Yes it is.

Hes lv 5 without a single mage trait, no evoker or spell mastery. Hes lucky to pull of 6 dmg. You'd need to train him to like lv 10 before he can use coal stones effectively, and then that would be the only thing he can do beyond burning touch.

As the game stands you really cant afford to level useless heroes.

Only considering LH forum only, that would be about $90! I think that at least now we need to be choosey about our heroes, and gobble/gouvernise the rest.

There's a panther hero who can't wear anything, but can equip any magic item (but no mounts), kinda funny to equip throwing knives with him.

He's actually kinda useful, despite not being able to wear armor ... he starts out pretty high level, so has quite a few HP, and has a natural maul attack and I found him very useful to help take out high level monsters including the end boss with +growth and +haste.

I dont really understand what everybody is constantly complaining about. I've played several games through on challenging difficulty, and most of the heroes are just fine. It's not that hard to level them, just give each one a small supporting force and have them kill things in the countryside... or while at war. If you have enough mana, cast tutelage on them to make it even easier. I have no problem with Ascian, the lightning attack is great, and maul is damn handy. The spider guy is pretty effective impaling with a good spear, like a pike or something. I've found use for most heroes in the game, and only devour them when they get cripplingly injured, or I really need a spell trait...

But I will say that compared to the others, yes I agree that Raza is a bit underpowered.

You don't know the power of the Dark side ... er Coalstones.  Raza is one of the best heroes in the game.

I like Raza. Only downside is that he cant equip mont so he moves and lvls wery slow and his stones mostly depends on his lvlup so... Yeah i raly would like him to have mount.

I also tride ogre tank hero. Equiped him with dager witch gives him 3 hp for every atack, got first aid, gave shield and he proved amazing with his revenge, defence and >10 hp passive regeneration per turn.

Of course i am playing with dence monsters always, otherwise it would be no point for heroes at all