| Name | Description | Creatures Possessing |
|---|---|---|
| Acid Breath | During attack creature damages not only the target but any other unit positioned directly behind it. | Green Dragon, Emerald Dragon |
| Armoured | This creature is resistant to all spells and effects that decrease Defense. | Defender, Shieldguard, Blackbear Rider |
| Aura of Magic Resistance | For this creature and all friendly units located on tiles adjacent to it, magic resistance increases by 30% | Unicorn, Silver Unicorn |
| Bash | At every attack creature has a chance to stun the enemy so they won't be able to retaliate and lose initiative (mechanical creatures are not affected). When stunned, the target's ATB value is reset to 0. | Conscript, Footman, Squire, Enforcer |
| Battle Dive | Creature performs delayed air attack on selected tile on the field, causing double damage to any creatures, including friendly ones, which happen to be on the tile at that moment. Following the attack, the creature returns to a randomly selected location on the field (activated ability). | Imperial Griffin |
| Battle Frenzy | Every next retaliation strike performed by this creature inflicts damage 1.5 times as great than the previous one. The retaliation multiplier is reset when the creature acts. | Battle Griffin |
| Berserker Rage | When this ability is used, the creature's Defense drops temporarily to zero, Offense increases by the same amount, and it attacks the nearest enemy automatically without suffering the retaliation strike. However if there is no enemy in the movement range of this creature it will attack a nearest friendly unit instead of the enemy (activated ability). | Berserker |
| Blinding Attack | When this creature attacks the enemy, there is a chance that it will blind it in addition to inflicting regular damage. Blinded creatures cannot move or attack, but regain sight if attacked. The Blind spell is cast with spell power 8. | Silver Unicorn |
| Bravery | Creature always has positive morale (no less than +1). | Minotaur, Minotaur Guard |
| Call Lightning | Creature fires a lightning bolt causing magical damage to selected target. Can be used for ranged attack when regular shooting attack is impossible or will only cause reduced damage (activated ability). The Lightning Bolt deals Air damage equals to 30*number of creatures in the stack. It ignores magic protection (but not immunities or magic resistance). | Titan |
| Caster | This creature can use a set of magical spells similar to those cast by heroes. Mana reserve is limited but always set to maximum at the beginning of combat. Spellpower depends on the number of creatures (activated ability). | Inquisitor, Pit Fiend, Pit Lord, Archlich, Sprite, Druid, Druid Elder, Mage, Archmage, Shadow Witch, Shadow Matriarch, Water Elemental, Rune Priest, Rune Patriarch, Zealot, Mummy |
| Chain Shot | Creature inflicts damage to selected target and the three other targets nearest to it. Each successive enemy struck receives half the damage of the previous one. The Chain Shot does not trigger on Demonic creatures. | Succubus Mistress |
| Champion Charge | If this creature has walked more than 2 tiles when attacking, it also inflicts half-damage on the stack standing in the line of attack immediately behind the primary target. | Champion |
| Cleave | If this creature's attack kills at least one creature in the target stack, it performs an additional strike. | Vindicator |
| Crippling Wound | In a successful attack, this creature has an additional chance of decreasing the target's Speed (-50%) and Initiative (-30%). The target is wounded for 2 turns. | Spearwielder, Skirmisher |
| Crossfire | The creature attack area has the shape of a cross. The attack only hurts enemy stacks. | Rune Patriarch |
| Cursing Attack | During attack a curse is put on the target, reducing the damage it can inflict. With each following attack the curse is renewed. Weakness is cast with Advanced mastery. | Spectral Dragon, Death Knight |
| Dash | After using this ability creature misses one turn but is able to make turns more often (activated ability). The unit initiative is doubled for its next 3 actions. | Rakshasa Raja |
| Deadly Strike | There's a 25% chance that this creature's attack will kill half the units in the enemy detachment. | Death Knight |
| Death Cloud | Ranged attack damages not just the target but all non-undead creatures covered by the Death Cloud (3 by 3 tiles) appearing at the hit point. The main target receives normal damage, and all non-undead stacks around it receive 50% each. | Lich, Archlich |
| Demonic | This creature belongs to inferno. The Chain shot (Succubus Mistress ability) does not affect it. | Imp, Familiar, Horned Demon, Horned Overseer, Hell Hound, Cerberus, Succubus, Succubus Mistress, Hell Charger, Nightmare, Pit Fiend, Pit Lord, Devil, Arch Devil |
| Double Attack | Creature strikes two blows at the target in a single attack. | Minotaur Guard |
| Double Shot | Creature fires two full shots at the enemy instead of just one. | Hunter, Master Hunter |
| Elemental | This creature is not alive and cannot be affected by Poison-, Blind- or Mind-related magic. Nor can it be resurrected or healed with First Aid Tent. | Stone Gargoyle, Obsidian Gargoyle, Fire Elemental, Water Elemental, Earth Elemental, Air Elemental, Fire Dragon, Magma Dragon |
| Energy Channel | If there's a creature with this ability in the hero's army, the hero will need 25% less mana to cast spells. | Archmage |
| Enraged | This creature's attack increases during combat when any friendly unit dies (except resurrected creatures or creatures summoned to battlefield by magic). The increase is proportional to the killed stack relative power in the army. | Footman, Squire, Horned Demon, Horned Overseer, Zombie, Plague Zombie, Treant, Ancient Treant, Stone Gargoyle, Obsidian Gargoyle, Hydra, Deep Hydra, Defender, Shieldguard, Bear Rider, Blackbear Rider |
| Entangling Roots | Creature's attack entangles enemy with its roots and immobilises it. Creature can immobilise several enemies simultaneously, but the effect only lasts while the creature remains in direct contact with its victims. | Treant, Ancient Treant |
| Explosion | Creature damages all creatures around itself, but not itself (activated ability). Like a spell, damage dealt by Explosion depends on the effective Spell Power of the stack: Damage=9+9*Power. | Horned Overseer |
| Fear Attack | There's a chance the enemy attacked by this creature panics and tries to run to the edge of the arena to get as far away from the creature as possible, losing all initiative accumulated by this time. (Doesn't affect creatures immune to Mind-related spells). The target's ATB value is reset to 0. | Hell Charger, Nightmare |
| Fire Breath | During attack, creature damages not only the target but any other unit positioned directly behind it. | Shadow Dragon, Black Dragon, Fire Dragon, Magma Dragon |
| Fire Shield | When this creature is subjected to melee attack, its Fireshield inflicts a certain amount of damage to the attacker, regardless of whether it has counter-attack ability. The attacker suffers 20% of the damage dealt to its target as elemental fire damage. | Fire Elemental, Phoenix, Fire Dragon |
| Flyer | This creature can move on to any free tile on the battlefield during its turn, regardless of the obstacles in the way. | Griffin, Imperial Griffin, Angel, Archangel, Ghost, Spectre, Bone Dragon, Spectral Dragon, Pixie, Sprite, Green Dragon, Emerald Dragon, Stone Gargoyle, Obsidian Gargoyle, Djinn, Djinn Sultan, Shadow Dragon, Black Dragon, Air Elemental, Phoenix, Battle Griffin, Fallen Angel, Manticore |
| Fright Aura | All enemies positioned on tiles adjacent to this creature get their morale reduced by -3 (doesn't affect creatures whose morale is always neutral). | Nightmare |
| Harm Touch | When this creature attacks, it always kills one unit in any enemy detachment. It also dispells all positive magical effects currently affecting the aim (activated ability). The normal creature attack is unchanged. When Harm Touch is used instead, exactly one target creature is killed. | Wraith |
| Hexing Attack | After a successful attack, the target creature also suffers the effect of one of the following damnations: Weakness, Slow, Suffering and Vulnerability. All the effects are equal to those of Expert-level spells. | Mummy |
| Howl | Once per battle, this creature can summon a friendly stack of equal power. On its first attack, the stack automatically summons an exact same stack next to its target. | Wolf |
| Immunity to Blind | This creature cannot be blinded. | Griffin, Imperial Griffin, Battle Griffin |
| Immunity to Cold | Cold Magic spells cannot harm this creature. | Obsidian Gargoyle, Water Elemental |
| Immunity to Earth | Earth Magic spells cannot harm this creature. | Emerald Dragon, Earth Elemental |
| Immunity to Fire | Fire Magic spells cannot harm this creature. | Obsidian Gargoyle, Fire Elemental, Phoenix, Fire Dragon, Magma Dragon |
| Immunity to Lightning | Lightning cannot harm this creature. | Stone Gargoyle, Obsidian Gargoyle, Air Elemental, Thane, Warlord |
| Immunity to Magic | Creature is immune to all magical impact (including friendly spells). | Black Dragon |
| Immunity to Mind Control | This creature is immune to mind-affecting spells. | Colossus, Titan, Brawler, Berserker |
| Immunity to Slow | This creature cannot be slowed down. | Iron Golem, Steel Golem |
| Incorporeal | This creature is incorporeal so any non-magical attack against it has only 50% chance of inflicting damage. There can be at most 3 hits/misses in a row on all Incorporeal stacks, after which the fourth try will be forced to miss (after 3 hits) or hit (after 3 misses). This counter is global (for all stacks), not tied to each stack. | Ghost, Spectre |
| Jousting | Creature gets a 5% bonus to damage it inflicts during attack for each tile it covered on the game field before the attack. | Cavalier, Paladin, Champion |
| Large Creature | This creature takes 2x2 squares on the battlefield. | Griffin, Imperial Griffin, Cavalier, Paladin, Angel, Archangel, Hell Charger, Nightmare, Pit Fiend, Pit Lord, Devil, Arch Devil, Lich, Archlich, Wight, Wraith, Bone Dragon, Spectral Dragon, Unicorn, Silver Unicorn, Treant, Ancient Treant, Green Dragon, Emerald Dragon, Djinn, Djinn Sultan, Rakshasa Rani, Rakshasa Raja, Colossus, Titan, Dark Raider, Grim Raider, Hydra, Deep Hydra, Shadow Dragon, Black Dragon, Death Knight, Phoenix, Bear Rider, Blackbear Rider, Thane, Warlord, Fire Dragon, Magma Dragon, Battle Griffin, Champion, Fallen Angel, Manticore |
| Large Shield | Creature receives only 50% of damage from all non-magical shooting attacks. | Footman, Squire, Defender, Shieldguard, Vindicator |
| Lay Hands | The creature can completely heal one unit from the target friendly stack and dispel all negative magical effects from this stack. | Paladin |
| Life Drain | When attacking enemy units, this creature can drain their health and use it to restore its own, or even to resurrect some killed creatures. Life drained is half the damage inflicted. | Vampire, Vampire Lord, Fallen Angel |
| Lizard Bite | Perform an attack against neighbouring enemy and inflicts half the regular damage, if this enemy is attacked by an allied creature. | Grim Raider |
| Magic Attack | Creature hits all creatures in the line of attack with its shot, including friendly ones. | Mage, Archmage |
| Magic-proof 50% | Attacking spells inflict 50% less damage to this creature. | Iron Golem, Earth Elemental, Rune Priest, Rune Patriarch |
| Magic-proof 75% | Attacking spells inflict 75% less damage to this creature. | Steel Golem |
| Magma Shield | When this creature undergoes a melee attack, the attacker suffers Fire damage, the amount depending on the attack's force. The attacker suffers 40% of the damage dealt to its target as elemental fire damage. | Magma Dragon |
| Mana Destroyer | Creature destroys some of the enemy hero's mana at the beginning of combat. The amount of destroyed mana depends on the number of creatures. 0.25 Mana are destroyed per creature in the stack (rounded). | Imp |
| Mana Drain | When attacking enemy units, this creature can drain their mana and use it to restore its own health, or even to resurrect some killed creatures. Mana drained is equal to the number of Spectres in the stack, capped to the actual Mana amount of the target. Additionally, as many Spectres are resurrected as the Mana drained (ie. Life drained is up to 19*Mana drained). | Spectre |
| Mana Feed | Creature can transfer its reserve of mana to own hero (activated ability). | Druid Elder |
| Mana Stealer | Creature takes some of the enemy hero's mana at the beginning of combat and transfers it to own hero. The amount of stolen mana depends on the number of creatures. 0.25 Mana are stolen per creature in the stack (rounded). | Familiar |
| Mark Of Fire | When attacking, this creature has a chance of damning the target, resulting in all Fire damage suffered by it being doubled within a certain period of time. The target is damned for 2 turns. | Rune Priest, Rune Patriarch |
| Mechanical | This creature is not alive (like all Golems) and its morale is always neutral. It cannot be affected by Poison-, Blind- or Mind-related magic. These creatures cannot be resurrected or healed by First Aid Tent. | Iron Golem, Steel Golem |
| No Enemy Retaliation | Enemies never retaliate after melee attacks by creatures with this ability. | Cerberus, Vampire, Vampire Lord, Pixie, Sprite, Rakshasa Rani, Rakshasa Raja, Blood Fury, Hydra, Deep Hydra, Air Elemental |
| No Melee Penalty | Shooter has no penalty for damage inflicted during melee attack. | Priest, Inquisitor, Titan, Scout, Assassin, Skirmisher, Zealot |
| No Range Penalty | Shooter has no penalty for damage inflicted during ranged attack, provided the range is over half the arena. | Mage, Archmage, Crossbowman |
| Pack Hunter | When this creature attacks a target, the target is also attacked by all the other stacks of creatures of the same type who are able to do so. "Able to do so" means "adjacent to the target". These secondary attacks occur before the target's retaliation, if any. | Wolf |
| Paw Strike | This creature has a chance of pushing the target one tile aside and cancelling all Initiative the target has accumulated. The chance depends on the number of tiles this creature walked for attack. If the target, once pushed aside, is not adjacent to its attacker, it will not retaliate. If adjacent, however, retaliation is still possible. A Treant entangling enemy stacks can suffer the Initiative drop, but will not be pushed aside (the entangled stacks will remain entangled). | Blackbear Rider |
| Poisonous Attack | In addition to normal damage the enemy attacked will also be poisoned. Poisoning will cause a certain amount of damage during the next three turns. Poison damage is proportional to the number of creatures in the attacking stack (at the time of poisoning). Multiplier is 1 for Assassins and 4 for Manticores. | Assassin, Manticore |
| Precise Shot | When shooting at close range (less than 3 tiles from target), creatures inflict heavier damage because the target's defense is not effective. | Marksman |
| Random Caster | Creature casts a random spell at the selected target. Spells can be cast at both friendly (positive effect spells) and enemy (negative effect spells) creatures (activated ability). Spells are cast with advanced mastery. Djinns cast only level 1-3 Dark Magic curses on enemy troops. Djinn Sultans cast level 1-3 Light Magic blessings on friendly troops as well. Each stack can use 3 such actions. | Djinn, Djinn Sultan |
| Range Penalty | Shooter always inflicts only half the normal damage to the target but doesn't incur any penalty on melee attack. | Scout, Assassin |
| Ranged Retaliation | Creature retaliates after enemy ranged attack with its own ranged attack, provided it is not blocked by enemy and has not used up all its retaliation attacks. | Succubus, Succubus Mistress |
| Rebirth | Once during the combat this creature can rise from the dead if killed. The number of revived creatures equals the number of killed ones. | Phoenix |
| Regeneration | Creature restores its health by 30 - 50 HPs each turn. | Deep Hydra |
| Repair | This creature can repair friendly mechanical creatures (Golems) and war machines once per combat (activated ability). Repaired hit points are equal to 5 times the number of creatures in the repairing stack. | Master Gremlin |
| Resurrect Allies | Creature can resurrect killed allied detachment once during combat, provided the location where the detachment was killed is not occupied by other creatures (activated ability). | Archangel |
| Rider Charge | For each battlefield tile covered by this creature during attack, the target's Defense is reduced by 20% (all the way down to zero). | Dark Raider, Grim Raider |
| Scatter Shot | Area-effect shooting: damage is inflicted to all targets (including friendly creatures) located within the selected area (3 by 3 tiles). The amount of damage inflicted to each creature is half the damage of a normal shot (activated ability). | Archer |
| Shield Allies | All friendly creatures located on neighbouring tiles get only 50% of damage from non-magical shooting attacks. | Squire |
| Shield Wall | Damage suffered by this creature from enemy attack is reduced by 10% for every tile the attacker walked to hit. The maximal reduction is 90%. | Shieldguard |
| Shooter | This creature can inflict damage remotely. When distance to target is longer than half the arena, the target suffers only half the normal damage. Shooter cannot use ranged attack when blocked by enemy creature. If there's no Ammo Cart in the army, the number of shots is limited by available ammo. | Archer, Marksman, Priest, Inquisitor, Succubus, Succubus Mistress, Skeleton Archer, Lich, Archlich, Hunter, Master Hunter, Druid, Druid Elder, Gremlin, Master Gremlin, Mage, Archmage, Titan, Scout, Assassin, Shadow Witch, Shadow Matriarch, Fire Elemental, Spearwielder, Skirmisher, Rune Priest, Rune Patriarch, Crossbowman, Zealot |
| Six-headed attack | Creature attacks all adjacent tiles simultaneously, causing damage to all enemy creatures positioned there. | Deep Hydra |
| Spray Attack | Creature simultaneously attacks three adjacent tiles occupied by the enemy. | Pixie, Sprite |
| Storm Bolt | Once per battle, this creature can attack any chosen target with Storm Strike (activated ability). | Warlord |
| Storm Strike | Besides usual damage, this creature strikes the target with lightning (non-magical damage), which then hits another enemy creature if one is standing near the target, continuing on in this way until the chain is broken. The lighting's force is equal to that of the attack. | Thane, Warlord |
| Strike and Return | Creature attacks and returns to its previous position. | Blood Maiden, Blood Fury |
| Summon Pit Lords | Once during the combat creature can summon Pit Lords to replace its killed friends. Number of Pit Lords summoned depends on the number of creatures who use this ability (activated ability). Provided the dead stack had enough hit points (120 per summoned Pit Lord), up to 2 Pit Lords are summoned for each Archdevil. | Arch Devil |
| Take Roots | When the creature receives the If the hero has the Stand Your Ground ability, the Take Roots bonus is doubled to a +100% Defense increase. | Ancient Treant |
| Taxpayer | Every day the hero gets as many units of gold as there are creatures with this ability in all their armies and castles. | Peasant, Enforcer |
| Teleport | This creature can teleport itself on the battlefield, thus avoiding obstacles. | Devil, Arch Devil, Vampire Lord, Thane, Warlord |
| Three-headed Attack | The creature can attack simultaneously all enemy creatures standing on three adjacent cells. The Cerberus attacks 3 adjacent tiles. The Hydra attacks 6 adjacents tiles. | Cerberus, Hydra |
| TurboBoost | Having succesfully completed OCP (Overweight Creature Program), this creature is now able to move with lightning speed. Some say that this comes with a personality alteration and violent tendencies, but experts are already working on a cure. | Treant, Ancient Treant |
| Undead | This creature is not alive (like all other Necropolis creatures) and its morale is always neutral. It cannot be affected by Poison-, Blind- or Mind-related magic. | Skeleton, Skeleton Archer, Zombie, Plague Zombie, Ghost, Spectre, Vampire, Vampire Lord, Lich, Archlich, Wight, Wraith, Bone Dragon, Spectral Dragon, Death Knight, Mummy |
| Unlimited Retaliation | Creature always retaliates after melee attacks by enemies except when attacked by creatures with No Enemy Retaliation ability. | Griffin, Imperial Griffin, Steel Golem, Earth Elemental, Battle Griffin |
| Vorpal Sword | Each attack or counter-attack by this creature is guaranteed to kill at least one unit in the enemy army. Exactly one more creature is killed (damage is increased by the target's Hit Points). | Pit Lord |
| War Dance Combo | Creature simultaneously attacks enemies located on all eight adjacent tiles. The targeted enemy gets normal damage, all others affected get half the normal damage. | War Dancer |
| Warding Arrows | This creature shoots charmed arrows: in addition to normal damage, there's a chance they might stun the enemy and delay their turn. When stunned, the target gets its ATB value reduced by 0.2. | Master Hunter |
| Weakening Strike | With each successful attack, the attacked enemy's Attack and Defense properties are reduced by 2 units (cannot get below zero). | Plague Zombie |
| Whip Strike | There's a certain chance that during a melee attack this creature will use one of the following spells, in addition to inflicting regular damage: Slow, Weakness or Berserk. (The spell does not work on undead, elemental and mechanical units.) The spell is cast with spell power 3. | Shadow Matriarch |
This information comes from the Heroes V release version (v2.1).
Thanks to sfidanza for the work on this page.
Thanks to ThE_HyDrA for creating and looking after the Heroes 5 section of Age of Heroes!
Creatures Abilities
In Heroes of Might & Magic V, all creatures (with the exception of the Blade Dancer) have one or several special abilities. These are a major part of the richness of the game, and make each creature unique and useful.
Read more introduction to creatures abilities...