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Inferno: Gating

The Inferno's Gating ability allows creatures to summon (or "gate") more of their own kind onto the battlefield. Each unit may only gate once per combat. In order to gate, the Inferno hero must have the Basic Gating skill, and have creatures that do not exceed the limitations of that skill. That is, Basic Gating only allows you to gate Imps and Horned Demons, and hence you cannot use the Gating ability with a Hell Hound until your hero learns Advanced Gating.

When in the process of gating, you can define the grid square for the creature to be gated to. The gated unit (reinforcements) will need one turn to appear on the battlefield, and then another turn to be able to act. Spell effects (like Haste), are not transferred to the newly gated creature. The gating unit (caller) spends only half its turn to call in reinforcements.

Needless to say, there are numerous enhancements that may be learnt to improve the speed and potency of the gating skill. Refer to the following table for information.

Gating Modifiers

Gating Levels
	Basic Gating Ability to gate: up to tier 2 (Imps, Demons and their upgrades) Effect: Reinforcements are 30% of the gated troops
	Advanced Gating Ability to gate: up to tier 4 (adds Hell Hounds, Succubi and their upgrades) Effect: Reinforcements are 35% of the gated troops Requires: Basic Gating
	Expert Gating Ability to gate: up to tier 6 (adds Hell Chargers, Pit Fiends and their upgrades) Effect: Reinforcements are 40% of the gated troops Requires: Advanced Gating
	Ultimate Gating Ability to gate: all Inferno troops (adds Devils and Arch Devils) Effect: Reinforcements are 45% of the gated troops Requires: Expert Gating
Gating Boosters
	Urgash's Call Effect: Gated units appear instantly Requires: Teleport Assault, Dead Man's Curse, Power of Speed
	Gate Master Effect: 20% more reinforcements Requires: Recruitment
	Swift Gating Effect: Gating units spends only 25% of their turn to call in reinforcements (instead of 50%) Requires: Pathfinding
	Swarming Gate Effect: 10%-35% chance that twice as many reinforcements will be gated (chance depends on hero's Luck: 10% + Luck * 5%, and 10% if Luck is negative) Requires: Soldier's Luck
	Infernal Loom Effect: 10% more reinforcements (cumulative) Requires: Town Level 3 Cost: 1000, 2, 2

Note that if the given % of reinforcements arriving is not a whole number, the number of gated units a creature can call upon is given as a range. For example, if 5 Imps (with 30% reinforcements) gate, then between 1 and 2 Imps will be gated. In the same vein, it is possible to gate 0 creatures, in which case, that gate is wasted, and you will be notified straight away that no creatures were called.

It is also important to realise that the gated creatures will always disappear after combat has ended, and there is no modifier that can prevent that. Also note that a gated creature does not contribute to experience gained. If you manage to defeat all other creatures in combat aside from those which have been gated, they will disappear, and combat will end as normal.

The process of gating in itself is considered as half an action for that creature. That is, a creature cannot gate and take another action in the same turn (its ATB value is reset to 1/2 of what it would be if it were to move, for example). Additionally, while the gated creature needs the turn from the creature from which it was gated to come around again, it cannot act in the turn it appears. Essentially, you must wait 1.5 turns for the gated creature to be able to act.

However, in the transitional stage of being gated, while the grid square on which it will appear is denoted (visible to both friend and foe), you may not cast any spells on the creature to make it appear faster, boost its strength or otherwise. The same goes for casting a spell like Haste on the original creature - the gated creature will still exhibit the base initiative (e.g., if initiative was increased to by 1 to 13, the gated creature would still appear on the ATB bar as if the original creature had 12 initiative). Once the creature is gated, it can be affected just like any other creature, which includes luck and morale. Even if the original creature from which the unit was gated is killed in combat, the gated unit still remains - that is until all of your original units are killed, and in that case, your gated units disappear, and you lose the battle.

The Gating skill

	Basic Gating Imps and Demons (as well as their upgrades) are granted an ability to gate into the infernal plane to bring reinforcements back to the battlefield. Each unit can gate only once per combat spending 50% of it's current initiative. Newly arrived creatures constitute 30% of the gated ones and will disappear after the end of the combat.
	Advanced Gating Imps, Demons, Hell Hounds and Succubi (as well as their upgrades) are granted an ability to gate into infernal plane to bring reinforcements back to the battlefield. Each unit can gate only once per combat spending 50% of it's current initiative. Newly arrived creatures constitute 35% of the gated ones and will disappear after the end of the combat.
	Expert Gating All infernal troops except Devils and Arch Devils are granted an ability to gate into infernal plane to bring reinforcements back to the battlefield. Each unit can gate only once per combat spending 50% of it's current initiative. Newly arrived creatures constitute 40% of the gated ones and will disappear after the end of the combat.
	Ultimate Gating All infernal troops are granted an ability to gate into infernal plane to bring reinforcements back to the battlefield. Each unit can gate only once per combat spending 50% of it's current initiative. Newly arrived creatures constitute 45% of the gated ones and disappear when combat ends.

Associated abilities

	Consume Corpse Demon Lord receives special combat ability to consume corpses of fallen creatures to restore mana. Consumed corpses disappear from the battlefield.
	Hellfire Creatures under Demon Lord's control are granted a 30% chance to deal additional fire damage on attack. Hellfire drains the Demon Lord's mana.
	Mark of the Damned Demon Lord receives special combat ability to punish the target enemy creature with a powerful Mark of the Damned if that creature is about to attack, retaliate or cast any spell. Once declared, Mark of the Damned is active until the end of combat. Should target creature remain idle or move without attacking, the Mark will not be performed.
	Urgash's Call Gating becomes instant.

Strategies

While the Gating Secondary Skill works to improve the power of Gating, 3/4 of its abilities do not. It is of a very similar structure to Artificer, and if you memorise one set (of skills, abilities, and their pre-requisites), you can apply it effectively to the other (excluding ability effects, etc. of course). Gating's major modifiers derive from other secondary skills, such as Leadership, Logistics, and Luck. If you want to improve gating more easily, concentrate on learning abilities from the "three Ls".

Urgash's Call

While instant gating is an attractive skill, there are a few hiccups along the way that you'll have to deal with. While the abilities themselves required for Urgash's Call are quite good (Teleport Assault, Swarming Gate, Battle Frenzy), you'll have to take Dark Magic rather than the more robust Defense or Leadership (leading to Gate Master). While not cataclysmic, it somewhat weakens the physical aspect of Inferno's troops. However, gating can act as a substitute for Defense, in that they can be used as fodder against neutrals especially. Instant gating is always welcomed, and the relative ease and the possibility of summoning these troops make it enticing on larger maps.

You can discuss Heroes V racial skills with the Heroes Community.

Thanks to ThE_HyDrA for creating and looking after the Heroes 5 section of Age of Heroes!

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