Hired Heroes: Medieval Warfare – Before You Start (Guide for New Players)

Getting Started Guide

Ву Dreamer.

By reading this one article, you will be able to understand the most important features and mechanics of Hired Heroes.

Intro

Hired Heroes is an unforgiving strategic RPG online game. You control your squad of mercenaries, proceed through various missions, wander from region to region, fight many foes, raid dungeons, and grow even stronger.

Since this game is relatively new, there aren’t many tips, guides or FAQ’s prepared for new players, making them roam idly without goals and quit the game soon without understanding what to do or how to play.

There are many irreversible, merciless events (e.g., permanent wounds from “Upon Death” mercenaries, gear loss in defeated battles) in the game. Therefore, it is recommended to read each section and pay attention to the game’s tooltips, instead of just clicking and skipping through them.

Starting Character

Once you start, it is recommended to begin as a “Warrior” since they start with 5 tents, while the Bandit starts with 2 and the Craftsman with 3.

For now, classes have no differences except for their starting tent capacity, so it is simply beneficial to start as a Warrior.

Tents are used to put your mercenaries into reserve, excluding them from battle. In the early game, it is best to spend gold on expanding tents first, as you will need many mercenaries to cover various situations.

Wound System

There is one crucial feature you need to know about the game before going into battle.

In battle, many mercenaries can be injured or fall. If they fall during battle, they enter “Upon Death” status. Under this status, further combat will likely lead (15% per hit) to an incurable Permanent Wound, giving a severe penalty to the mercenary (e.g., -60% Damage, -50% Movement Points).

To avoid this, put dying mercenaries into a tent right away after the battle is over. Get them healed in the Temple, or wait for them to be cured (approximately 48 minutes) before bringing them back.

The Permanent Wound chance doesn’t trigger at deathblow. It only triggers when your mercenary survives after receiving a hit.

Temple and Upon Death Status.

Permanent Wound

Once your mercenary gets a Permanent Wound, it can be healed via only one method: obtain a Potion of “The Way Things Were” to heal your mercenary’s scar, with one bottle needed per wound.

Since ways to obtain this potion are very limited (occasionally a single bottle appears as an offer in the Trophy shop or Clan shop, through in-app purchases, or gift codes), the potion is usually used only on Veteran mercenaries or Legendary grade mercenaries.

Therefore, you must get used to managing injured mercenaries and using tents to progress in the game.

Mercenary with Permanent Wound. Requires a Potion.

Mercenary

Mercenaries are everything in this game. Currently, 8 classes exist: Archer, Assassin, Berserker, Crossbow, Swordsman, Spearman, Thug, and Monk.

Each mercenary has two different skillsets, and Purple grade or higher mercenaries sometimes come with different skills.

Therefore, it is important to check their skills before you hire them.

Mercenary Grades

There are five grades for mercenaries in the game:

1. Gray
2. Green
3. Blue
4. Purple
5. Orange

Except for Orange (Legendary grade), all other grades are considered replaceable. Orange mercenaries begin to appear once you reach Player Level 19.

Their spawn rate is very low (0.75%), so it is recommended to save Beer (used to reroll the mercenary pool in the tavern) until you hit Level 19.

Once your mercenary hits the maximum level of 30, you can rank them up and level them up again in the Training Camp, which is located next to Sherd. You need to be Player Level 20 to enter, and ranking up requires Book of War items (5 of them) of the proper rank. When ranking up a mercenary, you choose a permanent skill for them, and the process takes hours or days to complete.

After Rank 1, the maximum level for mercenaries becomes 15 instead of 30.

Required XP for Mercenary Ranks:

• At Rank 0: 150,000 XP
• At Rank 1: 550,000 XP
• At Rank 2: 2,000,000 XP
• At Rank 3: 3,000,000 XP

The real grind begins once your trusty mercenary reaches Rank 2.

Mercenary Spawn: Where to Find Them?

Each town spawns different mercenaries. Towns are sorted into 3 categories: Village, City, and Castle.

For example, if you wish to find a Swordsman, you need to head to a “Castle” settlement, such as Renwood or Darforth.

• Village: Spearman, Archer (Epic and Legendary)
• City: Berserker, Thug, Assassin (Epic and Legendary)
• Castle: Crossbowman, Swordsman, Monk (Epic and Legendary)

• Cities are Belfair and Sunswait
• Castles are Renwood and Darforth
• Villages are the remaining settlements.

Combat

Once you encounter an enemy, you have 3 choices:

1. Attack (Manual Combat)
2. Auto Combat
3. Escape

Attack (Manual Combat)

“Attack” will bring you into the combat zone. Turns for mercenaries are based on their positions. Putting a mercenary in the highest position will make them act first, while the lowest positioned mercenary will act last.

In Manual Combat, you can switch to Auto-control mode if the battle seems too easy. However, you’ll have to risk the bot’s terrible control.

Click “Camp” then “Building” button to get access to reposition screen.

Auto Combat

You can choose Auto-combat if your enemy seems much weaker than you.

Auto-combat is essentially the same as Manual Combat with Auto-control mode enabled. It is not related to your displayed Power number.

This is why you sometimes have casualties even against much weaker enemies. For example, casualties can occur when your archer gets killed at a bottlenecked layout while standing at the frontline, with your tank at the rearline.

Therefore, if you can remember specific dungeons, enemy positions, and map layouts to build your team position accordingly, you’ll get much better results even in Auto-battle.

I memorize the layouts of dungeons I frequently visit and give buffs only to the two mercenaries who will fight at the entrance of that bottleneck layout.

Escape

If you think the enemy is much stronger than you, or you have someone dying in your current roster, you can choose to escape. Upon success, the encounter ends, but if you fail, you’ll have no other choice but to fight.

Current Meta

This is my current opinion based on long gameplay.

For now, except for Spearmen, all Mercenaries are good. Spearmen are quite meh… at least for now, because their overall damage output is low. I’d rather put one more Ranged unit or Monk instead of Spearmen.

Among all, the best Mercs I think for now are Swordsmen, Berserkers (Execution Branch), and Crossbowmen (Intercept Branch).

• Swordsmen are all-rounders for now. They got their move points increased to 2 after the latest update. With decent damage, good armor, and mobility, they are very reliable.
• Berserkers with Execution can finish full-HP enemy Tanks with one hit and also have a great debuff skill.
• Crossbowmen with Intercept are the only class able to capture Belfair/Renwood for now, so that’s significant.