Hero specialty

Hero specialty is a trait of a hero, which typically improves hero's performance in combat. Specialties can be categorized into four types: spells, creatures, secondary skills and productions. Production specialties do not affect in combat, but generates resources (except wood and ore) for the kingdom. Most of the specialties are unique, but there is also shared specialties. For example, offence is a specialty of Crag Hack and Gundula.

Armageddon's Blade and Shadow of Death expansions introduced Adrienne, Dracon, Gelu and Sir Mullich, who have specialties that can not be categorized into any of the four above mentioned. Adrienne's specialty is fire magic, which is a secondary skill, but it only allows her to start with with expert fire magic. Draco has enchanters and Gelu has sharpshooters as a specialty. The exception for both of them is, that Draco can "upgrade" magi and arch magi as well as monks and zealots into enchanters, and respectively Gelu can upgrade archers and marksmen as well as wood and grand elves into sharpshooters. Sir Mullich's has speed as a specialty, which increases combat speed for all creatures under his command by +2.

Secondary skill specialties

Basically all secondary skill specialties (e.g. Kyrre with logistics, Crag Hack with offense or Neela with armorer) have the same effect. They all increase the skill by a 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 level 20 hero who has 30% bonus due his secondary skill (e.g. Crag Hack with expert offense) would actually gain +60% to his secondary skill.

Spell specialties

Bless

Bless is the specialty of Adela. It causes bless to be cast with increased effect, based on hero level compared to the level of the target unit (the bonus is greater when used on weaker units). Adela's bless specialty increases the damage of a unit using the following equation:

• base damage * 0.03 * hero level / unit level

This extra damage is in addition to the bless spell. For 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.

Creature specialties

Every creature from level 1 to 6 in every town has a hero who specializes in them. Basically, all creature specialties basically works in the same way. They all give +1 to the creature's speed, and gives a specific precentage bonus to attack and defense skills. The percentage bonus is calculated with the following formula:

FORMULA: (A – B) x 0,05 / B = BONUS where A = Level of the hero B = Level of the creature EXAMPLE: A = 20 B = 5 (20 - 5) x 5% / 5 = 15 x 1% = 15%

From the example above we can see, that level 20 hero with creature specialty in one of the fifth level creatures would gain +15% to that creatures attack and defense skill.

The exceptions are, that no hero specializes in level 7 creatures, if you do not count campaign heroes Mutare and Mutare Drake, who have dragons (in general) as specialty. Also, no heroes specializes in any of the neutral creatures.

See also

• List of all the hero specialties