[jutetrea]

I play Dom as an RPG, in the sense that I care more about my "special" units than the armies. I think I would have liked Dom2 with its emphasis on SCs. With that being said, some of the heroes are great, add magic paths, a bit beefier, or neat abilities. Unfortunately, many of them are boring and/or useless. And the big kicker being - they're one shot deals. If my favorite bane lord gets whacked, I can summon another and start from scratch. If my harpy queen dies... oooh, I can get a mummy. I've restarted whole games when my fav SC dies idiotically.

I agree they shouldn't start as powerful as say a lvl 9 summons , a combat pretender, or a fully kitted SC - but they should have that potential with items. At least 1 of every 4 for a nation. IMHO at least 1 should be combat focused, 1 should be magic focused (preferably new paths or higher levels), 1 should have a cool thematic ability, and the 4th can either be a combo or similar to the first 3.

One of my favorite heroes is the demon whisk guy from EA T'ien chi - flying, boot slot, astral+other paths, (sacred?). But he's a low hp risk, which I'm fine with as he can be kitted out properly.

I think they should be thematically cool and moderately powerful with good variety. And other than random rambling, I agree with the OP as a first step.