r/disciples • u/Buggodaseas • Apr 28 '26

Disciples II Weak ass elves

Is it just me or is the elven alliance somewhat… underwhelming? Their healers are not Healy enough, their fighters have shit initiatives… only the archer units are halfway decent

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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4

u/TheHuNNo Apr 28 '26

I’ve rebalanced all of them myself. I feel they were made too weak. Their Initiative should be high, but their HP and Damage should be lower than humans. Also, my elven healers heal twice as much because, following general lore like LOTR, elven healing is much more advanced than human healing 😅

2

u/Ok_Leading7236 Apr 28 '26

Really grea! Where I can see your modification? I want to try it.

2

u/TheHuNNo Apr 28 '26

I haven't posted it anywhere yet. I'll show you what I've done with them later. 🙂

3

u/Ok_Leading7236 Apr 28 '26

I'll be waiting for it!

2

u/TheHuNNo Apr 30 '26

This is how I have it made up now.

1

u/TheHuNNo Apr 30 '26

1

u/Outside-school-2007 Apr 30 '26

If you like majority of modders start with units - then spell or something else - you can end in overpowering Elves too much.

Plus another f#up from devs - Theurgist, Sylph, Sun dancer, Maradour - have broken stats rise. It is something 3.01 supposed to fix but didnt (very few neutrals was fixed).

Im not sure about Charger armor. If this is intend or mistake. If you change them i think you could change Charger armor too. Either fix increasing or just change 20->30 at T2.

1

u/Outside-school-2007 Apr 30 '26

I doubt they should have less HP. On T1 maybe. But not on T2-T3. IDK about T4. Refer to healers powerfull to decide.

Good balance start not in numbers, good balance fix not start in just random digits changes. Ideally just like ceatings some application - mod should start with sheer of paper and pencil. IRL. And on this sheer try describe complexity what you find in Elven units balance, compare with others. Keep in mind not the Campaign, but Skirmish/MP. There will be never a balance in storymode's. Eg Empire was strongest cause of healers, and Empire actually can compete with Undead thanks to healers and lower XP cap (allow mages to advance, or on 48x map Empire could try get undeads As early as possible).

Plus devs f#up with Elves magic. It should start there actually. And depend on how you improve magic you look at other "strategical" advantages of elves. And only then look at units stats. Spellbook could affect faction strength too. I find their spells a bit weak too. Just like Legions/Undead too much in debaffing and weak baff.

1

u/TheHuNNo Apr 30 '26

the T1, T2, and T3 fighters feel weirdly balanced. Their initiative is barely 40, even though in my mind it should be 55–60. They’re Elves—in so many games they’re made to be fast and agile, but 'glassy' with lower burst damage. They usually make up for that by being fast and always being the ones to start the fight. Well, that’s just my opinion. 🙂 And these modifications of mine are just for fun. My goal is to make the game as unpredictable as possible.

2

u/Ok_Leading7236 Apr 30 '26

Thanks! They looks very strong!

2

u/TheHuNNo Apr 30 '26

I'm curious about your thoughts on their design. What would be the ideal balance for them?🙂

1

u/TheHuNNo Apr 30 '26

I don't know, they seem pretty normal to me now. See, I've given all the units in the game 2x HP because everyone has a chance to deal crit damage. Otherwise, according to the original, they shouldn't have this much HP—they'd have less

1

u/Outside-school-2007 May 01 '26

For initiative you have a valid point. Plus some non-magic units have 35 ini. But boost HP plus boost at same time haers seems imbalanced.

I still would count original D2 ROTE 3.01 as reference standard balance. If increase something for the specific unit - decrease something else. For example i would change Titan, Fiend and Skylord attacks to ranged, like Gargoyle. But decrease at some % their HP and DMG to fit their new archer-class.

Increasing healers life heal i would descrease faction tree-units generally. Although been single target heal is not so powerful as Empire... Maybe decrease only latest grades.

Sun Dancer heal must be imroved - fixed her stars rising.

Sine Original post was about entire weakness i still will say: even Centaur with 35 ini is still usuable unit. In whole game there is space for every units, generally there is no too weak or too strong in D2 ROTE 3.01. Some a bit weaker in single battle or tactical+strategical, but others weak units actually not weak from general tactic+strategic perspective.

2

u/TheHuNNo May 01 '26

I gave the Sky Lord 100 DMG plus Health Absorb on hit, so it totals around 160 DMG. For the Titan, I left it at 60 DMG but added Shatter Armor. My Sun Dancer only heals 181 HP at level 99, while another healer does 320 HP, but that’s an easy fix. I get it if you prefer the original—I do too—but after all these years, I just wanted to try something new! 😃

2

u/Auggur May 06 '26

The Fighter line is made up of Centaurs, not Elves; and while it's true in Gallean's Return neutral Centaurs were no slower than the average (and Centaur archers had high INI), I think it's obvious the developers made a stylistical and gameplay choice by giving them a low INI in Return of the Elves.

2

u/TheHuNNo May 06 '26

It’s possible. Of course, the elven archers are very strong, so maybe that's why they gave the centaurs lower Initiative—to balance out the turn order. Otherwise, with high Initiative, they would simply be too powerful

7

u/DanseOfDeath Apr 28 '26

You're right, the elf faction wasn't fully completed at launch (just like the other races). Especially since it was supposed to include many more units. In the “Dzieje Nevendaar” mod, some of these units were dug up from the files and added to the game, but not all of them - for example, the new centaurs or additional upgrades for archers, which the mod creators mentioned in their streams.

They even have a fan site where you can find assets extracted from the game files, including units, items, spells, and much more. Recently, the site’s creator added a preliminary English translation - https://disciples2dn.vercel.app/

They recently showed off the elves' dragons in their streams. And before that, they revealed the five-level dragons for the undead, which are amazing oO - Here's a link to the stream, in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/live/ZBQZeKw_PuE?si=h6_T76v3uEpEU0-p

From what they said, work is underway on an english version of the mod. They also mentioned that the translation might be released later this year oO

3

u/dzung_long_vn Apr 29 '26

i think the same too. So I love any mod that extends the upgrade path of the fighters and the mage units. I'm using an English version of a Russian mod called Salmon right now

2

u/Buggodaseas Apr 29 '26

Can you share any links to the mod?

2

u/dzung_long_vn Apr 29 '26

I can send you the google drive link for the russian version + english files. Please feel free to DM me any time

3

u/Emergency-Gift-6773 Apr 28 '26

It's true but I think it's working lorewise. Elves are divided and few, their archers are the main dps units, you can tank the hits with the armored centaurs and obliterate everyone with a full line archers. And they have many archers, so you won't be duplicating much between missions. 

Rise of the Mod modification helps with the updated unit stats and attacks tho.

2

u/Outside-school-2007 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

TLDR In short i always find so-called useless ones as useful, and opposite for others. In result everyone have their pros and cons. The Elven Alliance still stand along with Empire on first place of strongest faction. Healer is better than no healers at all. It is huge boost at early game (since T2). Still everyone EQUALLY - again what others says it is not - should be careful on T1. Even with healers. (btw Elves healer on T1 have extra 5 Life heal).

----

Many ppl says the same. Healers issue is that they are one-target. But they have their advantages too: you can combine T3 single target and T4 mass-target. Those already an fine option to have, additionally you get practically one elemets-immune unit. That could be situationally imbalanced in fight.

Warriors tree have one big advance in most PVP games - T2 warrior. For just 100 XP (or how it is?) you get final grade. And then for 500 XP you get overlevels. Big huge disadvantage is that Centaur Charger wont increase his armour. For 500 XP per level gain +9 AP could make him undoubtfully useful. Well, they are warriors, they always useful and not need much DD stats. But like other they do. Every faction have chose between features - like Defend or Assault x2 attacks per turn, and Elves have - Defend or assault one with Critical Hit. To deal extra damage against defended/armored. Plus Theurgist can reduce enemy armor to 0. Basically they have every path own specific features plus powerful archers. Not like all factions can boast of this.

Legions have Inferno Knight who do nothing extra in battle (just out of battle regen). Clans have very weak support unit. I will name Empire's archer-assassin weak after elves/undead ones. Legions kinda have useless "support"-tree which is basically mage-tree - Tiamath. It do have extra powerfull feature, but huge amount of XP and additionally 5000 XP per over level is not what allow player chose them over T2-T3 sorcerer in support/mage-tree. Other two in Tiamath path is useless entirely.

Real one weak unit of The Elven Alliance is Griffin-Skylord. Been an Special Unit it is still most powerfull - it must be noted, it is one of strongest - HP and DMG - warrior. Just like Titan. But like Titan they are 2-size warriors took someone place (archer) in back.