When to take the combat skill. Auto-translated

Although the forum isn't very active, I decided to start a thread for discussion. The question arose while compiling a "Guide for Heroes of Might and Magic IV." The point is this: for almost all heroes (except the Barbarian and Archer), it's advisable to take the combat skill. The reason is simple – to avoid being killed with a single blow in battle, as they are too weak, and experience isn't gained when dead. This isn't so relevant on a low difficulty level, but on a high difficulty level, where there are many enemies (neutrals) (three times more than on the normal level), and experience is given three times less, and there are almost no resources, the choice of skills becomes very important. While studying different articles, I encountered recommendations that sometimes contradicted each other (even within the same article) regarding when to take the combat skill – from "immediately" to "after fully upgrading the main magic (or tactics) skill." And when I tried playing with different upgrade schemes, I noticed certain inconsistencies. Therefore, I would like to hear the opinions of players about when they take the combat skill. :smile19:
Sincerely,
dnaop-wr

I'll write about Multiplayer, and I'll immediately clarify that the main difficulty there is the Master level (second to last). Although, of course, the difficulty mainly affects the game duration. So, first of all, you need to develop heroes not for neutral creatures, but for Fortress battles. If you're playing standard maps, without any specific features, then, of course, you should first develop the main magic or tactics skills, and separately, scouting. After that, you assess the situation: if you've collected various armor and consumed many sapphires, i.e., your defense stats are decent (at least 60), then it's more advisable not to worry about combat skills and take the second branch of skills for summoning a specific class (demonologist, monk, heretic, ninja, crusader, etc.). Sometimes, of course, you can kill two birds with one stone – you need a paladin, a fire mage. But if the mage (who is supposed to cast spells in Fortress battles until they're exhausted) has poor armor, then, of course, you take combat skills. But, if possible, only armor and magic resistance – ranged and melee attacks are not needed. As for those maps where you can rush your opponent effectively, you definitely need to create one so-called "tank," and develop everything in them except ranged attacks. We don't take ranged attacks because it's not a very effective use of precious skill points at the beginning, because, firstly, damage from hand-to-hand combat is greater, and secondly, you still need to keep monsters away from the fragile mage-supporters. Mage-supporters also don't need combat skills at the beginning.

I completely agree with some of the points, and I even mentioned them in the guide. However, I would like to hear alternative opinions on some other points. I mentioned neutral creatures because, at the beginning of the game, when the hero is weak, they need to defeat neutral creatures (guards) to gain resources, artifacts, and experience, and also survive. Later, when you know who you are fighting, you can specialize your hero to counter a specific faction. But when there are enemies of all factions, the hero needs to be more versatile. And that's why I decided to focus on the issue of armor (combat).

At the beginning, just send in monsters of level 1-2 to be defeated, so you can build your 4th town as quickly as possible.

You should immediately acquire the combat skill as soon as it appears in the list of available skills! Or as soon as you see it on the map. Otherwise, you'll be in trouble. I played a downloaded campaign, and my druid would have been killed in close combat (because the AI or another player isn't stupid enough to stand still), but I had the combat skill, and I wasn't killed even once.

Based on experience, it's best to take it right away, but if there's an opportunity to learn, it's better to learn 1 rank for gold, as it saves you 2 levels. However, there's an exception: if you don't like the combo class of your faction and you want to level up a hero with a combo class without fighting, then you should skip the battle to avoid hindering that class.

do it right away, otherwise you will constantly have to transport the remains to the city for resurrection - and this is nothing more than a loss of TEMPO, so - do it first.