Forthcoming patch notes

[JimMorrison]

Well to be fair, all of these heroes whom you describe, are more like specialized thugs, than true SCs. None of them could "take the damage" as well as dish it (except perhaps Sauron, but that was so obviously a lucky critical strike ). For example, Legolas may be analogous to Lugh the Long-Handed perhaps, and well geared Lugh can really wreak some havoc - but put him solo against 500 men and he'll be someone's ***** right quick.

If Leonidas had been a Dominions SC, he'd be 20 feet tall and have Boots of the Behemoth - then maybe he'd have won Thermopylae, but as it was, he was just a very capable leader, and a good soldier. As far as we know. But, I think we can safely rule out the 20 feet tall part, and the F9/E9 bless. >.>

[Taqwus]

Achilles is much closer to a Dominions SC than any of the Spartans; he has Olympian ancestry (not too unusual in the Trojan Cycle), is favored by certain Olympians (also not too unusual), has such a reputation that he would likely have both Fear and Standard effects at a high level, and at one point receives equipment forged by Hephaesteus himself.

And when he does commit, no Trojan stands against him other than Hector (who also has l33t skills and Olympian assistance for most of the Iliad), and even Hector is rather pessimistic about his own odds.

Later in the cycle, Odysseus and Telemachus completely slaughter a small army of suitors, again with Olympian intervention on their side.

[NTJedi]

Chris_Byler said:

None of those are anything remotely like the Dominions "take on 500 men by yourself" SC. Well, maybe Superman *could* kill 500 men by himself, but he probably wouldn't. And if the 500 men were armed with kryptonite, then he probably couldn't kill them by himself - he just has a better version of ethereal making him immune to the wrong kind of weapons.

I would disagree the Balrog from Lord of the Rings was clearly a SC as no ordinary weapons could even harm him, not to mention his rock_like skin and internal fire. Now with Superman those 500 men would need kryptonite yet according to the history of superman finding this kryptonite resource is more rare than finding a diamond mine in your backyard, so it's not as easy as you make it sound. Finally Beowulf, where he may not have been a full SC he was at least a very powerful thug to defeat Grendel, Grendels Mother and then later a dragon combined with the fact of magic items and magic armor. When fighting this dragon only one other soldier was brave enough to provide some help.

Chris_Byler said:
Beowulf heroically defeated two opponents - one at a time. Dangerous monsters, yes, but there weren't hundreds of them. Given the amount of difficulty he had with one sea troll at a time, it's hard to believe he could have faced a single casting of Sea King's Court (let alone the kind of armies Dom SCs regularly solo).

It's wrong to compare heroes and SCs outside of Dominions to creatures/beings within Dominions for many reasons, such as there's no way to accurately distribute magic paths, research, hitpoints, statistics and so on.

Chris_Byler said:
Lord of the Rings - armies are defeated by other armies. Do you think the battle of Helm's Deep was won by *just* Legolas and Gimli, with no other friendly units? That would be like Dominions SCs - except that's not what happened in Tolkien, because it would be totally unbelievable. Heck, even Sauron is defeated by an army and has the Ring cut off his finger by Isildur (although this is ancient history and doesn't take place during the books).

The Balrog was the SC... and all those 500+ goblins knew it as they fled for their lives upon his approach. Gandalf was immune to fire otherwise he would most likely have perished as well.