In Heroes of Might & Magic V, all creatures (with the exception of the Blade Dancer) have one or several special abilities.
These are a major part of the richness of the game, and make each creature unique and useful.
At every attack creature has a chance to stun the enemy so they won't be able to retaliate and lose initiative (mechanical creatures are not affected).
When stunned, the target's ATB value is reset to 0.
Creature performs delayed air attack on selected tile on the field, causing double damage to any creatures, including friendly ones, which happen to be on the tile at that moment. Following the attack, the creature returns to a randomly selected location on the field (activated ability).
When this ability is used, the creature's Defense drops temporarily to zero, Offense increases by the same amount, and it attacks the nearest enemy automatically without suffering the retaliation strike. However if there is no enemy in the movement range of this creature it will attack a nearest friendly unit instead of the enemy (activated ability).
When this creature attacks the enemy, there is a chance that it will blind it in addition to inflicting regular damage. Blinded creatures cannot move or attack, but regain sight if attacked.
Creature fires a lightning bolt causing magical damage to selected target. Can be used for ranged attack when regular shooting attack is impossible or will only cause reduced damage (activated ability).
The Lightning Bolt deals Air damage equals to 30*number of creatures in the stack. It ignores magic protection (but not immunities or magic resistance).
This creature can use a set of magical spells similar to those cast by heroes. Mana reserve is limited but always set to maximum at the beginning of combat. Spellpower depends on the number of creatures (activated ability).
Creature inflicts damage to selected target and the three other targets nearest to it. Each successive enemy struck receives half the damage of the previous one.
The Chain Shot does not trigger on Demonic creatures.
If this creature has walked more than 2 tiles when attacking, it also inflicts half-damage on the stack standing in the line of attack immediately behind the primary target.
This creature's attack increases during combat when any friendly unit dies (except resurrected creatures or creatures summoned to battlefield by magic).
The increase is proportional to the killed stack relative power in the army.
Creature's attack entangles enemy with its roots and immobilises it. Creature can immobilise several enemies simultaneously, but the effect only lasts while the creature remains in direct contact with its victims.
There's a chance the enemy attacked by this creature panics and tries to run to the edge of the arena to get as far away from the creature as possible, losing all initiative accumulated by this time. (Doesn't affect creatures immune to Mind-related spells).
When this creature is subjected to melee attack, its Fireshield inflicts a certain amount of damage to the attacker, regardless of whether it has counter-attack ability.
The attacker suffers 20% of the damage dealt to its target as elemental fire damage.
When this creature attacks, it always kills one unit in any enemy detachment. It also dispells all positive magical effects currently affecting the aim (activated ability).
The normal creature attack is unchanged. When Harm Touch is used instead, exactly one target creature is killed.
After a successful attack, the target creature also suffers the effect of one of the following damnations: Weakness, Slow, Suffering and Vulnerability. All the effects are equal to those of Expert-level spells.
This creature is incorporeal so any non-magical attack against it has only 50% chance of inflicting damage.
There can be at most 3 hits/misses in a row on all Incorporeal stacks, after which the fourth try will be forced to miss (after 3 hits) or hit (after 3 misses). This counter is global (for all stacks), not tied to each stack.
When attacking enemy units, this creature can drain their mana and use it to restore its own health, or even to resurrect some killed creatures.
Mana drained is equal to the number of Spectres in the stack, capped to the actual Mana amount of the target. Additionally, as many Spectres are resurrected as the Mana drained (ie. Life drained is up to 19*Mana drained).
Creature takes some of the enemy hero's mana at the beginning of combat and transfers it to own hero. The amount of stolen mana depends on the number of creatures.
0.25 Mana are stolen per creature in the stack (rounded).
When attacking, this creature has a chance of damning the target, resulting in all Fire damage suffered by it being doubled within a certain period of time.
This creature is not alive (like all Golems) and its morale is always neutral. It cannot be affected by Poison-, Blind- or Mind-related magic. These creatures cannot be resurrected or healed by First Aid Tent.
This creature has a chance of pushing the target one tile aside and cancelling all Initiative the target has accumulated. The chance depends on the number of tiles this creature walked for attack.
If the target, once pushed aside, is not adjacent to its attacker, it will not retaliate. If adjacent, however, retaliation is still possible. A Treant entangling enemy stacks can suffer the Initiative drop, but will not be pushed aside (the entangled stacks will remain entangled).
In addition to normal damage the enemy attacked will also be poisoned. Poisoning will cause a certain amount of damage during the next three turns.
Poison damage is proportional to the number of creatures in the attacking stack (at the time of poisoning). Multiplier is 1 for Assassins and 4 for Manticores.
Creature casts a random spell at the selected target. Spells can be cast at both friendly (positive effect spells) and enemy (negative effect spells) creatures (activated ability).
Spells are cast with advanced mastery. Djinns cast only level 1-3 Dark Magic curses on enemy troops. Djinn Sultans cast level 1-3 Light Magic blessings on friendly troops as well. Each stack can use 3 such actions.
Creature retaliates after enemy ranged attack with its own ranged attack, provided it is not blocked by enemy and has not used up all its retaliation attacks.
Creature can resurrect killed allied detachment once during combat, provided the location where the detachment was killed is not occupied by other creatures (activated ability).
Area-effect shooting: damage is inflicted to all targets (including friendly creatures) located within the selected area (3 by 3 tiles). The amount of damage inflicted to each creature is half the damage of a normal shot (activated ability).
This creature can inflict damage remotely. When distance to target is longer than half the arena, the target suffers only half the normal damage. Shooter cannot use ranged attack when blocked by enemy creature. If there's no Ammo Cart in the army, the number of shots is limited by available ammo.
Besides usual damage, this creature strikes the target with lightning (non-magical damage), which then hits another enemy creature if one is standing near the target, continuing on in this way until the chain is broken. The lighting's force is equal to that of the attack.
Once during the combat creature can summon Pit Lords to replace its killed friends. Number of Pit Lords summoned depends on the number of creatures who use this ability (activated ability).
Provided the dead stack had enough hit points (120 per summoned Pit Lord), up to 2 Pit Lords are summoned for each Archdevil.
When the creature receives the Wait\Defend command, it gets 50% bonus to Defense plus ability to retaliate after all enemy attacks until the next turn.
If the hero has the Stand Your Ground ability, the Take Roots bonus is doubled to a +100% Defense increase.
Having succesfully completed OCP (Overweight Creature Program), this creature is now able to move with lightning speed. Some say that this comes with a personality alteration and violent tendencies, but experts are already working on a cure.
This creature is not alive (like all other Necropolis creatures) and its morale is always neutral. It cannot be affected by Poison-, Blind- or Mind-related magic.
Creature simultaneously attacks enemies located on all eight adjacent tiles. The targeted enemy gets normal damage, all others affected get half the normal damage.
There's a certain chance that during a melee attack this creature will use one of the following spells, in addition to inflicting regular damage: Slow, Weakness or Berserk. (The spell does not work on undead, elemental and mechanical units.)
Creatures Abilities
In Heroes of Might & Magic V, all creatures (with the exception of the Blade Dancer) have one or several special abilities. These are a major part of the richness of the game, and make each creature unique and useful.
Read more introduction to creatures abilities...