Ballistics

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

Ballistics
	Basic Ballistics: gives control of the catapult to the hero, allowing aimed shots with increased damage.
	Advanced Ballistics: gives control of the catapult to the hero, allowing two aimed shots with increased damage.
	Expert Ballistics: gives control of the catapult to the hero, allowing two aimed shots at maximum damage.

Ballistics is a secondary skill, that gives the player manual control over the catapult in a siege, increases the chances of hitting an intended wall and increases the chance of doing double damage. The castle walls as well as Drawbridge, Keep and Arrow Towers have 2 hitpoints (upon building castle standard walls are upgraded to fortified walls, which have 3 hitpoints). Additionally, at advanced and expert level of Ballistics catapults fire twice instead of just once.

It is interesting that Ballistics secondary skill does not buff Ballista. The latter works better via Artillery.

Level	None	Basic	Adv.	Expert
Shots	1	1	2	2
Chance to hit Keep (before all walls destroyed)	5%	7%	7%	10%
Chance to hit Arrow Towers (before all walls destroyed)	10%	15%	15%	20%
Chance to hit Drawbridge (before all walls destroyed)	25%	30%	30%	40%
Chance to hit intended wall	50%	60%	60%	75%
Chance for no damage	10%	0%	0%	0%
Chance for 1 damage	60%	50%	50%	0%
Chance for 2 damage	30%	50%	50%	100%

Heroes with Basic Ballistics as a starting skill:

•   Olema the Heretic
•   Theodorus the Wizard
•   Uland the Druid
•   Yog the Barbarian
•   Morton the Mercenary 

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	8 (highest)
Castle	Cleric	4 (lowest)
Rampart	Ranger	4 (lowest)
Rampart	Druid	4 (lowest)
Tower	Alchemist	6
Tower	Wizard	4 (lowest)
Inferno	Demoniac	7
Inferno	Heretic	6
Necropolis	Death Knight	7
Necropolis	Necromancer	5
Dungeon	Overlord	7
Dungeon	Warlock	6
Stronghold	Barbarian	8 (highest)
Stronghold	Battle Mage	6
Fortress	Beastmaster	7
Fortress	Witch	8 (highest)
Conflux	Planeswalker	8 (highest)
Conflux	Elementalist	4 (lowest)
Cove	Captain	5
Cove	Navigator	2 (lowest)
Factory	Mercenary	6
Factory	Artificer	8 (highest)

User commentary

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Ballistics is not something essential to everyone, but it is really useful when sieging towns, and if a map has many towns you should capture, consider using a hero with Ballistics as your starting hero, eventually improving the skill to Expert. It will make sieging a town way easier, reducing your losses, as you will destroy the drawbridge on an early stage of the battle, and the enemy's defense will worsen significantly. However, the most crucial when sieging a town is properly using your flyers, ranged units, and magic, so as to win as soon as possible and avoid major losses. Quite useful, since it gives you first chance to cast spells in sieges (provided that the defending hero doesn't have Artillery). Recommended for: Heroes with walker-heavy armies While useful for breaking open the gate quickly, one also has to care to consider that it is the only battle-skill that in non-siege battle situations has absolutely no impact. Therefore, in a multiplayer game it may be better to select a more multi-situation skill upon which to invest. In single-player games, more useful, but also situational, as the AI tends to charge out of the castle if an army demonstrates any significant long-range damage abilities. It is very rare that the AI stays in the castle entirely, and that this skill is entirely necessary. I would take this if I had walker armies, and were offered an alternative skill considerably less useful (ie. eagle eye, learning).

See also:

• Secondary skills