Heroes 3 Skills Tier List

Every secondary skill in the game analysed to death and ranked, come along and chill with this extended rumination on one of the greatest games of all time!
Check out my HoMM 3 Tier Lists here:
• Heroes 3 Creatures Tie...

[@johanbressendorff6543]

S-tier: Wisdom, logistics, earth, air A-tier: pathfinding, offense, intelligence, tactics, water, fire. B-tier: Scholar, armourer, leadership, diplomacy, necromancy. C-tier: luck, ballistics, estates D-tier sorcery, scouting, resistance E-tier: navigation, artillery, first aid, mysticism. F-tier: eagle eye, learning

[@chuckwood3426]

This is a much better list. The only thing I really disagree with is Scholar being B-tier. The only use case I can think of it is to spread a spell that someone started with to the rest of your heroes.

[@peterruskov]

@@chuckwood3426 Agree, Scholar is F tier for main heroes, it's one tier better for windmill collectors, but still most of the time is very, very situational. I would say Resistance is at worst B tier and best 8th skill for late game. Diplomacy been B tier is just wrong, as said in the video- it's broken, if you play with it then it's better than Logistics. Offense and Armourer are on the same tier and offense is worse if you have more of a ranged army. First aid and Mysticism and Sorcery are F tier with Eagle eye and Learning.

[@johanbressendorff6543]

@@chuckwood3426 Buy Solmyr, Jeddite, Aislyn ao to get resurrection, chainlightning and meteor shower. One hero with eg town portal means all heroes with tp.

[@fredriksk21]

I disagree with ballistics being so low. Yes, it does not make the ballista 100% reliable, but more times than not expert ballistics takes down the gate on the first turn. It may be the case that I've just been lucky with the hits, but based on my experience I'd place it in either B or A, no joke.

[@johanbressendorff6543]

@@fredriksk21 The AI is easy to trick to come outside the walls. Against a human opponent the skill is more useful. In the late game the moat and arrow towers are less significant, thereby limiting the usefullness of the skill.

[@michaelzautner4848]

In regard to the learning skill, because of the exponential growth of experience needs for each level, having expert learning from the start of the game will on average put your hero about 0.75 levels ahead of someone without it. So you're sacrificing 3 levels worth of skill picks to gain less than 1 level more overall than you would have had otherwise.

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks Michael. I think from reading this comment I will never pick it again!

[@chrissmithdoe2100]

falso - consider that it also gives you secondary skill points...

[@michaelzautner4848]

@@chrissmithdoe2100 That is a reasonable point that I didn't really consider. You're still sacrificing 3 skill picks to gain the bonus stats of at best 1 extra level, which I think is usually only a +1 to 1 stat? I could be wrong on that part, but it doesn't seem anywhere close to making up for the expert level skill that you're giving up in exchange. Even if it was 2-3 points worth of stats per level I don't think it'd be close to worth it.

[@pokermonik]

​@@michaelzautner4848imho to make it more viable it should give more exp bonus or every time you lvl theres a 30 40 50% chance to gain random secondary skill.

[@pokermonik]

Its a bummer hota team didnt improve it, alongside eagle eye. They were very fast to nerf diplo loga and buff mysticism. It also would be cool to be able to sum up all war machines skills into 1 slot.

[@Vincrand]

Estates is my first pick for side heroes, but I usually skip it with my main hero.

[@Oll1000]

First aid is only worth a skill slot when you're playing a mod that allows the first aid tent to resurrect dead creatures. In the vanilla game it's F tier exactly because you can use your skill slot for literally anything else besides learning or eagle eye (or navigation for land-only maps) and have a better return on investment.

[@StasionSpasski]

Me: Oh, a heroes 3 tier list video on YT. Can’t wait to see it! *Opens the video and checks the final ranking* *Sees Eagle Eye in S-tier*

[@paulgoes5494]

Me: Regrets thinking anyone would watch to the end

[@StasionSpasski]

@@paulgoes5494 Yeah that was a joke. But still your tier lists are so bad no offense

[@paulgoes5494]

Oh none taken

[@T1nketeus]

Nice trolling with that Eagle eye, you certainly got everyone's attention by doing so. :D I don't feel going too in depth here, but there are couple of things I would like to point out: 1) You are overvaluing Ballistics quite a bit, it's usually seen as one the of the less impactful skills. Sure, it may be irritating to lose troops when taking over castles, but when you really start chasing after the towns, you probably have resurrection spell anyway, so lesser defended towns will have only 1-2 rounds shooting your troops, and when they usually focus fire your shooters, you should just be able to just bring them back with a single cast spell. The more major fights it's obviously different, but by having other all-around good skills such as Offence and Earth magic, the time spent at siege is already greatly reduced, and you still have a great hero against neutral enemies and such. Ballistics on the other hand offer no help outside town battles. 2) Estates is also usually seen as a bit worse skill. For a main hero it's just not worth going for it. There are plenty of money on the map waiting for you to get it, by taking other skills the fights become easier and more accessible, making you have money on much faster rate than the Estates ever can. 3) You were right when you second thought about Learning, it's basically just as bad as Eagle Eye. If you would max out Learning fast, it's worth about one level over the course of game. However, since you've spent three levels at developing learning, you're basically having a +1 on primary stats, but are two secondary skill points "short" when comparing to a hero that would have not gotten learning. To keep it short, Learning isn't just bad, it's actively making your hero worse. Just like with Eagle eye, avoid it at all cost.

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks Tinksu for these thoughts! Ballistics was raised by another commenter also; I always just find it so enabling of compositions that don't feature flying / shooting and the baseline of hitting towers etc always pays a dividend. Respect that view though, also on the other two points - as I said to another commenter I like to start on $0 and Estates is just gimme gimme. Agree it looks a lot better on a B hero than a main.

[@MrKosobi]

Estates are supergood. Free money yes pls.

[@chuckwood3426]

@@MrKosobi Estate is only good in campaign where you can move several heroes to a new map and have them pay of directly from the start of the map. On a single map, by the time you have expert you will probably have all the income you need already.

[@thomashewes5924]

It's amazing on a secondary hero who you dont intend on leveling up very far. Useless on a main hero.

[@fredriksk21]

I know these lists are for SoD, but I'd still like to point out that in HotA Expert Estates give 1000 gold per day. Get that on a side hero early and you're gold. Pun intended.

[@ph4tboy]

Logistics and Pathfinding are S+++ tier. After slogging your way through a mostly swampy map moving only 5 squares per turn for every hero, turning a fun game into a very frustrating one, I can guarantee you would trade a stack of dragons for Expert Pathfinding. Also I agree in the base game, Diplomacy is absolutely broken. It completely snowballs you from early game. Even in late game it's hilarious. Yesterday I had a stack of 1172 stone gargoyles wanting to join me for greater glory.

[@DarkflameEmperor]

Since Might is such a stronger class to Magic in this game, I'd say Armouror is A tier. I think the fact it's a flat reduction is really cool. One of the best specialty traits for a hero is the armour one. Creature survivability is so powerful in this game that the armour really saves a ton of resources if used properly.

[@stevenhenry9605]

I agree about Armorer. Tazar the Beastmaster is ridiculous at high levels.

[@Matthias-pj6th]

The reason why Resistance got banned is real simple: It's a general "Feel Bad" skill. To elaborate, competitive HoMM is often determined by proper use of Spells... So imagine if you're spell fails because Resistance rolled that 30% trigger, now imagine it rolling that 2-3 times in a row. Resistance wasn't banned because it's good/powerful, it's banned because it's bloody *miserable* and makes people feel as if "I won/lost because the game just randomly said I should at the 11th hour."

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey thanks Matthias, helpful insight

[@DarkflameEmperor]

I haven't seen what the resistance specialty hero does. Is it damage reduction from spells or reduced percentage of having the spell affecting creatures?

[@Matthias-pj6th]

@@DarkflameEmperor Resistance Speciality boosts the effect of Resistance by Hero Level as a percentage, I.E. Expert Resistance on a Level 10 Resistance Specialist is a 33% chance (30% x 1.1) to negate spells

[@DarkflameEmperor]

@@Matthias-pj6th So it's a huge issue if heroes ever get high level.

[@petervlcko4858]

@@DarkflameEmperoryou reflect spells like crazy. In original game it was my fav hero for rampart. Unicorn has resist aura to surrounded units and once that hero get to high level your creatures are almost all avoid debuffs. 😊

[@zlosliwa_menda]

Excuse me, how is first aid not rated F? First of all, the bonus only affects the upper limit of healing done, so at expert level the tent heals anywhere between 1 and 100 HP, making it unreliable. It's almost useless in the late and early game. The tent is very easy to kill, too, adding to the reliability issue. Remember that it still uses up one of the 8 skill slots, so having this skill prevents you from getting something better. The skill would have to be redesigned to be useful, like allowing to "ressurect" some amount of HP worth of units per battle, or reducing your losses at the end of battle by 5/10/15% or something. As it is, the skill is garbage 99% of the time.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hi Oddmir, it happened because I rated it first, I needed to come back and sweep through before finalising. I agree it is poor compared to the rest, doesn't deserve that spot.

[@destructionman1]

This skill is useful 1% of the time? I doubt it. 0.0001% of the time, *maybe*.

[@lanychabot-laroche135]

I love the ability of saving fallen units at the end of combat. That would be a very flavorful idea.

[@frankvandorp9732]

@@lanychabot-laroche135 They did this in Heroes 4 with the Resurrection skill, it wouldn't surprise me if that was intended to be an improved First Aid.

[@Emrico35]

EAGLE EYE - S TIER. You're kidding, right? Most useless skill

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Emrico! Yes I am kidding on that one :) Other stuff I'm serious tho

[@bosspoke]

My ranking: Broken tier: - Diplomacy (This skill is just bonkers, and makes the game ridiculous and not really fun. My friend always insisted on using this when we played together. Because I had such a negative attitude about him using it, now he don't want to play heroes 3 anymore) S tier (The skills you just want always): - Logistics (Not discussable. EVERY hero wants this, and you pick it always if offered.) - Earth magic (Amazing on large maps, still strong on small maps assuming you manage to get slow. Extremely good for magic heroes, amazing for might heroes) - Wisdom (Essential on medium - huge maps. But not the greatest on small maps since you won't have time to learn high lvl spells. Probably a B tier or something then) - Necromancy (In the OG before HoTA and before nerf, it basically makes necropolis broken. So I don't get why people rank it lower. I guess on small maps it doesn't get to shine. But the bigger the map, the stronger this one is. Not as broken as Diplomacy granted but very strong) - Air magic (Amazing on large maps though not as amazing as earth. I'd want both to be honest on any hero on large maps. Still pretty strong on small maps. Mass haste is arguably weaker than mass slow, but it is still great. Also very nice utility, and damaging spells. Air magic just has too much to not be an S-tier skill) A tier (Great picks, that you can't go wrong with): - Fire magic (Doesn't give the same map utility as earth and air, or even the same potency in damage spells except firewall. Still, it lets you cast some nasty spells like expert berserk, curse, blind, bloodlust and it strengthens any armageddon squad tactics. Overall a nice school with some good potential) - Water magic (Same as fire in that it doesn't give the same utility as earth and air, and even less effective in the dmg department than fire is. Still, water can be pretty useful with spells like prayer, clone, teleport, bless, dispell, cure, forgetfulness and a couple more. I find that it is exellent with fortress who struggles to approach enemies, and you can just teleport hydras and mighty gorgons around) - Offence (Overall a great skill. Useful to any main hero more or less. S tier with certain heroes like crag hack and other strong attackers) - Armorer (Same as offence. S tier with certain heroes like Mephala and Tazar and other strong defensive heroes) - Resistance (You're going to get use of this not matter what. It is quite handy to resist both offensive utility spells, but even better to resist implosions, chain lightnings, lightning bolts etc. Might also be S-tier situationally) - Leadership (Useful all round. It's effects can be diminished by artifacts and morale buildings, which is the sole reason I don't give it S. - Luck (Can't go wrong) - Tactics (Can't go wrong, amazing for might heroes, still great for magic heroes. Always helpful) - Ballistics (Other people rank it lower, & in this video it is ranked higher. I think it just makes sense to have this on a main hero most of the time.) - Pathfinding (Easily S tier on maps with much swamps/snow. But still quite good if you face some rough terrain, some snow/swamp. It depends alot on your knowledge of the map. If you know you will face a lot of bad terrain, then always take it. If you know you won't. avoid it. If you dont know, then it can be a risky skill to take) - Knowledge (I don't know why I have looked down on this skill. But as a magic hero this will always be useful. As a might hero it can still be a bit useful) B tier (Solid picks, or ocassionally good. Several skills meant for extra heroes fall in here): - Archery (It is A tier or possibly even S tier if you play as tower. Sadly, you won't get it that often with tower. Pretty good still with castle, dungeon and stronghold.) - Artillery (Belongs to B with certain might heroes that have alot of attack, and access to ballista. Still it is pretty niche. Also useful for a stationed hero to control the towers) - Estates (Maybe you would take this on a main hero if the map is very big and you have time to get the pay-off. Must get it early in that case. Still, you'd have to spend 3 skill points to get the value, and it takes up a skill slot. Always nice on additional heroes though) - Scouting (Is it good for a main hero? Maybe a bit, but you'd rather want other skills. But for scouting heroes it is exellent) - Navigation (You want it on main hero if the map is largely made up of water. In that case probably A or even S. Also amazing on a scouting hero if the map has a lot of water treasures. Useless skill on waterless maps). - Sorcery (You may want it on a powerful spellcaster, but that is about it. Even then maybe it just deserves lower ranking. I'm torn between B and C.) C tier (Niche picks, you can do better) - Mysticism (As explained in the video, you can just regain mana by staying in town a day or visiting wells which are fairly common on most maps. But if you don't plan on returning to town any day soon, and there are no other ways to regain mana, then it can be pretty useful) - Scholar (Yeah, on large maps where you can have a hero go around teaching spells it is useful. Do I want my main hero to learn this though? Probably not. Must be a secondary strong hero. It is too niche to be higher up.) D tier (Weak pick, don't do it) - Learning (Only reason it is not F tier is because Loynis who is argubably my favourite castle hero and among favorurite heroes, and Moandor in Necropolis starts with it. It's still an F tier skill, but I put it here so D won't be empty, and also to hype up Loynis and Moandor 🙂 F tier (I never ever pick them. I think they are useless all the time) - First aid (You must have access to a tent. Your tent cannot get destroyed, and it will because it is weak AF. It is super niche in early game to preserve a tier 5-7 stack, but falls off super quick. The heal in mid-late game is insignificant making this a wasted skill) - Eagle eye (Troll skill)

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks Boss! Boss Spoke indeed !! Some great thoughts and insights there I think the one incompatibility is First Aid which as I've said to others I did probably rate too highly

[@derekzicari2181]

I never take morale or luck. They can just be added at map locations and artifacts.

[@adamhero459]

I wish sorcery worked kind of like creature and spell specialities work where it has a higher bonus damage the lower tier the spell. The only spells it really does anything for is chain lightning and implosion. And it doesn’t do much.

[@Simpelicity]

One small thing I would mention, because I don't see it with a quick scan of the comments. Artillery also gives you control over your castle towers, you didn't mention it in your review (maybe didn't consider that part?). It's not a super big thing, but it makes me like the skill a lot more on secondary heroes (which often have the task of defending the castle when necessary). Controlling towers in those cases can make a difference. Doesn't necessarily change the rating a whole bunch, but I would definitely rate it higher than first aid for that reason.

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks Simpel! I actually thought of that after I'd posted the vid. I've fessed to several others I do think First Aid is too high, needed to go back over it all before I finished. Thanks again

[@idr121]

Ballistic is B tier in my opinion. If you are going to do a lot of sieges on a map, it's very valuable, but if the map does not have a lot of towns or if your army composition does not really benefit from it that much - Like the example you gave - If one troop out of the line up benefits from it, it's most likely a waste of a slot. Is it nice to have? Yes, but in a game with lots of very strong skills competing with each other, nice does not cut it in a lot of situations.

[@szachmiszcz5804]

My list: 6 s tier skills You always want to have no matter what: Offence, armorer, logistics, air, earth, wisdom. A tier (some fractions value them some not): Tactics; Fire Magic; Archery; leadership; intelligence; Situational (map;hero that has this ability as his speciality; enemy fraction/main hero to face): watermagic; resistance; pathfinding; navigation; misticysm; balistics; luck; artillery; necro; diplo side hero: earnings; scholar Useless (avoid to make your life better): eagle eye; first aid; sorcery; learning (xd maxed hero is weaker with learning cause of scaling exp to get lvls)

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks for the thoughts! Solid

[@Winnetou17]

Iiinteresting tier list. I have to admit, this is the first video recommended by YT and I haven't watched the other 2 tier lists. But from what I get, this is mainly in the context of single player, random map SoD. I have several things to mention: - for the fire magic, overall I agree the ranking, especially as compared to the other 3 magic skills. But I have to point out that the Blind spell doesn't just receive a cost reduction. On advanced, the blinded creature, if it's awaken by an attack, it will only retaliate with 1/4 of the damage, if I remember correctly, instead of 1/2 damage from normal + basic Blind. On expert Blind, the creature doesn't retaliate at all, which could actually be quite beneficial at times, as it enables attacking with one stack and immediately blinding it back with no damage taken. Also, there's some fun spells in the fire tome. Berserk, of course. But I also like Frenzy. Frenzy + expert fire magic + arch devils can be a deadly combo. On expert Frenzy, each deducted defense give +2 attack. An arch devil has 26 attack and 28 defense. With expert Frenzy it gets to at least 26 + (28 * 2) = 82 attack. And by the time you have these, you probably have at least a level 10 hero with some items, so getting 100 attack with Frenzy is very likely. And having 80 more attack than the target defense gives the maximum benefit from attack of +400% damage aka 5x damage. Quite neat, especially since you can wait with the Arch Devils, go and attack with frenzy and have it gone on the next turn, so you don't really risk getting attacked when you have 0 defense! The problem with fire spells is that the damage ones are actually quite bad, all of them, except of course, Armageddon. And the nice ones come late and are not that easy to get, only Inferno can be sure to get some of them consistently, the rest might not have them at all - it doesn't seem like it impacted that much, but it was mentioned several times and I have to point out that the damage increase for a damage spell from things like expert air magic and expert fire magic and so on is BY FAR the weakest bonus they give. If you want an armageddon build, you'll get sorcery not fire magic. Expert X magic will give between 1 and 2 spell points of bonus damage, and that's it. The 15% sorcery bonus will give much more, unless you have really low spell points (and if that's the case they you shouldn't have picked sorcery). From about 10-15 spell power, the sorcery gets better. - I feel like luck is overrated. The bonus it does is 100% of the base damage, which depending on other stuff, might be just 20-50% of the total damage extra. For example, if you have archery, with luck you'll do 100+150=250% of the original damage, not 150% doubled aka 300%. For an expert artillery ballista, with luck you'll do 300% damage, which is ok, but not amazing. It doesn't help when you overkill, so to speak, but it does help when you'd just kill between half and almost all of a stack, with luck you might get to kill it directly, receiving no retaliation - for both leadership and luck, while they are pretty nice, they're also quite easy to get with artifacts. The +3 maximum is quite low. For luck there's only one debuff in the entire game, the Arch Devils, making it very easy to have it maxed out. There's a high level item that provides +3 to both, effectively cancelling the need for TWO skills at once. You can't have a skill be A tier when you can get it soooo easily from items. And also you cannot have a level A skill that gets cancelled by a rather mundane item (the Spirit of Oppression) - compared to the above, there's no item that gives you the armorer benefit. For that alone, it should be above leadership and luck, IMO. It's also very reliable (vs all non-spell attacks, on all creatures every single time). It compounds with other damage reducing sources, like defense, stone skin and shield, unlike leadership and luck which hit a cap very easily. And maybe out of scope (because niche case, also not a skill you'll going to choose as it's already there), but like Shadow Priest said, armorer specialists are extremely powerful if you get to level them up. If you want a fun ride, play a game starting with Fortress (of course) and Tazar and DO NOT buy a spellbook. You'll be amazed at how well you'll be able to do with absolutely no spell at all! - given how you ranked this, I think scholar should be much lower. Because you ranked mostly on how likely you are going to choose a skill WHEN OFFERED the opportunity (or how happy you are if you were given it by something like a witch hut), for scholar I think this is a flat resounding 0%. If you need a scholar, you'll simply buy a hero that starts with scholar, level him up several times, so it has advanced wisdom and expert scholar and be done with. - learning, unfortunately, is very F tier. The proper learning skill is the one in WoG, when you get a chance to get a primary skill bonus when you level up (like an extra +1 attack, alongside whatever was increased by the level up) and 100-300 XP per day. The math for the SoD version is that usually to level up you need 20% of the current XP. By that metric, with learning you'll be, the vast majority of times, exactly one level ahead that if you haven't picked it up. Given that it occupies a very precious slot and that it needs 2-3 level ups to get it to expert, that's a net loss in the possible things you could've had. For example, instead of a level 21 with expert learning, you could've had a level 20 with advanced anything else. You'll have 1 less primary stat, but a free advanced skill. Learning in this case is only better against fully useless skills like navigation on non water maps and maybe other things like scouting when everything was scouted, eagle eye, diplomacy, leadership when you play with the spirit of oppresion and so on. - the first aid skill scales horribly. It is only useful in the very beggining when you have a high HP unit battling small armies, where you can abuse your high level unit tanking ability. Especially nice with fortress because their defense and armorer make first aid that much better. But once in the mid game, it rarely gets to be impactful, and is too easy to destroy. Because of this, I'd say that it should be lower in the list, it's basically too situational to be useful - I violently disagree with artillery being lower than first aid. Clearly not a skill for everyone but there's too things to mention: Artillery scales MUCH better, unless you somehow gotten on a fortress hero or something and have just too low of an attack. And even in the begging it's not much worse than First Aid, especially if you use Blind and don't want to wake up their last unit too early. Secondly, artillery also gets you to control the castle towers in a town defense. That's also very useful, even without a ballista or on a secondary hero. - I also violently disagree with the estates rating. The free money is of course nice, but it's too little to have it on the important heroes. And very nice on the secondary heroes (and sadly it usually gets offered too rarely). Because it is strictly a secondary-hero-only skill, I would put it to be more middle of the pack - I like how you treated diplomacy and would've done the same with necromancy, especially since in random maps you'll almost guaranteed you cannot learn it on non-undead heroes. In custom maps you can enable it on Witch huts and universities, for example. - I do not violently disagree, but I would argue that intelligence is better than resistance. Of course, for might heroes, the resistance is clearly better. But, intelligence is simply more of an enabler, it helps you (kind of) all the time, while resistance only helps you in battles and when there's an enemy hero and when it casts things on you. Intelligence allows you things like a) always casting your slow/haste and whatever buff spells you want, especially things like ressurection in your daily battles against monsters on the map. Without it you might run out of spell points and have to choose when to cast one or another b) fly and especially dimension door abuse c) summon X elemental abuse and of course have your magic hero still be effective in really long battles (which usually determine the outcome of the game). And intelligence is clearly much better than luck. All in all, with Intelligence you will have a bigger army and a higher level hero by the time you meet one of the enemy heroes, that's why I think it's better Cheers!

[@paulgoes5494]

Winne what can I say, huge contribution here! YT should give out prizes for the most in depth comments! Some very fair points in here, thankyou vm

[@Winnetou17]

@@paulgoes5494 Thank you too!

[@ESOTERiClol]

You literally made me tab out and get upset enough to type out a comment with eagle eye. Then laugh at the last second of the video GG brev

[@mercyfields1382]

Ballistics is bottom of e tier. As close to worthless as it gets. You don't capture towns from breaking walls. You capture because your army had ranged and creatures that cross the walls, spells, morale, high stats and powerful items. Cyclops replace catapult. Earthquake replace catapult. Killing the enemy replaces catapult. Even in a very niche situation when your army is all land walkers no ranged, it's still e tier because how many times a map does ballistics make a factor? You can count less than 10 times, while as how many times did you use wisdom a map, or how many units did Armour save total, or how many times was pathfinder used the whole map. I just view it as the least actual used tool compared to any other ability when you think how many times they are used from beginning to end of map.

[@Tomovanlaanen]

Youre right except for one super important detail. The catapult goes first in seiges which mean you will get to cast first. This is actually a HUGE advantage in competitive play in the right context.

[@mercyfields1382]

@@Tomovanlaanen you are correct. So specifically competitive play I would raise ballistics to mid c tier with the other war machines. I rather have ballistics than first aid but not over artillery. I'm more of a single player random mapper, vs the AI I will say it's e tier

[@TNMJAD]

A lot of hate for Estates here , but I’m with you. I basically get it every single time I can. I used to value leadership and luck more, but you can often get those buffs from artifacts and map locations so I often pass on my main hero. Still good on secondary or defensive hero’s.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey TN - Yes!!! That's another one for Team Estates! Now if I could just get someone to show up to my Ballistics Appreciation Luncheon...

[@petervlcko4858]

@@paulgoes5494i like ballistics. Not always but for barbarians is for me must same like artillery. Not all nations need it. But open gate on first turn and destroy weak mobs there is very nice. If you mix it with tactics and creatures just swarm town aaaahhh what a day.

[@DarkflameEmperor]

Logistics is king! Personally think you could do an artifact ranking but there are artifacts that really break the game so not sure how easy it would be to do a ranking of them.

[@LanceVader]

I agree with most of this. You did a great job, and there's a lot of skills here to talk about. I'd move ballistics down to B+ and first aid down to D- tier. I'm biased towards archers and love the archery skill, so I put that at A. Water school belongs on B- tier unless you have a guarantee of getting prayer, which can kick it up to A+. Obviously Eagle Eye belongs at S+ that's just a given.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Lance! Thanks for the thoughts and support

[@hexagull3169]

I am a little surprised as your positioning of Necromancy - I would say it might well be the most overpowered skill in the game, although maybe I have a bias as my favourite faction is necromancers I generally put more weight on anything that either gives more movement points or gives more value for exisitng movement points, so whilst I would never want a main hero with scouting I find it exceptionally good value on support heros. Always good to see some more stuff on HOMM3 though!

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks for the support Hex! I found Necro very hard to rank as it isn't really choosable

[@hexagull3169]

@@paulgoes5494 no worries! you planning any playthroughs or anything?

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Hex sorry for delay YT doesn't notify of posts in-thread. I have a couple of playthroughs on the channel if you wanna check em out but they are hard work, not sure when I'll do another!

[@certifieddumbass-ee4qg]

I actually want to mention intelligence here, people have already mentioned estates, first aid and ballistics, but intelligence (in SoD) is suuuper S tier, it allows you to outlast all your opponents and lets you explore for far longer before town portaling back to a town to regain mana, think about it like this, offence and armorer represent an advantage of 6 attack or defense respectively, and those are both great A tier skills in my opinion, while intelligence DOUBLES your knowledge, not to mention that knowledge is arguably the best primary skill, it is my personal favorite secondary skill in SoD.

[@paulgoes5494]

Certified - your youtube moniker does not do you justice my friend, thanks for the thoughts! It's great to get upvotes on skills/creatures that the community at large aren't as hot on. For myself it's ballistics - no matter how many comments telling me it's bad I just love it

[@certifieddumbass-ee4qg]

@@paulgoes5494 i have had a few games where i had to take ballistics instead of learning or eagle eye and it has done some pretty good stuff for me, but it's just too situational to me, i don't think it's as bad as people say it is but it's just C tier to me, cause i have had games where ballistics opened the bridge very early or games where it allowed me to cast slow before my opponent and get the first move where i wouldn't have had it otherwise.

[@certifieddumbass-ee4qg]

i also want to mention leadership, a lot of people in this comment section act like it's far worse because of artifacts, but i totally agree with you on it being A tier, it allows you to take units from tons of different towns without too much of a downside, so if you see a lot of dragon fly hives or griffin conservatories you can take those wyverns and angels in your army without getting miss-morales every 3 seconds, and in that way it's a great enabler.

[@robdillenger4763]

Leadership is rated too high because increasing Morale is too easy and automatic. Troops of same alignment for +1, Common/cheap artifacts give +1, (Arch)Angels give +1, Minotaurs have +1, Taverns give +1 (can go to +2 if Castle), Temples give +1/3 for next combat- probably more I'm forgetting. Not only are Golems and undead unaffected, but so are Elementals, AKA 5/7'ths of Conflux units. (Expert) Leadership is often redundant and/or ineffective for your army, unless you're using heavily mixed units with undead. Point is, Leadership probably won't give you its full benefit, especially at max rank. (Expert) Luck applies to all units, and is generally harder to modify with other methods, and easier to maintain. Expert luck? Your luck is set to 12.5% with few or no redunancies or reductions outside fringe cases. Unlike Morale, Luck will benefit your own counterattacks. Luck is also superior if your melee unit is attacking an enemy that can counterattack, letting them deal more damage before being counterattacked. Consider 100 vs 100 melee units dealing 10 damage with 100 hp. Consider the MATH: Case 1, you have high morale, enemy has high luck. 100 troops attack 100 enemies for 1000 damage, killing 10. The enemy stack, reduced to 90, counterattacks and get "Lucky", dealing (90*10*2) damage, killing 18 of your troops. High morale allows your 82 troops to attack again for 820 damage, killing another 8. **You' killed 18 and lost 18.** Case 2, you have luck, enemy has morale. 100 troops attack 100 enemies, getting lucky, dealing (1000*2) damage, killing 20. The enemy stack, reduced to 80, counterattacks, dealing 800 damage and killing 8. **You killed 20 and lost 8.** TL;DR: Luck > Leadership, especially if you're a Castle Might hero. Also: Eagle Eye in the top 4 skills? WOT? Plz tell me ur trollin boyo.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Rob! Excellent analysis there, thankyou. I think you've slapped the gauntlet down on this question of Luck vs Leadership! I know there were a couple of guys arguing Luck is junk and Leadership is 'better' - I seem to be on the optimistic side with both. EE is a suicidal troll by me that I only repent on in the last 2 seconds of the video which no one watches :)

[@TCcollector97]

Alright, you got me hooked on this series. Regardless of opinion, thanks for the content brother!

[@pawegorka8589]

Will the eagle eye be useful if it allows you to learn skills by observing the special abilities of creatures during battle? For example, after a fight in which unicorns took part, you have a chance to invent the "blindness" spell.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey, good idea!

[@frankoraptus4817]

One thing i often do when i get stuck with terrible choises is to choose eagle eye. I have yet to learn a usefull spell with that method, but surely its just a matter of time....

[@paulgoes5494]

If there were Achievements in this game that would be a Platinum one "Learned a useful spell from Eagle Eye"

[@Terminatedd]

Mighty gorgons + armorer specialty + armorer skill = good night

[@autogenes]

great video as always :D

[@unknownus63]

I think with Sorcery the percentage is based on the final damage, not the spell power. Fire Magic I usually always insta pick in hopes of getting Berserk later :D Ballistics I don't like as it's pretty much useless when clearing the map

[@majdavlk649]

a yo, finaly another vanila enjoyer

[@Voremaster420]

Ignore my previous comment today that I deleted. I was coming back to this video and hadn't rewatched it yet. It's really nice seeing content with the vanilla game. Everyone else in the youtube HOMM3 space seem to only be interested in hota and JB. I prefer vanilla so your content is refreshing for that reason as well as the generally just enjoyable presentation

[@Voremaster420]

Would really enjoy seeing more videos about your thoughts in addition to the gameplay videos

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Cassie thanks for the comment!! TBH part of the reason these vids were SoD is that I haven't spent a lot of game time with HotA but I'm getting into it more and more now, especially since so much of the community is that way inclined. At some point I think I'll do a 'HotA Tweaks/additions' vid, building on the existing lists

[@kajubi98]

Luck is way better than morale, striking twice as hard is better than striking two times with single power. In this way you negate retaliation value of the defender. Unless the chances are different, but I think they are not

[@paulgoes5494]

Interesting take Kaj! I wonder if triple-star luck beats triple-star morale but maybe one-star morale beats one-star luck. Someone should do some maths...

[@rensis1621]

There is no way. Leadership gives you chance to block archers, strike without retaliation, cross walls or pull back in a pinch. In HoMM3 movement is king. And maybe most importantly it allows you to mix armies without reprecussions. Also luck doesn't give twice the damage, it's around +30%. If you had picked Luck over Leadership in any other town than Necro you seriously hindered your army.

[@adamross6474]

Mysticism is very valuable in my opinion. Especially when you rely on fly or dimension door. So you don’t get bloody stuck

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Adam yeah I agree - I'm playing HotA at the moment where it is buffed to +5 sp per day for Basic; so so good if there are not a lot of wishing wells around

[@rage9715]

Lexiav and your videos have been great background noise making me want to play this wonderful game again. 1.7.1 hota and my Saturday is free I'll play a few M maps.

[@TheJadeknight7]

Lol, that ending. Good list overall. I agree with most of the choices.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Jade, many thanks!

[@ermelloth8632]

Few corrections from fellow HoMM player with 28-years-long experience (playing HoMM since HMM1 back in 1995 and tried them all, 1-7). Eagle Eye - people in comments below already mentioned it. First Aid is useful only in early game when you have a few high level units; in late game it's pretty useless. Also, the tent itself having just 75 health and no protection kinda lessens its usefullness even more. D-E tiers max. Now... Fire Magic C tier? Mass Berserk is a guaranteed win for 90% of fights if you have it, unless heroes have few artifacts prohibiting it or high resistance which is a rare case. Not to mention Armageddon and expert Blind... S tier for Fire. And at least A for Air (not S cause in most tournament maps and hardcore gaming Dimension Door and Fly are turned off in map editors).

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Ermel! Yeah I am persuaded massively on First Aid it was the first one on the list and I needed to return to it before winding up. Fair vote for fire. Man my 'joke' with EE just did not pay off, watch the last few seconds if you want to see what I mean. Thanks for your other comment and the Sub!!

[@destructionman1]

Not sure how you rank Scouting, Estates, Navigation etc. as can sitll be very useful for your explorer/gatherer heroes.

[@danerobbable]

berzerk ... does it not need to be included just for that?

[@antonl21]

Nice work! I have also watched the creatures/spells tier lists and more or less I agree with you. But here, we have a problem 😁 Even watching the scholar skill icon next to wisdom is painful for me! The scholar skill is ok-ish for a secondary hero (the same goes for estates) but "forbidding" your (might) hero to learn town portal/dimension door/fly on a large or extra large map? Also, is eagle eye S tier ? It's probably the only skill that tempts me to load my last save if my main hero randomly gets it. Honestly, I was sure that it would be a F- in your list 😁 . The AI heroes cast a very limited list of ("basic") spells during each battle, you can't learn any 5th level spells, you can't learn any adventure spells. You have a small chance to learn a spell that you will learn anyway after capturing the enemy's castle. Just to be clear, I don't claim that I am right and you are wrong. For me, the differences might reflect the different playstyle and preferences of each of us :) edit: I wrote this comment before watching the last 3 seconds of the video :D

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Anton! Yeah I'm wondering if that trolling moment I put in there with Eagle Eye will just make everyone angry :) Yes I was torn on what to do with Wisdom - are you ever taking it early / over other stuff - likely not, but you might be desperate to get it as your 7th / 8th if things go a certain way with artifacts etc, so yeah respect all that. Scholar may be too high, you only want one or two heroes at most and you need lots of interfacing for it to pay off. With Estates, all my games start on $0 and I just love the free cash heroes so much :)

[@Fera-gr5mm]

I agree with the commenters that ballistic is not so good, but it is ANNOYING if your opponent has it. At least my strategy for early game is that you bait enemy into attacking your castle (hero out with small army, garrison without hero) and they mostly do not breach the walls before dying.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Fera, thanks for the comment. Of all the three tier list videos and all the disagreements between me and the community, this Ballistics thing is unprecedented! I really thought you'd all agree with me :) I'll have to do a 'Disagreements' video at some point, although that might make certain people madder

[@juliuszsedzikowski]

I think you're really mistaken about a few of these. First Aid tent above Wisdom? For crying out loud, Tent has 75 hp. Luck above armorer? There's a number of Luck artifacts, but nothing reduces damage as well as Armorer, which is the last counted modifier when calculating damage taken.

[@LordDany]

the perfected hero for mage has expert earth, expert air, expert fire, expert wisdom, expert inteligence, expert logistics and expert pathfinder for necromancers of corse expert necromancy , if not go with something like resistance or tactics to play safe if you can pick diplomacy cause it breaks the game hafuieahfiuaehfuaef for might heroes Tactics, Ofence, Logistics, Pathfinder, Earth and air magic, probably diplomacy , you can get effect of leadership and luck from items, so no need for picking them, balistics is also good if you have acess to a balista early game

[@fikujez]

56:30 the FOURTH condition is that they cast a spell that is useful to you (and I think 5th you also need wisdom at the right level?). EE is such trash, I'd love to ask the developers if it was intentional or did they really believe people would pick it.

[@lanychabot-laroche135]

It was already trash in HoMM2, and they brought it back anyway (a tiny bit better), so they must have knew.

[@Owlr4ider]

I'd rank armorer higher than offense for the simple reason that it's not good for all heroes, only melee oriented ones. If your main source of damage is ranged damage(most notably Castle but also Rampart with their amazing Elves) than Offense does very little for you, still something but not nearly as much. Similarly if your main source of damage is magic than you're using your troops for speed and than as meat shields mostly, which again greatly reduces Offense's value. Archery is much better than Offense in the early-mid game for applicable factions, Offense better in mid-late game where archers start to fall off(die too often) and powerhouse melee units come online. Still obviously for might heroes mostly, I guess decent enough for casters as a low priority skill but like a C or D for casters. I also think you needed to make a distinction between mainline skills and throwaway skills. By throwaway skills I mean skills taken on heroes you don't plan to keep in the long term, so you prioritize early game utility skills on them than once those cease to be useful you replace this hero with a better one. Pathfinding, Navigation, Scholar, etc, are all great as throwaway skills but absolutely terrible as mainline skills, as in you never want to be stuck with them on a hero you plan to keep all the way to the end. Also there very much is a reason to pick up more than 1 expert skill. Firstly there are skills like haste, slow, prayer, etc, that you just want to cast once, typically on the first turn of combat, and you really want the mass version of it but than you may want to continue casting spells from another school. Also there's the case of the adventuring spells, most notably town portal which becomes utterly insane with expert earth and is well worth taking for that alone even if you don't have access to many of the good high level earth spells.

[@robertschatz7781]

The usefulness of a skill depends on many factors like whether the hero is a might hero or a magic hero, whether it is a main hero or a secondary hero, as well as on the template, strategy, and the phase of the game. That's why it is difficult to rank them in any meaningful way. On the other hand, your saying that Ballistics, which is used only when sieging a town, is more universal than Earth magic, which is useful in every battle, cracked me up.

[@garylambert477]

So I'm not the only person who still plays this gem

[@petervlcko4858]

It looks like sorcery affects also thunderbirds and fairy dragons. But i want to know if that apply also on Efretty? But maybe no. Idk sorcery is weak but like a specialty for hero i like it. Because its growth is based on your leveling. And as such you can finish with better spell casting ability than heroes whose are specialized in specific spells. Problem with those heroes who specialize in spells is that their speciality work stronger on low level creatures then medium or high level. This also applies to buff spells. Which is good in buffs but not as much in damaging spells. Not sure but I believe that sorcery as special is better in that case. Edit: sorcery have effect on Efretty fire shield and also orb. That means that orb of air + sorcery has also effect on thunderbirds. So there is possibly to grow reflection of fire shield of sultan and spell above. Sultan has 20% and spell on expert 30% as such sultan has with orb 30% and spell 45% and that is without sorcery. Craaaazy. I love it 😊

[@jasontodd8296]

Interesting, but have to disagree with some points. Necro was so OP that Horn of the Abyss nerfed it, and it's still OP, Armourer and Offensive are both S tier, can't believe you gave archery a higher position to Armourer. Ballistics is so situational that a C tier is generous, not S (if you're not in a siege, it's a dead skill slot). Earth and Logistics are both OP, so agree with you there, but swap them, Earth is the most OP, over logistics. Estates is A tier, in HOTA, not the classical Homm3. Mysticism is also much better in HOTA. Putting diplomacy at the rear is weird. It is C tier at least. But once I saw Eagle eye in S tier, I laughed. That useless garbage is the definition of F tier. It's so situational, that it makes Navigation look good on a land map. Really hope you're trolling.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Jase, I shot myself in the foot a bit with Eagle and Diplomacy, you have to watch the whole thing which not a lot of people have time to do. I didn't rate Diplo, and Eagle is just a troll by me :). I'm still really blown away that very few people agree that Ballistics is the bomb (literally). Estates - I only play Impossible and I just find it undoes so much of that early game difficulty, respect your views though man and thanks for the feedback

[@jasontodd8296]

@@paulgoes5494 I mean, Estates is good, on secondary heroes mostly, but for 500 gold a day, it's B tier at best, in HOTA for a 1000 a day, it is A tier. There is a list of changes made to the skills for this unofficial expansion. They addressed much by nerfing OP skills and boosting weak ones (Logistics, Necro and intelligence got cut in half, Estates got doubled and Mysticism got just reworked for 5, 10 and 15 a day mana.) Some other skills, like Resistance and Sorcery could be doubled in effect as well, to make them viable in HOTA at least.

[@transsylvanian9100]

Some very unexpected placements in this tier list. I suppose it reflects the differences in playstyle. My own ranking would be: S - Logistics, Earth Magic, Offense A - Armorer, Air Magic, Leadership B - Water Magic, Wisdom, Fire Magic, Intelligence, Archery C - Artillery, Tactics, Scouting, Pathfinding, Luck D - Sorcery, Resistance, First Aid, Ballistics, Navigation E - Estates, Mysticism, Scholar F - Diplomacy, Learning, Eagle Eye Necromancy i can't really rank because you can never choose it, you either have it or you don't. But i suppose if a Necropolis hero were given the choice to unlearn it i would rank it around lower A tier. You can succeed with Necropolis without it, but it's better to have than not. And obviously Pathfinding and Navigation would rank much higher on certain maps. You do not want to be playing on a map with large swamps without Pathfinding, and same with Navigation on maps that are mostly water. In those cases these skills will go up by two or three tiers. Finally, the ranking will also be different for non-main heroes on which skills like Estates and Scholar become much more attractive.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hi Trans thanks for these and your Creatures comments! It looks here like we agree on a fair bit - I wonder is Eagle Eye your main beef and if so did you watch all the way to the end :). Respect your views on the Creatures as well thanks again

[@transsylvanian9100]

​​@@paulgoes5494 No, i caught the little Eagle Eye troll, that was nicely done. The only major issue i had was the placement of Ballistics, but there are a lot of smaller disagreements that tend to add up. For instance you value Tactics, Estates, Resistance and First Aid higher than i do, whereas i seem to like Offense, Armorer, Artillery (we both have it in the same tier but i mean relative to the other skills since i have filled out the lower tiers a bit more) and Wisdom more than you do. I can't say that you're wrong though, everyone has their own playstyle.

[@JackTheNoober]

Tactics C? :o Agree with most but I'd rate tactics higher.

[@rodrigobueno8652]

Diplomacy can be really good in some maps,i wil never put it and learning in F lol I prefer learning than navigaton,scouting and first aid any day

[@transsylvanian9100]

@@JackTheNoober Tactics can be very powerful and you can do some cheesy stuff with it but the reason i rated it so low is because it just annoys me. It is a skill i personally always avoid because i find it tedious and repetitive to have the game go into the Tactics phase before every battle. There are way too many battles where you don't need to use Tactics. I hate having to click skip every time. Also, it would be way more useful if you could see the enemy's army while you're setting up.

[@arthurmarkiv8773]

I prioritise offense as s rank often cause you will lose melee attacks a lot in any case so having 1.15 multiplier is like having more creatures in your army during offense. Eagle eye i use almost never though. It's a very niche skill that you need only if there are not many spells available to your part of the map and you lost lottery in your main city or real bad luck with rare resource distributionin your staring sector(s). If you have 3+ cities you usually get majority of spells you might get through enemy anyway.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Arthur! Thanks for the comments. EE is F tier I was just trolling :)

[@redranger8107]

The 8 Skills I want the most in Expert of course: Earth Magic, Wisdom, Intelligence, Tactics; Logistics, Leadership; Those 6 if can choose them I pick them as the other 2 would be with overlap among 5 pending do I get them or not: Air Magic, Water Magic, Luck, Armor and Ballistics. Those 5 can go in the extra 2 slots seldom get the same ones, had maps where had Earth/Air and Water before; Expert Water saved me before defending a Castle with expert Cure. Fire Magic of the 100's maps done; maybe 5 times it was useful Expert think once last Skill slot between Fire and Sorcery and never got lucky other 3 then better to have Fire something than nothing. Earth=S then Air=A then Water=B and Fire=C would make more sense. The bottom 3 can be in F easy; then Scouting/Navigation can be the E. Then First Aid; Scholar and Artillery can be in D. Offense+Restience can be C for me. The S can be Earth Magic, Intelligence, Tactics; Logistics, as more spell points more Town Portals. Ballistics is just A for me like Leadership and Wisdom as well. Armor is B for me and better than Offense due to Experience long ago I atked their tough hero with 20 something Defense Skill and I had under 5 and could not dent them yet had more troops. Offense does squat all to a strong Defense. I lost and failed the atk badly; if don't lose will lose 75-90% of my troops to a strong D just to win. I go Defense over Offense. If even choice have 5 ATK and 25 D or 15 of each I pick the 25 D. First Aid might have helped a bit more than Fire does; recall from memory a map it saved me from the fight to win but problem is typically does not help the 99% time had it. Diplomacy is fun often ends u got 7 skills choice that or a worse one I pick it. 4,000 units is the cap a Legion grows too it is fun taking my time on a map and 4,000 join me :) Estates out of 8 Heroes the ones not going to try to be on Combat too much can have it when I take it. Learning yes only good early on but not even that good really. Mysticism you basically have to make a map where it shines to make it actually good to use; one where you need to have the Castle to capture XL other side of the map with a maze where no Well's and that stuff and when you go through a portal you can return back to your castle. Then it is a skill you want. The Rampart Castle Hero who would benefit to both on the map even with Town Portal you Choose never underestimate the power of such a high level where you could walk a week in 1 day is very powerful for DD as well; being able to strike the entire map from near anywhere is something only a Veteran would be able to pull off...Could speed it up making a map too would be interesting to see how much could I exploit it maybe one day; know the kind of map needing that Hero Location to get Level 0 if not mistaken after 99 resets to 0.

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks for the thoughts Red!

[@sdgc8667]

I'm not positive on this but HOMM3 complete seems to rig diplomacy for the computer opponents at certain difficulties, they will get just about the same # of enemy groups joining them

[@markchaney4469]

Loved this game miss it

[@armouredarchives8867]

seems to be a troll i guess, or a single-player easy-only player. The eagle eye is considered the most useless skill in the game, and wisdom/earth is OP for the town portal on bigger maps. fire is rubbish, - berserk can ruin your whole day easily - esp PVE. ballistics can get knocked down a few pegs. very situational, as quite often its easier to kill ranged defenders, and force them out. air/earth are always top tier, haste/slow mass can win or lose battles. tactics is also very good, esp with offence/melee classes like crag hack etc, straight into choppy range. or if defensive to bubble around archer stacks etc if needed - risky but saves archers. diplomacy can be god tier and is IMHO worth getting, esp on bigger maps, a single stack joining you can steamroll and before long most creatures join up and you can have a beeline towards the enemy on week1-2 with a large army. finally, necromancy is arguably one if not the best skill sin the game, and like diplomacy once leveled up with a few artifacts can see legions of skeletons very quickly

[@furioni333]

Yeah, I prefer vanilla too. I'm a basic boy, and I love it.

[@LordDany]

expert fire at least on shadow of death can win unwinable games by going berserk its a freaking game breaking spells it has its weaknesses on creatures that are imune to mind effects but even then its a thing you can solve by burning them with armagedon if you cant berserk them =/

[@NieJestemWikingiem]

We just started watching ekth my gf but DID YOU KNOW that armor skill is bugged without community patches? When you are attacking the castle, then it makes your resistence flr damage lower and you take much more damage!

[@paulgoes5494]

I'd never heard of that bug! It looks like it's just the arrow tower but still very annoying :)

[@truckersforfreedom4535]

Intelligence only a B? hmm. since many battles are determined mostly by spells i think in Heroes 3 spells are more important than creatures so inteligence which doubles the number of spells casted is super important. Early game too because you dont have many points and late game where the battles are long.

[@truckersforfreedom4535]

Balistics is not quite S in general, its good sure because sometimes the ranged atackers of the castles do insane damage and also you want to tear down walls efficiently. But its not an S, why? Because some scenarios dont have so many towns. Second, because the opponent doesnt have a strong castle with high damage. Third, you have plenty of mobility to jump over castle walls. Also the disadvantage of balistas is that they are only usefull when atacking towns which is only like half of heroes. Balistas are not decisive for a castle siege in most cases. Sure, if you have expert balista you will shoot first with the balista and also be able to cast a spell and the first person being able to do this has an advantage, but its not like a huge advantage. Also Balistics take up space of one skill. Lets say for example instead of Balistics you have sorcery. some people say sorcery is weak only 15%. Yeah but it also affects animate dead for example or resurection, you have +15% more power. And since in heroes 3 many battles are decided by spells mostly it counts, especially in the late game to be able to resurect or animate dead like crazy. So definitely sorcery is not an E while Balistics is a S.

[@Tibor0803]

When it comes to my games, Estates belongs to S tier. Especially if we take a look at Hota Estates. Holy Jesus, 1K Gold per day on heroes knowing Expert Estates. Hell yeah! Greatly helping me out in my economy of my kingdom.

[@paulgoes5494]

Savage thankyou for the upvote in Estates! You're the only one who agrees with me so far :) I had no idea HotA was so generous with it!!

[@Voremaster420]

Maybe this is just cuz I prefer might heroes but I feel like tactics is an easy S. It's a free turn of movement in combat, essentially. Even for magic heroes it's great because it helps you minimize what the opponents troops can do, so you have more leeway with your spells. I'd move that and estates up tbh. Estates should still be higher though as tactics is only good on main heroes and estates is always good on every hero

[@Voremaster420]

I agree with your catapult tbh. Unless you had the good fortune to be able to minmax into range or damaging spells or fliers enough to win a siege by one of those alone then catapult is amazing. PvP sieges are extremely difficult and any bonus to doing them is an instant grab from me

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Vore thanks for the upvotes on those ones! I think that makes 2 of us in the whole community who thinks Ballistics deserves the spot :)

[@sdrakkon2k]

i think you should go back and try to evaluate diplomacy, its really a special skill. great list though, enjoyed listening!

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks drak! I intentionally didn't rate it as it is beyond S and I never take it as it ruins the game (for me)

[@doctorlolchicken7478]

I like the ranking. I generally agree and the reasoning makes sense. The only skills that make groan when offered them are scouting, learning and eagle eye. I always take logistics, pathfinding, tactics, offense and armor. Like all community patches there are always things where I think the changes are just someone’s preference rather than universal truth. Diplomacy I agree with, although I would just make it less effective. Resistance just feels like a preference from someone who likes damage spells - I don’t see why it should be removed. Also, why is logistics nerfed, but mass slow isn’t. My point is, some broken items are changed, some are not, and it seems rather arbitrary. It’s not a big deal, and this happens with the community patch for every game that has one.

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks Doc for the thoughts! Agree with the point about the patch; for example surely we can make Eagle Eye do something! I think in WoG they've gone a lot further but I just couldn't get immersed in it whenever I've tried, unlike HotA which feels like a completely legit expansion as though it was made by NWC

[@certifieddumbass-ee4qg]

in horn of the abyss slow was decently nerfed, now after halfing the movement speed it adds 1, so it has less of a dramatic effect on slower units, but it is still too strong, the problem is just that it will be terrible if nerfed even slightly too heavily, it's just too hard too balance.

[@rodrigobueno8652]

Air magic is extremly powerfull outisde of combat with expert wisdom, fly and expert dimension door make the hero extemly mobile ,just it is reason enough to me to give expert air amgic and expert earth to all my mages

[@RainbowTrainStation]

Haste

[@rodrigobueno8652]

@@RainbowTrainStation mass haste is good too, but i think mass praer has the same efect ,idk if they stack

[@dujikasda2451]

@@rodrigobueno8652 They stack

[@dujikasda2451]

Problem with air magic that fly and dimension door are banned in most maps so i find Air magic to be worse than Water magic because only spell you have to have in air magic is mass haste, everything else you can do without.

[@rodrigobueno8652]

@@dujikasda2451 well i don't paly multiplayr often, i usually paly ndom maps agiasnt pc, still good in cmapaing mode or sinlge player But yeah with then banned air magic is less good

[@TCcollector97]

Just wait til the very end... I was like... eagle eye S tier!? Wtf... lol, EE is always trash. Glad you corrected that with a bit of humor. 😂

[@damonblack1495]

I agree with everything except Ballistics. And maybe have Scholar slightly lower. Ballistics may enable certain play styles and compositions but I think there are other things that do it better. Ress, Teleport or even direct spell damage all seem like better ways to handle sieges to me. I think it's pretty niche. But as a player who also enjoys the vanilla game at high difficulties I totally know where you are coming from with Estates. I know the community doesn't think much of it but I take it almost always. I would even put it in S tier.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey thanks Damon for the comments and yeah I seem to be the only one who loves Ballistics! Good to get some support in there for Estates - the next run I'm recording is HotA where Estates is buffed 2x!! So it will be ridiculous for me if I can get it early :)

[@damonblack1495]

@@paulgoes5494 I will have to check it out then. When I have tried to play HotA in the past it's really laggy for whatever reason. So I don't know much about it. But Estates being buffed to double the effect sounds crazy good!

[@truckersforfreedom4535]

Learning an E? No way. Because with each level up you get one point of defense, offense...Lets say everything is in offense, the learning gives you 25% more offense points which doesnt seem too great but if you couple it with other skills like offense it can stack up. But yes the points are not distributed only in offense so its more of a diluted pool. Still, you can level up all your expert skils 25% faster which means learning is perfect for a shorter game. So this is another bonus. So already learning for example is better than offense because it has aproximately the same offense bonus (overall) for example AND it gets you to expert level 25% faster which is an increase. Sure in longer games Learning diminishes its effect but certainly is not a B.

[@benignmalign]

Ok we got trolled😂

[@lachlank.8270]

Diplomancy + Leadership together can enable the degenerate tactic of recruiting all the neutral monsters while mitigating the mixed troop negative morale penalty But it's dumb ❤

[@paulgoes5494]

Yeah, mean tactic there!

[@lachlank.8270]

​@@paulgoes5494 also always felt Eagle Eye was terrible somehow even when i played as a kid, glad to have confirmation from an outside source 😂

[@Emrico35]

Ballistics S, are you kidding me?? Necromancy should be ''S''!

[@Fera-gr5mm]

I think if you rate necro similar to wisdom (heroes which do not start with it), then getting it would be actually B tier... good to make skeletons, but they are slow and do not synergize.

[@HuyNguyen-jl7go]

Necro S ?? Have fun farming with AI

[@paulgoes5494]

Fair enough Emrico

[@SinSorrowEU]

And in multiplayer?

[@paulgoes5494]

Kaspar I'm more a PvE guy but might update it one day for Multi if I can get playing that more

[@johanbressendorff6543]

Intelligence i A tier and best for might heroes. THEY need the spell points.

[@DarkflameEmperor]

Logistics is really good but I think for movement you really should measure Air Magic and Earth Magic at the same level. Being able to teleport around the map vs the ability to move 30% more is a debate one can have. I personally feel like Logistics is better early game, Air Magic mid game, and Earth Magic is key to winning in the endgame. Able to build up your army with your four castles in one turn is just so good.

[@DarkflameEmperor]

Intelligence is great if you use a specialty hero for it. That one from Inferno comes to mind.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Ethan thanks for these and your other comments!

[@DarkflameEmperor]

@@paulgoes5494 Oh anytime! I played this game when I was seven or so (Heroes 2) and they never get old in some respects!

[@TheKarantan]

hahhaha epic ending :D

[@Red_Gokussj]

Eagle eye needs it's own ranking, g..... for garbage

[@Wolfman77ovedrevl]

Hi good sir. You should redo this list with the HotA mod, because there is major changes to many of the skills by that mod. F.ex logistics is nerfed hard and is no longer a S-tier skill. And for some reason you had First Aid in high C tier in original version, so you should be pleased with the increase they have done to it in HotA.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Wolfman yeah I may do at some point

[@rensis1621]

There are some weird pickings here, that I cannot with good conscience justify with playstyle differences. Offence objectively one of the best skills in the game, even with a magic hero if it rolls get it. Luck can be easily made redundant with items, +luck artifacts are probably the most available items in game. Maybe in HotA, where negative luck comes into play I can accept B tier, but placing it on the same level as skills like Armorer is just wrong. And again Archery on same tier as Armorer? I don't know. Maybe for Tower or if you have the +X% Archery artifacts, but otherwise... Armorer is an all around useful skill to have that affects all units while Archery is only good for a select few units that are usually either blocked, blinded or sniped. I think it is good on B tier but Armorer should be at least top A tier, while Offence is no question S. Artillery also empowers your towers and gives you manual control over them which is huge in a siege, and an endgame ballista can take down dragons. I don't say it is a must-have skill, but on the same level as a trash skill like First-aid... There is just no way. I also don't agree with Ballistics on S tier. Ballistics doesn't come to play in 80% of your fights and even then it is somewhat unreliable. Its biggest advantage is that it gives you first cast during sieges and that alone doesn't justify top scores. Teleport, Earthquake and strong flyers work much better during a siege.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Rensis! Thanks for the thoughts, I think your views are shared pretty widely. Your take on Artillery is a new one though, most feedback I've had is that I overrated it. With Ballistics it's me vs the world it seems! Why waste your one precious spell per turn earthquaking / porting? I love the always-first-turn effect, I love cancelling towers out in a long fight, etc etc I just love it. But like I say, I'm almost alone on that one :)

[@spineal]

two of your S tear are really situational. How many town or heros you are fithing. Eagel eye is usually usless skill, you can find the spels you need... so both Balistia and Eagal should be right nex to the navigation.

[@paulgoes5494]

I need a sticky reply that EE is a troll

[@DuelistFencing]

I really disagree with with first aid being that high up, it would be E tier for me. I would only find it a bit useful in the early to mid game when damage done is not that high yet, but later on when you have large stacks of units it just doesn't seem like it makes a good enough impact to be worth taking up a skill slot. So I never take First Aid.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Duelist that's fair enough, think I agree it came out too high in the end

[@andrzejwilk7316]

honest question to whoever made it into the comment section: is it just my YT feed, or is HOMM3 going through a renaissance?

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Andrzej yes - the dawn of a new age is beginning! YT did this weird thing in mid May where all my H3 content just started getting way more exposure (like 10x). It's not because the vids are that great (necessarily), just the algorithm testing themes out and it seems H3 is in season at the moment

[@dalloszsolti]

Why would you waste a slot for Estates on any of your top heroes? Put this on a third tier hero, and you get the same result without weakening your main forces. On the other hand, I have found Scholar surprisingly useful both early and late stages of the game. You don't have to take all your heroes to all towns just to learn crucial spells, it is enough to make them meet at any point of the map, so they can exchange spells.

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks Dallos! I still can't help myself taking Estates man even on my main man / lady! I'm playing a HotA run at the moment where the effect of the skill is doubled and I just love it even more. Agree with you on scholar I've found it very handy over the years!

[@radivel1]

Ballistics - isn't needed, particularly late game when the arrow shots don't actually kill any noteworthy amount of your army. Early on, your opposing towns often don't have arrow towers anyway so you can just sit and wait them out. Estates - is spectacular at the start of the game because you need money so badly, but later on, you'll be wishing you could get rid of it for that missing Expert Air. Sorcery - You probably take it for a damage mage. It counters their Armor and even a weak Implosion will get a huge bonus from +15%. Eagle Eye - This guy is obviously trolling... but he did think that Ballistics was the 2nd best skill in the game, better than Earth Magic, so... uh... maybe.. uh.....

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey DM! Respect those views. I've had a couple of people agree on Estates and Ballistics but most disagree - and I wasn't joking with those; EE yes that was a troll but you have to watch to the very end for that (also Diplo gets no rating).

[@RainbowTrainStation]

Seeing Ballistics in S tier nearly made me go ballistic. Choose between Earth Magic and Ballistics. 100% of the time, Earth Magic. Ignoring mass slow, town portal, implosion... Even just earthquake completely invalidates Ballistics (except maybe the immediate turn from the catapult). Resurrection also completely invalidates losses from the castle towers too. I'm frankly convinced that any late-game hero NEEDS Wisdom, Air Magic, and Earth Magic to be viable in combat and overland.

[@jt5765]

I think its pretty ridiculous whining about Diplomacy breaking the game when expert earth magic & spells like town portal get used so wantonly. I always though sorcery was 30% at expert level too but must be mistaken.

[@spineal]

and money are onle good in secondary heroes

[@victorhbrasil]

how people play this at a competitive level? the game is in steam, or something?

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Victor, you need to play on the Horn of the Abyss community expansion version

[@BasileusDudek]

I value less air magic and fire magic, as I never use fly or dimension door, and also I do not use berserk, ever. I think of it as cheating* because AI can't or does not know how to defend itself against it (*like that hiding behind a force field) so, I rarely choose fire magic -only if it is last skill and other offered is eagle eye/other skills of rank D or under, and I only take air if I have no water magic, but even then, I'd rather have tactics, intelligence, offence or armorer... also, I might say these days I rarely play vanilla random maps, I play WOG's, where every "useless" skill has a new value and worth. like eagle eye, that gives spell on each level up, so my Gundula may learn Resurrection and Town portal, or other lvl4 spell on expert; but hey, everyone likes to play by his own rules, I like it extra large, extra long (8+ months), extra tough and extra fun :)

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Ivan! Thanks for the comment. My main objective also is to a get a big deep and difficult game going but I have this nostalgia thing that keeps me clinging to SoD, so much that even small changes in the UI offend my brain. I might try a HoTA run again next and try to bridge over I'm also a fan of self-rules, I was thinking about next time also banning myself from buying any creatures on Day 1 each week and also banning Town Portal. Are you saying you never cast Fly / DD / TP - what about Water Walk, and don't the WOG changes make it so you can't steal artifacts (you're saying still too good)? I'd be keen to know what config you use to get that 'perfect' game - Large or X-Large, how many opponents, and FFA or 1v7, islands/underground on, monster strength and difficulty?

[@BasileusDudek]

​@@paulgoes5494 I play wog 358 version; instaled on vanilla CD versions RoE+AB+SoD (Heroes living just copy pasted through computers since I installed it, omg 20 years ago ?) first to explain WOG addons in options, there are so many of it that it is nothing like "original" gameplay, -and I never use them all, only the ones I like and there is no great impact to original enjoyment only tweaks I'll try to make it brief; the first options are about the maps and hard coded stuff, like I enable town rename, hero rename, right click leave troops... then map options, I enable "all towns no fort" + "only human and neutrals no fort", also replace most dragon hives/cartographers, select neutral town types... and so on... examples i.imgur.com/0zb9Jzm.jpg i.imgur.com/7JnhMAC.jpg i.imgur.com/hBI66YM.jpg i.imgur.com/QD1Bmtd.jpg i.imgur.com/JMx6lYp.jpg i.imgur.com/0WovfKc.jpg ingame I play random XL map, subterain, water none, creatures strong (wog adds more to stacks), all players -teams I select during map generation via wog options normaly I would do 1 vs 7, but as I saw, they became/become very weak as they gain no exp -large army heroes but low level; that's why I select 5 teams, of all alignments; 1 me green, 2 pink (always confl), 3 red blue (infer/tow) 4 tan teal (ramp/dun) 5 orang purp (cast/random or both random) *in wog computer necro is kinda weak, so no necr *no computer player town same as me *no neutral same as me *I play conf only if I get it on random *there are many utopias on maps, so I could get air book, but I will only use it if there is no passable terrain to reach my opponents I also select that each month one can revisit cripts/dwarfs/nagas/utopias that contains extra monsters..... for computers to get more xp and artifacts like Goku, I like my enemies at their strongest :D to conclude; I am not a supreme Heroes player, maybe not even a very good one, I play for fun, and these maps last for months as I play slow, very slow, 3-5 turns per day or week; if I feel overpowered I dismiss or leave strongest forces and charge for the most buffed enemy hero there is, or just quit and start another one PS I even played wogified campaigns Roe,AB and SoD, with lowest possible options enabled as some of them can make the scenario impossible to finish yea, finishing them, that was eeevil awesome, AB gelu was extra tough PPS I have never played Horn of the Abyss, and I never will, because what I saw there, I do not like. I mean, it is probably a great game, but for me it is not Heroes 3 "universe" :)

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks Ivan, really appreciate you tapping that out for me; I'm getting some great insights here in these comments sections. My next run will be HotA but I might look to Wogify the one after that, see how it plays; thanks again.

[@BasileusDudek]

@@paulgoes5494 be careful, you might never want to go back to "the old ways" 🙂 simple advice, if you do wogify, play test the options few times on easy diff, month 3 is fast enough, just to see how it works *screenshots of options are mine for hot-seat/multiplayer random map game I'd play with my brother

[@paulgoes5494]

thanks again, sound advice

[@majdavlk649]

6:45 armorer is additive with defense no? so magic heroes block more damage than might heroes. same reasoning for armorer

[@paulgoes5494]

Yeah I believe that is right

[@Almsberg]

Im a happy hobby player and the worse skills is ballistic and its not even close. Logistic and wisdom 1 and 2 followef by earth magic 3. Clearly u know alot more but why do u think have come to this ranking conclusion, what am I missing?

[@paulgoes5494]

Martin thanks for the comment. At first glance I thought Aaron Paul was commenting on my channel but then I looked closer - I was watching him in Black Mirror last night. Anyway to answer your question, I simply don't know why I am the only person anywhere who loves Ballistics, like you - everyone else thinks it is terrible! In my games, it always pays a dividend; letting me go first in sieges every time no matter what, target down the gate and get it open early, kill that tower as it's going to be a long fight etc. By having Ballistics I also get the option of running ground-guy only armies - I don't have to pair this particular hero with this particular army etc. Others keep saying earthquake is better but for me it isn't; it wastes a casting turn and doesn't guarantee a gate opening. But the internet has spoken man and I'm definitely pretty much all alone on this one :)

[@Almsberg]

@@paulgoes5494 haha well we all cant have type of playing, wouldnt be as fun then. At what point can u actually target a specific place on their wall? Cause when i do it, its not as random but its still not always 100% where I want it to hit.

[@paulgoes5494]

Yeah the accuracy is not 100%. But you get two shots at higher accuracy and if picking the gate, on Expert, I find that it'll often open right there on your first turn

[@klausheino6986]

Eagle Eye on tier S? I wa about to write you a looooooong essey how you are incorrect but then heard what you said at the end. 😂😂 I love diplomacy though even if it is broken. In one late game I had a powerful army and saw a horde of red dragons spawned randomly on map. I just wanted how the fight would go, saved my game and engaged and it appeares that they wanted to join instead and I gladly picked them up. 92 red dragons for free! I felt overwhelming joy but then I saw something even better - another random horde of red dragons and even bigger group of them guarding a dragon castle. I assimilated the tinier group and with them I was strong enough to pick the bigger group and take control of the Dragon Castle. At the end of the turn I had almost 400 dragons in my army.😂😂😂

[@paulgoes5494]

Klaus thanks for that and thanks for actually watching the video before just clicking dislike as I think many did! Not sure it was a good idea for me to do that troll but couldn't resist :)

[@PeilerxD]

​@@paulgoes5494 well i liked the idea, it was funny and btw great video 👍

[@MarDuke2004]

Think that the tier list is highly dependent on way you play game. For example i usually play xl with underground maps, so i highly value logistics, earth and air, offense and armour. Necro and diplo ar just broken in this type of games so i usually avoid them. Ballistics and first aid are so low value i just avoid them. Eagle eye, scouting, learning are a total waste, especially when you go to late game play with dimension door, fly and tp. On small and medium maps, i would completely take different skills as their power spike is completely different. And wisdom is mandatory skill, you cannot play without it in my opinion. Tactics is really good vs AI, must have for minimal losses, ok in human vs human

[@paulgoes5494]

Thanks for the thoughts Sandu! Respect those views much appreciated; definitely agree the rankings are contextual - I too prefer L/XL with UG on so that's where my views are coming from. Had big utility from early expert scouting actually though in my last run; always exceptions that crop up! (except Eagle Eye of course)

[@aaronst.pierre3080]

Air is better than a B for sure. Morale is definitely S-tier. Diplomacy is obviously an S Eagle Eye is one of the worst skills in the game.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hey Aaron, thanks just to note you have to watch to the end with Diplo and EE. I didn't rate Diplo as I ban myself from taking it, and EE is really an F - I was just being a jerk :)

[@truckersforfreedom4535]

Estates is not really that great except if you are on a map with very low resources. Even in hard hard maps you can get your town to 2000 gold per day quite easy. And then estates is just 500 out of 2000 which is just 25%. Considering you get to expert estates fast. If you dont get fast youll get to expert estates around when you get to 4000 gold a day...and then estates is just 1/8th of a daily income, low, not worth it too much. So estates is certainly not an S

[@Pedgo1986]

On primary hero is F but on secondary it start to make sense esspecialy if you pick it early as possible even buy hero with estate specialization in few turns it will pay off.

[@taylorwhite3636]

S tier eagle eye?!

[@paulgoes5494]

No not really :)

[@CinnamonKilljoy]

Learning is my last choice of skill except in ONE circumstance; choose between Learning and Navigation, and there's no water on the map. It's complete junk. By level 25, if you maxed Learning as fast as possible, you'd be level 26 instead... Immediate skip. I get more out of Eagle Eye, frankly.

[@shadowpriest2574]

I am sorry , but what the hell is this tier list?? How do you play this game that Eagle eye and balistics is S tier? IDK what lvl of a player you are, but there are some skills that are always garbage that you placed high, like First Aid, Eagle Eye, Balistics, Artilery, Leadership, and Luck do not deserve to be there at all. Other than Leadership, all of those skills are pointless. Like for example, why would leadership be above offense? Offense is 30% more damage guaranteed while leadership is 100% more damage 12.5% of the times. Also, armorer in B when armorer specialists are some of the most broken heroes in the game?

[@paulgoes5494]

Hi Shadow, I couldn't resist trolling with Eagle Eye, sorry. If you watch the very end I repent - it is of course an F :). Respect your views on the other stuff! I like Leadership a lot because it creates more unfair situations than Offense; in a close fight for example where every move is impactful, having it trigger on ranged units etc. Just to highlight as well this is SoD in case that's a factor.

[@shadowpriest2574]

@@paulgoes5494 For Eagle eye, sure, however what about the others? What is your skill lvl and in what circumstances are you playing the game? Maybe that would clarify why you think that those skills are good. For example, a map I rly like to play a lot is "Barren Lands" in Hota, and there, Pathfinding, Fire Magic and Navigation are top tier, same for some other skills like Water Magic and Mysticism are also higher priority. Is this tier list for the game in general, or for something in particular? Because I would understand it more if it was for a more particular case, however, for the normal game, this tier list is all over the place. Air Magic should be higher, since it gives you DD and Fly, and those 2 spells can end games rather quickly, on for example, randomly generated maps. Adittionally, Intelligence in SOD, is also amazing. No way it should be around things like Luck, Rezistence and Archery.

[@paulgoes5494]

Shadow not sure how best to answer each other than what I say in the vid - I play mainly random maps, Impossible diff, SoD where you have to make your composition on the fly based on what's around you. There will always be differences of view though :)

[@pablolongobardi7240]

@@paulgoes5494 but also, learning is the only skill that competes with eagle eye for the worst spot. Sorcery is not very useful but adds up, it doesn't increase the spell power but the dmg, and a lot of spells have a pretty decent base dmg, even more if you have the magic type. Artillery is only decent for a hero that has it as a specialty, I would go even further and say only good for the barbarian that starts with it. States is only even an option for a secondary hero that will spend most days in a city, seriously an a? I mean, those are 3 levels you have to spend before getting to 500, basic is just 125. Air magic is bellow earth, true but at least a+.

[@FinalManaTrigger]

Some really weird choices in this list, and I have a felling it's because you put too much emphasis on might vs. magic heroes. A good main hero needs to be BOTH. Ballistics is a skill I never take. F tier. Spells, flying units, and ranged units will be doing their thing from turn 1, and there should already be a hole or two in the castle walls by the time your slower ground units reach it, even without the skill. I have never felt like I needed to take it, unless I was given the choice between that and Eagle Eye. Necromancy is an S tier skill. Gaining a percentage of skeletons from enemy units for free after defeating them is insanely good, and the reason that Necro is such a good faction. Estates is a pretty garbage skill, maybe a D or E. Maybe good for a scout you expect will never live to fill up their skill slots, but there's 20 other better skills to take, easily. Tacitcs is S tier. If you are offered that skill, take it! Using a bunch of 1 stacks to protect a power stack of ranged units is a very viable strategy, and the ability to get all of your units situated before the battle even begins is crazy good. Offense and Armorer are both A tier, and incredibly useful. Your units will go further against your opponents with either one. Having both is even better. Artillery is an F skill. Unless the hero you choose comes with a ballista and specializes in artillery, the damage output the ballista does isn't worth the skill slot. In high level combat the ballista is good at soaking up damage in the early rounds because the CPU tends to target it, but by that same token it will be destroyed fast and then your hero has a dead skill until you are able to buy another one. Another skill I never take is First Aid, and I admit that I almost stopped watching the video right at the beginning when you ranked it so high. Total F tier. The tent is often targeted by the enemy AI and is destroyed quickly, just like the ballista, and the amount of healing it does is trivial. Think abut it this way: you are literally only healing 1 unit's health per turn. That amount of HP is trivial compared to what damage is being done back and forth between stacks. And it's another case of a dead skill when the tent goes down and your hero can't get back to a castle that can sell them a replacement. Hard pass.

[@paulgoes5494]

Hi Mana! Thanks for the thoughts. Ballistics and Estates seem like my pet loves compared to the pool of responders big time (especially Ballistics!). I love smashing the enemy arrow towers or opening the gate on Turn 1, forcing sallies etc and getting more bang out of my meaty ground guys. I think First Aid suffered from being First (so to speak) - I needed to do a final sweep to check I think I agree it could be lower. I don't snap-pick Tactics but respect those who do; with Necro, I found it hard to rank because it isn't really a choice; but respect that view as well