What is the best strategy to defeat Uriel?

Question

I've made it to the end of the Necropolis campaign without any major problems. Unfortunately, the end of the campaign is a boss battle against an extremely overpowering Angel and his retinue. In my first attempt, my army was quickly wiped out.

Is there any strategy that will make this boss battle easier? You have to deal a ton of damage to Uriel before he defeats your entire army, and he is immune to almost all non-damage spells, so it seems like the only viable strategy is a slugfest (waiting months and months to generate a large enough army to deal the damage required before I get defeated).

With regards to my hero, I used the default Anastasya Necromancer (Magic hero). She is level 30 and at the second level of Blood reputation. For skills, I have primarily chosen from Air and Earth magic, so she has almost all the skills / spells in those two branches.

My army is a bit on the small side, as I never bothered to convert any of the Inferno towns into Necropolis towns. Obviously if a larger army is required, I can convert those towns and spend the time to obtain a larger army, but I would still be interested in any tactics for the battle.

Answer 1

Key to this fight seems to avoid Uriel's Holy Rage.

Holy Rage: If Uriel cannot resurrect any of his minions then he will enrage and acts one additional time each turn for the rest of the combat. Cannot be dispelled.

I don't know whether it will stack multiple times.

This would be my approach when I replay the map:

1. In turn 1, use a direct damage spell to kill one stack ASAP. This avoids Holy Rage to trigger even once, limiting Uriel to one action per turn (which he usually uses to move). Another option is a Haste spell (+19 initiative with my Anastasya) to have your Archliches (initiative 30, +5 from Ambush) to act before Uriel (initiative 50).
2. When Uriel uses Mass Resurrect, kill one stack ASAP again. Redirecting one of your ranged stacks for one turn might be called for.
3. Except when called for by #1 or #2, ranged units should focus on Uriel. They will be your main source of damage on Uriel!
4. Use some melee unit, I guess the slow Lamasu, to block Uriel so he cannot engage the ranged units. Do not engage unless forced to.
5. The rest of the melee concentrates on killing units, again to avoid Holy Rage.
6. Use Necromancy each turn. It's a free resurrect and will fill up fast.
7. Due to the huge stack sizes, your hero will be limited to a support role. Turn 1: Kill a stack ASAP. Turn 2: Storm Arrows. Turn 3: Whatever you prefer.

Required Abilities: Ambush and either Haste (for at least +15) or a huge nuke.

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I have fought Uriel just once, and that was mostly a walk-over. So the above might not be optimal. I will describe my fight against Uriel so you can draw your own conclusions.

Between the combined power of Necromancy (Necropolis' faction ability), the ghost's heal, Reinforcements, and Drain Life, it's usually possible to end a fight without losses. The earlier steps of the Necropolis' campaign seem focussed on teaching that lesson...

It is harder to heal all stacks for a little than one stack for a huge amount, so I prefer to take out ranged and small stacks first, killing the one big stack last. A blindness or other immobilizing spell helps a lot as well.

My melee movement range is almost the whole map, but not enough to engage in turn 1. So usually I have them wait till the enemy moves forward, in order to get 'first strike'. All with the goal to minimize incoming damage.

I was playing at 4 am after a long session and wanted to sleep. So I just went in without checking Uriel's stats. I figured I could always click the 'Replay' button when I made a terrible mistake.

Uriel's initiative is 50, equal to Vampire Lords. As I had the Ambush ability (increased initiative at start of combat), I must have been able to act before Uriel was even able to enrage.

It was quickly clear that I couldn't cast blindness on Uriel, but I forgot what I casted instead. I guess it was some damage spell on one of his allies. (Note: I hadn't realized the power of Storm Arrows at that point yet) As a result, I must have killed the first stack before Uriel even gained initiative!

As described above, my archers and liches started on the small stacks, while my melee waited for him to move forward. In turn 1, I must have killed a stack or two with my ranged and direct damage spell.

His stacks moved forward, so the smaller stacks came within range of my melee. During round two, it became clear that my melee units would kill his allies pretty fast. So I used my ranged units to soften up Uriel.

Note that Uriel did not resurrect a stack each turn: it's just one of the options he has. Only when he is not able to resurrect, Holy Rage comes into effect. So at first, I didn't noticed his resurrect ability at all! Accidently, I had limited him to one action each turn, which he mostly used to fight.

After a couple of rounds, when almost all his allies were dead, Uriel suddenly used Mass Resurrect. Bummer :(. Only then I checked his stats.

Thereafter it was easy: all ranged on Uriel, one stack to block him, and the other melee units kept killing his allies to avoid the enrage. With just one action by Uriel each turn, it was easy to control the fight.

I even scored the Divine Absense achievement; I guess Uriel never used the Divine Presence ability.

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My Anastasya has chosen the Blood Magic path, but strangely she has chosen only 15 Magic abilities, and 15 Might abilities.

• Magic: 9 Dark, 5 Prime, 1 Earth. (None in Air or Water)
• Might: 6 Paragon, 4 Tactics, 2 Realm, 2 Warfare, 1 Warcries.

As it was my first major campaign, some points turned out to be wasted, so I will make different choices next time.

Answer 2

I just completed the necropolis campaign on hard difficulty. The last boss is actually not very difficult once you know how to kill him. My tactics involve heavy use of "Stone armor" ( or whatever it's called ) which reduces damage taken by 82% (for a total protection of 94% per mob).

This is what I did : Bring lots of armies. If you want to get the 1000 skeletons achievement, you probably will be hoarding a few weeks. I completed the whole map in about 2 months, but it took me another 2 months to get my skeleton 1000/1000 achievement. By then I had a huge army which was actually too big, I would have like the skeletons to have been 500/500 so I could have completed it in 2 months, but there we go. My army for Uriel was something like (all upgraded obviously) characters (X) etc are for map below : 200 spiders (S) 250 necromancers/shooters whatever they're called (N) 350 vampires (V) 300 griffins/whatever they're called (X) 600 ghouls (U) 600 ghosts (O) 1000 skeletons (K) Wall (W) for map below

The map on Uriel is always the same, and you can use the top end of the map to your advantage, there are 2 very strategic rocks that you can use to wall off your shooters together with your mobs. You should use Tactics (advanced Tactics if you can afford it) for optimal placement. I had normal tactics, so I shuffled during first turn. Placement (Spiders will be in absolute top left corner. next to them the griffins, each taking up 4 spaces on the map, _ is empty space):

SSGG
SSGG
NK_W
UOVW

This ensures that no mob can ever get to my shooters (S) (N) and (K).

Turn 1:
I have 55+ initiative so I start the battle.
Cast "Summon Earth Elemental" which summons 34 elementals advacent to the bottom enemy archer.
SS converts to spider mode
N and K shoot bottom archer, kill about 5
U O and V defend.
Uriel flies to elementals and kill half.

Turn 2:
SS shoot bottom enemy archer, kills 5
N and K shoot bottom archer, kills 5 killing the stack.
Cast Lightning or Implosion on Bottom enemy archer if it's not dead yet, if it is, cast it on the top archer.
U O and V defend.
Uriel kills the elementals and is on his way to mobs

Turn 3:
SS shoot top enemy archer, kills 5
N and K shoot top archer, kills 5
Cast Stone armor on GG since that mob will have to handle 3 stacks of enemies later.
This Stone armor protects him for another 82% which totals 94% protection, in other words this GG is near immortal. That's the whole idea behind this stategy, Stone armor. ( or whatever it's called )
U O and V defend.

Turn 4:
SS shoot top enemy archer, kills stack
N and K shoot Uriel
Cast Stone armor on Ghosts, Uriel will land here soon and possibly attack them, again, Ghost won't die anymore with 94% protection.
U O and V defend.
Uriel hits U O or V ( probably V )

Turn 5:
Cast Stone armor on V or U, whichever can hit uriel first.
V or U hit uriel (stone armored) and uriel hits back, kills just a few of 600 of them.
U O and V all hit Uriel, Uriel does not retaliate more than once, so it's free kills.
Uriel might ress his friends, or not, doesn't matter, all DPS is on Uriel now and stacks are ignored completely except by GG, who will keep attacking the stacks in front of it, killing 3-4 per hit.
Keep refreshing Stone armor on the 4 "path blocking" mobs, this will make them near immune to enemy damage.

Keep refreshing Stone armor on all your mobs, cast elementals if all have stone armor.

Uriel will die quickly, and won't really damage your mobs because of stone armor.

Answer 3

I don't know if this works the same way after all the patches, but I think it is worth a shot. I played patch 1.1.1 and I finished the battle against Uriel without any casualties.

The trick is to save the Worm for the fight against Uriel. If you didn't, you can train another hero to fight for you.

In my fight, the Worm ate one of the archer units, all the melee units went after it, but for some reason they never hurt it. So I just focused on the other ranged unit while using Liches + Storm Arrow on Uriel. It's important to keep the Liches safe, but since the only one attacking is Uriel, you just need to block one square and he can never touch them.

Yes, it looks like a cheat, but the fight is very easy this way ;)

Answer 4

I kept building up the army for several months. I let gold and other resources accumulate by pressing 'e' key repeatedly to end turns. I also captured all the towns and destroyed all creatures, collected all resources. As far as I know I kept building the army for more than 14 months and collected 2K+ of all creatures before attacking. This definitely worked.

Answer 5

My basic approach is: My main hero takes everything on the map, even all the resources.

Secondary heros are for scouting and transporting creatures to my main hero. Sometimes I use them to grab some resources, but only when no fighting is required.

I also clear each and every creature stack on the map. This seems to increase my final score more than the delay lowers my score.

As my main hero has to visit every corner of the map, it takes tons of game time. Therefor my army will be large in the end.

However, it plays pretty quick: Just one or two heros to move around, and most fights are "Trivial".

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On early maps, I usually use the skill Mentoring. It takes one skill point from your main hero, but grants many skill points to your secondary heros.

My main hero always reaches his level cap on a map, so one point isn't that much.

As a result, my secondary heros are fairly high level even though they never fight. All those skills are redirected to support skills, like lowering trade costs, improving core creature growth, and lowering building costs.

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I always convert towns, and build them up pretty far.

Increasing the size and building a market increases the daily income, so those are prioritized.

I prefer to have one Advanced Town Portal early on, as it makes life so much easier. Necropolis' rank 3 special building (the one that resurrects dead units) is a must-have too.

I usually end up buying the required crystals, which is no big deal as the exchange rate is pretty good once you have, say, five markets (including those from the secondary heros).

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At the moment, I'm scoring above 100% and am classified as Hero.

This tactic seems a bit too easy to me, so maybe I have to change tactics at later maps (I hope I have to). Nevertheless, it was good enough to beat Uriel.

Have fun!