Just sharing my thoughts about most powerful hero skills in Heroes of Might and Magic 3 ! In this article, I will be listing my top 5 choices, explaining what they do, their cons, pros and overall efficiency. With the game being released in 1997 - it's no wonder there is a lot of unbalance with some skills being severely overpowered in what they provide and how they break the actual game play. Let's get started
5) Armorer (reduces all damage inflicted against the hero's troops by 5%/10%/15%)
Between Armorer and Offense skills, I had to go with armorer for various reasons, one being that the game is focused on gold and how efficiently you are managing it. With armorer skill your units are less likely to die which means your army stays healthy & strong. Between armorer and offense it's about preference, If someone favors playing Stronghold - they would probably value offense higher. For myself, if the title was "top 6 list" instead of "top 5", I would have placed offense at sixth place therefore, I can't really say which one of those two skills is better or worse. As I said, it's about preference - do you want your units to survive longer? Or do you want them to hit like a truck? Your choice.
On top of high base defense & health, Armorer skills makes Gorgons even more tankier & formidable.
4) Logistics (Increases your hero's movement points over land by 10%/20%/30%)
I know many people would place it first, and righteously so. Since Heroes 3 is a turn based game, its important that you get absolutely the most out of your turn therefore, your movement speed is a major key in victory, especially in early game where you have no access to spells like "Dimension Door" or "Town Portal". Logistics has to be one of the best early game skills and does not lack at all in late game -making it a great overall skill with no flaws, therefore benefiting every hero.
Once the hero runs out of movement, he is out of the turn, logistics allow him to reach farther destinations.
3) Earth Magic (Allows your hero to cast earth spells with reduced cost & maximum effectiveness)
Earth magic is the best kind of magic in Heroes 3. Not only does it have best single target damage spell in "Implosion", It also offers a variety of supporting skills like stone skin, shield or slow. And mass slow is really what makes this school of magic extremely strong, especially in early game - getting fast high level of earth magic allows your hero to slow down all the units, making them easy to kite and restricting their movement which is crucial in a turn based game. Think of it if your chess pieces were limited in their movement.
Implosion deals massive amounts of damage.
2) Diplomacy (Allows you to negotiate with monsters who are weaker than your group, and reduces the cost of surrendering by 20%/40%/60%)
I already mentioned about how the management of gold is most important thing in the game. Well, with diplomacy - it kinda breaks that as you will get random creatures joining you all around the map, with a little bit of snowball effect and time your army gets so huge you can basically split it between all your heroes and capture every mine and castle on the map in no time. The only small disadvantages are that sometimes you will have to pay the monsters to join you, also having creatures from different alignments within your army lowers the morale so you probably will need to swap your equipment for some that offers morale stats. Still these little disadvantages can't even come close to the huge benefits listed above.
Below is a picture of huge army built based on diplomacy. Army is located in the right bottom corner.
1) Necromancy (10%/20%/30% of enemy creatures killed are resurrected)
It is easy to point out what skills are overpowered - What is harder however is deciding which one out of Diplomacy and Necromancy is more overpowered than one other. Today, I'm going with necromancy as the best, most overpowered skill for the following reasons. Compared to diplomacy your army does not need to be strong for you to start rolling with it , In early game you will replenish your losses from battles, slowly after you will get decent enough army to not lose any units and just keep on stacking skeletons every fight. Compared to diplomacy, Necromancy can also be amplified with three artifacts your hero wears and one necropolis town building, the bonus adds up to +40% efficiency of the skill. Also regarding those artifacts, having all three of them turn into a better artifact which allows you to resurrect lichess, by far better creatures, instead of skeletons. This pretty much signals a good game, you just can't lose at that point.
Here is a screenshot from my most recent game, where just by getting vampire lords early, I was sorted for the rest of the game
Also... Is there anything more satisfying than having an army of over 9k skeletons who just crush your enemies with ease?
Bear in mind this is only mine opinion on universal, most useful skills which will always be a solid choice in almost every map. However, there will always be a lot of variables when it comes to things in this game for example - if you were playing on a water-based map, logistics would never come as handy as navigation(movement speed over water). The skills you are using will depend on your play style, town and hero choices obviously, a mage hero will focus more on spells instead of Armorer/Offence.
What skills are your favorite in the game? Which ones do you consider overpowered? Got any heroes 3 stories? Share them in the comments below, I will happily hear what you have to say.
I will also be making more top 5 of my choices regarding things in Heroes 3, so stay tuned!