Masterwork chainmail a functional no brainer?

Are you sure that by picking masterwork chainmail that you can automatically wear it?

One cannot, but getting to wear Chainmail is really easy (2 skills as warrior, immidiatly as defender, reasonably possible as assasin iirc) in comparison to getting to wear platemail (which is really way down the skill trees). Since the metal/protection ratio stayed roughly the same otherwise, I figure plate could use somewhat of a buff.

It perhaps not that major because troops basically dont care that much about what you equip them with.

i don't think the armor of heroes is such a big deal when you researched the whole warfare tech tree already (you have to, since masterwork chain replaces plate, which is at the very end of the tree). by that time, trained armies are a lot more powerful than champions. the proficiency traits allow you to equip random drop chain/plate items in the early/mid game when your champions are still a significant part of your military power. when you're at the end of the tech tree, the heroes are fairly obsolete considering the power of late game trained units. masterwork chain is only 2/3 of the defense of plate, so it's really a trade off- better initiative or better armor. the combat strength of heroes doesn't really matter at that point, imo.

Alas that this is how the game should end up, that your mighty heroes get so outclassed by your normal units in the lategame that they're not even worth considering!

I disagree in every sense of the word, heroes should scale to late game.

Exactly.  And in the 0.80 update some of the experience has come back.  The new hero trees are also better.  But there is still some balancing to be had (in favor of heroes).

more than half of the tech tree is devoted to the development of better, larger, more powerful armies - the other half pretty much gives you the means to research, build and maintain those armies. if heroes are powerful enough to compete with the economic and military power of the whole faction, then the whole empire building aspect of the game becomes meaningless. in other words - we are back to the FE system where it was actually possible to never settle a city and wipe out the whole map just with your sov and the starting champ.

the way i see it, heroes fulfill a critical role in the birth of the faction - they are the core of your armies at the beginning and they are the guys who kill off the monsters so you can settle the land. once your empire is established, they gradually get less important as your ability to field better equipped and more capable armies increases. you can still invest a lot of money and buy your warriors champion plate and other fancy stuff, and if they are high level warriors, they can still compete with a company of trained units (or more...), but a single hero really shouldn't be as powerful as a full stack of trained companies, that's slightly off balance...

And that's all I'm asking for personally...  I'm not asking for Torin the Chosen One, just heroes that can hold their own.  We're not quite there yet.

I don't know- when elemental started, I remember it being stated that champions would be like 'the ten who were taken' in the black company.

for those who haven't read it, these were powerful mages (sometimes Mage-warriors, shape shifters) who could decimate armies. At the same time, the black company was able to take some of them down.

To me, a high level (10+ or more) well equipped w magical items should be a major force on the battlefield. They should still be vulnerable to elite units, but this is a fantasy game called LEGENDARY HEROES. Let them start out wimpy, require some grooming but w dedication become major forces.

End game, main point of my heroes is spells such as haste/slow/heal, commanders for command, and unrest reducers.  That's it.

There's no point in bothering with warrior or assassin tree period, or really even defender.

And that's unfortunate!!!  Too many people agree with you.  Heroes should NEVER be pointless!

I think that was sarcasm...

this thread is about how the game actually is, not how the game could be / should be. the original topic was about masterwork chainmail and the opinion of the thread starter that it's a functional no brainer. i tried to point out the flaws in this logic, and then it somehow turned into a discussion that heroes should be more powerful. noone even suggested that the current state of heroes is desirable - but as a matter of fact, heroes (especially melee heroes) are pretty much useless in the late game right now. 

@Azunai, you are to an extent correct, indeed heroes already pale quite a bit at masterwork chainmail, however, by the time I am at masterwork chainmail I propably have won the game already. 

It is however, somewhat disheartening that even my pseudogilden (Gilden Blood, Wanderlust, Lucky, Enchanters, Weakness to Magic, Defensive) warrior souvereign is not capable of being even close to trained mid-late unit damage or endurace wise.

Exactly.

At low levels heroes should need to be cautious and have other troops supporting them (although fighting class heroes should still be able to survive on the front lines in a fair fight, just not when outnumbered/outleveled).

Mid game heroes (eg level 10) should be pretty strong but still quite vulnerable if they get themselves into a bad situation.

Late game heroes (eg level 20) should be very strong, 'legendary' one could almost say. They should be killable by other 'normal' troops but only when outnumbered against strong 'normal' troops with good traits, weapons, etc.

Currently mages sort of fit this, a high level mage with sufficient mana can own. However the three fighting classes start off weak and get steadily weaker as the game goes on.

I think so either:

>20 lvl main hero should be slightly better than best equiped top military unit. Otherwise why to bother lvling heroes at all, what for so many eforts for fame ?

I tried a bow hero today... felt like mistake of nature. Usless to do damage. And because bow does low initiative - usless to casting either. Bows are fine on military units but for heroes they suck badly. All assasins tree ful of crit, dodge, but not damage and you walking with 15 damage bow hoping for crit to prox to get 20 crit on 20 armored unit... on lvl 17...

bow is nice only if you death archmage and pool all your mana into blood rage.