Might Skills
There are 9 primary skills in Heroes of Might and Magic IV - 4 Might
and 5 Magic primary skills. A hero may learn up to 5 primary skills.
Each primary skill has three associated secondary skills. To learn the
secondary skills, their parent primary skill must be learned first.
Once the primary skill is learned, you will be able to learn all of its
associated secondary skills. Each skill, primary or secondary, has five
levels of mastery.
The manual describes some skills incorrectly. There are even some
errors in the in-game descriptions (for example, Master Combat
description says that it is required for Grandmaster Melee, when it is
clearly not). I've tested the below descriptions to make sure they are
accurate.
TACTICS - Primary Skill
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Increases speed and movement of all friendly creatures.
Basic: +1 speed, +1 movement.
Advanced: +2 speed, +1.5 movement.
Expert: +3 speed, +2 movement. Requires Basic Offense and Basic Defence.
Master: +4 speed, +2.5 movement. Requires Advanced Offense and Advanced Defence.
Grandmaster: +5 speed, +3 movement. Requires Expert Offense and Expert Defence. |
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Offense - Tactics Secondary Skill
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Increases Melee and Ranged Attack of all friendly creatures.
Basic: +10% to Melee and Ranged Attack.
Advanced: +20% to Melee and Ranged Attack.
Expert: +30% to Melee and Ranged Attack.
Master: +40% to Melee and Ranged Attack. Requires Advanced Tactics.
Grandmaster: +50% to Melee and Ranged Attack. Requires Expert Tactics. |
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Defence - Tactics Secondary Skill
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Increases Melee and Ranged Defence of all friendly creatures.
Basic: +10% to Melee and Ranged Defence.
Advanced: +20% to Melee and Ranged Defence.
Expert: +30% to Melee and Ranged Defence.
Master: +40% to Melee and Ranged Defence. Requires Advanced Tactics.
Grandmaster: +50% to Melee and Ranged Defence. Requires Expert Tactics. |
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Leadership - Tactics Secondary Skill
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Increases morale and luck of all friendly creatures.
Basic: +1 morale, +1 luck.
Advanced: +2 morale, +2 luck.
Expert: +3 morale, +3 luck.
Master: +4 morale, +4 luck. Requires Advanced Tactics.
Grandmaster: +5 morale, +5 luck. Requires Expert Tactics. |
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One of your main heroes should have the Tactics skill as it can make
your army twice as powerful. Unless your army is undead or mostly
composed of mechanical / non-living creatures, maxing out Leadership is
essential as it can make few of your creatures have two turns during
each combat round. I recommend learning Basic Offense and Basic Defence
and going for Expert Tactics and Grandmaster Leadership. After that
improve the rest of the skills, focusing on Offense and Tactics because
generally a good commander makes more attacks than defences, and with
powerful attacks there is less to defend against, so Defence is the
last priority.
Tactics produces excellent advanced classes when combined with either Scouting, Nobility, Life Magic or Nature Magic.
COMBAT - Primary Skill
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Increases hero's Melee and Ranged Defence.
Basic: Melee and Ranged Defence = 15.
Advanced: Melee and Ranged Defence = 20.
Expert: Melee and Ranged Defence = 30.
Master: Melee and Ranged Defence = 40.
Grandmaster: Melee and Ranged Defence = 60. |
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Melee - Combat Secondary Skill
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Increases hero's Melee Attack and divides the natural defence of enemy creatures.
Never reduces enemy hero's defence. Never reduces creature defence below 10.
Basic: Melee Attack = 15. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 1.5.
Advanced: Melee Attack = 20. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 2.
Expert: Melee Attack = 30. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 3. Hero has First Strike ability.
Master: Melee Attack = 40. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 4. Hero has First Strike ability. Requires Advanced Combat.
Grandmaster: Melee Attack = 40. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 4. Hero has First Strike and Two Attacks abilities. Requires Expert Combat. |
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Archery - Combat Secondary Skill
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Increases hero's Ranged Attack and divides the natural defence of enemy creatures
Never reduces enemy hero's defence. Never reduces creature defence below 10.
Basic: Ranged Attack = 10.
Advanced: Ranged Attack = 15. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 1.5.
No damage penalties for obstacles and castle walls.
Expert: Ranged Attack = 20. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 2.
No damage penalties for long range, obstacles and castle walls.
Master: Ranged Attack = 30. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 2.
No damage penalties for long range, obstacles and castle walls.
Hero has Ranged First Strike ability. Requires Advanced Combat.
Grandmaster: Ranged Attack = 30. Natural defence of enemy creatures divided by 2.
No damage penalties for long range, obstacles and castle walls.
Hero has Ranged First Strike and Two Ranged Attacks abilities. Requires Expert Combat. |
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Magic Resistance - Combat Secondary Skill
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Hero has a chance to resist hostile spells.
Basic: 30%.
Advanced: 50%.
Expert: 70%.
Master: 80%. Requires Advanced Combat.
Grandmaster: 100%. Requires Expert Combat. |
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Even if your hero has powerful Magic or Tactics, you can lose those
advantages instantly if your hero is killed. The beauty of Combat skill
is that it does not require you to learn secondary skills to
Grandmaster it. You can simply invest five level-ups into it and have
an excellent defence for your hero. This way a mage or tactician can
last on the battlefield without devoting too many levels to this skill.
If magic is a threat, invest a few more levels into Magic Resistance.
Barbarians must develop Magic Resistance all the way because they
usually can't cast healing spells.
Mage does not need Melee or Archery. It is also a good question to
consider whether investing five levels into Melee or Archery will give
you more overall benefit than putting those five levels into Tactics
skills. Choose Archery if you plan to have plenty of strong melee
creatures in your army, otherwise go for Melee, because if enemy comes
up to your hero, he/she will not able to either shoot or attack
properly. Developing both Melee and Archery is too wasteful in my
opinion, unless all your other main skills are fully developed.
Combat makes a useful Fireguard advanced class with Chaos Magic
(useful when facing chaos mages or fire creatures), and makes a Paladin
with Life Magic (useful when fighting vs Death). Several advanced
classes that result from combat are not very good, that is another
reason to avoid developing Melee or Archery or both.
SCOUTING - Primary Skill
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Increases scouting radius, exposes stealthy enemies and shows extra information on the adventure map.
Basic: +1 scouting radius, reveals traits of any adventure object and enemies with Basic Stealth.
Advanced: +2 scouting radius, reveals exact number of creatures in a hostile army and enemies with Advanced Stealth.
Expert: +3 scouting radius, shows likely outcome of battles reveals enemies with Expert Stealth. Requires Basic Pathfinding.
Master: +4 scouting radius, shows skills of enemy heroes and reveals enemies with Master Stealth. Requires Advanced Pathfinding.
Grandmaster: +5 scouting radius, shows enemy town and army screens and reveals enemies with Grandmaster Stealth. Requires Expert Pathfinding. |
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Pathfinding - Scouting Secondary Skill
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Reduces terrain movement penalties and increases movement for hero and his/her army.
Basic: reduces terrain movement penalties by 0.25 points.
Advanced: reduces terrain movement penalties by 0.5 points.
Expert: no terrain movement penalties.
Master: no terrain movement penalties, 25% extra movement. Requires Advanced Scouting.
Grandmaster: no terrain movement penalties, 50% extra movement. Requires Expert Scouting. |
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Seamanship - Scouting Secondary Skill
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Gives hero extra movement at sea, and acts as Tactics, Offense and Defence skills in sea battles.
Basic: +25% movement at sea. Basic Tactics, Offense and Defence in sea battles.
Advanced: +50% movement at sea. Advanced Tactics, Offense and Defence in sea battles.
Expert: +100% movement at sea. Expert Tactics, Offense and Defence in sea battles.
Master: +150% movement at sea. Master Tactics, Offense and Defence in sea battles. Requires Advanced Scouting.
Grandmaster: +200% movement at sea. Grandmaster Tactics, Offense and Defence in sea battles. Requires Expert Scouting. |
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Stealth - Scouting Secondary Skill
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Makes hero (but not other creatures/heroes) invisible to creatures and heroes on adventure map.
Basic: invisible to 1st level creatures and heroes with no Scouting skill. Adjacent enemies can see the hero.
Advanced: invisible to 2nd level creatures and heroes with Basic
Scouting skill. Adjacent 2nd level creatures and heroes with Basic
Scouting skill can see the hero. Requires Advanced Scouting.
Expert: invisible to 3rd level creatures and heroes with
Advanced Scouting skill. Adjacent 3rd level creatures and heroes with
Advanced Scouting skill can see the hero. Requires Expert Scouting.
Master: invisible to all creatures and heroes with Expert
Scouting skill. Adjacent 4th level creatures and heroes with Expert
Scouting skill can see the hero. Requires Master Scouting.
Grandmaster: invisible to all level creatures and heroes with
Master Scouting skill. Adjacent heroes with Master Scouting skill can
see the hero. Requires Grandmaster Scouting. |
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Scouting may seem like a relatively useless skill, but do not
underestimate it. Advanced Scouting will tell you how many creatures
are in each stack/hero/town on the adventure map, and that is very
useful; Pathfinding is not just about terrain penalties - at
Grandmaster level (+50% extra movement), combined with absense of
terrain penalties the hero can almost move twice as far each day,
passing this bonus to the whole army. Ideally, your Tactics hero should
learn Scouting, and focus on it more than on Combat, because Tactics +
Combat and Combat + Scouting result in poor advanced class bonuses (+1
morale to all creatures / +5 ranged attack and ranged ability), while
Tactics + Scouting gives an excellent +10% to melee/ranged attack of
all creatures, making your hero a Field Marshal who greatly boosts your
army both in combat and on the adventure map.
Only one hero needs Scouting, preferably your main might hero, as
discussed above. Scouting itself does not need to go above Expert level
(to enable Grandmaster Pathfinding) unless you are likely to face a
high-level Thief (Asylum/Chaos) hero. Pathfinding is especially useful
on maps with difficult terrain, but even if the entire map is grass,
50% extra movement is still very worthwhile, so develop it all the way.
Best way is to get Advanced Scouting (to see exact creature numbers),
then get Pathfinding and improve it up to Master level, then Expert
Scouting followed by Grandmaster Pathfinding. Seamanship is a
tremendous advantage on maps with lots of water, but completely useless
on waterless maps. Note that it gives a great advantage in sea battles
(intercept the main enemy hero for a big battle at sea if your hero is
a Seaman).
Stealth is an optional Scouting skill. It's not useful unless
mastered - your hero has to either specialise in Stealth and work alone
(no army, no other heroes) or not learn this skill at all. Stealth
becomes useful at Advanced and Expert levels where your hero can snatch
resources from behind weak guards without fighting, while gaining
experience from sneaking past them. At Master and Grandmaster levels of
Stealth your hero can steal virtually anything and venture to spy the
enemy territory. Stealth skill requires a corresponding level of
Scouting skill, so your hero will both be invisible and see a lot of
information about the enemy. Since the enemy will probably not see your
thief coming, you are likely to snatch an undefended castle when he
least expects it, learning all the spells and hiring all the creatures
- a very devastating move. Note that the computer player has a "sixth
sense" and guards towns against invisible heroes when they approach,
even though the computer "does not see them". This was essential to
avoid making the game unbalanced.
Developing a Stealth hero is a unique tactical aspect of the game,
so I will explain it in more detail. Since the Stealth hero will work
alone, gaining experience from sneaking past guards, not from fighting
them, he/she does not need Tactics. Once Stealth (and Scouting) are
Grandmastered, develop Pathfinding to get the extra movement - a thief
must strike quickly and run fast if he/she is discovered. Once that is
accomplished, develop your Stealth hero into a striker who can defeat
weaker unsuspecting enemies. The hero will need Grandmaster combat and
some Magic Resistance, but it's best not to invest in Melee and Archery
because then your hero will remain a Ranger (advanced class), with the
weak +5 to ranged attack bonus. We want to add a Magic skill and
develop it more than Combat.
Nature Magic includes Summoning, Life Magic includes Resurrection,
Order Magic includes Charm, Death Magic includes Necromancy - neither
of those are useful as a Stealth striker works alone. Chaos Magic is
perfect due to its array of damaging spells and Sorcery to further
amplify the damage. When the hero's Chaos Magic development surpasses
Combat development, he/she will become a Fire Diviner (advanced class)
and gain a 20% bonus to the effect of all fire-based spells! This
strategy works best with Asylum town that holds Chaos spells and can
hire heroes who start with Basic Scouting and Basic Stealth - Thieves.
NOBILITY - Primary Skill
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Increases all creature growth in the town that recognises the hero as its governor.
Basic: +10%.
Advanced: +20%.
Expert: +30%. Requires Basic Estates and Basic Mining.
Master: +40%. Requires Advanced Estates and Advanced Mining.
Grandmaster: +50%. Requires Expert Estates and Expert Mining. |
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Estates - Nobility Secondary Skill
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Hero produces gold each day.
Basic: 100 gold + 10% per hero level.
Advanced: 200 gold + 10% per hero level.
Expert: 300 gold + 10% per hero level.
Master: 400 gold + 10% per hero level. Requires Advanced Nobility.
Grandmaster: 500 gold + 10% per hero level. Requires Expert Nobility. |
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Mining - Nobility Secondary Skill
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Hero produces resources.
Basic: 2 wood and 2 ore over a 5 day period +10% per hero level.
Advanced: 2 wood, 2 ore and 2 other resources over a 5 day
period +10% per hero level. The 2 other resources cycle 1 each through
gems, mercury, sulfur and crystals - in that order.
Expert: 2 wood, 2 ore and 4 other resources over a 5 day period
+10% per hero level. The 4 other resources cycle 1 each through gems,
mercury, sulfur and crystals - in that order.
Master: 3 wood, 3 ore and 5 other resources over a 5 day period
+10% per hero level. The 5 other resources cycle 1 each through gems,
mercury, sulfur and crystals - in that order. Requires Advanced Nobility.
Grandmaster: 4 wood, 4 ore and 6 other resources over a 5 day
period +10% per hero level. The 6 other resources cycle 1 each through
gems, mercury, sulfur and crystals - in that order. Requires Expert Nobility. |
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Diplomacy - Nobility Secondary Skill
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Hero can convince a percentage of greatly outnumbered hostile creatures to join him/her for a price. Cost of surrendering is reduced. Diplomacy doesn't work on creatures of opposite alignment.
Basic: 30% of creatures, but no more than 120 experience points +10% per hero level. Surrendering cost = 80%.
Advanced: 40% of creatures, but no more than 240 experience points +10% per hero level. Surrendering cost = 70%.
Expert: 50% of creatures, but no more than 360 experience points +10% per hero level. Surrendering cost = 60%.
Master: 60% of creatures, but no more than 480 experience points +10% per hero level. Surrendering cost = 55%. Requires Advanced Nobility.
Grandmaster: 70% of creatures, but no more than 600 experience points +10% per hero level. Surrendering cost = 50%. Requires Expert Nobility. |
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On one hand Nobility will enable your hero to boost town population
and hire some of the outnumbered opponenets, and on the other it will
turn your hero into a walking mine that generates gold and resources.
Nobility provides you with additional recruitable creatures and with
resources required to recruit them. There are three important things to
consider before you pursue Nobility. Firstly, instead of having more
creatures, you could make your creatures twice as effective by
developing the Tactics skill and achieve a better overall effect.
Secondly, by the time you develop diplomacy, most of the guards may
already be defeated - diplomacy requires a large map with plenty of
guards to be useful. Thirdly, if the map has plenty of towns and mines,
the bonuses of Nobility, Estates and Mining may provide only a small
advantage overall.
On many maps Tactics is a much better choice than Nobility for your
might hero. Instead of struggling to develop Nobility, just develop
Tactics and go capture an extra town and a gold mine. I recommend going
for Nobility on maps where resources, towns and mines are scarce and
guards are plentiful. Tactics and Nobility is a good combination on
that kind of map, as it will also turn your hero into a Lord Commander
(advanced class) and give a great bonus of +2 morale to all creatures
in his/her army. This way your army can become both larger and more
powerful. Don't forget to learn Grandmaster Combat for this hero and
some Magic Resistance, as he/she will be a very juicy target on the
battlefield.
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