Spells & Elements

Schools, learning spells from tomes, casting rules, concentration, elements.

Two schools

Spells belong to one of two schools. Restoration covers heals, Regeneration, buffs and wards (Heal, Greater Heal, Regeneration, Stoneskin, Ice Armor, Haste). Sorcery covers every damage and utility spell, and wands. Casting a spell trains only its own school (and Int); Int helps both.

No spell has a level or Int requirement: any tome can be read and cast at once. The school skill sets power: full power at (tier - 1) x 10 skill, weaker below that (down to 35%). It also shortens the cast bar: cast time = base x the larger of 0.4 and (1 - skill / 400), so skill 100 casts 25% faster and 240+ hits the 40% floor. Recall always takes 3 s.

Learning spells

You learn a spell for good by reading a Spell Tome: right-click it in the bag (or hover it and press E). The tome is used up, unless you already know the spell, in which case you keep it. You start with Spark, Heal, Light, Recall and Soul Trap; these have no tomes.

Tomes are sold by mage stalls (Farmhold tier 1, Hunter's Lodge tiers 1-2, Deepdelve tiers 2-3, Frostwatch tiers 3-4). Monsters drop them: a 2% chance per kill, x3 for casters, x2 for champions; the tier is random up to the highest the monster's level allows (tier 1 from level 1, 2 from 10, 3 from 20, 4 from 32, 5 from 45). Bosses always drop a tome of their top tier. Tier-5 tomes are drop-only. Shop prices: 60, 250, 800, 2,500 and 7,000 gold by tier. See the full spell list.

Tomes you cannot use stop dropping (v1.0.25): a monster never drops a tome for a spell you already know or for one that is already in your bag or home storage, and shops stop listing tomes for spells you know. If a monster's tier has nothing new for you it drops a tome of another tier instead, and once you have learned or own every tome the drop is simply gold and gear.

Spell colours in the Spellbook

In the Spellbook (B) each spell name is coloured by what the spell does, with a small legend under the hint: Damage is coral, DoT (damage over time, such as Immolate, Ignite, Venom Bolt, Corruption, Wither, Frostbite, Static Shock, Torment and Holy Fire) is amber and also carries a filled DoT tag next to its icon, Control (slow, root, weaken) is purple, Heal is green, Buff is blue and Utility is cream. The same colour heads the spell tooltip on the hotbar. Ground spells that tick in an area (Blizzard, Quake, Poison Cloud, Lightning Storm) are Damage, not DoT.

Buffs, the buff bar and party buffs

• A buff spell (Ice Armor, Stoneskin, Earthen Ward, Regeneration, Envenom, Haste, Vampiric Embrace, Searing Focus) no longer wraps your hero in a glowing aura that loops for its whole duration. A short ring marks the cast, and the buff sits as an icon in the buff bar just above the hotbar with the time it has left. On a phone the icons are drawn larger. Hover or tap an icon for what it does; a small number shows the spell's cooldown while the buff runs.
• Party buffs: a buff you cast also lands on every active companion that is alive, with the same duration (recasting refreshes them all) and, for Earthen Ward, a shield of the same size. There is no extra icon per companion. Envenom only changes your own weapon hits, so it does nothing for companions.
• Recasting a buff refreshes it; a buff never stacks with itself.

Spell effects

Every spell has its own animation: bolts and orbs fly to the target, novas and cones spread from the caster, ground and storm spells mark the area they hit and chain lightning jumps between targets. Heals, buffs and light glow around the caster, and the hero raises a hand and plays the attack animation when a spell goes off. The effects are only for show: damage, mana cost, range and cooldown are exactly as the spell tooltip says.

Casting rules

• Targeted and ground spells need you to stand still, the target or spot in range, on screen and in line of sight (ground spells aim at your target, else the mouse). Blink goes to the tile under the mouse.
• Spells with a cast time show a cast bar; moving cancels it (Recall is also cancelled by damage). Mana and cooldown are only spent when the spell goes off.
• Concentration: heals, Regeneration and the big spells (Fireball, Meteor, Blizzard, Lightning Storm) can be broken by damage you take. A hit smaller than 4% of your max HP never breaks it; otherwise you resist with a chance of 15% + 0.4% per school skill (max 70%). A short cast that breaks restarts; a long cast is pushed back a quarter. After two breaks in one cast, the rest of that cast cannot be broken.
• Damage and heals grow with Int and the school skill. Regeneration lasts 30 s + 4 s per Restoration + 2 s per Int above the start (max 10 min) and heals more per second with skill; recasting refreshes it, it never stacks.

Elements

Elemental weapons, spells and procs do ×1.5 against the opposite element, ×0.75 against the same element, and normal damage otherwise. Pairs are reciprocal: Fire ↔ Ice, Holy ↔ Dark, Poison ↔ Earth, and Storm also beats Earth. Void monsters resist every element and have no weakness. A mob's weakness is also listed on its page.

Where to read more

Resists explains defence against each element; Souls covers Soul Trap.

Source: game data and scripts (v1.0.38). All guides