- Magic in Heroes 3

It so happens that the most commonly used magic schools are Earth and Air. These two schools contain all types of magic: combat (implosion and chain lightning), tactical (haste/slow), and global (portal to town, dimension door). Fire and Water do not have a combination of all three: Water lacks good combat magic, and Fire lacks global magic. But as a rule, the choice is between Earth and Air; of course, you need to consider each specific case. If you happen to find a Fire magic book, it's clear that you should learn Fire magic, as you don't know if you'll find the same resurrection or implosion in the guild. Then there are some tricks. It is known that a WARRIOR-BARBARIAN or WARRIOR-LORD cannot learn Water magic at all, except by receiving it from a scholar. What does this mean? It means that if you cast a curse on an army led by such a hero, he will NOT be able to remove it en masse. Or Berserk – for a barbarian, it's death. By the way, this is the main thing that gives Inferno an advantage over Barbarians. Inferno always goes first, casts Berserk on half of the Barbarian's army, and they happily kill themselves (it's especially interesting to see hippos attacking orcs or wolves – they practically wipe out the entire unit with one hit :D). So, everything depends on the player's cunning and resourcefulness; even a seemingly unremarkable magic can determine the outcome of a battle. And there is one more note for lovers of mages with highly developed mega-implosions: in long games, combat magic is not effective; tactical magic is, because with a 15-20 week growth, 3-4k damage from magic will hardly make a difference, but a well-timed haste or blind can decide the outcome of the battle.