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

	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.

Offense - Tactics Secondary Skill

	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.

Defence - Tactics Secondary Skill

	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.

Leadership - Tactics Secondary Skill

	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.

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

	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.

Melee - Combat Secondary Skill

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.

Archery - Combat Secondary Skill

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.

Magic Resistance - Combat Secondary Skill

	Hero has a chance to resist hostile spells. Basic: 30%. Advanced: 50%. Expert: 70%. Master: 80%. Requires Advanced Combat. Grandmaster: 100%. Requires Expert Combat.

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

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.

Pathfinding - Scouting Secondary Skill

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.

Seamanship - Scouting Secondary Skill

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.

Stealth - Scouting Secondary Skill

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.

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

	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.

Estates - Nobility Secondary Skill

	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.

Mining - Nobility Secondary Skill

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.

Diplomacy - Nobility Secondary Skill

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.

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.