Some of the newer players in my alliance are trying to prioritize which heroes to work on. They’ve drawn great ones but their Titan and War Scores aren’t what they want them to be.
When they ask for advice, I typically start with this caveat: play the game in the way which is most fun for you. That’s what I did.
However, if they’re eager to maximize their roster results, I offer them two guidelines:
Wait until you have 4 Training Camps before working on 5* heroes. They just take too long otherwise.
Wait until you have the mats to ascend a hero before you work on him or her. In other words, do’t start what you can’t finish.
Thoughts from the community?
What are some of the other best practices? For example, how may maxed 3* and 4* heroes should a player have before making the big investment in 5* heroes?
And should only one 5* be worked on at a time?
I’m hesitant to have them follow in my footsteps because it was almost 6 months before I drew my first 5* hero and even now, after almost two years, I only have 15 maxed 5* on my main account.
In my honest opinion, and I am probably old school, and some of these young / newer players don’t really have the patience. I tell new players to wait until they have 3 x 3* maxed rainbow teams and 3 x 4* maxed rainbow teams before they start working on the 5*.
It’s the 3* and 4* heroes that are going to get them the mats to level 5* heroes.
Building teams for titans can be a great way to give focus to building 4* benches - namely, covering key functions which help with titans in each colour.
So…
Max out Wu Kong if you have him, even if you have Miki/Tarlak/Gazelle at 3.70
Max out elemental debuffers available (Falcon, Jackal, Almur, if you have them).
Max out regular defence debuffers in each colour, if you have them (Grimm, Buddy, Tiburtus/CCat, Wilbur/Gormek)
Max out attack buffers in each colour, if you have them (cRigard, Boldtusk, Kiril).
Max out a high tile contributor for each colour (Scarlett? Triton? Jackal#2?).
Max out dispellers and cleaners where available (Caedmon, Melendor+c, Rigard+c, Sonya+c, Sabina)
On top of this a deeper stock of healers and your 4* bench is lovely and deep, stocked to keep you completing events and able to compete well in 4* tournaments.
The key functions that help significantly with titan scores are often helpful everywhere…
But seeing their utility through the framework of titan scores makes it easier to see the value in building the same effects in different colours helps build a deck that can be stacked in different colours elsewhere also.
@BubblesUK thank you so much for taking the time to write and share your insight. This is wonderful information!
The only thing I might add is that Wilbur is a great addition to any Titan team, especially if the player’s heroes aren’t strong enough to last the full 90 seconds on their own.
It all depends. If they’re warring? First priority is to have 30 heroes war ready. 3*s are easiest to level for that. Then focus on 4s. Then the 5s.
If not warring? I’d still go 4s before 5s, simply because the mats for 4s are more available, and a solid roster of 4s can carry you through a lot of stuff… including quests for obtaining more mats for the 5s.
A 3/70 5* hero will rarely outperform a 4/70 4*. Especially not versus an emblemed 4*. 4 star heroes are the bread and butter of this game for both newbies and F2Pers. 5s are a rarity and a luxury. Even if you can afford to pull them early on? Going to take a long time to finish them. I think almost every player would be better off working on a solid bench of 4s before moving up to the 5s. But that’s just like, my opinion, man.
For new players I really think that rushing to try to level 5* heroes is a bad idea. They are very hard to max both for ascension mats and for experience. While you might end up slightly stronger for 1 team you end up weaker overall. You have a hard time completing the 4* or 5* events because your best team is a mix of both and often have a hard time with the 3* events as you don’t have enough of a bench. Those events are a great way to get more mats for leveling the heroes and tokens for pulls from the event.
You’ll also probably have trouble with class quests as you’ll have maybe 2 leveled heroes of the needed classes. Same thing for the 3* and 4* raid tournaments. They’ve added so many things that benefit from having lower level heroes or just a larger bench that I feel that is more important than your single strongest team.
It’s also much easier emblem up a 3* or 4* hero and they are basically the same as the next tier up hero. An emblemed 3* is about equal to a level 60 4* and a fully emblemed 4* is about equal to a lvl 80 5*. It’s probably easier to get a 4* fully emblemed than to get a 5* to 80. Also, once you can complete the class quests the reset emblems aren’t that uncommon anymore either with a couple of them dropping from the final level every complete cycle. I’ve got 2 dozen of them on my main account now so it really isn’t a big deal to pull the emblems back off those 3* or 4* heroes if you eventually decide you want to do that.
Costumes can also be great. A costumed emblemed renfeld is basically a 4* Onatel and a great PvE hero. Probably much easier to get than Onatel or proteus or other mana control heroes. I could even see using him in a legendary event team because the mana control is just that useful. Pretty much all the healer costumes are really good and if nothing else with a fully leveled costume it’s much easier to get an average mana hero down to 9 tiles to charge their special which is a huge benefit.
So to summarize level those 3* and 4* heroes especially the ones with costumes and get more teams so you can actually complete and compete in the lower tier activities in the game. That will get you mats that will let you build up your team and time to upgrade your stuff to feed all those bigger heroes.
It depends on your roster and how many 4* mats you have imo. When I got my first 5* hero (Zeline) after 6 months of playing, I had been very unlucky with getting 4* heroes (only had Rigard, Agwe😭, and Tiburtus), so of course I levelled up my Zeline to 3-70. She served me well at that level until I finally got the mats to ascend her another 5 months later. In that time I also maxed a couple more 4* and many 3*, with the resources to level more, so it wasn’t as though levelling her inhibited my progress on other heroes. If you don’t have many 4* heroes, 5* at 3-70 will really help you out. And if you have at least 4 of the specific 4* mats needed to ascend them I would bring them up as well. However, if you have lots of 4* heroes but not a lot of 4* mats I would focus on at least 2 teams of 4* before doing any 5’s, as you will get more use out of a maxed 4* in the meantime while the 5* is waiting at 3-70.
I’m sure there’s a mathematical breakdown somewhere but just finger in the air you could probably level a team of 3* for the same feeder and ham resource as 1 5*. That’s not even considering the ascension items that take time to grow.
As TGW said, 30 heroes is the goal. Initial 3* are better then unfinished 5* as you can pop emblems on them…then the same with 4*.
I lost track of seeing newer players get early HOTM and then get frustrated when they couldn’t ascend them.
While I agree that in general starting with a 3* rainbow, followed by a 4* rainbow and working on a single hero per color is the way to go, the RNG can be a fickle master. For instance I got Seshat before I even got a purple 3*. So I started leveling her immediately, only stopping on the way to level Proteus when I got him. Up until today I haven’t regretted that decision, even though I still haven’t gotten around to leveling a purple 3* after playing for more that a year
There was a great Excel spreadsheet calculator that someone posted a few months ago. I didn’t work out for 3*s, but two 4s can be maxed for less resources than one 5, so five 3s sounds very likely.
I started with mixture of 3* and 4* because I don’t hv the materials to ascend a 5* heroes. Also 5* heroes required longer time and 2x material requirement as compared to 4*. I’m only recently working on my 5* heroes and going to hv two 5* fully level soon. Don’t rush to level 5* as 5* heroes are very difficult to get and might not be the one that you want. So better to start with 4* first. That’s my opinion
I do think there are general rules for leveling, but a lot of it depends on the individual roster.
I have 3 accounts…yes, i said 3. And each time I have become better at building a roster. The first time through I leveled 5* when I got them and had a few stuck at 3-70 for months, meanwhile, I had 4* heroes I could have maxed. My second account I leveled heroes that I wasnt sure about, just to see if I wanted to use them on my main account. The 3rd time through I got smart. I maxed 3* heroes when I didn’t have the mats to ascend any 4*. What that allowed me to do was stack on titans and score higher, resulting in better loot. I did take Marjana, whom I obtained early one, to 3-70, as i still do not have a 4* red.
I do agree that leveling a wide array of 3* heroes is the best bet, especially if you dont have the mats to max the 4* heroes.
The only other thing I will say about leveling is to do it efficiently. Get at least 1, preferably 2 training centers to level 11. They are the cheapest and best way to train heroes! Load them up and collect 1 time a day. You will be amazed how fast you can level a 3* this way. It can be tempting to empty them out more than once, but use the feeders you get playing the map to level up in the meantime.
The last thing…I have never been much of a same color feeder. As long as I have 10, I rainbow feed all day. Rarely, and usually on the 3*, do I not have the special maxed by the time the hero is maxed!
Remember, there is no hero that is “worthless.” The best heroes to level are the ones on your roster! You can get more picky later on once you have a roster with some depth!
This is the best advice you can give. I didn’t know the old school wisdom, but my intuition told me I should take a gradual approach - you can’t skip the basics, like in real life.
I’ve been 6 months in the game now and my first goal was 12x3* (now 16), then 12x4* (now 19, currently working on 5 more)… After 5 months I’ve got enough mats to level 4x5* and recently I’ve done that. Since I’ve covered my war teams, from now on I can do some cherry picking and level heros one by one to complement existing teams - wether those are 5* or 4*.
This approach took me to low diamond arena, solid titan scores and decent war performances, all events finished etc. in less then 6 months.
This is impressive. I have no idea how you did that. I have been playing since March and still I don’t have enough ascension materials to ascend even one 5* hero. I think you have been lucky
And I agree that @JGE gave the best advice. I’m still working on my 3* heroes, unless I don’t have more of them of a certain colour - then I level up 4* heroes or even 5* heroes, but only to 2/60. I can see how maxed 3* heroes give me an advantage in wars compared to other novices (as myself) - I have 6 war teams consisting of maxed heroes only. (some still use 2* or 1*)
I am almost at 6 months. I have 16 3* finished, four have costumes complete and I’m working on a few new ones. I have fully ascended six 4*. I have 2 stuck at 3.60 because I don’t have compasses and/or trap tools. I am mainly working on 4* and hoping the compasses will eventually show up.
I think getting into an active alliance is key. I was in a half dead one for awhile and if you aren’t killing titans and winning wars then it is hard to get AM.
I only have one 5* and she is going to be sitting there until I have everything to raise her to 4.80. I have some of everything but not enough yet other than tabards. And with my luck that is a purple ascension item… trap tools I seem to get maybe once a month.
I am FTP so I level what I get. I can finish rare quests but I got stuck on Sands on Epic at 14 … I hate that vampire girl. I have finished season 1 and I am working my way through S2&3.
And I did spend some money, I understand it’s not so easy if you don’t. Not too much I’d say, but those chests you get after you summon 10 times really helped. But from June I decided to cut spending, I have a solid base now and I see no point chasing all the heros out there.
But the general principle works, it just takes more time for f2p to achieve those goals. And I was lucky to be in a good alliance - regular killing of 9-10* titans. It really helps.
