's still a catastrophic shortage of one log, and sacrificing 775 harpies seems like too much.

You could also trade 775 harpies for one log, 100 gold, and 50 peasants.

I won't claim anything for sure, but this might be planned by the map author.

but still, one log is catastrophically not enough

You need to build a summoning portal.

That’s interesting, though. I didn’t expect that the summoning portal could give me Firebirds; I don’t have any stockpiles at the start. It’s a shame to give away 775 harpies, but it looks like I really need to.

Isn't there a way to defeat Jela with a red orb and a sniper bow earlier? I mean, with a smaller army. I'm not a pro, but it seems like the damage was already less than needed, so I had to rely on several morale/luck boosts. Or is there a way to build an army with equivalent damage in a couple of months?
This isn't sarcasm. I'm genuinely interested in what experienced players think about this. Maybe there are other, more original ways that I don't know about. I don't have that much experience, so I'd be happy to listen to any advice. :)

Somewhere here there was a description of a walkthrough on how to make Jela remove the orb. Well, if you want to defeat her with brute force without magic, you'll probably have to generate a lot of blindness for the unicorns.
In general, it's not clear why the author added this red orb. In its original form, it was quite playable with a nice speedrun.

Added 28 minutes later

It's interesting, though. I didn't expect that the summoning portal could give me firebirds; I don't have any hidden resources at the start...

Apparently, they are hidden somewhere. Try checking through the kingdom overview; maybe there are some others.

They must be hidden somewhere. Try checking through the kingdom overview; there might be others.

Indeed, the bird nest was camouflaged as a rock. I was already thinking there was some clever mechanic, that if you don't have nests, the portal will default to giving you birds.