Really frustrating being stuck with 4 and 5 star heroes for months on end at levels 2 & 3 because rare materials needed to ascend are so nearly impossible to collect. Players get annoyed, frustrated and finally bored by it to the point that they loose interest and play less until finally moving on. All my heros are stuck, have been for too long, have 8 things I dont need and none that I do… Even with united alliance and new friends, game us loising charmm… And i am not the only one! Packs for sale have no guarantee either, so not worth buying, even if so inclined
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You can’t really progress as a completely casual alliance; really have to get to 7-8* titans to start accelerating the rate of ascension item acquisition.
Farming 5* titans for months on end, yeah that is the route to frustration in this game.
While I have cleared some of the final levels of rare quests with level 60 heroes, those are the only consistent place for the top tier ascension loot unfortunately, and they are markedly easier with 70’s which they’re tuned for.
I’m not really certain why the developers designed for ~6 months for progression except that the new content wasn’t really forthcoming at that time… which is starting to change at least, so maybe we’ll see more frequent rare quests and similar now that there’s more heroes entering the game.
Really though, the current path is either elevate the alliance you are in or find another one.
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Not sure about the titan part. The only thing you get from higher tier loot is, well, more loot, isn’t it? We’re killing 7/8* titans and definite majority of the time it’s complete garbage loot.
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Higher Tier Titans give x number of chances at higher tier loot.
Tier VII and above (where the ascension goodies start to be attained) is what you want.
Basically, Titan 7* is a great place to start.
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Titans below 7* don’t have ascension items in the table?
Not convinced. It’s one of those ‘you need to be good enough to get the good loot’ things.
I joined Rook’s alliance (excellent bunch, with some top players) and faced good titans (7/8/9*). I was expecting the real rare loot to come rolling in.
It didn’t. Turns out to get the good loot, you need to be at a decent loot tier in those titans, and having a stable of only 3rd Tier 4* heros doesn’t cut the mustard.
You need to spend battle items like crazy to get anything respectable in loot tier… and by respectable I’m talking C or maybe B if you’re really lucky on the tile roll.
At C or lower, what you get is spending a lot of battle items for not much better loot than what you get with 4* at Tier A.
Basically I didn’t find it worthwhile.
So while Rev’s advice is good, the modifier is that you need the team to be able to hold your own in a good alliance.
How do you get a ‘good’ team to hold your own in such? Well, it’s slog (for a long time), or spend (a lot), or luck (a lot). No other shortcuts there.
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“I’ll take Luck for a 1,000, Alex…” 
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I totally agree I am still kind of new to the game after reading your posts I guess I’m new…I didn’t know there as 8* titans…holy crap…I get my ■■■ kicked by 5 star ones but yes I have 2 five star heroes and 3 4 star on my team and all but one is on tier 1 and yes it takes forever to ascend…
I ascend one at a time, and it goes much faster. Sometimes, I’ll just ascend to the 3rd or 4th Tier (depending on if I have ascension materials) before moving on to the next hero. It goes surprisingly fast that way, if you’re feeding them the rainbow (all colors).
Of course, you get more bang for your buck if you match colors while feeding. (“I’ve heard it both ways…”) 
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In this thread @Revelate and I explored the various merits of which heroes to train to level up quickly… mostly it was a master class by Rev on how to power level your heroes - good reading.
I reckon it boils down to:
If you need a special skill to increase, you need to focus on the colour of the hero. For anything else, the most efficient way to level is Tier 1 and 2 training. You do Tier 2 while you have rucksacks and Tier 1 otherwise… but this presupposes that you can actually drum up enough recruits to feed the machine.
I found I just can’t sustain the recruit rate to keep up a steady supply of the Level 1 and 2 training. If you can, you produce fodder at an awesome rate. As it is I don’t play as often and find myself needing to resort to Extra cheap just because I don’t have enough recruits much of the time.
@Rook has it right though… it’s a game of patience. Focus on 1 at a time. Trying to split your attentions across more than 1 hero just makes a longer wait for both. 
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The game tests patience - the gems are a way to accelerate that patience at the end of the day. There are times I have no heroes and the ascension items to ascend them and too many heroes and not enough.
I went weeks killing 5* titans and got nothing (I usually am an A/A+ hitter) and then back to back I got an orb and a cape.
My last two wanted chest fills, a basic monster chest and a raid chest, got me epic hero tokens. I have never gotten one from these before (only the elemental chests) and there you go, two in a row, and one of them netted me Colen.
It’s so odd how the luck works in this game.
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Thanks Rook!! Me too, the problem is the scarcity, bordering on
inexistance, of ascension materials :))
Thanks for your opinion!! My problem is the scarcity, bordering on
non-existence, of materials for ascension. I was so pleased when I got
Joon, but cannot ascend him to level 3 due to lack of orbs… It’s been
months of frustration now!
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I share your frustration.
I’ve commented on other threads that I think it’s a deliberate design philosophy by the team to frustrate players into spending more gems to try speed up such aspects. (If you’re stuck and you see a gem special containing a chance of gaining the ascension item you need, you’re inclined to buy it purely because you’re frustrated from the waiting.)
I rebel against this philosophy - especially as it’s often based on only a chance, so you’re not even sure to get something worthwhile for your money.
I think they have the balance wrong and will lose players… but seems many are happy to put up with it, and (perhaps unfortunately) many are actually willing to do the very thing that SG want, and to spend their way out of the frustration.
I feel they could be more generous, and introduce other forms of innovation to stop the game becoming stale to those who do spend a lot… but it is (admittedly) harder work for them. So I guess if they can get away with the ‘frustrate you in to spending’ model, they will certainly try.
For my part, I will not spend more. When I get sufficiently bored/frustrated, I will move on to something else. Have tried a couple of times to bring the mountain to Mohammed and it got nowhere.
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You are so right, totally agree!
I dunno if it’s only a “try to make folks spend more” thing. In the last four months I’ve noted a decided attempt to balance the two free2play and play2win communities. Sometimes in this game, you cannot pay your way into the rafters. Right now, I approve of that… 
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I don’t buy the ‘slow things down because we are not pay to win’ reasoning.
Fact is it’s still pay to win… but by having the spend being utterly random with respect to reward, it’s actually worse. It’s simply ‘need to pay MORE to win’… and the heavy randomness in outcome simply means the free to play guys need to play for much MUCH longer to get the rewards if they are not paying (unless they are outrageously lucky). So, really, you can still pay your way to the rafters - it’s just the amount you need to pay to get there that varies.
While you have money competing for the same resources as time, you have a pay to win scenario simply because people who cough up the money will get to the better end point a whole lot sooner than those who are just investing the time.
What I don’t like is the fact that you spend the money and that only gives you a CHANCE of improving your lot. I much prefer the integrity of admitting that you really are pay to win and allowing the people who are willing to pay to go on and win (because they will anyway) without having to force them to pay more in some sort of random lottery to get what they are after. That is … pure and simple… a form of gambling. I don’t buy in to that.
What you have now is a slow progression which discourages spend (because of the chance of no reward for it) but without actually balancing free to play vs pay to win. It discourages spend for the people willing to pay, and it frustrates the ones who want to invest time. Everyone loses.
The problem with opening the doors on a more generous economy (in which spend is directly rewarded) is that it then progresses the spenders too fast - they can max their stable sooner. The current slow pace doesn’t actually stop the spenders from maxing their stables… it just means they have to take longer and spend more than otherwise to do so.
I think it’s the wrong approach.
Reward the spenders directly… that will encourage them to spend more… and speed up the rate of reward for those who only want to invest their time… but come up with a means of not allowing the ‘power’ economy to over-inflate. This means introducing a form of redundancy in equipment or heroes, or a form of competition in which the playing field is regularly reset. People still get the satisfaction of making progress (faster than otherwise), and you still get the spend… and it allows free to play and pay to win to coexist in the same environment. Pay will still win (it always will), but the separation won’t grow to be stratospheric.
These sort of issues is why I inherently prefer pay to play model - you give people a taste on a limited basis then seek a subscription to grow in to further unexplored parts of the game with micro-transactions on vanity products… or those with utility (to make your life easier). With that model you don’t have this friction, and you don’t need to make silly design decisions like making progression artificially hard in order to secure your income.
Largely an academic debate really. As things stand the model is to encourage spend by making stuff hard to get with time alone… any debate around this is more about the balance in the model as opposed to whether that IS the model.
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Yes I have been playing this game for 3 Ml the and I already feel bored due the lack of options and “no brainier” game. Randomness and the poor interaction option with team (cannot send private msg), nor is exciting LV up or heroes due the limited rare material to LV/ascend a hero.
I know is a business you guys are running but haven’t that said you guys should introduce “gift badge” such as option to buy with gems or payment option. Getting stuck ascend a hero for months is just poor gaming. You also could introduce “fragments” to get a rare item - the ally I’m in now one ppl been waiting for warm cape over 4 months and the person playing EVERYDAY, that’s just sick! So DEVELOPER team get your heads together and think as a gamer not as a “profit suckers” like many company fail. Make this game more interesting release new options etc…this way you might have a longer future- for new player is exciting LV up, getting new heroes etc…but after certain of points say 2-3 months if you are active is pretty boring.
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Hmmm… interesting. that’s the first time I’ve heard someone suggest fragments…