Talk:Giant and Titan

Discussion

Giants are very unimpressive 7th level creatures, and may not be worth the gold until your Cloud Temple sees an upgrade. Titans, on the other hand, stand strong as one of the most powerful creatures in the game. If your hero happens to be an expert in earth magic with slow you will be able to dismantle a majority of neutral creatures (with the help of mages)) before they can land a blow. Additionally - with their mind spell immunity, Titans will not fall prey to the forgetfulness and berserk spell. Even in melee combat, your titans should lead you to victory in a wide range of combat match-ups. Also, a hero with Archery as a skill would be good too.

- Titans seem to be the only town-aligned unit able to consistently beat Ancient Behemoths without tricks like force field shenanigans or lucky Poison procs. Archangels struggle with Behemoths as despite their awesome 30/30 att/def they only have relatively low 250 HP and Behemoths deal more damage thanks to their defense reduction special, thus outdamaging Archangels in the long run. Black Dragons have equal 300 HP but much lower damage output so Behemoths mince them too. Haspids seem to get better with time and numbers, as Revenge and Poison start kicking in, but get stomped otherwise. Other level 7 units are just too fragile/weak/both. Titans on the other hand have both massive 300 HP that seems to be the best defense, insanely high damage potential especially with Archery, Bless or Slayer, and ranged attack i.e. 1-2 free hits that vs Behemoths seems better than no retaliation, as it doesn't immediately leave your unit in melee range.

Why didn't you put it in the Tactics and Strats section?--FirePaladin2 (talk) 00:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

- Seems to be very niche stuff, not of much use as generally Tower armies own Stronghold armies anyway, also requires some more testing, preferably by lot of other people, to make sure it's not just my Tower bias. I did some tests using "clean lab" environment - heroes with 0/0 att/def/skills influencing damage, artifacts nullifying luck/morale, neutral terrain, straightforward tactics (you know how kiting with ranged troop vs melee troop would end), no spells, just creature stacks with equal numbers from 1 to 1000. Long story short, Titans always win, and the bigger the numbers, the quicker it happens. Behemoths take over 40% losses just getting in melee as they eat 2 ranged volleys, both at full strength because they have to move at least 4 hexes in turn 1 to be able to reach melee in turn 2 and Titans can outwait them. Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight... The only condition I've found in which Behemoths can win is when they start in melee from equal numbers. So not going to happen outside "lab" conditions, unless playing against really stupid AI, a noob, stacking Speed, or getting 11+ speed troops and having Teleport. In any "real" combat Behemoths would get hero backing, likely things like +10 attack, Armorer+Offense, or Crag, but Titans could have Neela, Armorer+Offense, Archery, magic buffs, Orrin, or anything that gets them more free hits or even more damage. Even after first 1-2 melee turns casting Shield or Bless on Titans still allows them to come on top. What I'm sure does belong in Tacs/Strats is that both Giants & Titans are strongly affected by Bless/Curse, putting it in.

--It could be considered niche, but nobody reads this section either I think + that section was created to contain any useful info in those regards (even if it's Tower VS Stronghold; after all, someone might be looking for that info, and some people might read it and remember the info later, in a match where it'd be useful + one can add a subsection about Titan VS unit tests). And yeah, I love such tests, did one a while ago with all level 7s and Titans proved to be very good for a few reasons.--FirePaladin2 (talk) 15:37, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

So someone DOES read this. Why hello my fellow H3 nerd! I think that maybe "tables of 2462894 cases of X vs Y" could be hidden in collapsing frames? It's not like people get redirected to this site asking Google for this or that exact math case: "Creature A with buff B fighting creature C, in conditions so and so who would win?". Behemoths attack table and Fire Shield damage table are two that I know of that really don't need to be always visible.

Speaking about tests, did some more, and found that Titans need at least 1 ranged hit to win vs Ancient Behemoths. At equal stacks, neutral conditions as above etc. Titans kill about 10% of ABs stacks in half strength hit and about 20% in full strength hit. Then ABs get 1 or 2 good hits, but they don't have numbers anymore and Titans reliably deal more damage (the irony!). If Titans don't get that free hit, Behemoths reliably come on top regardless of who gets the first melee strike. Otherwise it's always victory for Titan(s). Even Defend tactics doesn't help because ABs defense is only 19 to begin with, Titans' melee attacks are almost as strong as ABs', and Titans are ranged AND faster so could just kite ABs to death instead of letting them come in melee range and attacking them after Defend.

If possible I'd like to know how Haspids turn out vs Ancient Behemoths and Titans. I get that they're considered broken for reasons, but it's no substitute for combat tests and I don't have HotA. Judging by stats alone Haspids vs ABs looks like first strike = win because both units hit hard and have weak defense, unless Revenge buffs them even more than ABs special or Poison kicks in during that crucial 1st-2nd turn. And it might interest you that only SoD 7th levels that can reliably kill Titans in "duel" conditions are... Arch Devils, because no retal+high att/def+they cannot be kited. Everything else loses, either straight-out or with defend-counterattack tactics.

-People do get redirected by googling creatures from HoMM3 here I think. Yes, a table could be designed for such stuff (alas, regarding H3, I have modding stuff to finish, so not sure how much I'd be able to help with the table, but already existing ones can be used as starting point). As far as I remember, the Haspids are OP in 1 on 1 combat. They killed all level 7s I think, but I need to test again to be sure. And yeah, Arch Devils are the only ones who can reliably kill Titans, that's what their strengths are, their abilities, stats and speed (also, I gotta mention HotA is free and doesn't mess up the original files).--FirePaladin2 (talk) 18:15, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I meant specifically that atrocity in Behemoth and Ancient Behemoth page. The big table of over 9000 cases of "attack X, target defense Y, real target defense Y/5, damage Z" could be just hidden in big fat spoiler button if it's possible. Two big tables just for numbers crunching, taking about as much space as the rest of the page put together.

It's not some top priority, just looks bit meh to have 2 tables full of math cases when it's not really necessary. Maybe wait for me to get bored enough to dig into formatting. Seeing as I've gone from "write something in talk page" to "logging in and writing stuff", might end up in something useful, unless this site doesn't allow collapsing/expanding content.

And someone removed "Shadow of Death" from that part in Giant and Titan trivia where I put it to clarify that I'm not sure how well Haspids do vs Ancient Behemoths, as Haspids are from Cove and any other 7th level either is a Titan, is Arch Devil and kites excessively relying on ground obstacles for protection, or loses. I take it as your edit? Were the monsters hurt very much in making of that claim or was it quick one-sided cleaning op? And does it mean that Haspids lost? --Fafner (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I removed the SoD part, since the info is correct for all HoMM3 versions (I actually explained this in the edit's info section). Haspids still can't reliably defeat Ancient Behemoths.--FirePaladin2 (talk) 22:31, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

To make this clear once and for all: I meant that ALL 7th level town units pre-HotA lose against Ancient Behemoths, unless they are Titans or Devils protected by terrain obstacles. Then Haspids were introduced and I wasn't sure if it's still correct, because their Revenge ability buffs their attack to ridiculous levels as they keep taking damage and if Poison procs instantly that's 30% of stack's total HP that just went on vacation. So I put SoD there to make sure it's clear which town troops I meant. If Behemoths can reliably kill Haspids, then it's OK, as it's still correct. --Fafner (talk) 13:10, 9 December 2020 (UTC)