Artillery

Secondary skills
Air Magic
Archery
Armorer
Artillery
Ballistics
Diplomacy
Eagle Eye
Earth Magic
Estates
Fire Magic
First Aid
Intelligence
Interference
Leadership
Learning
Logistics
Luck
Mysticism
Navigation
Necromancy
Offense
Pathfinding
Resistance
Scholar
Scouting
Sorcery
Tactics
Water Magic
Wisdom

Artillery (HotA)
	Basic Artillery (HotA) : gives control of the ballista, defense towers and the cannon to the hero. The ballista has 50% chance to inflict 2x damage. The cannon inflicts additional damage to fortifications.
	Advanced Artillery (HotA) : gives control of the ballista, defense towers and the cannon to the hero. The ballista has 2 shots with a 75% chance to inflict 2x damage. The cannon inflicts 2x damage and additional damage to fortifications.
	Expert Artillery (HotA) : gives control of the ballista, defense towers and the cannon to the hero. The ballista inflicts double damage and shoots twice. The cannon inflicts triple damage and maximum damage to fortifications.

Artillery
	Basic Artillery: gives control of the ballista to the hero, allowing one shot with a 50% chance to inflict double damage.
	Advanced Artillery: gives control of the ballista to the hero, allowing two shots with a 75% chance to inflict double damage.
	Expert Artillery: gives control of the ballista to the hero, allowing two shots which inflict double damage.

Artillery is a secondary skill that gives the hero manual control over war machine Ballista (or Cannon)  during combat and control over the arrow towers when defending a town during siege. Artillery provides control over the arrow towers also in the original game, even though it's not mentioned in the in-game description of the skill. It's interesting that Ballista is controlled by Artillery secondary skill rather than Ballistics, which is responsible for Catapult.

Effects on ballista:

Basic Artillery provides a 50% chance that ballista inflicts double damage. For Advanced Artillery this is a 75% chance and for Expert Artillery a 100% chance. Advanced and Expert Artillery also enable the ballista to shoot twice in a row, instead of once.

Effects on cannon :

With Basic Artillery or Advanced Artillery the cannon does randomly 1 or 2 points of damage to fortifications. With Expert Artillery the cannon always does 2 points of damage to fortifications. With Advanced Artillery the cannon does double damage and with Expert Artillery triple damage to enemies. As opposed to ballistae, cannons always shoot once.

Heroes with Artillery as a starting skill:

•   Arlach the Overlord – Basic Artillery
•   Christian the Knight – Basic Artillery
•   Gerwulf the Beastmaster – Basic Artillery
•   Gurnisson the Barbarian – Basic Artillery
•   Ignissa the Planeswalker – Basic Artillery
•   Pasis the Planeswalker – Basic Artillery
•   Pyre the Demoniac – Basic Artillery
•   Vokial the Death Knight – Basic Artillery
•   Zubin the Battle Mage – Basic Artillery
•   Ranloo the Death Knight - Basic Artillery
•   Jeremy the Captain - Basic Artillery

Heroes with Ballista as specialty:

•   Arlach the Overlord
•   Christian the Knight
•   Gerwulf the Beastmaster
•   Gurnisson the Barbarian
•   Pyre the Demoniac
•   Torosar the Alchemist _{*Does not start with the skill Artillery.}
•   Ranloo the Death Knight
•   Jeremy the Captain _{*Cannon instead of Ballista.}

Chance to get

Out of total 112 for Shadow of Death, and of (112 + Interference chance) for Horn of the Abyss .
Banned skills change the probability.

Town	Class	Chance to learn
Castle	Knight	5
Castle	Cleric	2
Rampart	Ranger	6
Rampart	Druid	1 (lowest)
Tower	Alchemist	4
Tower	Wizard	1 (lowest)
Inferno	Demoniac	5
Inferno	Heretic	4
Necropolis	Death Knight	5
Necropolis	Necromancer	3
Dungeon	Overlord	8 (highest)
Dungeon	Warlock	1 (lowest)
Stronghold	Barbarian	8 (highest)
Stronghold	Battle Mage	4
Fortress	Beastmaster	8 (highest)
Fortress	Witch	1 (lowest)
Conflux	Planeswalker	8 (highest)
Conflux	Elementalist	1 (lowest)
Cove	Captain	5
Cove	Navigator	1 (lowest)
Factory	Mercenary	{{{21}}}
Factory	Artificer	{{{22}}}

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Importance

User commentary

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Artillery is useful if you have access to Ballista, and even better choice would be selecting a hero with this speciality as your "number one", especially on small maps. If the Blacksmith of your home town doesn't produce Ballistae, but you have an opportunity to get it (by capturing a town with Ballista, on the map, or building a Ballista Yard in a Stronghold), Artillery is a good choice. Moreover, it allows you to fully control the town's defense (as sometimes arrow towers kill enemy's least valuable troops, i.e. neither ranged nor flying). High price of a Ballista is "the other side of the medal". A secondary hero may learn Artillery so as to shoot wandering creatures and weak enemy troops, avoiding melee attack and thus decreasing losses. Always learn Artillery if you rely much on Blind spell, as otherwise Ballista may shoot blinded creatures, making them able to fight.

See also:

• Secondary skills