Now that a new word is starting I want to ask :

- Who is the best horde and why ?

I know that it has to do with your playing style but still if we look at the word 1 top 25 players we see :

15 Emerald horde players , 4 Sapphire , 5 Diamond and only one Ruby .

So are the Emeralds the best choice for a horde ????

And what horde will you be in the next world !?!

With emerald you can get the spells earlier, so you can get successful duels earlier and after all the bonuses on spell-casting stay useful.
Anyway my clan-mates in hun W1 (all was diamond) started new characters in the emerald horde and they knew how this game works...

But still i will play with diamond for now. They receive no bonus in battles, but afaik, i'm good enough to compensate this matter and i can take advantage of the + SE.

In my opinion firstly the diamond is the best, bot from 10th level to 70th the emerald will be the absolute king.
Lately maybe the ruby can make the most stronger character.

----

Wrong. You can never know which horde is the best. You can't judge by the top players. They have something more than only the horde bonuses. Experience from the HUN server, time and talent.

A sapphire can be stronger than a diamond or ruby or emerald. It's onnly the matter of character build/items/skills.

I have to agree. A horde is not made the best horde by the top player or players. A horde may be weak if looked at it at individual members, but strong when you take it a whole (as you should).
I personally never played this game before (just 5 levels on W1 before W2 started) but looking at the tops i'm first in 2 categories (3 from time to time) but that wont make my horde the best wouldn't it?! What helped me tough was the fact that i've played other similar games, i read the help's and faq's of the game and tried to see for myself how the stats affect a character.
This is what makes a character better than others and a united horde even better (this and allot of luck, not necessary from building , just pure luck).

I have been thinking a lot about this.
Take Ciphas, for example. He has stolen 5mm SE. If he were diamond, he would have stolen 6.5mm (it is 30% more, correct?). I don't believe any spell advantage he has can possibly compensate for this 1.5mm he "lost". The same goes for me. I am at 1.5mm being a ruby. There is no way the advantage I have in physical combat (which, by the way, I haven't noticed any!!!) can compensate for the 450k I "lost".
Am I crazy or the game is way unbalanced in favor of the diamond horde?

Cruel.

it`s only natural that diamond is strongest
of course you guys have advantage, when two doomlords fight
one ruby one diamond, if they have similar or same stats and equipment
ruby is likely to win

But what you are suggesting is an impossibility.
If a player exactly like me chose diamond, he would have 500k more SE.
This means he would have MUCH better stats and destroy me in combat.

Cruel.

You cannot sen messages for 56:03.
who said i understand ?heheheheh
it`s possible, 30% doesn`t count much if you don`t know
when and where to strike and it works only if opponent have se
your advantages, on the other hand, is in it`s full potential all the time

Idézet: Cruel01 - 2011.01.26. 23:04:16

Spells have the potential to be MASSIVELY powerful in this game. You're looking purely at SE - consider the number of battles that someone like Ciphas has won purely on the benefit of that boost in spell power. Since changing a win to a loss has double the SE impact (since not only do you not gain SE, but you ALSO lose SE if you lose a battle) - so the real question is whether Ciphas has had his Emerald bonus earn him about 750k more.

Also, does the Diamond bonus apply on Affinity and EnHarness? If not, then that difference above is actually much less.

The bonus over CA and EH is a good question. Can anyone answer this?

Regarding the benefit Emeralds get on their spell, I am questioning if they are good enough to compensate the much higher IQ stat from a diamond player.
I believe not.

Cruel.

ha, cruel and i talk about it minuts ago
i think it would be too much advatage for diamnod doomlords

Idézet: Viridel - 2011.01.26. 23:48:04
As far as I know, the only thing that applies to EH is CA. (meaning that it doubles the base SE from EH if you have CA at its maximum value - but only until you reach the daily limit of CA) If the SE you would take from someone (modified by the diamond horde bonus, I think) is lower than the threshold value calculated using the formula for EH, you will get the same amount of SE as any other horde.

You throw yourself into battle, raging.
*Lordeadron* summons a(n) ultimate iceblast spell on you. You roll over to evade the spell. You take only 908 damage. He burns 454 mana from you! Your pets lose 1 hit points.
You cast a(n) ultimate iceblast spell to the direction of your opponent. (-310 SP). You deal 4759 damage. The spell affects your opponent: -24 Defense. Your opponent's pets lose 328 hit points.

In this battle you have dealt a total of 8232 damage and have taken 2107 damage.

This is one fight from clanmember (emerald) and as you can see spell is more than half of the battle damage. Granted, he would win even without emerald bonus, but I noticed that as game advances spell damage and pets damage take bigger and bigger part of the complete damage. For example in this fight only 1200 damage (from winner side) and 300ish (from loser side) came from mellee weapons.
Spell is biggest part of it obviously, and having advantage/bonus there means difference between win/loss in close duels most of the time.

But I ve also noticed that players w/o real competition on their respectative levels often switch to diamond horde for the bonus when they know there will be no close fights.

As far as I see it saphire and ruby don't have that much advantage at anytime in the game with their bonuses.

Dark, remember that were talking about a level 107 spell here. And the casters; either Demo or Sorcha which are level 97 and 96 respectively.

Demo has 553 IQ, with a whooping 403 Thau, counting all the bonuses.
Sorcha has 576 IQ, with 396 Thau, with all the bonuses.

I'll update this in an hour posting Sorchas' stats. But taking into consideration HP levels, character level, and stats; one can assume that scenario will be quite a common sight. The Emerald bonus does increase the damage, yet the major part is caused by the stats themselves.


Edit: Sorcha update.

Dark, I am still not convinced your friend would not do even more damage if he was Diamond with a much higher IQ.
Anyway, apparently there is a consensus that the game is unbalanced towards Diamond/Emerald.
Shouldn't the programmers be adjusting that for Ruby/Saphire?

Cruel.

I actually believe that Ruby is quite powerful as well.

Instead of spell casting, Ruby focuses on melee. You can also take note that specialising in melee will also deal higher damage than spells in the long run, due to multiple melee attacks vs a single spell.

The "advantage" Emerald has vs Ruby is that spells are the first to be cast, which at lower levels (with mediocre HP) can be deadly. But once we're talking about 20k+ HP ranges, the story changes in favour to the pure warrior. Assuming, the characters in question are developed to work this way.

Not if the spell reduces my attack by 20%.
As everybody has high defense, I will miss most my hits.

Cruel.

it`s hard to find a balance between sides in every game
make them different enough, and be original atop of that
if there is a balance, this game have it
if they decrease attack so much, it`s impossible to keep other abillities high as iq and thaum
ruby horde can compesate that because they deal more damage and greater chance to hit
saphire wouldn`t take so much damage in the first place
and diamond could increase his abilities-skills more efficiently due to 30% bonus

interesting, original, and balanced as well