Hero specialty

Hero specialty is a characteristic of every hero that typically improves their performance in combat. Specialties can be categorized into four primary types (i.e. secondary skills, spells, creatures, production) as well as a few unique specialties that do not fit nicely into these categories.

Secondary skill specialties

All secondary skill specialties (e.g. Kyrre with Logistics, Crag Hack with Offense or Neela with Armorer) work in a similar way. They all 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 Secondary skill specialty Heroes

Skill	Hero
???

Spell specialties

All heroes who specialize in a spell start with it.

Common spell specialty

The normal/common spell specialty increases the efficiency of the spell (after spell power and base spell effect is calculated) by 3% per level, divided by target creature's level. It can be visualised with the following formula: C*(1+0.03 * 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).

List of Common spell specialty Heroes

Hero	Spell
???

Unique spell specialty

However, the spell specialty of some heroes changes the base spell in some other unique way.

List of Unique spell specialty Heroes

Hero	Spell	Effect
Adela	Bless	In addition to the normal effect, the spell also increases damage of the target unit based on the following equation: base damage * 0.03 * hero level / unit level Example: At level 18 Adela will provide a 54% damage bonus to halberdiers, 27% to marksmen, 18% to royal griffins, 13.5% to crusaders, 10.8% to zealots, 9% to champions, and 7.1% to archangels.
Cyra Terek Brissa	Haste	Regardless of hero level, increases the effect of the spell: +3 points to the effect for level 1-2 creatures +2 points to the effect for level 3-4 creatures +1 point to the effect for level 5-6 creatures
Loynis	Prayer
Zubin	Precision
Xsi Darkstorn Merist Labetha	Stone Skin
Ash Inteus	Bloodlust
Cuthbert Olema Mirlanda Eanswythe	Weakness
Daremyth Melodia	Fortune	Always give +3 luck, regardless of the Air Magic expertise or hero level.
Ciele	Magic Arrow	Increases the damage of the spell by 50%, regardless of hero level.
Luna	Fire Wall	Increases the damage of the spell by 100% (25% ), regardless of hero level.
Aenain	Disrupting Ray	+2 points to the effect, regardless of hero level.
Eovacius	Clone	The first time it is cast in a given battle, an extra clone appears.
Coronius	Slayer	Regardless of hero level, increases the effect of the spell: +4 points to the effect for level 1 creatures +3 points to the effect for level 2 creatures +2 points to the effect for level 3 creatures +1 point to the effect for level 4 creatures

Creature specialties

 Devils,  Behemoths, and Dragons, as well as every creature from level 1 to 6 in every town, except  Gremlins,  Centaurs,  Pikeman,  Pixies,  Air Elementals and  Medusas has a hero who specializes in them (Note: Galthran, the only  Skeleton specialist, is banned by default in Horn of the Abyss and so is Tark , the  Nix specialist, Xeron , the  Devil specialist, Kilgor , the  Behemoth specialist and Mutare  and Mutare Drake , Dragon specialists). Creature specialties apply to both upgraded and unupgraded units, as long as the hero specializes in the unupgraded version of the unit. In Shadow of Death, Catherine specializes in  Crusaders, and therefore  Swordsman do not receive any bonuses. No heroes specialize in any of the neutral creatures, except Gelu   and Dracon , who specialize in  Sharpshooters and  Enchanters, respectively, although they have creature-upgrade specialties. No heroes specialize in upgraded creatures only, except for Catherine (only in Shadow of Death , fixed in Horn of the Abyss ) and Bidley , but his specialty is a creature-upgrade one.

There are four types of creature specialties: Fixed stats creature specialities, creature upgrade specialties, Dragons specialty and the standard creature specialties.

Heroes who specialize in level 1-2 creatures (as well as Tark , Gelu  , Dracon  and Frederick ) have their entire starting army consisting of 3 stacks of the creatures they specialize in. Thus, Shakti may be hired with up to three groups of 30 to 40  Troglodytes, and Valeska with up to three groups of 4 to 7  Archers.

Heroes who specialize in level 3 creatures, as well as Bron, Illor  and Todd , instead of the 2nd level creatures, have their specialized creature stack in their starting army.

Despite their specialty in different creatures, Xeron  starts with a starting army identical to Fiona, the  Hell Hound specialist, and Pasis and Monere start  Air Elementals instead of  Water Elementals.

Fixed stat creature specialties

These specialties are only present in banned-by-default campaign heroes and Planeswalkers. Fixed-stats creature specialties can provide a fixed attack, defense, damage, hp or speed (or multiple of these) bonuses to a creature, regardless of hero level. No hero increases creature HP.

List of Fixed stat creature specialty Heroes

Hero	Creature	Attack	Defense	Damage	Speed
Xeron	Devil and Arch Devil	+4	+2		+1
Haart Lich	Black Knight and Dread Knight	+5	+5	+10
Kilgor	Behemoth and Ancient Behemoth	+5	+5	+10
Lacus Kalt	Water Elemental and Ice Elemental	+2
Ignissa Fiur	Fire Elemental and Energy Elemental	+1	+2	+2
Thunar Erdamon	Earth Elemental and Magma Elemental	+2	+1	+5
Pasis Monere	Psychic Elemental and Magic Elemental	+3	+3

Creature-upgrade specialties

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

Hero	Base Creature(s)	Upgrade Creature
Gelu Tarnum (Ranger)	Archer and Marksman   Wood Elf and Grand Elf	Sharpshooter
Dracon Tarnum (Wizard)	Monk and Zealot   Mage and Arch Mage	Enchanter
Bidley	Pirate and Corsair	Sea Dog

Dragons specialty

This specialties is only present in the banned-by-default campaign heroes: Mutare, Mutare Drake and Tarnum (Overlord). It provides 5 Attack and 5 Defense to all Dragons, including both their upgraded and unupgraded forms.

Standard creature specialties

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. They also apply +5% Attack and +5% Defense bonuses every n levels obtained after nth level, where n is the level of the creature they specialize in.

Thus heroes who specialize in level 1 creatures double their Attack and Defense at level 21; heroes who specialize in level 2 creature at level 42, those who specialize in level 3 creatures at level 63, etc.

List of Standard creature specialty Heroes

Town	Creature Level
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Castle
	(none)	Valeska	Edric	Sorsha Catherine Roland	Ingham	Tyris	(none)
Rampart
	(none)	Ufretin	Ivor	Aeris	Ryland	Clancy	(none)
Tower
	(none)	Piquedram	Josephine	Theodorus	Iona Thane	Fafner	(none)
Inferno
	Ignatius	Calh	Fiona	Marius	Nymus	Rashka	(none)
Necropolis
	Galthran	Straker	Charna	Vokial	Moandor	Tamika	(none)
Dungeon
	Shakti	Lorelei	Ajit	(none)	Dace	Synca	(none)
Stronghold
	Gretchin	Tyraxor	Jabarkas	Vey Krellion Boragus	Shiva	Yog	(none)
Fortress
	Drakon	Wystan	Korbac	Bron	Alkin	Broghild	(none)
Conflux
	(none)	(none)	(none)	(none)	(none)	(none)	(none)
Cove
	Cassiopeia	Derek	Anabel	Illor	Casmetra	Tark	(none)
Factory
	Henrietta	Sam	Celestine	Todd	Agar	Tancred	(none)

Production specialties

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

Bonus	Hero
+1	Rissa
+1	Calid
+1	Sephinroth Andal
+1	Saurug
+350	Aine Caitlin Clavius Damacon Gelare Grindan Jenova Nagash Octavia Bertram  Leena

NOTE: For a comparison between Lord Haart's Estates specialty and the +350 specialty, see Lord Haart#Specialty.

Unique specialties

Sir Mullich (replaced by default by Lord Haart in Armageddon's Blade, Shadow of Death, and Horn of the Abyss) increases combat speed of all creatures under his command by 2.

Frederick  increases the damage dealt by   Automaton and Sentinel Automatons' Detonation at death ability by 5% per level.

Adrienne starts with Expert Fire Magic and Wisdom.

See also

• List of hero specialties
• List of hero specialties (HotA)