Air Magic | Information about gameplay Heroes III HD Edition Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

Magic Arrow

Cost: 5 Level: 1 Duration: - Description: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*10)+10 damage. Advanced level: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*10)+20 damage. Expert level: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*10)+30 damage.

The first offensive spell in the game, which can almost always be found in any first level Mage Guild. It's mainly used during the early rounds, because even those heroes who lack Power can deal significant damage - later on the effectiveness falls off considerably, because it lacks a good Power-damage ratio.

Haste

Cost: 6 Level: 1 Duration: - 1 round Description: Target, allied unit's speed is increased by three hexes. Advanced level: Increases the speed by 5 hexes. Expert level: Increases the speed of all allied troops by 5 hexes.

One of the best spells in the game, and without a doubt the best 1st level one. Increasing the speed of a unit allows you to move it quicker than it should, which, as can easily be guessed, can disrupt the flow of the whole battle. Expert Level of the spell allows you to cast Haste on all your units, which gives an immense edge against your enemy.

View Air

Cost: 2 Level: 1 Duration: until the end of the round Description: Shows the location of all artifacts on the View World screen. Advanced level: Shows the location of all artifacts, as well as heroes, on the View World screen. Expert level: Shows the location of all artifacts, heroes and cities on the View World screen.

A very useful and extremely cheap to use spell. Even if the basic level of the spells is not very powerful, the Advanced (as well as Expert) one will allow you to track your enemy's movements on the world map, whether you've already noticed the enemy, or he is still in the fog of war. It decreases the chances of getting surprised unprotected and allows you to plan your actions ahead.

Fortune

Cost: 7 Level: 2 Duration: 1 round Description: Increases the luck of your unit by 1. Advanced level: Increases the luck of your unit by 2. Expert level: Increases the luck of all allied units by 2.

Fortune, contrary to the first thought, is one of the weakest and least useful spells in the game because of a very simple reason - there's tons of ways to acquire the maximum (3) level of luck for your units, be it with the help of artifacts, or simply be visiting various places. There's a lot of better spells to be cast during a battle.

Lightning Bolt

Cost: 10 Level: 2 Duration: - Description: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*25)+10 damage. Advanced level: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*25)+20 damage. Expert level: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*25)+30 damage.

Lightning Bolt is basically a stronger version of a Magic Missile - it costs twice the amount of mana, dealing significantly higher damage. A good Power/damage ratio makes this spell effective both in early and late game. It's worth to use it on enemy shooter units, or to weaken those powerful 7th level creatures - with a proper amount of Power, artifacts and skills, you can kill several of them with a single use.

Protection from Air

Cost: 7 Level: 2 Duration: 1 round Description: Protects the selected unit, reducing damage received from Air spells by 30%. Advanced level: Allied unit receives 50% less damage from Air spells. Expert level: All allied units receive 50% less damage from Air spells.

Protection from Air is useful only when you are certain, that the enemy has large amount of Power and is likely to use spells such as Lightning Bolt, or Chain Lightning - in other cases the spell is completely useless, because of the fact, that it only decreases damage from air-oriented spells and that no unit in the game does any elemental-related damage.

Precision

Cost: 8 Level: 2 Duration: 1 round Description: Increases the attack attribute of a shooter unit by 3. Advanced level: Increases the attack attribute of a shooter unit by 6. Expert level: Increases the attack attribute of all shooter units by 6.

Another spell which, theoretically, looks promising, but in reality turns out to be weak. There are better spells to cast on your units, such as Bloodlust, or Bless, not to mention the Prayer spell, which, aside from attack, also increases the defense and speed of a unit. Therefore it's better to use a different spell than Precision.

Disrupting Ray

Cost: 10 Level: 2 Duration: Whole battle Description: Decreases the defense of a single, enemy unit by 3 points - the spell can be cast unlimited amount of times, as the effect stacks. Advanced level: Decreases the defense by 4 points. Expert level: Decreases the defense by 5 points.

An extremely effective spell against units with a high amount of defense. Each hit of the spell decreases the defense of the target, and the effect can stack up infinite amount of times - as a result, you can easily knock the defense of an enemy unit to zero, provided that the battle lasts long enough. This spell is rather ineffective against enemies lacking huge amounts of defense.

Disguise

Cost: 4 Level: 2 Duration: 1 day Description: When the casting hero is right-clicked by opponents, all of the hero's creature troops are displayed as if they were composed of the most powerful creatures in the hero's army. Troop population numbers are represented normally. Advanced level: As with the basic level, but the amount of troops is shown as 0. Expert level: Units are represented as if populated by the most powerful creature in the hero's best city.

This spell can be effective during a multiplayer game, because even if your enemy understands, that you are deceiving him, he won't be able to check your "real" army before attacking you - in a normal game, when you are faced against computer-controlled players, this spell is completely useless.

Visions

Cost: 4 Level: 2 Duration: 1 day Description: Displays number of monsters in a wandering monster troop and whether or not the troop will offer to join the casting hero's army. Range is equal to Power or three, whichever is greater Advanced level: Additionally, it now shows the enemy hero's primary skills, as well as his army. Expert level: Additionally, it now shows the information about an enemy city.

Another very useful spell, which can be cast on the world map. After casting it, you must press and hold the right mouse button over an enemy hero to learn about a set of things - the amount of information depends on the highest level of proficiency in a given school of magic. Additionally, it's an useful spell while dealing with neutral monsters, as it allows you to estimate the chances of the enemy joining your army.

Air Shield

Cost: 15 Level: 3 Duration: 1 round Description: Target, allied unit receives -25% damage from ranged attacks. Advanced level: Target, allied unit receives -50% damage from ranged attacks Expert level: All allied units receive -50% damage from ranged attacks.

A highly situational spell, as it primarily depends on the contents of the enemy army. If your foe has a lot of shooters, especially those which are doing area of effect damage (Liches, Magogs), it can prove to be extremely effective - on the Expert level you will reduce damage received from ranged attacks by half, on all your units, which basically halves the effectiveness of the enemy shooters. This spell is very useful when dealing with Tower's troops, as there are 3 shooters there, one of which is a 7th level unit, with the biggest damage in the game. If the enemy lacks any significant "shooting power", you can ignore this spell and just cast Blind on enemy shooters.

Destroy Undead

Cost: 15 Level: 3 Duration: - Description: All undead forces on the battlefield receive (Power*10)+10 damage. Advanced level: All undead forces on the battlefield receive (Power*10)+20 damage. Expert level: All undead forces on the battlefield receive (Power*10)+50 damage.

A very useful spell when dealing with an undead army, because only those units will receive damage (this spell is like a mirror image of the Death Ripple). The damage potential of this spell may seem low, because a simple Lightning Bolt is able to deal more to a single target, but the power of Destroy Undead lies in the possibility of targeting every undead unit on the battlefield.

Assuming that your hero has Expert knowledge in Air Magic and 15 points of Power - every undead unit on the battlefield will receive 200 points of damage. Adding the artifact which increases damage from air spells by 50%, or the hero skill increasing the overall damage coming from spells, a single target will easily receive over 300 points of damage - it means, that each round you will be able to deal way over 2000 points of damage to the enemy Necropolis' hero army! However, you shouldn't use that spell when you have your own undead units in the army, as they too will receive damage from this spell.

Hypnotize

Cost: 18 Level: 3 Duration: - Description: The player seizes control over an enemy unit, which has less than (Power*25)+10 points of health. Allied units can attack the hypnotized unit without fear of retaliation. Advanced level: The player seizes control over an enemy unit, which has less than (Power*25)+20 points of health. Expert level: The player seizes control over an enemy unit, which has less than (Power*25)+50 points of health.

An extremely powerful spell, provided that your hero has enough points of Power, to seize control over an enemy unit. It's an effective way of dealing with enemy shooters - those units tend to have low amount of health points, which makes them easier to hypnotize. An enemy, who just lost control over a unit will have a tough decision to make - he can either leave the unit alone, risking severe loses, or simply kill his own unit.

Chain Lightning

Cost: 24 Level: 4 Duration: - Description: An enemy unit is struck with lightning, receiving (Power*40)+25 points of damage. The lightning bolt then jumps to another, closest target, dealing half the amount of damage - the effect is repeated until 4 targets are hit. Advanced level: Increases the damage to (Power*40)+50 points and the maximum amount of targets to 5. Expert level: Increases the damage to (Power*40)+100 points.

One of the best offensive spells in the game, such that even a hero without the knowledge of Air Magic, or excessive amount of Power will be able to inflict significant damage. The spell has a wonderful Power/damage ratio, making it effective throughout the whole game - you only need to check the table above to understand just how much damage Chain Lightning is able to deal.

On the other hand, before you decide to use this spell, you must check, if there are no allied units near the enemy you want to target, or if there's enough enemies to hit - if not, the lightning will struck your units as well.

Counterstrike

Cost: 24 Level: 4 Duration: - Description: The allied unit can retaliate 1 additional time. Advanced level: The allied unit can retaliate 2 additional times. Expert level: All allied units are able to retaliate 2 additional times.

Another interesting spell, which can severely punish the enemy who carelessly send his units to battle. Also, it's a good method of protecting your key units, such as, for instance, an Archangel, or a group of shooters with the "no melee penalty" ability - in most cases, the enemy will send a weak unit to "eat" the retaliation and then send the rest of his forces to finish it off - with the help of Counterstrike, especially on Expert level, your enemy will have to think twice before making any move.

Magic Mirror

Cost: 25 Level: 5 Duration: 1 round Description: Enemy spells cast on your unit have 20% chance to be repelled back at a random enemy unit. Advanced level: Increases the chance to 30%. Expert level: Increases the chance to 40%.

Another spell, which, in theory, is amazing, but in practice is, at most, average. Even a 40% chance to repel a spell back at the enemy unit does not guarantee, that it will happen - besides, an enemy won't target your unit, which is protected by a Magic Mirror either way.

Air Elemental

Cost: 25 Level: 5 Duration: whole battle Description: Summons (Power*2) Air Elementals. You can't summon more than one type of elemental during a single battle, but several of the same time can be summoned. Advanced level: Summons (Power*3) Air Elementals. Expert level: Summons (Power*4) Air Elementals.

This spell, coupled with high Power attribute of the hero casting it, allows you to summon quite an amount of elementals to aid you, but there's one single problem - summoning Earch Elementals, from the Earth Magic school, is a lot more efficient, because those units are simply stronger. However, if you lack the ability to summon other elementals, using this spell is by no means any waste.

Fly

Cost: 20 Level: 5 Duration: 1 day Description: Allows the hero to fly through terrain obstacles - the move must end on a flat, passable terrain, on the ground. The range of the Fly spell is 60% of any remaining movement points the hero has at the moment of casting. Advanced level: Increases the range to 80% movement points. Expert level: Increases the range to 100% movement points.

One of the most unbalanced spells in the game, because it allows you to:

• Fly through terrain obstacles, such as mountains, trees, or normally impassable routes, immensely increasing the rate at which you can travel around the map;
• Fly through water, which is extremely effective when playing on maps taking place on countless, small islands, located close to each other - you don't have to waste a turn when entering / leaving a ship;
• Fly through enemies, which greatly simplifies the process of resource / artifact acquisition;
• During flight, your hero does not have any movement penalties, even when moving on the most disadvantageous terrains - on the other hand, it allows him to have a bonus to movement on roads;
• It allows you to surprise your enemies by popping out of nowhere.

The reasons explained above caused the spell to be regularly banned during tournaments, because the spell gives a huge edge to the one using it.

Dimension Door

Cost: 25 Level: 5 Duration: - Description: Teleports the hero to target, visible and unoccupied location on the world map. The spell can be cast up to two times a day, each time decreasing the movement points of the hero by 3. If the amount of movement points is below 3, the spell cannot be cast. Advanced level: The spell can be cast up to three times a day. Expert level: The spell can be cast up to four times a day, and each use decreases the amount of movement points by 2.

If you thought that the above spell, Fly, was overpowered, you are definitely on the wrong! Dimension Door, in terms of strength, loses only to Town Portal (which can be found in the Earth Magic section of this guide). The ability to teleport your hero to the other side of the screen, and to be able to do it several times in quick succession... The spell can be used to move around the map quickly, to pass terrain obstacles (you only need a small piece of revealed land to teleport), or to simply make your enemy's life a miserable one - you can pop out of nowhere, teleport to the enemy's city gates and seize control over the city.