Advice on my roster, and on leveling priorities?

I’ve been playing a while (player level 35), but my decisionmaking has not always been optimal! I need some advice on (1) who to start in my defense team (and in raids & war), (2) how to position them (center/side etc), and (3) who to prioritize for leveling and ascension. In general, the higher ascension/level my character, the earlier I acquired it (almost always with my 3 level-20 training grounds). Here’s my roster. A means Ascension Level; L means level.

5-stars:
Sartana - A3, L60 [dark]
Quintus - A3, L70 [dark]
Leonidas - A3, L70 (my first 5-star acquisition) [holy]
Joon - A2, L36 (my newest 5-star acquisition) [holy]

4-stars:
Kelile - A4, L70 [fire]
Kelile - A1, L10 [fire]
Li Xiu - A4, L26 [holy]
Li Xiu - A1, L1 [holy] (just acquired this duplicate)
Boril - A3, L11 [ice]
Gormek - A2, L10 [fire]
Caedmon - A2, L5 [nature]
Caedmon - A1, L7 [nature]
Rigard - A1, L31 [dark]
Chao - A1, L28 [holy]
Scarlett - A1, L18 [fire]
Kiril - A1, L14 [ice]
Sonya - A1, L10 [ice]
Sonya - A1, L4 [ice]
Hu Tao - A1, L9 [holy]

Leveled 3- stars include:

Belith - A3, L50 [nature]
Hawkmoon - A3, L50 [fire]
Kailani - A3, L50 [holy]
Balthazar - A3, L50 [dark]
Nashgar - A3, L50 [fire]
Bane - A3, L50 [holy]
Ulmer - A3, L50 [ice]
Gunnar - A2, L30 [ice]
Isshatk = A2, L38 [nature]
and various other 3-stars.

Any advice on (1) which for defense/raid/war teams, (2) who to put in middle/sides, and (3) who to prioritize for level/ascension? Many thanks in advance!

Without giving too too much thought, my inclination for a strong defense team is:

Kelile | Quintus | Li Xiu | Sartana | Leonides

These are your five heroes that you’ve ascended using rare mats, and they’ll be a good notch stronger than your other current options. I’ve arranged them to avoid putting two of the same color together. I could imagine Leo and Li Xiu swapping places, but I’ve placed her center because her special slows the foe’s specials nicely. Work on getting each of these heroes up to the max level within the ascension.

You may not want to use this defense for raids, as it may keep your cups higher than you like them.

You have some really good cards that you should focus on developing. I would prioritize:

  • Li Xiu finish her up, since you’ve used the orbs on her already
  • Sartana get her to 3/70
  • Kiril to get a healer and offense buff on your team. This is clearly your best Ice card
  • Caedmon to bring a green hero in and add the ability to debuff your foe’s team. A card I still bring into play situationally (I mostly have fully ascended 5* these days)
  • Gormek to put a better Fire card into play and add armor debuff skill. Grimm and Tibertus have the same skill, with Gormek being the defense-heavy version, Grimm on offense, and Tibertus balanced.

That’s one project for each color, which is how I work to maximize the efficiency of your training (there’s a 20% xp bonus for training in-color).

After completing these projects, and assuming no new heroes come along, I’d think about:

  • Joon to 3/70 (see below)
  • Rigard to bring another healer aboard
  • Sonya very similar to Caedmon, but will bring strike capability in Ice, which you’ll find useful.
  • missing second green 4*
  • Scarlett squishy but huge attack stat and useful debuff on special, particularly against titans.

Some 4* cards that would be very handy to have:

  • Melendor, to add yet another healer and more green power
  • Grimm, armor debuff of another color. Very useful special in raid offense, wars, and titans
  • Tibertus, same reason
  • Boldtusk, similar to Kiril, different color.
  • Wu Kong, the key to huge titan hits.

Looking forward to being able to ascend your 5* to full at some point, there is near universal agreement that Sartana and Joon are the best regular 5* of their respective colors (outside of Heroes of the Month and Event Heroes). I would get these two to 3/70 and then eventually ascend them before Quintus or Leonides.

I say it nearly daily somewhere on the forums: build a great 4* team first. A fully ascended 4* hero is almost always stronger (in reality, not by the numbers) than a 3/70 5* hero.

Enjoy! You’re off to a great start.

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A thousand thanks! That’s just the sort of feedback I was hoping for.

And I realize I left a hero off my list: I do have a fully-leveled and ascended Grimm, at A5 L70! I include him in my defense team routinely. Is he better than Boril or Kiril? In any case, I like your advice of giving Kiril next priority for leveling.

Grimm is great. He’s almost always on my raid offense. On the other hand, I lose cups rapidly if he’s on my defense.

I’d still keep Kiril as top Ice priority. Top-ranked players use him on offense, and on defense in the Wars he has been amazing. You don’t have any healers leveled up, and that’s a problem in many situations. It would be unorthodox, but a great future defense might be Kiril center, flanked by Quintus and Sartana, with Li Xiu and Leonides on the wings. It’d be worth a try, anyway.

Once you have Kiril up, as well as Grimm, then you have to decide when to run double-Ice on offense. There are a lot of people with red centers (Ares, Boldtusk, Aslar, Colen most commonly), when a double-blue team can be decisive. Certainly against red titans, you’ll want to at least double-Ice.

The one change that Grimm might bring is whether you should prioritize Gormek. Since you have a strong one-hit Fire hero, I think he’s still a better choice than Scarlett for your next red project.

Many thanks for your further reply. It’s so reassuring to receive some advice!

I’m interested that you do advise double-ice for a red titan. In general, do you advise doubling up against the Titan’s weak color, whatever it might be? (Or even tripling or more?) I usually do double-up against the Titan’s weak color, but I’m routinely out-hit by compatriots in my guild, some of whom always use pure-rainbow teams. In general they have slightly higher team power than I do, but only slightly.

I suspect the real reason is they make better use of the best items: big mana, tornadoes, and Time Stops. Given my top characters, should I be starting a titan hit with a big mana potion on someone? (Sometimes I play it on Grimm.) Should I prioritize Tornado or Time Stop instead?

Many thanks again! Your comments have been extremely helpful. :slight_smile:

I always double- or triple- against titans. The only hero in every one of my titan teams is Wu Kong. There is always one of: {Grimm | Tibertus | Gormek} and always an attack buffer {Kiril | Boldtusk | Ares}.

I suspect that Wu Kong is the missing piece from your team.

Mana potions are valuable. I would pop one in Grimm (or my debuff hero) just before you can see some serious tiles hitting. It may take a couple of rounds to set that up, so I don’t necessarily use mana potions out of the gate.

I am a complete Tornado addict for titans. Timestops I use mostly in Challenge Events.

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Thanks. OK, I’ll try timing my mana-ingestion better. I try to do all the other titan tricks: don’t wait for my animations to conclude, try always to stun with three in the weak column, etc.

I like the Tornado too. I just find it hard to farm the ingredients for it! I prefer to auto-farm if possible, which usually relegates me to around area 18 or lower. I suppose I’d get more goodies if I farmed, say, area 20. It’s the nuggets that seem most elusive.

Thanks again!

Agree with the top of Kerridoc’s list: finish Li and Sartana, kiril to 70. Caed is also a good choice, though I’d definitely work on Rigard before gormek. Maybe sonya too depending where you are on raiding; you’ll see more and more red tanks (i.e. BT and ares) as you move up in raiding. Also, if you’ve got the orbs for Joon, I’d do that before gormek too most likely.

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Thanks for your reply. I have 3 of the 4 orbs for Joon, so I’m getting close.

Also, should I ever use 3-stars for anything (other than in the last hit of a war)? Or should I feed them all to my 4- and 5-stars? I’ve been using my fully-leveled Belith frequently as a healer, but she dies fast.

Don’t use your 3* except in unusual circumstances. But also don’t toss them–they will be useful in the Challenge Events, like Guardians of Teltoc starting tomorrow. At the Beginner Level you can only use 3* heroes and 2* troops (or lower).

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Thanks. I’d forgotten about challenge events. I’ll keep my 3-stars around for that, but yeah, no more putting Belith on my defense team. :slight_smile:

With the revenge bar in Alliance Wars i feel that 6 fully leveled healers is important. Many may disagree but i have a healer fetish anyway so my advice would be to focus on them. I have been focusing on them since i started playing lol.

6 minimum. Bringing two, esp on clean ups is also not a bad choice. :wink:

I strongly believe in like-color training, so Gormek and Joon don’t compete for feeders. I think my approach is even more important Noel with Alliance Wars. It’s more important to train broadly.

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I have never been able to anything but like color training. Hate wasting resources. Now with the need for so many heroes cant see why one wouldnt maximize resources and take advantage of the bonus exp

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