How do you decide "which Hero" to prioritise in this ever changing meta !?

Sometime back, on alliance sentiments for defense, I had prioritised Telluria over Evelyn. In few days she got nerfed & I have never used her as tank / hardly use her in play.

Being relatively new to the game then & always short of 4* elemental mats for 5s, the wasted tonics were painful & Evelyn would have made my play more winnable = FUN. I started thinking - What should be my main reason give final mats to a 5 ?!

To prioritise, I ask myself, which hero will I use more often in a month of play - ideally over long term?
&
An honest answer as a player has been very accurate so far, helped me avoid emotional heartbreaks, that might have stalled my play.

Example:

  1. Almur helped me prioritise FriGG, Kingston & Hatter before Evelyn, who came before. Today , I have costume Lianna, MN, Bertila, Elradir @ 3.70 & without a doubt it will be Elradir getting the Tonics bcoz, of him doing many things, which is on the card. Need one tonic, so anytime soon !

  2. I levelled up LoLo, while Finley, Skadi, Miki, Krampus, Fenrir, 2nd Cobalt were waiting at 3/70. For simply the fun of playing, & use him daily, all the time for multiple roles he can play. Now Skadi is in line for the scopes as I have BK, so Krampus waits.

  3. Yang Mei got the rings last week, with LaLo, JF, Elena waiting at 3/70, bcoz, of the role she plays in a 3+ red stack. Also starting 2nd costume Marjana seems a good choice for 2nd fire team.

  4. Onyx, Bera, Akfrike & Hannah have kept Ursena waiting for 9+ months & now I plan to give the tabards to Ursena & 2nd Alfrike, Clarissa, Myztero, DaLo, Sartana wait at 3/70.

  5. I got Devana & Odin on the same day & both are proceeding towards 3/70 together while I wait for 3 more darts. At this moment, I have a feeling to give those darts to Devana, while Odin would be a damn good pair in defence with FriGG… So am playing a bit, to see if I will use Odin or Devana more often in offence daily to decide !

LoLo in my roster, does gives me good flexibility to hold OR prioritise heroes.

There is no point emotionally levelling up a hero to later use for ONLY a few days in the month !

WHAT is your strategy ? Which heroes you love / regret levelling up?

Thanks !

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This strange love with optimizing our defense teams leads to having a roster that will be affected by the changing meta.

I can’t think of a hero who was good on offense years ago that you wouldn’t want as much now. Maybe Azlar?

I was lucky in that Frida was my first five star. She’s always been my most prioritized ice hero. Elemental defense down will almost always be useful.

Most of my regrets come from embleming for defense.

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LoL, my first & only regret is levelling for defence (Telluria) = Luckily, learnt my lesson very early.

Though, I read many still prioritise defence & already facing LB - ICE heroes on defence !

Yes, my priority has been EDD / DD / Mana control / uniqueness that enables the team to create consistent wins !!

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Do you mean these are all at 3-70? If so, I would totally do MN before Elradir.

I don’t have MN but do have Alberich. He’s a mainstay on one of my two raiding teams (along with Evelyn, CLianna, CJoon and Malosi). The revive is HUGE.

To your point of who to prioritize: I look at which hero will complement my mono attacking team lineups. And who is fun. Example: Lepiota. She is an absolute blast to play with and I don’t regret that choice at all.

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I have Heimdall since a year & along with Gazelle is fixed in my raid teams, so understand your point.

If I didn’t have Heimdall, I would have levelled up MN long back, but now she’s is after Elradir / C. Lianna or even Bertilla… as these heroes will be used more than MN… Though for VF tournaments / wars I would like to put both reviver - healers on defence… just for fun !

I am slowly, also prioritising the latest batch of 4 HOTMs I have got for their role in playing 3+ colour stacks.
Yang Mei done…
Skadi in ICE is urgent so Frosth waits to be next
&
am leaning towards Devana reaching 3/70 soon !

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Spent a while thinking about who I regret. I have a maxed Telly. She still sees use on war teams so meh.

I think my problem is more indecision. I wait for a long time to actually commit to a hero. Usually by the time I have another of the same color and then I wait even longer because I can’t pick. Then I get sad that my heroes aren’t powerful or die too quickly, lol. So I just maxed J-F and Bobo without too much debating since I had enough mats to level four of each element.

Next problem will be holy. Have Mica, Norns, Bai Yeong, Neith, Ranvir, Leonidas all at 3-70. Just got Guin (ironically from HA10 not the event). I’m leaning mica because I have onyx and cobalt, but…. Argh! Too much overthinking!

So in short, I regret hoarding mats. I’d rather have stronger heroes to play with and I think I’d enjoy the game more then.

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The question that always needs to be asked is if you spend, and if so, do you buy 4* mats?

In my 2 years of playing i believe I bought 1 4* mat during my 1st xmas event. At last check I have 5 maxed 5* of each color and enough mats to max a few more. You can guesstimate based on your length of time played compared to mine.

With that out of the way I initially did my hero maxing based on when i got the mats to do it but then went to a method of having 10 4* mats before i would max the next one.

My 5* were mainly s1 and HOTMs meaning my options were usually limited so I made a choice to prioritize my war teams over anything else leading me to maxing a few that are kinda useless now. That being said, I don’t regret maxing anyone as they were my best options at the time and we all know how well RNG & pulls work.

You seem to have alot of good options so you might want to consider a strategy either prioritizing defense, war team depth/options, events (and if you intend to score chase) or titan damage.

With emblem resets that makes stripping heroes not as painful as you get some resources back now compared to before. Limit breakers will also affect this in the future so that’s another factor to consider.

My roster was basically done so I decided to work on 3* & 4* blems and limit breaking but I’m currently on an e&p vacation/sabbatical until end of august. I was competitive on all aspects of the game so I feel my method of whatever I could max, I did and then building up my war teams benefited my gameplay.

Just remember this game is a marathon, not a sprint and the finish line always gets moved farther away the closer you get. New features and heroes will make what you got now outdated in 6 months anyway.

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I just max whoever I want. I max the hero for team synergy and composition and how I see myself playing the team on offence. And also because I don’t have the best heroes everyone’s coveting. Everyone wants fast speed heroes and it’s this obsession with fast mana that ruins the raid scene imo

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My prioritisation is pretty easy.

  • 4* before 5*
    I have nearly unlimited 3* mats but only so few 4* mats. So if I can’t decide I will always make the 4* before, if he’s good, great, if I don’t like him I didn’t loose anything.

  • Titan specialist before everyone else.
    Titan teams haven’t changed much since the beginning, def down, element def down, Atk boost, maybe crit and in the last time stone enhancers.
    If I get a hero who does anything of the above better than one I already use, he is number one on the lvl list.

  • After that, heroes for events (monthly, Ninja tower).
    Most of the time similar to Titan team, but there are some differences, especially hit 3 heroes or for later stages in Ninja tower (looking at you gulli, onatel)

  • Ofense tournament specialists, there are just some heroes who works great in different tournament rules.

  • Ofense pvp heroes
    That’s the last, if I don’t have anything else I will probably lvl something I can use on offense for pretty much everything. There is maybe some further priority, most of the time healers > supporters/funny skill > pure damage

I don’t level anything especially for defense. I don’t gain anything from a good defense in pvp, for war with different rules the defense changes, and with all the before I can most of the time put a working defense on the field. Many heroes who work on offense are at least usable on defense.

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Good strategy with clarity… Thanks !

I haven’t written about 3 & 4s bcoz, they get levelled up quickly bcoz 3 mats are plenty in inventory.

The tricky decision for me is prioritising the 5*s for stated reasons.

Everyone has a different situation. Me? Since I only lack Darts and can level 2-3 of any other color, I level everyone. That’s due to lack of 5*s. I don’t really care about the changing meta. If I had to be selective, I may prioritize certain specials, but I haven’t been in that situation.

I don’t regret leveling any hero up as I get some use out of all of them, even if it’s for 6th team on war depth, or a throwaway team for Ninja Tower or Tavern of Legends. The only S1 hero I haven’t completely ascended is Justice, as I seem to attract a lot of yellow HoTMs. If I were to get 12 darts, I wouldn’t hesitate to ascend her as she’ll see use in Rush wars and tournaments.

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Good strategy to collect 10 elemental 4* mats, then level up…!

But, unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury as I have got 25+ waiting at 3/70… SO, my priority is already in place, with flexibility for last moment change, which I explained in my OP with Evelyn getting pushed aside for FriGG, Kingston, Hatter… bcoz Almur was there to substitute her role.

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I usually consider only three simple factors:

  • Versatility. How useful is each hero in all aspects of this game, prioritizing this order: raid, titans, war, tournaments, events, and defense.

  • Emblems.

  • Synergy with other already maxed heroes or likely candidates.

Also, after several failures, my strategy became to create the “perfect” mono team for each element at each level, by which I mean a team of 5 heroes of the same color and rarity, featuring one healer and four damage dealers and as many secondary skills as possible, preferably buffs, debuffs, dispels, cleanses, mana skills, revive, etc., and who also had great synergy together, with a focus on mana speed and skills complementary to each other.

For example, my nature (green) teams right now are:

5*: Mother North, Fogg, Frigg, Francine, and cKadilen
4*: cMelendor, Almur, Buddy, Caedmon, and Peters
3*: Belith, Whacker, cBerden, cCarver, and Mnesseus

I found that once I created these 'perfect" teams for every element, I was set for every facet of this game such as PvP raids, wars, tournaments, challenge events, etc., except for titans where I needed a specialist such as Tarlak for green teams.

That meant that:

  • I could prioritize emblems on these heroes alone.

  • I could prioritize the ascension of my current heroes based on how much each one could improve my existing teams.

  • I could evaluate better new heroes and determine which new heroes to chase, or ignore.

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Its changed over time. At first, I was putting priority on Titan heroes as titans were the best chance at mats to ascend other heroes. Those heroes would merge into defense and offense and some are still used today.

When tournaments started, I started focusing on those heroes I would need for the different type of tournaments. This was mainly because tournaments were a good source of emblems and I needed all the emblems I could get.

Today, it will be the Aethers. That means I need to focus again on War and Tournaments. I need to finish putting emblems on my rush attack heroes and maxing heroes that specifically counter the new defenses.

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These days, I seek the advice of others (peers) but I guess it is function and utility. The two heroes I most regret levelling up would be Elena and Bertila.

Lord Loki is just waiting for 1 scope and a couple of warm capes and I’m having a pile of fun with 3* Candy.

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One thing I like to talk about with defense and changing meta is your regular defense. Losing cups isn’t a bad thing, ESPECIALLY when filling a hero chest. It’s the War Defense that’s truly important and with the changing type of wars, it makes a lot more heroes relevant. We all have regret when ascending, but every single hero has a use, especially for events and ninja towers.

Cheers!

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as has been mentioned by a few people, i never prioritize defense, either for war or raid defense. for one thing, i don’t have any of the top tier meta defense heroes: no Bera, Freya, 5* ninja, Frigg, Odin, Elizabeth, Krampus, etc. so it has never made any sense for me to level a hero specifically for defense.

for me, it has always been about heroes i would have fun with, and sometimes “have fun with” would coincide with the strategies for things like titans and events. i have 18 maxed 5* heroes now, and i don’t regret leveling up any of them.

my summoning pattern has changed so that now i’m not summoning as often, so i’m not getting new heroes as often. i’m now focused on leveling who i already have, and while i’ve hesitated on some (Fenrir), i look forward to maxing (most of) my unleveled legendaries, even if it’ll take forever to get the ascension materials for them.

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Have been using what I got lately as well they are there and had mats… Thorne kaghan elk Leo. They fit into my teams Leo I haven’t emblemed rest have . Too many monks atm.
Kaghan will make VF war defense the rest not they more attack for me…
If you can find a use for a hero then level it.
I prob wouldnt maxed elk if didn’t have almur both fast both hit 3.
Yang may elemtal link with kaghan helps then if he goes off his mana buff helps more.
Leo lot of purple tanks in war (plus if ever get costume he good to go)
Thorne hits hard same time as Athena.

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Being p(seudo)F2P I don’t have to worry much about prioritizing. Any non-S1 5* gets priority. I also never worry about the current “meta” as by the time I could take advantage it has long passed.

The only hero I ever maxed for defense was Justice as tank, and I still use her on my D (at flank now). The others are all multi-purpose and frequently get used on attack.

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I have a few simple rules (in descending order of priority):

  • elemental debuffers have highest priority
  • offense prowess over potential defensive value
  • dispellers, because they’re relatively rare in 5* and most of them have desirable secondary effects
  • heroes that cover potential gaps in roster
  • heroes good for current meta but otherwise niche (Skadi and Grimble being perfect examples)
  • healers (yes my Ariel sat at 3/70 while I emblemed up 4x cRigards and 2x cKirils; no regrets!)

Also what @ferg said as I found myself agreeing with almost every point.

+9001

I don’t have most of the shiny meta defense heroes, so I ended up prioritizing for offense prowess instead. This has served me very well, because even though my defense is relatively easier to beat (no Frigg/Odin, Bera/Freya, revivers or taunters, hell even a guy running a 4* defense beat it once), I do have counters to pretty much every meta defense out there.

This means whoever decides to come after my defense can expect to lose 100% of the time. Sure I may not get it on the first try, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I lost all 3 revenge attempts after I maxed Skadi (she was the last missing piece to my minion counter team).

Do I sometimes wish I had some or most of those meta heroes so I can consistently stay >2650 cups? Sure I have an ego I won’t deny that. But for what I do have, it keeps me comfortably in diamond so that’s good enough.

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