My post assumed normal difficulty setting.
On HARD, many of the paladin skills assume greater value. I think most mage and knight skills offer the best value on NORMAL difficulty setting, but on HARD where gold is scarcer, paladin (mind) skills excel.
I have gone through and added grades or scores to the different skills. This is admittedly somewhat subjective; others with different playing styles may rate some skills higher or lower.
-Falconhurst
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King’s Bounty: The Legend
Skills Analysis by Falconhurst
Skills
Might
Training
Grade: 2/5 (all levels)
1: 2/0/0 swordsman skill smashing blow
2: 3/1/0 bowman: flaming arrow
3: 4/2/0 knights: circle attack
Only has value if your army is composed primarily of humans.
Swordsmen and bowmen you will use only in the early game; knights are very slow. IMO there are better options. Get 1 level only to meet prerequisites.
Rage Control
Grade: 5/5 (all levels)
1: 4/1/0 rage maximum +10
2: 7/2/0 rage maximum +20
3: 10/3/0 rage maximum +30
A useful skill to max out
Combat readiness:
Grade: 3/5 (level 1), 2/5 (level 2/3)
Troops receive less physical attack damage in the first round
1: 2/2/0 -10%
2: 3/2/0 -15%
3: 4/2/0 -20%
Diminishing returns and the first round only impact of this restrict its use. Furthermore, only limited physical damage is dished out in the first round because troops are too far away except for missile attacks or very fast units. Get this only at level 1 as a prerequisite and save higher levels for later if you need them at all.
Master of Spirits
Grade: 5/5 (all levels)
increases experience of spirit of rage in combat
1: 4/1/0 +10%
2: 5/1/0 +20%
3: 6/1/0 +30%
Useful once you actually get the spirits of rage.
Tactics
Grade: 3/5
1: 10/2/0 Allows troops to be arranged on the battlefield before combat
2: 14/4/0 allows troops to be arranged in a broader area
Expensive and of limited benefit.
Iron Fist (Knight only)
Grade: 3.5/5 level 1, 2.5 level 2/3
Decreases leadership requirements for swordsmen, guardsmen, knights, and horsemen
1: 3/0/0 -10%
2: 4/1/0 -15%
3: 5/2/0 -20%
All of these kinds of troops except for knights will be obsolete quickly, and knights are very slow. Skip it unless these troops make up the bulk of your armies.
Frenzy – increases attack bonus for hero’s troops
Grade: 5/5 all levels
1: 4/1/0 +2 attack
2: 6/2/0 +4 attack
3: 8/3/0 +6 attack
A great skill, everyone should get this ASAP as attack makes a big difference. These are big bonuses to an attribute that is hard to raise by other means
Onslaught
Grade: 2-3/5
Hero’s troops receive initiative bonus in first turn
1: 5/0/0 +1 initiative
2: 6/0/0 +2 initiative
3: 7/0/0 +3 initiative
This is a puzzling and largely worthless skill, since it works only during the first turn (even at level 3) when only missile troops typically have the range to engage the enemy. If it worked all the time it would be worthwhile, but as a first-round only bonus it does not warrant any serious investment.
Nighttime operations:
Grade: 4.5/5
Attack and defense bonus during nighttime combat
1: 3/0/0 +2 attack and defense
2: 3/0/0 +4 attack and defense
3: 3/0/0 +6 attack and defense
A great skill, and very cheap.
Dark Commander
Grade: 5/5 if you use undead armies; worthless for everyone else.
Undead fight more effectively
1: 3/1/1 +3 attack
2: 4/2/2 attack +5, initiative +1
3: 5/3/3 attack +7, initiative +2
This skill with its powerful all-the-time bonuses makes a good argument for an undead army. It is also relatively cheap while offering large all-the-time bonuses. On the other hand, undead can lower the morale of other troops (unless you spend many points on the MIGHT skill tree to get the tolerance skill), and there is no reason to get it if your army does not consist primarily of undead.
Anger (Knight only): rage increases when troops exchange strikes
Grade: 5/5
1: (free) +25%
2: 5/0/0 +50%
3: 7/0/0 +100%
A great skill, but limited only to knights
Mind
Mind skills are by far the worst on the skill tree. There are fewer skills; many go only to level 2 instead of 3, and skills are less useful.
Scouting
Grade: 4.5/5 (level 1), 3 (level 2/3)
1: 0/1/0 allows the hero to see what creatures compose enemy troops on the adventure map
2: 0/2/0 allows hero to approximate number of enemy troops
3: 0/3/1 allows hero to determine precise number of enemy troops
Level 1 is nice and is a prerequisite for other skills. Beyond that, scouting is less useful, as you can see with level 1 the army’s relative strength to yours and the precise numbers are not very important. Higher levels are cheap, but offer little.
Glory
Grade: 3.5/5 (all levels)
increased leadership points
1: 2/5/0 +100
2: 3/6/0 +250
3: 4/7/0 +500
A nice boost, but expensive. Good in early game but impact wanes in late game. Still one of the better skills in the Mind skill tree.
Reserve
Grade: 3.5/5
allows the hero to keep a reserve troop which does not participate in combat
1: 3/3/0 1 reserve troop
2: 3/3/0 2 reserve troops
A nice convenience that can save some running around, but it does not offer any advantages in power or combat that can help you perform better. Still this can save time and potentially improve your final score by minimizing pointless trips when you have reserve cadres.
Trophies:
Grade: 3/5 (level 1), 2.5/5 (level 2/3)
Increases gold received by the hero after combat
1: 1/3/1 +10%
2: 1/5/1 +20%
3: 1/7/1 +30%
If you play well as a mage or fighter, you will have so much gold you won’t know what to do with it. Much gold comes from treasure rather than fighting monsters too, so a +30% combat gold increase is more like just +15% total gold. As gold is in abundance as long as you can protect your troops and don’t have to continually replace them, this skill is fairly worthless. There is not enough stuff to spend gold on to make this worthwhile. Its only real use is as prerequisite for the tolerance skill.
Learning
Grade: 4.5/5 (level 1), 3/5 (level 2/3)
1: 1/5/1 +10% combat experience
2: 1/6/1 +15% combat experience
3: 2/7/2 +20% combat experience
Level 1 is useful; 2 and 3 reach diminishing returns. This skill helps you get levels faster, but levels are still capped at 30 and so this won’t necessarily change the end-game dynamics. Stick with level 1 unless you have lots of useless might runes and nothing else to do with them.
Diplomacy
Grade: 3/5
Entice away enemy troops if you have enough leadership and the same troops in your army
1: 1/6/0 entice 5%
2: 2/7/0 entice 10%
3: 3/8/0 entice 15%
You are rarely going to have spare leadership, and enemies will rarely have the same troop types. And it’s expensive for only a small boost. Skip it.
Trade:
Grade: 2/5
Sell items and scrolls for higher price
1: 0/1/0 items 50%, scrolls 30%
2: 0/2/0 items 75%, scrolls 40%
3: 0/3/0 items 100%, scrolls 50%
Given the great abundance of cash if you play well and the relative scarcity of items and scrolls, this skill has little use. Its only upside is that the rune cost is low.
Tolerance
Grade: 4.5/5 if you have undead or demons in your army, otherwise useless
1: 2/8/2 troops can tolerate undead in army without decreasing morale
2: 2/8/2 troops can tolerate undead and demons without decreasing morale
Has some use if you want to run around with demonic or undead hordes. However it is expensive, and all the prereqs you need for this skill (scouting, glory, trophies, reserve, diplomacy) make it unattractive.
Keeper of the light
Grade: 2.5/5 (level 1), 2/5 (level 2/3)
Extra gold and experience after eliminating undead
1: 1/4/1 +20% gold, +5% experience
2: 2/6/2, +30% gold, +10% experience
3: 3/8/3 +40% gold, +15% experience
Undead are only a small fraction of foes placed in the game, and gold as previously noted is abundant. The skill is expensive and basically a waste of time to try to fill out the very weak paladin skill chart.
Inquisition
Grade: 0/5. Absolutely worthless
Can upgrade priests to inquisitors
1: 1/5/1
Since you can buy inquisitors anyway, and can replace them if numbers run down through “sacrifice,” this skill is almost completely worthless.
Holy Anger (Paladin Only)
Grade: 4/5
Increases attack against demons and undead
1: free (+5 attack)
2: 5/8/0 +10 attack
3: 5/8/0 +15 attack
A nice bonus; however, demons and undead are only a fraction of the enemies in the game. These targeted bonuses against selected enemies are not as useful as the all-the-time bonuses of knights (rage) or mages (magic power & damage).
Runic Stone
Grade: 5/5
Each mind rune gives additional might and magic runes to the hero
1: 0/10/0 + 10 runes of might and magic
2: 0/10/0 +10 runes of might and magic
3: 0/10/0 +10 runes of might and magic
This trait is almost the only redeeming major skill of the paladin class, essentially allowing one to trade low-value mind runes for higher-value might and magic runes, essentially doubling the number of runes in the process. You can trade 30 mind runes for a net gain of 30 different runes (30 mind + 30 magic), and given the scarcity of runes in the game, this is clearly a good trade.
The problem however is that the investment needed to get this trade is considerable. To get the prerequisites, you have to invest points in scouting and learning (both worthwhile at level 1), 2 mind runes in the virtually worthless trade skill, and 2/6/2 in the similarly poor “keeper of the light” skill. This knocks the net pick up of runes from 30 down to 18, which is still significant. This is equal to about 2 levels worth of free runes. But the Paladin will never get as many mind or might runes as the mage or knight (most have about 200 of their specialty runes and 100 of the non-specialty runes, so dropping specialty to 170 and boosting non-specialty to 130 will still not make the paladin a good mage or a good knight. This skill restores at least some credibility to the Paladin class, but it still fails to balance the class on par with the others.
Magic
Grade: 4/5 (for mages), 3/5 for others
Wisdom 1: (free at start for mage) Mana +10, scrolls +2
Wisdom 2: 0/0/7 Mana +20, scrolls +4
Wisdom 3: 0/1/10 Mana +30, scrolls +6
The “scroll” part is virtually worthless, as the scrolls you want you will scribe into your spellbook, and those that you don’t should be sold. This trait offers a significant mana boost, but it is expensive. However, +30 mana is worth a lot – that’s more than 4 level-ups at +7 mana/level. This is therefore a good mid and late game skill for mages to allow level-up points to go elsewhere. Wait until late game to go beyond level 1
Alchemy
Grade: 2/5
1: 0/1/3 magic crystals needed for spell scribing or upgrade -15%
2: 0/1/5 crystals -30%
3: 0/1/7 crystals -50%
Alchemy skill can be acquired only by mages. This skill is, in my opinion, nearly worthless because of the abundance of magic crystals. Only a small number of crystals are needed to scribe or upgrade spells. I find that I have vast numbers of magic crystals and nothing to do with them even by level 8 or 9 after having upgraded all the spells I want. This skill might have value if you want to upgrade ALL the magic spells to 3rd level, but I find that only a portion of the spells are genuinely useful. Even then, it seems that there are more than enough crystals to go around for nearly universal spell upgrades. The skill points are better spent elsewhere.
Meditation
Grade: 5/5
1: (free at start for mage) +30% mana regeneration per minute on adventure map
2: 0/1/2 +60% mana regeneration
3: 0/1/3 +100% mana regeneration
Useful and fairly inexpensive.
Order Mage
Grade: 4/5
1: 0/2/2 allows hero to learn order spells from scrolls
2: 0/4/4 allows spell upgrade to level 2
3: 0/8/8 allows spell upgrade to level 3
You need at least one point of this to qualify for healer and archmage skills.
One level is adequate at the beginning. The later spells, like resurrection, aren’t available in the early game.
Healer
Grade: 4/5 (level 1), 3/5 (level 2/3)
Increases effectiveness of divine spells (healing, resurrection, bless, god armor, light of life)
1: 0/1/1 +15%
2: 0/2/2 +20%
3: 0/3/3 +25%
One level is useful and needed for archmage and the skill is fairly cheap. However the increase from level 1 to level 3 is small; I recommend holding off on higher levels until endgame unless you are playing as a warrior or paladin and use magic mainly for healing.
Distortion Magic:
Grade: 4/5 (level 1), 3/5 (level 2/3)
1: 1/1/4 allows hero to learn distortion spells from scrolls
2: 2/2/7 upgrade to level 2
3: 3/3/10 upgrade to level 3
I don’t find distortion magic all that useful, but you need 1 level to get Chaos Magic. Get one level and save further upgrades until later in the game as points are better spent elsewhere.
Concentration
Grade: 4.5/5 (all levels)
Allows hero to restore mana during combat
1: 0/3/8 +2 mana/combat turn
2: 0/3/9 +4 mana/turn
3: 0/3/10 +6 mana/turn
Very useful, but also quite expensive. Get one level (needed for chaos magic) at start and upgrade later as you can. You won’t need to invest as much in mana if your mana regenerates at a high rate during combat. Of course, if you have a high baseline mana, you may not need this skill.
Chaos Magic
Grade: 5/5 (all levels)
1: 0/2/6 allows hero to learn chaos spells from scrolls
2: 0/4/8 allows upgrade to level 2
3: 0/6/12 allows upgrade to level 3
Chaos magic has the best are damage spells, fireball and ice dragon. Getting to level 3 and upgrading spells as fast as possible should be a priority.
Necromancy
Grade: 3/5 for most play styles; 4/5 if using undead minions
1: 0/2/4 Resurrects 15-20% of slain soldiers after a battle, necro call + 10%
2: 0/3/5 raises 20-30% of soldiers, necro call +20%
3: 0/4/6 raises 30-40% of slain soliders, necro call +30%
Offers some useful bonuses, but once you get the “sacrifice” spell along with inquisitors (resurrect) and order magic (resurrect), it becomes less helpful. Investing 0/9/15 points to get 30-40% of soldiers back after battle may be worthwhile, but there are other ways to keep your troops healthy in most circumstances. Unless you are playing with a lot of undead, it is likely better to wait on this.
Archmage
Grade: 4/5 (level 1); 3/5 (level 2/3)
1: 0/0/3 reduces leadership requirements for priests, inquisitors, druids, shamans, necromancers, archmages by 10%
2: 0/1/4 reduces leadership requirements by 15%
3: 0/2/5 reduces leadership requirements by 20%
You need one level of this to get higher magic and destroyer, but after that diminishing returns are achieved. I recommend sticking with level 1 unless your army consists primarily of mage types.
Destroyer
Grade: 5/5 (for mages), 3/5 for warriors
1: 0/1/5 +15% spell power to damage spells
2: 0/2/7 +30% spell damage
3: 0/3/9 +50% spell damage
+50% spell damage is a huge boost for a mage. Upgrade this all the way once you get level 3 chaos spells.
Higher Magic (Mages Only Special skill):
Grade: 5/5 (for mages)
1: 5/5/20 Allows spells to be cast twice in a turn once during combat
2: 5/5/15 Allows spells to be cast twice in a turn twice during combat
3: 5/5/10 Allows spells to be cast twice in a turn three times during combat
Very expensive – in fact, the most expensive skill of all. It is well worthwhile, but requires careful planning to save up enough points and avoid frittering them on unnecessary skills. If you can blast your opponent with two fully upgraded big damage spells before he even moves, you will have a big advantage in combat. Get at least level 1; 2 or 3 if you need them.
Level-up attributes:
At each level, the hero will have options between two different upgrades. Possible upgrades are listed below.
Attack/Defense +1
Grade: 5/5
When higher or lower than enemy’s defense/attack, offers attack bonuses up to 300% or reduced damage down to 1/3. These are therefore highly important skills. They should be maxed out as much as possible with the might skill tree, but these are also useful skills at any level.
Warriors may find attack more useful; mages who rely largely on spells for damage dealing may find defense more useful.
Intellect +1
Grade: 4/5 for mages, 2-3/5 for warriors/paladins
Every 7 levels give +10% to spell power, and 15 levels increases spell duration by one turn. This can also be increased with items. I recommend shooting for 15 in intellect, as higher levels require greater increases than attack/defense to meaningfully increase skills. To be useful you will need multiples of 7 or 15, so it is a lot of work to raise this skill beyond that point.
Leadership (varying amounts)
Grade: depends on amount
leadership is important, but it scales with level. At level 20 you will get a much bigger leadership increase than level 2, whereas other attribute increases offered will stay at +1 at low and high levels alike. Therefore I recommend adding attributes at low levels (Attack and Defense particularly), and picking up more leadership at higher levels. This makes the early game somewhat harder, but the late game easier. Some players like leadership the most; higher leadership at the beginning does make the game easier to start but does not increase the abilities of your troops in any way. As late game leadership can reach 20,000+, I think the attack/defense skills offer more long-term value.
Mana +7: You can get good increases in mana and its regeneration with concentration and wisdom, so you shouldn’t need too much of this. Somewhat useful for mages; less useful for knights and paladins.
Rage +5: nice, but not as universally useful as attack/defense, and you can pick up 30 points of rage from might skills. Fighters or paladins who don’t need or care for INT and MANA may consider it. Skip this is you are a mage.
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