Hero specialty

Hero specialty is a characteristic of every hero that typically improves their performance in combat. Specialties can be categorized into four types: spells, creatures, secondary skills and production. Production specialties do not have an effect in combat, but instead generate certain resources (except wood and ore) for the kingdom. Most of the specialties are unique, but there are also specialties common to several heroes. For example, secondary skill Offense is a specialty of Crag Hack and Gundula (and also Corkes in Horn of the Abyss), and the spell Resurrection is a specialty of Alamar and Jeddite.

Additonally, Armageddon's Blade and Shadow of Death expansions introduced Adrienne, Dracon, Gelu and Sir Mullich, who have specialties that cannot be categorized into any of the four above mentioned. Adrienne's specialty is secondary skill Fire Magic, which however does not work similarly to other secondary skill specialties, as it only allows her to start with expert Fire Magic. Dracon has Enchanters and Gelu has Sharpshooters as a specialty. The exception for these two is that Dracon can upgrade Magi and Arch Magi as well as Monks and Zealots into Enchanters, and Gelu can upgrade Archers and Marksmen as well as Wood Elves and Grand Elves into Sharpshooters. Sir Mullich has speed as a specialty, which increases combat speed for all creatures under his command by +2 (Sir Mullich is disabled in Horn of the Abyss by default).

Secondary skill specialties

Basically 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.

Spell specialties

Bless, Ice Bolt & Lightning Bolt

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.

Ice Bolt and Lightning Bolt follow the same algorithm.

Other spells

Spell specialties work differently for the spells Haste, Prayer, Slayer, Precision, Stone Skin, Bloodlust and Weakness. For those spells, the specialty adds a flat amount to the effect of the spell, based on the level of creature it's being cast on (higher bonus for lower level creatures).

Specialty in the Fortune spell makes it always give +3 luck, regardless of Air Magic expertise.

Ciele's Magic Arrow specialty increases the damage of the spell by 50%, and Luna's Fire Wall specialty doubles the damage of the spell (increased it by 25% in Horn of the Abyss .

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 Swordsmen Swordsmen 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{{-wa} and Dracon ) 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 (such as Xeron , Kilgor and Haart Lich ), as well as all Planeswalker creature specialists.

Fixed-stats creature specialities 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.

Creature-upgrade specialties

These specialties are only present in banned-by-default campaign heroes - Gelu , Dracon and Bidley .

Creature-upgrade specialties allow the hero to upgrade specific creatures into the creature they specialize in. The cost is equal to the difference in costs between the owned creature and the "upgrade".

Dragons specialty

Dragons specialty (only held by Mutare and Mutare Drake , both banned by default) 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.

Production specialties

Some heroes' specialties increase a kingdom's daily income. Production of one point of a magical resource per day is unique to one hero per resource ( Rissa creates +1 , Calid creates +1 , Sephinroth/ Andal creates +1 , and Saurug creates +1 ). None of the heroes produces the resource needed to recruit the level 7 creature of its native town.

Multiple heroes increase daily gold income by +350 ( Aine, Caitlin, Clavius, Damacon, Gelare, Grindan, Jenova, Nagash, Octavia, Bertram and Leena ).

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. As a direct comparison, a level 1 Lord Haart will only generate a total (excluding any artifacts he may have) income of (1.00 + 1 * 0.05) * 125 = 1.05 * 125 = 131 (rounded) gold per day (for basic Estates), while at level 20 and with expert Estates, he will generate a total (again, excluding artifacts) of (1.00 + 20 * 0.05) * 500 = 2.00 * 500 = 1000 gold. Note: In Horn of the Abyss the income from Estates is doubled.

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.