Comprehensive Guide for Noobs
By Raspy.
Basic Gameplay Tips
Skills Do Not Stack!
The most common error I see are people using patterns and emblems incorrectly. Skills don’t stack. For example, if you have a pattern that has Force and an emblem that has Force, only the highest level one will be considered per hero.
You can have duplicate skills on multiple heroes except for Protection – only the highest level shield will be used for the team. You have a very limited number of skill slots – don’t waste them!
Faction Bonuses for CP
If possible, you want to keep heroes from a single faction, or two factions at most. You get a faction bonus the more of a particular group of heroes you have in your line up.
So, having six Red heroes is better than having 2 Red, 3 Green and 1 Blue, even if the six red heroes might not be quite as good as the mixed team. Obviously, if you have to put in a substantially weaker hero, you should go with the mixed team.
Hoarding
You don’t get any bonuses for having the most gems, or the most cubes, the most golden tickets, or any other resource. And your ability to gain more resources is actively hampered by having less power. If you are an active player, F2P or not, you should gain enough gems to do two full banner pulls a day, as well as pay for whatever incidentals you may need.
If it makes you feel better to have a gem cushion, do that, but keep it minimum – like 5-6k or so. The only thing you should ever be hoarding are Boundary Stones and Magic Shards – later in the game you will never have enough. If you’re not F2P, you shouldn’t be hoarding gems at all. If you run out, the best ways to get more are anything except for the diamond top off. Do not buy the diamond top off ever.
Gem Management
For an F2P player, gem management is very important. For the most part, save your gems for banner pulls – be strategic with which banners you pull on and how you want to plan your team in the long run. In the beginning you will be running out of experience potions ALL the time.
Don’t buy experience potions from any of the shops. Instead, when you run out of experience, you will be given the option to buy experience potions at a large discount – only buy the potions there.
If you feel like you need to buy experience potions, coins, cubes, etc, buy them in your Underwater Realm or the Mystery Shop. Do not buy them in the Daily Shop.
Buy Everything You Can for Coins
Anytime you can get Experience Potions, Boundary Stones or Arena tickets for gold coins, in the Underwater Realm or the Mystery shop, you should buy them. As you get more advanced in level, you should also buy Magic Shards and Crystals from the Mystery Shop whenever they’re available for coins. I would also recommend buying Astrolabe pulls for coins when available.
Early on you’re going to be constrained by the number of coins you have. Later on, especially as you advance in the story line, you will probably have more coins than you can possibly spend.
Buy All of Your Sweeps Every Day
Yes, it can be expensive, but one of the main bottlenecks in the game is your individual level. As an aside, the single most valuable real dollar purchase you can make in the game is the $9.99 for Combat Privileges which allows you to do more sweeps every day.
Everything else can be made up for in game – the extra experience from sweeps can never be regained. *Because the exp per level keeps going up, it is possible that at some point the level gap will get smaller, so buying Combat Privileges late is still better than not at all!
Simulating Battles
Sim all the changes you make to your team and your formation. In order to do this, find someone in your friend list who is at a similar Combat Power to you and do friendly battles with changes to your lineup and formation. Some heroes work better in different positions.
Some formations work better with different heroes. You’re able to test out your theories very rapidly by using the friendly battles.
Astrolabe is Your Friend!
Save your Astrolabe lunar and solar pulls until you have an option for 5 star hero shards for Lunar and a good hero for Solar (Valk, Hela, or maybe Puck if you’re building him). You can refresh the Astrolabe every 3 hours – if you have something you don’t want, refresh until you do.
(This is one case where hoarding is okay!) As far as I can tell, other than lunar, it makes no difference if you do a group spin or singles. Also, as far as I can tell, running out the trash items does not increase the likelihood of getting a good item.
Patterns
If you’re F2P, you can consider Reforging Purple Patterns, if you’re not, I would not reforge until Orange. F2P, especially without battle privileges, will keep purple patterns a lot longer.
Awakening
Currently Themis is the only hero that you want to get to Awaken 5 as soon as possible. All other heroes you can wait until they are 11 star or even 12 star before working on Awakening. Themis doesn’t really shine until she is 10 star and Awaken 5.
Heroes and Team Composition
Every new player is always asking, “What hero is best? Is this hero any good?” And so on. All of the stats for the hero are listed in the catalog! RTFM. Currently the only two more or less essential heroes are the Twins/Gemini, and Themis, everyone else will depend on your team composition and what you’re able to actually get.
When you are comparing heroes, use the catalog rather than your hero list. All the heroes that are in your lineup get buffs, so their CP is not the base CP. So, for example, you can’t compare your 5 star hero that’s in your lineup to the 10 star hero you have that’s not in your lineup…
That said, for RGB heroes, the “best” heroes are probably Irelia, Alkaid, Divine Dancer, and Chen. Whether or not they’re useful in your lineup is a different question. For example, you probably don’t want to run Irelia and Chen because they have overlapping, rather than complementary skill sets. Also, they’re in different factions.. And, if you have Hela, you probably don’t need either one. A lot of what makes a hero good is how well they fit in your team. That said, a lot of the time, especially if you’re f2p, you may not have the best choices.
In general, a Light/Dark hero is equivalent to an RGB hero that is one or two stars higher in rank. So, for example, I would potentially replace a ten star Chen with an 8 or 9 star Hela.
For the most part, none of the Epic heroes are worth keeping in your lineup once you’re past level 40 or so. And I would work on replacing all Legendary heroes by level 60-80. Fuzzy Prowler/Anata has a place in everyone’s hearts, but you have to give her up. She just doesn’t hold up long term.
- Tanks – Every team should have 1 tank, based on the current stage of the game, the best tanks, in order, are Gil, Thanatos, Brigitte, Puck, Frostie, Ent. Of those, Frostie and Ent are very easy to get and will suffice in the very early stages of the game. Neither of them are worth going over nine stars – ten stars if you’re desperate. Some heroes, like Sleepwalker, can substitute as a tank if you don’t have anything better. However, in my experience she’s pretty uncommon, so you’re much more likely to have a better choice.
- Assault – Every team should have one or two assault type heroes. There are a lot more choices, and options for assault heroes… Initially, the “best” assault heroes that are available, are going to be Valk, Irelia, Chen, Anata, Blast Bunny. Anata and Blast Bunny should be left at nine stars for most players. Valk is probably the easiest long term hero to get and probably has a place in almost any lineup.
- Healers – You will most likely want two healers – if you can, they should be Themis and Geminis. Second choices are Freyja and Cronos. Even a lower star Geminis is very powerful, because of their one time group rez. If they’re lower level than the rest of your team, giving them the best defensive gear and figuring out ideal placement is key. The Geminis also have a decent attack skill, but they hit half as often as other attack heroes.
- Magic – Next each team will want one or two magic based heroes.. Now, this is a little bit tricky, and it will depend on your Guild Grimoire (see Grimoire section.) In the early stages, you can get away with only assault, or only magic, and you can concentrate your grimoire on whichever you have the most of. In the long run, you will want both assault and magic. Certain heroes work better with other heroes. For example, Vamp and Succubus are both complementary to Adley. Valk’s buff increases the more light heroes you have in your lineup.
Some Details on Combat
When you’re looking at heroes, you need to look carefully at their skills. For example, Irelia has a similar attack to Chen. However, Chen only attacks front to back, top to bottom, while Irelia targets the enemy with the lowest hit points is very important – a weak enemy can still attack you. A dead enemy can not. In many cases, this will make up for Chen’s auto healing. (An exception to this is solo dungeon, where Chen will most likely outperform Irelia.)
Some heroes, like the Twins, have different capabilities depending on what row they are in your formation. For the Twins, you need to decide if you want an attack boost or a defense boost and plan accordingly.
Because of the way the attack algorithm works, the safest place in your formation is usually the middle of the back row (when there are three heroes in the back row), the bottom of the second row and the bottom of the front row (when there are three heroes in the front row.) However, certain heroes target specific rows depending on what is there. So, for example, Thanatos targets the row with the hero that has the highest attack. So, if you are fighting a team with Thanatos, it might not be the best to have your squishy healer in the same row as your highest attack. Thanatos isn’t the best example, because his attack is weak.
Any hero that gets repeat attacks on kills will benefit from being paired with a hero with good AOE attacks. For example, combining Fuzzy Prowler with Irelia does no favors to either. Combining Fuzzy with Divine Dancer is a much better combination because Dancer may be able to get the enemy team low enough to wear Fuzzy can take out multiple targets. This also becomes significant later on when you have heroes with high levels of the Chase skill.
If you have the red Turtle pet, Sleepwalker, or any other hero that summons an additional fighter, you are restricted in ideal formations to ones that have a single hero at the front.
What Does Combat Power Actually Mean
So, the basic measurement for team strength is Combat Power, but it is only a general rule. For example, you could make a team that was just healing type heroes and you could have the same CP as a team made up of assault heroes and you’d lose every time in combat. Or, you could have a team of RGB heroes with a higher CP than someone with all LD heroes.. Once again you’ll lose every time.
So, use CP as a rough guide, but actually look at your opponent’s team makeup before you attack.. Assuming the outcome matters.
Also, Mystics, Magic Devices and Artifacts, don’t necessarily show up in combat power but make a huge difference in combat performance. For example, if your opponent has the same CP as you do, but you have 3 purple mystics and they have 4 red mystics, you’re probably going to lose.
How Do I Increase My Combat Points (CP)?
There are some easy ways to increase CP that everyone should be working on. In general, methods that benefit the entire team are better than methods that only benefit a single hero.
Proverbs
Some of the proverbs count from the beginning, some do not. The Proverb of Practice, Uncharted and Devout only count from when you first get them – try and get them early on. The Proverb of All Beings may be one of the most powerful, but it takes your current tower level into account and applies it, so it is okay to get it later. If you are p2w, buying the daily gift is probably a good investment at least until you have the first level of each proverb. Personally, I feel it is too expensive for the return, but it depends on how much of a whale you want to be!
Guild Grimoire
My recommendation for Grimoire is to start increasing the stats for whatever hero type you have the most of. Then work on the left side of the wheel, until all those stats are at an increment of ten, then work on the right side. If there are two heroes of a particular type, I typically keep that section 1 increment of ten higher for each additional hero I have. So, for example, if I had 3 assault heroes and 2 magic heroes and 1 defense and one support, I would try and get my assault wheel to 30 ranks, my magic to 20, and my defense and support to 10.
The best way to get points for your grimoire is to PARTICIPATE IN YOUR GUILD! The way the guild works, rewards are heavily weighted towards participation. Make sure you show up for all the guild battles, even if you aren’t very strong!
Elst Temple
It may be tempting to dismiss heroes for hero shop points.. And there are times when this is a viable strategy. However, starring up heroes allows you to increase your Elst Temple level, which provides bonuses to your whole team. If you are starring up heroes, you want the only star levels that are usable as fodder: 6 star, 9 star and 10 star. Don’t worry about having “too many” 9 star and 10 star heroes.. Unless you’re horribly unlucky in pulling duplicates, you probably won’t be able to make more fodder than you can use. That said, I generally try to keep a ratio of 2-3 six star for every 9 or ten star.
Monument
You get a minimum of 12 cans of spinach a day (assuming you buy the daily special for gems, which you should, every day!). The Lava mine is a great venue for resources, and you should be building your monument as much as you possibly can. You will gain blue and purple monument stones from digging and events, or if you’re p2w, you can buy them in the month packs. So it may be worthwhile to save up for orange or red monument stones in the Mining Shop.
Champion Statue
You can raise the level of your Champion Statue, which gives bonuses to your entire team, by winning battles in the Champion Temple. There are two ways to earn – one is by reaching new levels and the second is by holding your place in the temple. Reaching new levels is often easiest by hunting the NPC defenders. This is also nicer to other players since you don’t bump them from their spot… Often bumping a player from a spot will result in them coming back stronger and angrier………
When you’re looking for a position to contest, carefully look at the enemy team. Some of the NPC teams are easier than others, even if they’re at higher levels. This will depend on your own team composition. For example, with my team, I find the NPC teams that have Sleepwalker to be super difficult.
Mystics
You want to take any pulls you can get for your mystics… Also, until you have four mystic slots, you can salvage purple mystics to increase your Mystic Land level. Long term, this is not a wise choice as you will benefit from the mystic catalog and having high level purple mystics, even if you never use them. Eventually you will max out your catalog and you can then salvage any shards to increase your tower level.
Best mystics: Orange Unicorn, Red Turtle, Red Wind Flash, Red Heaven Gospel. I would obtain them in that order.
Lost Relics
This opens at level 105 (remember when I said sweeps every day were really important?) This is where you can obtain Gold/Legendary gear… You get two chances to go through the ruins every day. It is very important that you go straight through – find the path that allows you to hit as many chests as possible, but don’t worry about getting them all. Also, do not be afraid to use ambush if you think there is any chance you will lose the battle. The defenders are actual player teams, so if you spend time in the arena, there is a good chance you’ve fought them before and probably have an idea of their strength. You get a very limited number of lost relic maps – consider them a Hail Mary option, don’t depend on them! If you do lose a battle, you will need to use a lost relic map to finish out the last level. Also, you can re-fight the battle and the enemy will be at whatever strength it was when you lost.
The only thing you should be buying in the Lost Relic shop is more shards. Someday if you are consistently maxing out your purchases you can buy other stuff. Until then, SHARDS!
Every time you have 100 shards, you can get a random piece of gold gear. There are two different sets of gear, one is attack oriented, one is defense oriented… You can also, if the gear is not equipped, turn that gear into shards in your backpack to use to star up other gear (Thanks to Apeiron for that!). Once gear is starred up, you can feed it red level gear.
Who should I put the gear on?? In general, give the best gear to your highest level heroes. With some exceptions, for example, if your twins are low level relative to your team and they’re dying before everyone else, you’re wasting their rez skill… Give them the defensive gear so they last a little longer. Same with your DPS heroes – if they’re dying off before they get their skill attacks, give them more defense. A lot of the tanks have anemic attacks (I’m looking at you, Thanatos) you can boost their attack with attack gear…
Level 120: EXP Sweeps Are Important!
At the time I’m writing this, for the global server, this is the biggest CP jump. At level 120, you get an assist slot and you get access to Artifacts and Treasure Hunt.
Assist Slot
The Assist slot lets you have a seventh hero in your lineup, although only six go on the field at once. This means that your overall CP will go up by whatever that hero is. However, this CP is a LIE. If, for example, you were fighting an opponent with the same CP as you, and they did not have an assist slot, you would lose. Badly.
The assist slot is worth about 10-30% of the additional CP you get. So, for example, let’s say your CP goes from 8mil to 10mil after you add the assist, your real effective CP is more like 8.2 to 8.6mil when calculating what sort of team you can actually beat.
There are various strategies for filling the assist slot – the most obvious one is to put the twins there. However, there are some caveats – often the hero that dies first is one of the ones up front – you do not want your front line to be replaced by the twins. Also, the twins won’t rez whatever hero they replace. I recommend experimenting by simming battles with various configurations to find what works for you.
Treasure Hunt
The treasure hunt has a variety of levels that unlock as you get higher in level (SWEEPS) – you conquer all the islands for each level, then you can sweep them for chests every day.. Theoretically you should be able to get great stuff from the chests. Fortunately the Goddess has smiled on me and made all my chests be whatever is the least value item possible.
Artifacts
This opens at level 120 (EXP SWEEPS ARE IMPORTANT!) – at the time I’m writing this, this is the most effective return for power available in the game. The Artifact Forge allows you to gain artifacts. The concept is basically the same as mystics, but the available CP is much higher. Once again you need to upgrade your items and you need to develop the catalog and the tower (in this case, called resonance).
For the individual artifacts, the material required goes up for each level, so there is some argument that advancing all of your artifacts is more effective for overall CP than advancing the ones you mostly use at a faster rate.
How to Earn More Stuff?
Uncharted Adventure
Each day your Undersea realm refreshes dice twice a day, and additionally you can buy dice by clicking on the plus sign next to your dice, and you can buy more dice in the Hall Shop. Since the Uncharted is basically 100% luck, there isn’t much strategy to it, other than get all the dice you can. Once you get Auto, it also always picks the strongest hero, so that’s nice. For the special realms, you can’t use the invisibility cloak, so there’s no need to save them.. You can don the cloak at any time in a realm (assuming you’re not using auto. If you are, you need to disable it first, which you can do while it is running by clicking on the check mark.)
If I’m raiding a realm that has guards and I get a few hundred gems, I might don a cloak for the remainder of the visit.
Gem Realm
Twice a week you can visit the Gem Realm. If you are unable to pass the boss monster and your team gets wiped out, the boss monster will retain whatever hit points it had at the end (which might be very little), so you can set up a second team and go back in. Because the amount of gems goes up each time you successfully complete the circuit, you do want to make sure you get through it every time. I was able to save a loss one time with a single level 30 hero!
Song of Time
You can try these battles as much as you have patience for – they’re very good for obtaining fodder, cubes and heroes. It is one of the relatively easy ways to obtain a Valk and a Hela. Some of them are seriously hard though, I don’t think they ramp up very consistently with player level.
Events
All of the events give out free stuff! Do the events!
What Should I Buy?
I’m am definitely not an authority on this, but here’s spending guide.
Hero Tier List
Click to enlarge…
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