4* vs 5* Heroes

[Gryphonknight]

Glory

@LadyAchilles

great set of 5 star heroes, only to realize that not only taking them to 4th ascension, but also maxing and then considering emblems for them is HARD work

Sorry you are frustrated.

I have repeatedly blamed 5* HotM advertising for convincing new players that 3* / 4* heroes are worthless and 5* heroes are always better.

I would love a 4* HotM.

4* Heroes are the backbone of Empires. 4* heroes, plus Forge Level 17, can complete all of the game.

Solo snipers

@LadyAchilles

Joon/Seshat/Mitsuko/Isarnia/Lianna

Joon and Isarnia are glass cannons. But this team is mostly solo snipers except

Mitsuko who is useful for defense teams but not as useful versus normal titans, map bosses and triple bosses. Similar to Li Xiu.

Isarnia ( who I actually like but ) suffers from Classic 5* Hero syndrome - everything that was programmed later could be better, faster, stronger.

Team heroes

I prefer team heroes.

Wu Kong teams
([Play Style] The cascade squad or Wu Kong+ two healers- New Notes 2019-Mar)

(Wu Kong grinder gang or Powerful rainbow auto play team or Wu Kong plus 4 healers)

Proteus
(Proteus or Domitia first? - #13 by Gryphonknight)

Boldtusk
(What to do with fighter emblems? - #12 by Gryphonknight)

It really sucks that the most common 5* heroes in the game are mostly solo heroes, slow heroes, or both.

Generic advice

@Obsidian

The 5* heros generally don’t really get useful until that final 4th tier. While the 4* hero’s are also generally better than a 5* at 3.70

Comparing heroes

([Math] 4* 4.70 > 5* 3.70 > 4* 3.60 > 5* 2.60 > 3* 3.50 ( base stats and special skills ) or Comparison of Partially leveled heroes by rarity [More Math])

Roster

But it depends on your roster.

@Noble_Weasel

Using that same principle, though, gives me justification to take Poseidon to 2^60 before leveling Kailani and Gan Ju. I’m in about equally bad shape for fighters, monks, and clerics (maybe worse on clerics, but Mneusses is my next green project). So if a 5-star 2^60 is better than a 3-star 3^50, Poseidon at 2^60 would be my second-best fighter class hero, only behind Valen because he is heavily emblemed. Plus, he’d be my third best available yellow unless I leveled a second Danzaburo, so he also builds war depth, even at 2^60.

I shoot for completing rare quests soonest, then class quests then Titan loot tier 9+ then Platinum/ Diamond raid arenas.

Color stacking

Color stacking is the hidden buff of Empires.

Color stacking

@Gryphonknight

Double strong color, no weak color, teams==

Now that you have two rainbow teams ( one 3* 3.50 and one 4* 3.60 ) you can create double strong color, no weak color teams.

If you are attacking a Green Boss, then Red heroes are better because they are strong against green, so Green bosses takes double damage. The opposite is true of Blue heroes. Blue heroes cause half damage to a Green boss. The other colors ( Green, Purple & Yellow ) do neutral damage or no increase or decrease in damage.

When attacking a Green boss, remove your BLUE 4* 3.60 hero ( half damage against Green ) from your rainbow 4* 3.60 team, and replace it with your RED 3* 3.50 hero ( double damage against Green ) for a double red, no blue team.

You will do 1 HP of damage with blue matches/ board damage, since you are missing a Blue hero. But your two Red heroes will do double damage. Even if your Red 3* 3.50 hero dies against a Green boss, twice its attack stat will still be added when doing matching/ board/ physical damage.

==Weird color teams==

Other teams:

triple strong color,
quadruple strong color,
double neutral color,
double neutral three color teams and
single color teams.

Once you have more experience with rainbow teams and double strong color, no weak color teams, you can learn more about these weird alternatives.

==Elemental shields or Reflect color enemies==

When you fight an enemy with an elemental shield, it is weak to a color, strong to a color and REFLECTS a color. Example: A Reflect green boss takes double damage from Red heroes, half damage from Blue heroes, and reflects all damage from Green heroes back to that hero. So a triple red, no blue, no green team OR a double red, double yellow/ double purple, no blue no green team works better than a rainbow team. Example you can remove your Blue 4* 3.60 and Green 4* 3.60 heroes and replace them with one Red 3* 3.50 hero and one Purple/ Yellow 3* 3.50 hero.

So having a rainbow 3* 3.50 and a rainbow 4* 3.60 lets you take on Reflect color enemies until you level up a second rainbow 3* 3.50, second rainbow 4* 3.60, etc.

Hero XP

It is much faster to color stack lower rarity heroes:

@Gryphonknight

Without duplicate 3*/ 4*/ 5* heroes from massive amounts of gem summons, you can generally expect to level four rainbow 4* 3.60 teams and two rainbow 4* 4.70 teams per year ( total of thirty heroes ).

5* Heroes

But eventually it does make sense to level 5* instead of more 4* heroes.

@Gryphonknight

Normally I advice 2x rainbow 5* 3.70 teams before spending any 4* ascension items, but with your 3* / 4* roster you do not have to wait. Good mix of defense 5* and attack 5* only handicapped by the solo hero nature of Classic 5* Heroes and the lack of Classic 5* Healers.

FIN