Please note more information will follow once available.
The latest addition to the game has been Hero Skills, a game-feature that will allow you to enhance your heroes with special skills that will help in a range of areas, from combat, to resource mining, to gem mining, and even allowing you to revive troops lost in battle. Skills are first unlocked, or learned, in the academy, with special items.
Once known, a skills can be learned by a hero and upgraded further. In this article, I will detail all there is to know about this subject!
- 1. How to learn new skills
- 2. Giving skills to Heroes
- 2.1 Free enrolls
- 2.2 Enrollment scrolls
- 2.3 Skill Books
- 3. Upgrading Skills
- 4. Unlearning/deleting Skills
- 5. Available skills
- 5.1 Skill upgrade costs
- 6. Skill dependencies and unlock costs
- 7. Enemy’s Skills
>continued
1. How to learn new Skills
The basis of the new Hero Skills process is first to learn new Skills. If you go to your Academy, there will be a new tab on the top right called the (Skill) Library. Here all available Skills are shown, both locked and unlocked ones. The locked ones have the unlock requirements given as well:
Skills come in four categories –Common, Advanced, Rare, Epic- bestowing ever greater bonuses to your Hero. Most Skills, especially in the higher categories, require other skills to be unlocked first before they can be unlocked. If those requirements are met, the new Skill can be unlocked with Skill Points. The number of Skill points available to you to unlock Skills is given in the bottom left corner of the Library in the Academy.
Gaining more Skill points is done through obtaining Knowledge Crystals, special items which give 500 Skill points to spend. Your first Crystal will be awarded upon logging in after Hero Skills are introduced on your server. Besides buying extra Crystals in the shop (150 mithril), they drop from Alliance Bosses from Moria and Mirkwood, come in new chests, and will probably drop in Premium as well. Update: Please don’t buy these but farm them!
Once requirements are met and you have enough Skill points, you can press the Unlock button and permanently add the Skill to possible Skills for all your Heroes.
2. Giving Skills to Heroes
Now that you have Skills unlocked for your Heroes, it is time to grant them to them. If you go to a Hero, you will a new Skill button besides the familiar EXP one. Pressing it brings you to that Hero’s Skill overview, where you are shown which Skills the Hero has at the moment:
Each Hero is given 5 slots to fill with Skills. The slots open up at certain Hero levels, with a slot opening at levels 1, 60, 120, 180 and 250. Considering your best Heroes probably are all 250, you will have 5 slots at your disposal from the get-go. To grant a Skill to a Hero, press the Enroll button next to a slot of choice. You will now be presented with three options: A free daily enroll, an Enrollment Letter, or a Skill Book.
2.1 Free Enroll
Similar to the Galadriel’s token, you are given a free Enroll chance every day. This free Enroll chance is granted every day at GMT 0:00 for in every city. The free Enroll is random, and selects a Skill from your unlocked Skills in your Skill Library, with the chances of higher Skills being smaller than common ones.
2.2 Enrollment Letter
Enrollment Letters work similar to the free Enroll, but they do not come free, and have to be bought for 30 Mithril each. For that cost, you get an extra chance of Enrolling in a Skill you want, and the chances of Enrolling in a Rare Skill are higher compared to the free Enroll. Besides that, the Enrollment is still random from your unlocked Skills.
2.3 Skill Books
The last and non-random method, is learning a Skill directly through a Skill Book. These Books grant you a specific Skill directly, instead of relying on chance to get the right Skill for your Hero. At the time of writing, it is unclear where Skill Books can be obtained, and whether you need to have the Skill for a Book unlocked first before being able to use it. More on this to come.
3. Upgrading Skills
(For an overview of the costs of upgrading Skills, see chapter 5.1)
Once a Skill has been granted to a Hero, it is possible to upgrade it to higher levels. Currently, Skills come in 5 levels. Additionally, Skills are increased when used by Legendary Heroes, with the bonus depending on the Legendary Hero level.
By going to a Hero’s Skill overview, you can press the Upgrade button on a Skill you wish to upgrade. The next screen shows you the current level and Bonus, the next level and Bonus, and how many Scrolls are available to upgrade the Skill. The Scrolls for upgrading Skills come in two grades: Scholar Scrolls are used to upgrade Skills to levels 2 and 3, while Bachelor Scrolls are used to upgrade Skills to level 4 and 5. The number of Scrolls needed to upgrade depends on the level and grade of the Skill.
Scholar Scrolls can be farmed from mines extra-ordinary mines. Bachelor Scrolls only dropped from chests for me so far. Scrolls can also be bought for 20 (Scholar) or 50 (Bachelor) Mithril.
Scrolls are stored in your Scroll Bag, which can hold up to 25 of both of them for a total of 50 Scrolls. AT the moment this Bag capacity cannot be upgraded.
4. Unlearning Skills
Most people will of course not wait for the best Skills to be unlocked before applying them to their Heroes. So what if you filled your five Skill slots but unlock a better on you want to gift to your Hero? Simple, just go to the Hero, decide which Skill you want to lose and replace on that Hero, and press the Enroll button again. You will once again be presented with the choices of a free enroll, Enrollment Letter, or Skill Book. Once you press Enroll or Learn, a pop-up will ask you to confirm to replace the old Skill in that slot and voila!
5. Available Skills
The following Skills have so far been released. In the requirements section, research requirements are left out as I assume you have, and you should, all research at level 10..
5.1 Skil upgrade costs
As mentioned in paragraph 3., Skills can be upgraded using Bachelor and Scholar Scrolls. Below is shown the type and number of scrolls needed for each level of each skill:
6. Skill dependencies and unlock costs
Because most higher Skills depend on other Skills being unlocked first, this has major implications for the total costs of especially the Epic Skills. In the graph below I have plotted all the dependencies from the overview above visually:
This then comes down to the following unlock costs for all (original) Skills:
- Common
- Shielded Maneuvers I (840)
- Who There I (840)
- Broken Bows I (840)
- Advanced
- Pearl Harvesting (670)
- Keep Digging (670)
- Marauder (1,790)
- Close Quarters I (2,350)
- Spearhead I (2,350)
- Bullseye I (2,350)
- Rare
- Shielded Maneuvers II (4,815)
- Whoa There II (4,815)
- Broken Bows II (4,815)
- Morale Boost (12,545)
- Epic
- Fierce Loyalty (14,475)
- Breath of Life (14,475)
- Revival (17,050)
This shows that all the dependencies, and the long chains of needed Skills to unlock necessary for the best Skills quickly add up to tremendous amounts of Skill points needed. The much looked forward to Revival Skill is the most expensive one and, at a cost of 150 Mithril per Knowledge Crystal, will cost you 5130 Mithril if you want to buy the Crystals! So my advice is to start killing Alliance Bosses as soon as possible and farm tokens for Premium, or this will become an expensive feature!
7. Enemy’s Skills
Of course in PvP, your enemies will also have acquired Hero Skills, and might be wise to figure out which ones they have. Luckily, a new tab has also been added to the Battle Report which shows you just that:
In conclusion, this addition seems pretty good and makes for some more diverse Battle Strategies. I can only hope that Kabam will make the ingredients such as Crystals and Scrolls available for non-paying users through farming/mining….
Kingdoms of Middle Earth made easy 
The skill tables that are shown above with all the stats are great. Anyone know where we can find one’s that show skills upgraded to 10?
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My kids is starting over his mines are only 20 mines why is this ? What does he need to upgrade beside mauder ?
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Does stacking up digging have a maximum speed on it? I am trying to get on all my mining heros keep digging on it so far it’s been lowered to 25 minutes. Any one any idea if this can be lowered even further?
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is digging better than marauder skill on mining heros?
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hello, i just wanna know whats better to put on mining heros for better mining, the digging skill or the marauder?
thank you
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For mining, a mix of marauder and keep digging. For a gem shard collection event, 5x marauder will allow you to steal maximum shards. That hero needs to have a brawler gear and gem setup.
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Great post!
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Quick question on the epic skills – can you only have each for one hero across all five towns? And if so, if I remove it from one hero, can I get it for another hero?
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no, one of each per HERO…so all 50+ heroes can have all three epic skills, but no more than one copy
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Here is few questions everyone asking and they already been answered.
Do skill stack?
yes they stack EXCEPT the unique skills. so far there only 4 skills are unique which don’t stack. they are morale boost and all epic skill. They don’t stack. but other than that all common advanced rare skills stack. so if u have 5 keep digging it will bring down the time on mine each time you will get it on a hero. i think on a hero with all level 5 keep digging the mining starts at like 30 minutes instead of 40 minutes.
Note: pearl harvesting is broken at this point and don’t apply i have stacked it one of hero in lake town and so far got zero bonus from it. so kabam need to fix it before everyone can benefit from it.
How to get skills after you unlock them?
you can use free or regular enrollment letters from chests. once you unlock its a random chance to get a rare, epic, advanced or common skills. of course it about luck of draw and lower odds to get epic or rare skills. so you might get it in 300 letters or you might get in 3 letters what you want on you’re hero. also they have book of skills for hero. They can be used to get a specific skill from learning from book but the good skill books are hard to get at this point. maybe they will be more common in premiums in few months.
Does fierce loyalty and breath of life cancel each other?
yes they do. not totally though but if you’re looking for completely defense or attack hero i suggest keeping one of them only.
How to activate morale boost and does it activates for all heroes?
I haven’t paid attention to it much. but it activates randomly for me after winning a battle. once activated it works for all the heroes (as per my understanding- feel free to correct me if i am wrong on that).
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Do skills get stacked?
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Is it good to have breath of life on attack hero as well or does it effect attack negatively?
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Would like to know this as well. Does breath of life and fierce loyalty cancel each other out?
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If you have both on the same hero they will cancel each other out.
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Yes breath of life and fierce loyalty will cancel each other out if equipped on the same hero
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They only cancel out the negative of each skill.. which grants you a net gain of 29% bith ways at level 10
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Hi ! What do you think the best skill complation when attacking a alliance boss ?
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Love your site. Truly top shelf. Now, just so I’m clear, multiple slots with the same skill (stacking?) “does” work toward your overall increase for that particular skill. Ex. all 5 slots have Pearl Harvesting I, each good for 4% for a total of 20% increase? thx in advance
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86 that last comment…. figured it out.
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Once all skills are unlocked, how do we upgrade from a common skill to a rare or epic skill?
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People keep saying skills don’t stack that is not true. Broken arrows, shielded maneuvers and whoa there do stack. I’ve tested it and for sure it does.
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Please everyone go to kabam forum in suggestions section and let them know you want hero skill bonuses to show on reports.
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They do
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Still trying to figure morale boost out! I have Lvl 5 morale boost on my attack hero and have not been able to verify it activates after even a few successful battles at caverns. BIG question is when it activates, does it apply to “all heroes”? The verbage suggests this. For example if you have this skill on defense hero, get incoming you will most likely always win that battle. Does it then activate increased attack for all heroes? So that you could them go send a return hit with your attack hero and have the increased attack buff? Playing with some experienced great players and we are all still scratching our heads a bit. Any input would be fantastic!!!! Thanks 🙂
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Yes I have it on def and it acvates well works great males me have 280 attack boost
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Cavern is a hit and miss. Just take down a small wall, wall activate it right away. Just take a small wall (assigned or unassigned), as long as you are victorious, every 5 minutes. Boosted my attack buffs to 284 with out fail. Hope his help. BTW for unique skill, you won’t be able to double.
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Have you figured out how to activate morale boost? I had that skill on my Attack hero and hit open targets and also tried just hitting mines and still it does not activate….if you have figured out how to do it could you please share
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Looking for a guide on how many scrolls per level of each skill. I know its painstaking, but any chance you have this in the works?
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I have been told u can only. Use one in each slot they don’t stack up
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Ive got a 250 in laketown assigned to production with 2 pearl mining skill slots. Ive upgraded both to level 2 but have no increase to pearl production….any ideas or thoughts?
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I have been told they don’t stack in your hero like u can only use one
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Oystering skill is broken atm.
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Fierce loyalty is for a attack hero right?
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yes
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Thanks for all of the great work that you do! Do we have any sense of best-in-slot skills for a defense/chs hero yet?
It seems to be that rarer ahould be better, and it certainly is when comparing the grey defensive skills to their blue counterparts. But what about morale boost, revival, etc? Better to stack a certain type of defense? Etc.
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I haven’t been able to get the skills to “work”, something as simple as resource production. I have a hero that’s assigned to production, who is enrolled in Timber 1 skill. It’s supposed to boost production by 4%, but when I look at the numbers in Keep and the resource bar across the top, nothing’s changed. Am I missing something?
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No idea, I have heroes with those skills as well Ill check it out
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it should be not a whole lot of gain. consider all the other bonuses you get for production. 50 percent i believe from researches.( sorry to lazy to check on that since i never produced rss) then bonus for hero assignment to production lets say 250. and then up to 50 percent of each kind of level ten wild you own. so they stack up a lot. lets say you got all ten level ten food wilds. so production from one level ten (1+0.5+2.5+0.5*10)*5500=49500 production per hour. now if u add additional resource production from skills lets say 5%. that will change above number to. (1+.5+2.5+0.5*10+.05)*5500=49775. thats just very small difference and barely noticeable.
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Agreed with the small difference, but shouldn’t you be able to see it at least in the rss production bar at the top? If you tap “Boost” you can see the exact number you are producing per hour. Just saying.
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and sometime it might be glitchy and not applying properly. which i dont doubt since it kabam. and they have history of doing it. when void peices came out they were glitched and werent even applying debuff. so in the end ent gear stayed better for good two months before they fixed it.
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I think I was trying to confirm that it’s a glitch more than anything. Thanks for your input.
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I have a question about knowledge crystals. Goblin Infiltration campaign has 2 chapters. Crystals have achance of dropping from chests from both chapters or just second one – Moria ? Did someone check or just theoretical knowledge ?
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Im not sure yet. According to Kabam from both maps afaik…
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Knowledge Crystals drop from all alliance bosses level 200 and under. So from bosses from Clearing the High Pass, Avenging Moria, and Through Mirkwood.
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from both, they drop from High Pass, Moria and Mirkwood
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I know it very new but any view yet on whether it is better to upgrade a low level skill or to get to a higher level first before upgrading?
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Love your site and rely on it a lot!!! This article is great but may I offer a few corrections.
1). I only have one academy (in C1) and I still get 2 free enrolls per day in each of my 5 cities. You do NOt have to build an academy in each city.
2) in world 144, Knowledge Crystals are worth 500 skill points each.
3) you can stack the same skill on one hero ( ie, I have a hero with 2x Whoa There 1; 2x shielded maneuvers 1, and 1x broken bows 1.)
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I absolutely agree with you
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Agreed to all but I cannot find where I said Skills can be possessed only once (although I did believe that)…could you point me there?
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#3 was in reference to your reply to a comment below. It was not in the article. You have corrected yourself.
And thanks for updating the article! It really is a great resource you provide!!!
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Hi Love you website, it’s a Treasure Trove of Info for the game. This is the first time I can contribute something of value to it. The following skills can only be possessed once by a hero these are.
MORALE BOOST (RARE)
REVIVAL (EPIC)
FIERCE LOYALTY (EPIC)
BREATH OF LIFE (EPIC)
The rest can be stacked.
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These are the only skills for now that have the Unique skill on the unlocking page in the Library
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great thanks, but how did you find this out?
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Nice info guys. Do you have any numbers of what buffs % each particular skill can give to hero? On ss I can also see each skill is leveled, so therefore any intel on skill level – buff % given??
And how the 3 epics + morale boost will affect campaign battles (>>chs).
Q
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he will update it soon probably. i just unlocked all mine in my library on 256. so he must be not far off. no i just need letters or scolls.. but tbh its hard to get enrollement in anything above basic skills. i been enrolling everyday and yet to get to advanced skills.
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if you have 2 skills who are the same, does the effect allso apply 2x?
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no, each Hero can only have a Skill once. S you cannot equip a Hero with 5x Shielded Maneuvers II. However you can stack SM I and SM II. because although they have the same effect they are two unique Skills..
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Still i wonder because i have a hero equipped with the crossed swords 2x
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i mean shielded maneuvers 1
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please confirm it isnt both the common (I) and rare (II) skill, as they have almost identical icons.
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can i post screenshots like you do?
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you could send them to my email at beardmonkeyblog@gmail.com if you want
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I have 5 Keep Digging on my Tauriel, and for each one the mining speed has increased a little. Now with 5 Keep Digging at level 1 the mining now takes lesser than 30minutes. How do you explain that if you can’t have more than one of each skill that gives an effect? 🙂
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simple….I am wrong
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I tried to send them to you but probably they didn’t arrive?
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Do I have to build an academy in cities that I don’t have one? 3rd city has no legendary hero’s so kinda pointless to build one there. Isn’t it?
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I dont know if you need one there, seems you need just 2 academies to get the 2 free enrolls. Mind you though, that normal heores can also have Hero Skills, just not the extra legendary bonus….
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I have only 2 academies in first and fifth city and I’m able to enroll in all cities 2 times. Today I built one more academy in 2nd city and the number of enrollments don’t vary. What is the aim to built an academy in each city?
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From the Kabam info it seemed as if each academy granted an additional free enroll, but from what youre saying that isnt the case and 2 is the max?
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Yes from my experience. Three academies and 2 free enrolls. It seems it’s the maximum number.
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And from Kabam info as well, it said you have 2 enrolls per city? Or is it total? 2 Free Enrolls total for all cities to use on 1 or 2 heroes?
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2 free enrolls per city
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You decide how to distribute in your heroes, but only 2 per city
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