Necromancy
| Necromancy | ||
|
Basic Necromancy: Creature Gathering, Necropolis only, allows 10% of the creatures killed in combat to be brought back from the dead as skeletons. | |
|
Advanced Necromancy: Creature Gathering, Necropolis only, allows 20% of the creatures killed in combat to be brought back from the dead as skeletons. | |
|
Expert Necromancy: Creature Gathering, Necropolis only, allows 30% of the creatures killed in combat to be brought back from the dead as skeletons. | |
Necromancy is a secondary skill that allows the hero to bring back creatures killed in combat as Skeletons. Typically all Death Knights and Necromancers start with Necromancy skill, and no other hero class may learn it during level up nor can it be learned from University. In fact, non-necropolis heroes can by normal means only learn Necromancy from Scholars, which occurs very rarely. On custom maps, the skill can also be learned from an Event or a Witch Hut.
Isra the Death Knight and Vidomina the Necromancer specialize in Necromancy, which gives them 5% addition to the skill for every experience level. See hero specialty for further information.
Description
All enemy creatures that are displayed after battle as casualties can be raised as skeletons, even if this includes sacrificed creatures, cloned creatures, summoned elementals or war machines(!).
When a victorious army contains Skeleton Warriors but no Skeletons, and no empty army slot is available, Skeleton Warriors will be raised instead of Skeletons, but only 2/3 of the usual number.
Artifacts affecting this skill
- Amulet of the Undertaker (Neck). Gives +5% Necromancy to a hero's Necromancy skill.
- Vampire's Cowl (Shoulders). Gives +10% Necromancy to a hero's Necromancy skill.
- Dead Man's Boots (Feet). Gives +15% Necromancy to a hero's Necromancy skill.
- Cloak of the Undead King (Shoulders, combination artifact assembled from the other three Necromancy artifacts). Heroes without Necromancy can raise Skeletons as if they have learnt Expert Necromancy. Heroes with Necromancy receive +30% to their total Necromancy percentage on top of the +30% Necromancy provided by the individual artifacts, and can raise Walking Dead, Wights and Liches at, respectively, Basic, Advanced and Expert Necromancy. Note: Available only in the Shadow of Death expansion.
Buildings affecting this skill
Operating principle
| ||||||||||||||
The number of skeletons brought back at the end of the combat depends on three main factors:
- Level of Necromancy skill
- Number of creatures in killed stacks
- Amount of health of killed stacks.
First, and foremost, the level of Necromancy used in calculation is the level the hero has prior to the combat; and although it is technically possible with artifacts and structures to have Necromancy skill above 100%, in combat it is considered less than or equal to 100%. Secondly, the total number of received Skeletons can never exceed the number of creatures slain in combat. And finally, the total health of received Skeletons can never exceed the total health of killed creatures. In addition, at least one Skeleton is always received from the combat where the winning hero has Necromancy skill of any level and creatures are killed.
These rules are applied to every stack individually, and always rounded down. To draw a conclusion, when calculating the number of Skeletons received from a battle, the factor two becomes determining when the creatures in the stack have a good deal of health points, and the factor three becomes determining when the stack has a high number of low health creatures. As can be seen from the example on the right, when calculating the health factor, the total health of the creature stack is divided with the number of health points of Skeletons, which is four. Similarly, the health points can be used in calculation, if the hero is bringing back Skeleton Warriors or is wielding Cloak of the Undead King and raising other low-tier undead creatures. Naturally, the higher the health points are, the smaller is the number of undead brought back.
Discussion
Necropolis and Necromancy are often considered to be overpowered, and therefore frequently banned in multiplayer games (and tournaments).
External links
- How does the necromancy skill work exactly? Heroes Community thread started by angelito.