Hi I am relatively new to the game (lv.28, stronghold 19). Many times I read the forum when many of the pro players get great 4* or 5* heroes, I saw they said
“I will max him/her instantly”
I just wandering how do the pros do this? At my level, by using tc11-19 I can max 3* quite fast but for 4* it is another level. I need several weeks or months to max one 4* at the moment.
So what are the tips that the pros ( maybe utilize advanced buildings) use to max the new heroes quickly?
Quick tip, watch a YouTube video and it will probably be faster.
Pro players use a combination of TC, HA, and alchemy lab strategy to always have the mats. They also store mats in TC for when they need it and lastly they pay for hard to obtain mats.
Most importantly be patient, the game ramps up as you level. The more three stars you level the more content you can clear to obtain tough mats. Once your buildings are maxed and you have at least 5 four stars of each color the game will speed up considerably.
Everything Warco just said. Plus sometimes it takes a lot of summons to get the hero you want and in that time you get a lot of heroes you don’t want or already have so those become instant feeders too.
Once you get to around level 50 you will be able to level 3* heroes within a few hours (I did this last sunday to get Buchan and Waqas ready for torunament) if you want to, even as Free to Play (F2P) or Cheap to play (C2P), using TC19. It costs a bit of food but will get the job done very quickly.
4 stars will take about a week or less if you really want them (Do not use TC19 for this. TC2 can help though or HA3 but again this costs a lot of food and recruits). 5*s take an awfully long time if you are F2P and haven’t planned for them. They can be done quicker with a bit of forward planning though.
I know someone who is C2P (Only buys Path of Valor and VIP pass) and keeps one TC11 running at all times and never touches it unless they want to level a hero quickly. They had a few hundred heroes (I think a little under 1000, might’ve been more) in there when they finally got Alfrike. Combined with their other TC’s, a bit of farming, all their silver token summons and some food crates they had plus their TC 20 (Good place to store food and recruits at lower levels) they had Alfrike done within a week.
So it all depends on how you play. Don’t worry about the “Pro’s” though. Most of them have ploughed a silly amount of money into this game. Unless you are prepared to do the same I wouldn’t try to do what they do.
Game Well 
Thanks Blem and Warco.
@Blem just want to understand more what you said : when we reached lev.50 and have HA, in your case what an exact process you will do to max your 4* with 1-2 weeks ?
(you mentioned TC2 and HA3, but still cost lot of food, so I want to understand clearly what you personally do it if you want to balance between speed and food)
Thanks again for the great advice!
Ps. I am C2P: buy only POV and very cheap deals from time to time
Thats easy for „end game players“.
We have all buildings maxed, or no intention to max them, so we have a lot of ressources. Six farms level20, three more at Advanced10 and a watchtower produce a lot of ham every day. With raiding and filling four chests a day, you can get an additional mio ham per day. Two or three weeks ago I got the 6th set of poison darts so I could ascend my Sif to the last ascension level. I needed two days to bring her from 4/1 to 4/75, then I used a tome of ascension giving me the last five levels without feeder heroes or ham.
I was not prepared, the darts came from MV, so I started with the feeder heroes from one TC2 and one TC11. Then when my HA10 training has ended, I burned 3 mio ham and a few thousend banked recruits to produce and feed hundreds of 2* heroes from HA3.
HA is the Heroacademy. If you have no other viable projects you can left hundreds or thousends of feeder heroes in TC2 or TC11. You have to clear the feeders only if your training queue ends. If you queue new trainings before the old ones are all done, you can stack lots of 1* and 2* feeders. With 3 mio ham in the stores and additional ham in crates you can power level and emblem a new hero in one day if you are prepared. The preparation can take weeks. If you do not need the two free summons for PoV you can alyo hoard the grey tokens. If you are powerlevelling a new hero, a few hundert grey tokens are helpfull to get feeders.
Happy gaming
“Maxing instantly” is presumably a lot easier if you generally have all the roster you want or need, even for “roster depth” events, and all the troop training you need, and you can then more easily afford to stockpile feeder heroes and food and never use them until you gain a new “A+ hero.”
If you’re constantly on a treadmill of trying to train up, emblem, LB new heroes, much less leveling up troops, then trainers and food may be in much shorter supply.
Thanks so much @Gimliv and @BobTheSnark
If you paid enough real money, you can level heroes instantly like the pros too. Otherwise, gotta store those ham’s and feeder heroes in TC
heroes are one thing, but troops, troops are key. Hero leveling is easier than troops. Once you have your troops to at least 23(mana), then you’re pretty set
I store feeders in 2 tc11s, currently have over 3k to collect in each. Tc20 I use to store food. If I get a 5* that I want to max, takes about 30 minutes.
Do you mind explaining how to store food in TC20 or is there a video on YouTube that explains this?
Every training in TC20 need 270 K food and 100 recruits, it lasts two days. If you queue those trainings faster than they complete say two of those every day, you bank food in TC20.
You put 1040 food in, 270 k will be used for a training in this time.
If you need food, unqueue one training to get 100 recruits and 270 k ham. You can destroy the recruits by converting an advanced house to a normal one or put them with iron in HA4 or HA6. Or you can put the recruits with 100k ham into Tc11, you will get netto 170 k ham.
Another way is to queue up to three times 100 transmutations in the Alchemielab.
Happy gaming
When the next Atlantis Rising comes around, farm for backpack and recruits. Load up on TC11…and my favorite, TC2. You’ll have feeder heroes that you can use to do an instant max. Mostly for 3 & 4*. You’ll need a lot more for the 5* heroes though.
It is entirely possible to level a 5* hero from 1/1 to level 85 and full emblems as fast as you want to click assuming you have all the mats. It does pretty much mean you are done leveling your other existing heroes before then and relies on a couple things.
This is also a great way to store your TC20 results for the Soul Exchange if you aren’t still looking for S1 5* heroes. Just don’t collect your training until you are ready to do your Soul Exchange.
Additionally, TC19, HA1 and HA3 can be very fast sources of additional Feeder heroes. HA3 is a guaranteed uncommon every 1 minute from training. It does mean you need even more resources compared to just having a stockpile of feeder heroes but it can certainly help speed things up. You will also use up mats if you do it too often.
As [rebelsouljah] mentioned part of it is also farming up the stuff for doing that. Recruits for training. Mats for things besides TC11 and the S2 event is great for this. Reduced level cost and increased rewards mean really good reward to World energy ratio.
Thorne is one 4* that players may not want to max.
Approx. 1 year after this post, I am now lv. 53 (compared to lv. 28 on the OP), and just about to finish HA3 
Now with HA1, HA3 almost readily available with lots of food from farm, I begin to be able to make what you guys suggested (esp. @Gimliv ) last year become reality (after > 1 year) 
Sorry Ufeel, not sure what happened for me to not respond to this question.
Maxing a 4* hero in a week or 2 for me is just a case of feeding everything I get to that particular hero and setting my training camps to train the element in question. So, Koda is a 4* I’m switching focus to at the moment. I have 3 training camps currently training Uncommon purple heroes and 1 TC11 that’s been churning out heroes since the begining of time. Everything from those 4 camps goes to Koda. Also, if I summon a hero I don’t want or already have a dupe of, I feed it to Koda. Get a hero from completing a stage? Feed it to Koda. 1* or 2* trainer hero of any colour is fed to Koda. Once I get to 3/50 I may train a few 2* heroes in my HA3 (At least 10, Likely 30) to fed to Koda until he’s at 3/60. I repeat this when Koda gets to 4/60.
Using the above method may not be the most efficient food and hero wise but it gets the job done in under 2 weeks (Often within a week) every time for 4* heroes. I don’t try to balance between speed and food. I usually decide speed is more important because I realy want to use that hero before the nerf hammer drops on them. If food is more important for some reason (Like working on multiple projects at the same time) then I sacrifice speed.
Glad you’re still enjoying the game. You’ll want to farm lots of Strong Rope if you’re going to be using HA3. I would still suggest saving HA3 for the later levels ust to bump things along a bit, otherwise you’ll eat through food and strong rope at an incredible pace.
Just one gamer’s opinion
Game Well 
Thanks so much @Blem , and never mind about the time, it always be glad to learn ! 
it is funny that I just begin to be able to do what you guys explained to me last year, but now I almost run out of good heroes to level up because either i have not pulled enough or my pulls recently were all too bad
Here’s a difference in playstyle, of course:
I run three TC20, 24/7.
I do this because I like having the ability to choose from Soul Exchange, and without grinding out a ton of expensive 3* food and the occasional S1 5*, I wouldn’t be able to more than very occasionally and/or at the lowest tier.
Also, of course, I get new 5* that I want to level sufficiently seldom that I’m not in a big hurry to powerlevel — having a queue of 5* that I want to level is actually pretty rare, especially outside of maybe a single color, sometimes.
Folks who spend more and/or have better luck might feel more inclined to try to level heroes up faster because they have more to work on.
