Hero specialty
Hero specialty is a characteristic of every hero that typically improves their performance in combat. Specialties can be categorized into five primary types (i.e. secondary skills, spells, creatures, war machine and production).
Secondary skill specialties[edit | hide | hide all]
Common Secondary skill specialties[edit | hide]
Common secondary skill specialties increase the secondary skill by 5% per level. The formula for the calculation is as follows:
FORMULA: A x (0,05 x B + 1) = BONUS
where A = Secondary skill's effect percentage
B = Level of the hero
EXAMPLE: A = 30%
B = 20
30% x (0,05 x 20 + 1) =
30% x (1 + 1) = 60%
|
From the example above we can see, that a level 20 hero who has 30% ability due their secondary skill (e.g. Crag Hack with expert Offense) would actually gain +60% in total.
List of Common Secondary skill specialty Heroes
Unique Secondary Skill specialities[edit | hide]
The secondary skill specialty of some heroes doesn't apply a 5% bonus per level.
List of Unique Secondary skill specialty Heroes
Spell specialties[edit | hide]
All heroes who specialize in a spell start with it. Spells cast by combination artifacts are also improved by hero specialties. These include:
| Artifact | Spell | Specialist |
|---|---|---|
 Angelic Alliance
|
 Prayer
|
 Loynis
|
 Armor of the Damned
|
 Weakness
|
 Cuthbert,  Olema,  Mirlanda,  Eanswythe 
|
 Ironfist of the Ogre
|
 Haste
|
 Cyra,  Terek,  Brissa
|
 Bloodlust
|
 Ash,  Inteus
|
Common spell specialty[edit | hide]
The normal/common spell specialty increases the efficiency of the spell (after spell power and base spell effect is calculated) by 10% per level, divided by target creature's level. It can be visualized with the following formula: C*(1+0.1 * L / n) , where n is the creature's level, L is the hero's level and C is the base effect of the spell (including spell power and the appropriate magic skill's effects).
For Meteor Shower, Chain Lightning, Resurrection and Animate Dead specialties, this effect is 5% instead (i.e. using the formula C*(1+0.05 * L / n)).
List of Common spell specialty Heroes
Unique spell specialty[edit | hide]
The spell specialty of some heroes changes the base spell in a unique way.
List of Unique spell specialty Heroes
Spells with no specialist[edit | hide]
Some spells have no hero specializing in them. Possible reasons for this include:
- The spell is already extremely powerful and a specialist would be too good.
- The spell has no obvious way of being improved by a specialist.
- The spell is very niche and a hero with this specialty would be very weak.
List of Spells with no specialty Hero
Creature specialties[edit | hide]
There are five types of creature specialties: Fixed stat creature specialties, creature upgrade specialties, Dragons specialty, standard creature specialties and creature ability specialties .
Heroes who specialize in level 1-2 creatures (as well as 
Gelu, 
Dracon, 
Tark and 
Frederick ) have their entire starting army consisting of 3 stacks of the creatures they specialize in.
Heroes who specialize in level 3 creatures (as well as 
Bron, 
Illor and 
Todd ) have their specialized creature stack in their starting army instead of 2nd level creatures.
Creature specialties apply to both upgraded and unupgraded units. The only exception to this is 
Catherine (in Shadow of Death 
), who only specializes in 
Crusaders and not 
Swordsmen (fixed in Horn of the Abyss) .
Fixed stat creature specialties[edit | hide]
These specialties are only present in banned-by-default campaign heroes and Planeswalkers. Fixed stat creature specialties provide a fixed bonus to attack, defense, damage, and/or speed, regardless of hero level.
List of Fixed stat creature specialty Heroes
Creature-upgrade specialties[edit | hide]
These specialties are only present in banned-by-default campaign heroes. Creature-upgrade specialties allow the hero to upgrade specific creatures into the creature they specialize in, as long as they are placed in their army. The cost is equal to the difference in costs between the owned creature and the "upgrade".
List of Creature-upgrade specialty Heroes
Dragons specialty[edit | hide]
This specialty is only present in the banned-by-default campaign heroes: 
Mutare 
and 
Mutare Drake . It provides 10 Attack and 10 Defense to all Dragons, including both their upgraded and unupgraded forms.
Standard creature specialties[edit | hide]
Standard creature specialties, regardless of hero level, provide +1 speed to the creatures they specialize in. This bonus applies outside of combat and can therefore increase hero's Movement (unlike the native terrain speed increase). They also increase the creature's Attack and Defense by 20% every n levels, where n is the level of the creature they specialize in ( with the exception of level 1 creatures, whose stats grow by 10% every level, starting at level 2). Thus heroes who specialize in: level 1 creatures double their Attack and Defense at level 11 , level 2 creature at level 10 , and level 3 creatures at level 15 , etc.
List of Standard/Fixed stat/Dragon creature specialty Heroes
Unique Creature specialties[edit | hide]
These specialties are only present in banned-by-default heroes in Horn of the Abyss.
List of Unique Creature specialty Heroes
War Machine specialties[edit | hide]
These specialties increase the effectiveness of specific war machines.
List of War Machine specialty Heroes
Production specialties[edit | hide]
Some heroes' specialties increase a kingdom's daily income of gold or magical resources. No hero produces the resource needed to recruit the level 7 creature of their native town. These specialties do not improve with the hero's level, and thus their usefulness may decrease over the course of the game as the impact of other specialties becomes greater.
This effect remains in place even when the hero in question is garrisoned in a town and no longer counts towards the limit of 8 adventuring heroes. As hiring a hero only costs 2500 gold, this way of collecting magical resources may, depending on the situation, be preferable to building resource silos for the cost of 5000 gold and 5 ore.
List of Production specialty Heroes
