Best/Worst Heroes and Classes

By NobleSeven, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

On 2/16/2016 at 1:12 AM, Charmy said:

Top 5 Best Heroes:

I just want to point out that healing one HP does not revive a hero. You have to still perform the stand up action or the pick up action. No amount of HP heal will revive a hero until they stand up or are picked up.

Edit: Never mind, any amount of HP picks them up

Edited by The MechE

So my choices here are based entirely on either being the Overlord or playing Road to Legend - I've not been a hero outside of RtL. And I've got all the expansions/characters that are available outside of 1st edition as well.

Best Heroes:

Ispher - Their ability is always useful. Always. They also manage to play some of the more esoteric healer classes without a problem because they don't really need to heal themselves. This is who I always pick to play when I'm being a hero.

Elder Mok - Said a billion times but Mok's ability is glorious and synergises really well with being a bard. He's just rock solid all around. Nice stats too.

Lindel - The app has a lot of tests to do. A LOT of tests, far more than you'd ever do in a normal game. Lindel can make a lot of them much easier. This especially applies to areas where the game is sort of pushing a "warrior carries this item, scout carries this, mage carries this" because Lindel can just carry anything and do well with it.

Okaluk and Rakash - The most mobile hero in the game. Being able to move 4 without wasting an action is just insanely good. Especially when you want to open a door and move away, which happens all the time.

Sir Valadir - He's got a heroic feat that's actually useful in the app, which is actually quite uncommon. And his surges mean things like Skirmisher is a really good choice and can remove a lot of randomness.

Honourable mention goes to One Fist. He's super situational though and you have to kinda build around him which isn't the case with the other heroes.

Best Classes:
Beastmaster - Has a strong pet and a lot of passive abilities which is really important when it comes to forgetting stuff.

Bard - In the app group healing is king and the bard is the best at it.

Skirmisher - Can boost their stamina and also gets a ton of attacks all on the same target, really good for taking down very strong single lieutenants and others. Killing is more important in the app than the normal game, so they become much more useful and flexible. Also goes super well with the hybrid mage.

Battlemage - With the exception of Runemaster all the mage classes are rubbish and being able to drop having a mage is great. Again that might not apply to playing normally but in the app it's definitely true. Adding this class to Jaes the Exile and using a bunch of runes (which often come up in the shop and are wasted) makes it a lot of fun too, so much variety.

Shadow Warrior - Being able to add hearts to people as well as generally boost attacks is just unbelievably handy in the app. Doing more damage is all you need to do, killing more monsters or keeping them out of the way is just extremely important.

Worst Classes:
Every Mage and Scout Class - I'm discounting Runemaster and Shadow Warrior here. Treasure Hunter is great when you're playing normally and need those search cards. In the app search cards are almost meaningless which really shoots the TH in the foot. Thief is a weaker version of the TH already so that goes out of the window. Wildlander is very much a one trick pony and doesn't work as well in the app as it does in the real game.

The mages that summon things to mess around are mostly just in the way because in the app doing loads of damage is way more important.

Marshal - As an Overlord Marshal makes my game really tedious and in the app the Marshal doesn't do anything at all. I dunno if I've ever had someone play it.

Spiritspeaker - It can't heal statuses. Every single healer class works better than this one, even Prophet which is already quite fiddly and annoying. And their main ability is "before dice are rolled" which makes it even more terrible!

Worst Heroes:

This is a harder one for me because I don't really remember the names of most of the heroes since they never get used. Anyone with a brown defence dice is ignored because you're going to just get walloped really early. Ones based around rez abilities are meh because you don't want to die since you've only got 5 deaths before you lose the game. I've got every hero but we only regularly use maybe....15 of them? And even then some are for gimmick parties like "all orcs" - which is hard because there's only one Orc scout and she's really not very good!

I'll give an honourable mention to Steelhorns and the....Yeti hero. They both look unbelievably good but their abilities are terrible and I just can't justify ever using them.

Edited by Taear

Serena is Useless. I've played her every class, on none case she was even playable.

Steelhorns and Karnon are very realiable heroes, in fact. Steelhorns feat can be of multiple use. Karnon force the Overlord to play small monster because his feat will kill any big minor monster. Maybe they are not so usable on the app, but indeed.

Same on mage class. The Hexer is really strong, and illusionnist's vortex is a real pain.

Edited by rugal

Serena’s definitely a weak hero. I always have thought she could use +1 knowledge and awareness, and her feat should heal 6/2 minimum, more with an attribute test.

That said, I enjoy playing her- I don’t necessarily need to play the strongest heroes to have fun. Using a character with such a large stamina pool is a different experience.

I think she’s better than Ulma, anyways. I’ve never been able to make her ability work, even in the app.

Edited by Lightningclaw
Pronoun game

I recently had Serena as a Watchman/Wildlander in a party playing Mist of Bilehall/The Chains that Rust using RAMV. She was the most mobile hero that I have ever experienced.

Fleet of Foot gives her an amazing 12 movement points per round without spending an action.
Nimble was used to avoid all Melee attacks and increase mobility even more.
Quick Recovery for increased mobility and heal, often used on other heroes, additional condition removal.
Trailblazer for party wide mobility buff especially at the start of a encounter.
Unity for party-wide fatigue recovery.

After she aquired some armor she was viable and a LOT of fun to play, easily getting faraway objectives and search tokens . However, I agree that RAMV is most likely the optimal environment for her, as clever positioning can prevent her being focused down and the mobility is much better on the big standard maps compared to the smaller RtL maps.
Just me two cents on her.

3 hours ago, rugal said:

Steelhorns and Karnon are very realiable heroes, in fact. Steelhorns feat can be of multiple use. Karnon force the Overlord to play small monster because his feat will kill any big minor monster. Maybe they are not so usable on the app, but indeed.

Same on mage class. The Hexer is really strong, and illusionnist's vortex is a real pain.

Like I said, either I'm the overlord or I'm playing the app - "forcing the overlord to play a small monster" doesn't mean anything in that situation. All Karnon does is get 1 stamina back when a monster near him is defeated, it's not enough, it's not reliable enough and not as constantly useful as other people's powers.

Compare it to Trenloe the Strong who gets +1 heart and +1 shield all the time always for example. And Karnon has only 1 in book which is bloody awful.

Hexer is a nice idea and so is illusionist but in actual play the Runemaster does more damage and that's all that matters. Doing 5 damage this turn and ten next turn isn't as good as doing seven damage this turn and seven next turn when it comes to the app.

And I'm a big believer in things not being fiddly. Hexer is fiddly. Kinda like the Champion for fighters - yea it's nice if you're paying a lot of attention and are on the ball all the time but I'm just not and nor are the people I'm playing with.

Edited by Taear
10 hours ago, Taear said:

Compare Karnon to Trenloe the Strong who gets +1 heart and +1 shield all the time always for example. And Karnon has only 1 in book which is bloody awful.

Karnon has + 1 speed than Trenloe, and recovering fatigue can be a real powerfull move. As a berserker he can use charge twice a turn, assuring with his feat to cover an X. I'm oftenly playing him and I love him more than many warriors.

Mage are more tricky than powerfull.

I'm never playing the app, it's boring gameplay, only to fight with no tactics and nothing fun. So, maybe vs the app, he may be not so powerfull.

I've read again my last top, and I would change one thing : Andira. She is maybe one if not the most powerfull hero ever and makes me crazy

I've tried to play Dezra+Berserker and it's A LOT OF FUN!

I dunno how strong she is, compared to other heroes, In my opinion she is fine. +4 make a huge difference. Her heroic ability + death syphon make for a great themed character and add a lot of sustainability. Wirlwhind by itself is great.

I really like Berserker class, thought it is shame that "Rage" doesnt stack with his other special attacks. But if you really kust want to kill stuff, then Dezra Berserker can be a viable option

but web trap can really stop her

Nothing can stop Berserker's Charge! =D

On 2/13/2019 at 3:46 PM, Lightningclaw said:

Serena’s definitely a weak hero.

I've never understood this decision, why sell a hero separately that's so nerfed? How did that seem like a reasonable business decision?

42 minutes ago, Bucho said:

I've never understood this decision, why sell a hero separately that's so nerfed? How did that seem like a reasonable business decision?

I think it's not meant but created to avoid separate heroes to be way stronger than the rest of the cast and they surely planned thoses would be bought only for miniature for lieutenant and ally, the hero thing is a "bonus".

on the V1, the bonuses heroes were so strong that they might want to avoid that mistake again. But for sure, Serena is way too much nerfed

Maybe they tought that the 6 stamina would be broken in any way ?

Serena is bad, but there are plenty of bad heroes in the game. I'd still say Ulma is worse because she brings no unique stat line to the table and her hero ability is even less impactful.

If the Spiritspeaker was fixed to not be the worst class, Serena makes a good one that is fun to play, despite her stat weakness. The brown die was really unnecessary.

Sadly the heroes were never printed with game balance in mind.

Edited by Charmy

Perhaps one of the new hybrids will have a good synergy with her high stamina. Combined with a class that has some defensive power (like the runemaster oder champion), there might be a viable build for her.

1 hour ago, Charmy said:

Serena is bad, but there are plenty of bad heroes in the game. I'd still say Ulma is worse because she brings no unique stat line to the table and her hero ability is even less impactful.

-snip-

Yes! I’ve tried Ulma multiple times in RTL (where I figured she’d be more useful) and I’ve been so disappointed each time. Serena is still impactful with her strong feat and huge stamina pool.

I played her as apothecary and was consistantly amazed that I could attack with Bottled Courage, move a space and give an elixir, and still had 2 stamina and both actions left.

Edited by Lightningclaw
On 3/4/2019 at 7:25 PM, DerDelphi said:

Perhaps one of the new hybrids will have a good synergy with her high stamina. Combined with a class that has some defensive power (like the runemaster oder champion), there might be a viable build for her.

Yes we can start some planning already. I would add Wildlander's Nimble to the picture - you can run away endlessly with such a high stamina she has

Edit... but that was already available :)

Edited by kbalazsa
5 hours ago, Charmy said:

Serena is bad, but there are plenty of bad heroes in the game. I'd still say Ulma is worse because she brings no unique stat line to the table and her hero ability is even less impactful.

you're serious . Ulma is really strong and she can use potion many times on a play and offer very good options to heal a tank warrior or anything. Have you read her right ? with her feat, with 4 heroes, you can refresh 4 potions for no actions at all ! So if the quest has 2 encounter, you can have 4 of them, use them all, refresh them, find 4 another ones, and refresh them, so use 12 of them at all.

Crazy strong, indeed !

But road to legend app game is another way to play the game, balance in those situations are only dreams. I hope the new class won't be created with only that idea in mind.

Edited by rugal
On 3/4/2019 at 2:30 PM, rugal said:

you're serious . Ulma is really strong and she can use potion many times on a play and offer very good options to heal a tank warrior or anything. Have you read her right ? with her feat, with 4 heroes, you can refresh 4 potions for no actions at all ! So if the quest has 2 encounter, you can have 4 of them, use them all, refresh them, find 4 another ones, and refresh them, so use 12 of them at all.

Crazy strong, indeed !

But road to legend app game is another way to play the game, balance in those situations are only dreams. I hope the new class won't be created with only that idea in mind.

You're right in that Ulma's Feat can be very powerful. Definitely way better than Serena's, which can sometimes do nothing if she fails her attribute tests.

However, Ulma's Ability is usually not worth using. Gold and treasure are super important in campaign play - so giving up a Treasure Chest or a Warding Talisman with 50g for a 25g potion when searching a search token does not seem worthwhile most of the time.

Edited by Charmy

If it helps win a quest it does dort it indeed

And Ulma's ability is far better than Serena's one : having a weak version of the knight defend for only 1 stamina bonus is not enough. She is missing something

Edited by rugal

I actually enjoy serena a lot.

Despite being inferior to the better combinations I like to play different classes and her stamina pool offers to play spirit speaker. Prophet is also more smoothly.

Her 5 resistance helps not only with the spirit speaker but delivers an important attribute.

Her ability fits to her weak body and helps her to survive oftentimes.

From my point of view only the combination of 8 hp and a brown die is too much. 10 hp would have been sufficient.

The 3 speed is compensated by the stamina.

Edited by becauseofyou

never played with her but she looks interesting, I also considered to her as good spiritspeaker. Thought spiritspeaker while being awesome have some general problems like no starting healing and so on. And combining inferior hero with inferior class may be fun, but we usually play whole campaign versus rather good OL and this can fast became frustrating

Healing Rain costs only one XP and with serenas ability and our positioning we could distribute the damage more evenly to maximize its effect. Maybe the OL shouldn't have tried to punish serenas defense die and low health pool.

Stone skin helped against a big hitter although I wish the card wouldn't be exhausted.

Tempest was great for many small minions and some healing especially with ancestors spirit.

Cloud of mist can also ruin the attack run of the OL as it affects every member of the group.

Healing rain costs 2 stamina and action, and if OL focus damage only one hero, he makes this skill very unefective. And as far as I know spiritspeaker doesnt have nice focus healing abilities. Stoneskin could be great if it would have been "use" instead 'exhaust', or if it were made to use after dice roll. In spiritspeaker class I reali like Mist ability wich denies surges

it would be fun to test combo like Grey Ker Monk + Spiritspeaker - he can start trun, refresh Mist card, then bypass turn, and in the end exhaust it again, making Mist last continuosly without making heroes suffer its effect