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Elemental Chains

Perhaps the most complicated of the racial abilities are the Elemental Chains, available only to Warlock heroes. Elemental Chains is the collective term for the process of building and blowing up chains based on the elements associated with a creature. The net effect is that you (or rather your attacking Dungeon creature) is able to deal more damage according to the size of the elemental combination. While the skill sounds intimidating to learn; if it is broken down into phases, it can be understood quite easily.

What are Elements?

In Heroes of Might and Magic V, there are four elements associated with different creatures and destructive spells. Destructive Spells are the Dungeon's preferred spell school, and, as such, the 10 spells are based upon elements, and hence they bear that element in combat. Likewise, each creature has an element that it carries. For a base unit, there is only one element that is attached to it, while for an upgraded unit, there are two. The four elements are those of the ancient world. That is to say, Air, Earth, Fire and Water.

Requirements

In order to execute the Elemental Chain process, there are certain pre-requisites that need to be fulfilled, first.

1. Altar of Elements. Just like Haven's Training Grounds or Academy's Arcane Forge, the Altar of Elements allows you to start constructing and blowing elemental chains in combat.
2. Elemental Vision. This enables the player to see the aforementioned elemental types associated with the various creatures. Without this, you would not be able to classify what creatures have what element attached, and whatever chain you blow will be out of sheer luck.

Building a Chain

Now that the pre-requisites have been met, you are ready to start building, and most importantly blowing up chains!

1. The first step is identifying the element(s) of your own creature, and that of the creature you plan to attack with it. For argument's sake, let us say the Deep Hydra is the attacking unit, and the Cerberus is the defending unit. The Deep Hydra has the elements Water and Air, while the Cerberus has Water and Earth.
2. Chains are built by both the attacking and defending creatures having the same element (or two) associated with it. In this case, the common element is Water. When you attack, the elements of the attacking creature are transferred onto the defending creature. Thus, the elements of the Cerberus become Water and Air. However, because Water was a common element, 1 Elemental Chain Combo point is added to the stack. (If a creature attacks another creature with two of the same elements, they stay the same, but 2 combo points are added).
3. Now that you have built up a small chain, you can decide to enhance it by attacking that creature (the Cerberus), with another creature which has a common element. For example, you may attack it with a Black Dragon (Fire, Air), to increase the chain combo to 2.
4. The catch is, however, that when the defending creature (the Cerberus) takes its turn (i.e., it appears at the front of the ATB Bar), all Elemental Chain Combo points are lost, and they are reset to 0. However, the elementals that you've transferred to the defending creature remain. So, in this case, the Cerberus would have the elements of Fire and Air.

Blowing up a Chain

Seeing as you've gone to great lengths to construct an elemental chain, it is time to reap the rewards!

1. Imagine the Cerberus in question has not taken its turn, and remains vulnerable with its Elemental Combo totaling 2. To blow up the elemental chain, you simply must attack it with the other two elements. In this case, Water and Earth.
2. The damage done in blowing up an elemental chain is proportional to the number of combo points the defending creature has to its name. For instance, the attacking creature deals double damage if it blows the chain of a creature with 1 combo point, triple damage if it has 2 points, and so on.
3. When the chain is blown, the creatures combo points reset to 0, but the elements of the attacking creature are now transplanted into the defender. So, the Cerberus's elements after the chain is blown are Water and Earth. This ensures the chain aspect of Elemental Chains is realised.

Other Methods

All elemental chains are not so clear cut. There is always the possibility of blowing up a chain with a single-element creature or a spell...

Incomplete Chains

Incomplete Chains occur when a double-element creature chain is blown by a single-element attacker. For example, the unlucky Cerberus (with Fire, Air) has its chain blown by a Hydra, possessing the Water element. In this case, the Chain Bonus is reduced to 25% of its original power, or 50% if the Altar of Primal Chaos is built. So, if the Hydra deals 24 damage normally, it would deal 36 damage without the Altar, and 48 damage with it. The blown chain on the creature would return to single-element status of Water.

Spells

As mentioned previously, the 10 Destructive spells have certain elements associated with them, similar to creatures. In this case, spells act in exactly the same way as un-upgraded creatures, in that they only have 1 element, thus form an incomplete chain. Using spells to blow chains are simply last-ditch efforts after you realise that the enemy creature is about to take its turn.

Elements associated with Destructive Spells

The spells from the other magic schools are not associated with any element.

Elements associated with Creatures

The elements of Dungeon creatures are presented in the table below, as they will almost always been involved in the elemental chain process. Note however that each creature in the game have element(s) associated with them, not just those of the Dungeon.

	Scout Water		Assassin Water Earth		Blood Maiden Air		Blood Fury Air Earth
	Minotaur Fire		Minotaur Guard Fire Water		Dark Raider Earth		Grim Raider Earth Fire
	Hydra Water		Deep Hydra Water Air		Shadow Witch Earth		Shadow Matriarch Earth Air
	Shadow Dragon Fire		Black Dragon Fire Air

The following table lists all the creatures, sorted by their associated element. You will find the upgraded creatures (2 associated elements) on the 'inside' of the table, and the base creatures (with only one element) on the lower diagonal. The notable exception is the Inquisitor, which possesses Water-Water.

The Elemental Chains skill

	Basic Elemental Chains Skill: Partially negates magic protection and allows to deal 20% of normal spell damage to otherwise resistant creatures.
	Advanced Elemental Chains Skill: Notably negates magic protection and allows to deal 40% of normal spell damage to otherwise resistant creatures.
	Expert Elemental Chains Skill: Drastically negates magic protection and allows to deal 50% of normal spell damage to otherwise resistant creatures.
	Ultimate Elemental Chains Skill: Effectively negates magic protection and allows to deal 75% of normal spell damage to otherwise resistant creatures.

Associated abilities

	Dark Ritual Ability: Special adventure ability. Hero spends entire day to perform the ritual and regain full mana. Can only be used at the beginning of the day.
	Elemental Vision Ability: Allows Warlock to see elements associated with each creature to help him to build and blow up elemental chains.
	Empowered Spells: All damaging spells cast by hero deal 50% more damage, but the mana cost is doubled.
	Rage of the Elements Ability: Elemental chain effects inflict double damage.

Similar to Counterstrike, the Elemental Chains secondary skill deals with enhancing another factor - negating magic resistance. Leveling up in the Elemental Chains secondary skill won't make you more proficient at building and blowing elemental chains, but learning the abilities associated will allow you to strengthen your hero's magical strength. The distinct lack of mana the Warlocks suffer from can be somewhat helped by Dark Ritual. In terms of Elemental Chains, there is only one modifier, that being Rage of the Elements enabling you to deal double damage. Of course, there is always the Altar of Primal Chaos available in-town.

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

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