Marius

Inferno
Demoniacs
Calh
Fiona
Ignatius
Marius
Nymus
Octavia
Pyre
Rashka
Xeron
Heretics
Ash
Axsis
Ayden
Calid
Olema
Xarfax
Xyron
Zydar
Towns

Marius the Demoniac
Basic information:
	Class:	Demoniac
	Gender:	Female
	Race:	Demon
Marius was the mate of Calh for several years, finally splitting up when it became clear that Calh did not agree with her 'master plan' to rid the world of those disgusting, do-good woodland creatures.
Specialty: Demons
Increases the attack and defense skills of any demons or horned demons for each level attained after 4th level.
Starting primary skills:
2 2 1 1
Starting secondary skill:
Advanced Armorer
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Starting troops:
Imp 15–25 Always  Gog 4–7 88%  Hell Hound 3–4 25% [[File: Creature portrait {{{troop_4}}} small.gif|{{{troop_4}}}|link={{{troop_4}}}]] [[{{{troop_4}}}|{{{troop_4}}}]] Always [[File: Creature portrait {{{troop_5}}} small.gif|{{{troop_5}}}|link={{{troop_5}}}]] [[{{{troop_5}}}|{{{troop_5}}}]] Always [[File: Creature portrait {{{troop_6}}} small.gif|{{{troop_6}}}|link={{{troop_6}}}]] [[{{{troop_6}}}|{{{troop_6}}}]] Always [[File: Creature portrait {{{troop_7}}} small.gif|{{{troop_7}}}|link={{{troop_7}}}]] [[{{{troop_7}}}|{{{troop_7}}}]] Always
Starting troops :
Imp 20-30 Always  Gog 4–7 Always  Hell Hound 3–4 Always
Starting movement points:
Minimum Maximum HotA 1560 1630 1560

Marius the Demoniac is an Inferno hero.

Specialty

Besides the ability mentioned in her description, Marius also gives +1 speed to Demons and Horned Demons. The in-game description "{{{herospec}}}" is erroneous in "each level attained" moment, and lacks the speed bonus information. (Description is fixed in HotA ).

Unlike the native terrain speed bonus, the creature specialty speed bonus can affect the hero's movement points in case the creature is the slowest one in the army.

Level	10	10	10	10
4	+1	+1	+1	+1
12	+2	+2	+2	+2
20	+3	+3	+3	+3
24	+4	+4	+4	+4
36	+5	+5	+5	+5
44	+6	+6	+6	+6
48	+7	+7	+7	+7
56	+8	+8	+8	+8
68	+9	+9	+9	+9
75/88	+11	+11	+11	+11

How Useful is this Ability?

Marius gives Demons +1 Speed from the beginning and also +1 Attack/Defense each when reaching levels 4, 12, 20, 24, 36, 44 etc. Horned Demons have +5 HP and +1 Speed compared with the unupgraded Demons. Thus, with Marius, your Demons can get as good or even superior to Horned Demons at some point. This is important because, when playing Inferno, Demon Farming is a very viable strategy which makes you accumulate huge amounts of unupgraded Demons.

Speed Difference

Marius' unupgraded Demons already match the speed of Horned Demons.

HP Difference

Now let's look at the HP increase: +5HP are about a 14% increase. Marius increases the defense of your Demons with translates to less damage taken from non-spell damage. There are two scenarios to consider:

• Scenario 1: If a creature attacks the Demons and has a higher Attack than their Defense, they will do 5% more damage for every point their Attack is higher than the Demons' Defense. That means when Marius reaches level 20, the Demons have 3 more Defense and would in that case take 15% less damage. In this scenario Marius' unupgraded Demons are strictly better than Horned Demons.
• Scenario 2: If your demons have more Defense than the attacking units Attack, each additional point in Defense translates to 2.5% less damage. That means that from level 44 onwards Marius' Demons will be strictly better than Horned Demons for this scenario.

Note that defense does not help against spell damage.

Discussion

Remember, that the Attack and Defense both increase at the mentioned levels. That means the Demons will from level 4 onwards do more damage than any Horned Demon and be strictly more resilient than Horned Demons from level 44 onwards assuming no damage from spells. Usually greater losses are taken from higher level units which usually have a higher attack anyways. This means scenario 1 is more important for you and Marius' Demons will already perform superior to Horned Demons much earlier than level 44. Especially when trying to fight without losses, the increased attack is a lot more useful than how resilient your Demons are. Marius' Demons can kill off tougher stacks from level 4 onwards and thus perform better in a no-losses fight. This will benefit especially your midgame.

Upgrading to Horned Demons

This does not mean at all you should not try to upgrade your Demons to Horned Demons, but illustrate that Marius' ability is at least somewhat useful when using the Demon Hording Strategy where you will have very many of them. None of the other Inferno Heroes gives you a direct advantage for this strategy. All the boni also apply to Horned Demons so upgrading is always a good idea.

Since you will get rid of Imps/Familiars and Gogs/Magogs to raise them as Demons, you should also have enough space in your army to have both, the big stack of Horned Demons which accumulated from previous battles, as well as the smaller stack of freshly raised Demons from recent battles. Remember that Inferno has a 20% chance to find town portal in its Mage Guild. Teleporting home to upgrade the Demons may be an option later in the game. Additionally, the Castle Gate allows you to quickly gather all creatures from all your Inferno towns. This makes it easier to get new stacks of Imps and Gogs which you can sacrifice to raise Demons. The last slot is usually filled with whatever unit you find - be it a low-level unit from a non-Inferno town, Imps/Familiars, Gogs/Magogs, a wandering creature that joined your army, recruits from the refugee camp etc.

Increased Movement Points as Side Effect

Another point to consider: The speed bonus may increase your hero's movement points. If you sacrifice your Gogs/Magogs to raise them as Demons, you get rid of a speed 6 unit. The next slowest unit in your army will probably be the Demons with speed 5 (or 6 for Horned Demons) since all other (upgraded) Inferno units are faster than Speed 6. A hero's base movement points will be 1700/1760/1830 when the speed of the slowest unit is 5/6/7. Thus, with the +1 Speed bonus from Marius you will increase your daily movement points by 60 (when having Demons) or 70 (when having upgraded the Demons to Horned Demons) compared with another hero that does not give your Demons a speed increase.

How significant is this? Logistics is widely regarded as one of the best hero specializations in the game. On Expert level the logistics skill in Horn of the Abyss increases your daily movement points by 20%. A hero with specialty in logistics receives a 5% bonus to this percentage per level. Nothing prevents Marius from obtaining this skill. Let's compare a logistics specialty hero with Marius. Let's assume both of them have Demons in their army as the slowest unit.

• For Marius, the Demons have Speed 6, so he will have 1760 base movement points. Expert Logistics increases this to 2112.
• For the Logistics specialist, the Demons have Speed 5 which gives 1700 base movement points. Expert Logistics increases this to 2040. Every level, the logistics percentage is increase by 5%. 5% of 20% are 1%. That means that this hero will have a 21% increase at Level 1 (with Expert Logistics), 22% increase at level 2, 23% at Level 3 and so on. At level 4 this hero will have 2108 movement points (slightly less than Marius) and at level 5 the hero will overtake Marius and have 2125 movement points.

Effectively, this means that Marius has the same advantage as a level 4.23 Logistics specialty hero (assuming he goes for the Demon Farming Strategy). When having upgraded all Demons to Horned Demons, the advantage increases slightly to 4.77 levels of Logistics specialty.

Conclusion

Considering the weak specialties of other heroes of the Inferno town, Marius lends himself as a solid choice for the main hero. If playing on Difficult/Impossible, one may also consider Octavia who can provide a much needed boost to your daily gold income as the starting hero. Switching to Marius later may still be preferred.

See also:

• List of heroes
• List of heroes (HotA)
• Hero class
• Hero biographies
• Hero specialty
• List of hero specialties
• List of hero specialties (HotA)