Everyone has seen the E3 Tier List(s), but for those who are just starting out, getting a team full of powerful E3 units is not a realistic short term goal. So this list attempts to bridge the gap for those who are just starting the game.
First, sorry PvP players! But PvE is definitely the early game priority. Building a PvE team early will get you further in Aspen, get you more guild coins, make more progress in broken spaces and is just better for overall account progression.
This guide will be primarily PvE focused. PvP is the domain of late game teams and heavy spenders.
As a newer player, I am open to feedback if anyone has more first hand experience with any of the Heroes on this list.
Conquistador’s Early Game Tier List v1.1
(Updated on 18th December 2018)
Changelog
| v1.1 (2018-12-18) |
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| v1.0 (2018-12-04) |
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Blood BladeImportant Notes (Must Read!)
Terms and Guide Information
- Using a hero as “food” or “fodder” means using copies of that hero as a resource to fuse/awaken/enable a different hero.
- Nat4 heroes can be summoned at 4
or 5. The ones which can be evolved to 6 cap out at 9 and cannot be evolved to 10 or beyond. - Nat5 heroes do not have a 4 variant, and can only be summoned at 5. Long term, these heroes are the only heroes even worth considering.
- When talking about getting hero copies from 5 Hero Shards, this means the “normal” shards, not the “elite” shards. Elite shards are very hard to come by and wont be a primary source for fodder or hero copies.
- This guide will only cover the 4 colored factions. Light/Dark heroes are rare and difficult to build and are more for later gameplay.
- Most tiers will be broken down by two sections, the Core list and the Supporter list:
- The Core list will have heroes who are worth building your account around at that tier. A Core 9 hero will later be used as fodder to make your Core 10 or your first Enabled hero and so on. They usually have some form of self-sustain so they’re able to perform entirely on their own.
- The Supporter list will have heroes who who are worth building at that tier, but should not be the first hero you build at that tier. The heroes in the Core list can generally work in this list as well, but not vice-versa.
- The Core list will have heroes who are worth building your account around at that tier. A Core 9
- For an excellent breakdown on evolution requirements, see this infographic for overall costs or this post for more specific requirements for each hero.
- There are 3 key evolution levels for heroes which will be used as fodder. You’d never want to leave a hero at 7 or 8, so once a hero is at 7, be prepared to invest further to get them to at least 9 so they can be used for further evolution.
- 6 – Requires two 5 copies of the hero, used to evolve 8, 9 and 10 heroes of the same faction
- 9 – Requires thee 5 copies of the hero, used to evolve 10, E1 and E2 heroes of any faction
- 10 – Requires five 5 copies of the hero, used to evolve E3 heroes of any faction
- 6
General Early Game Advice
- Get a Heart Watcher. At 5 or 6 she will considerably increase your boss damage. Same goes for Sigmund and Kroos, but to a much lesser extent.
- Never disassemble any 4/5 Heroes. Never use any Nat5 Light/Dark as fodder unless you know what you are doing.
- Don’t worry so much about Auras in the very beginning. Auras have percentage based scaling and heroes don’t have high enough stats to benefit from this below 9.
- That being said, as you begin making your first 10 Core hero, you’ll likely want to include an aura in your team to support that hero as it will be the sole hero carrying you to the mid game.
- That being said, as you begin making your first 10
- Gear is very strong early game as it provides a good chunk of flat stats. Completing events which give out 4 orange gear as a reward will make a 6 hero better than a 7 hero with no gear. Using the blacksmith event to level that gear up further will similarly boost your power.
- Arguably the best faction to use Prophet Orbs on (only use Prophet Orbs during events) in the beginning is Abyss. Forest is likely the strongest overall and is close to Abyss for early game viability, but Abyss has arguably the strongest 9 (Norma) and 10 (Dantalian) Core heroes in the entire game.
- In general for early game, I’d say Abyss >= Forest > Shadow >>> Fortress
- In general for early game, I’d say
- 5 heroes are the primary resource used when evolving, you’ll need tons of them so don’t use them frivolously.
- Guild Coins should only ever be spent on Guild Tech. You get one freebie to reset all your guild coins in one tree to be able to spend them in another one. A good time to consider doing this would be when making your first E3 if it’s a different class than your Core 10.
Kroos, but to a much lesser extent.
Prophet Orbs on (only use Prophet Orbs during Quick Note about Hero Regression
It appears that this new system is aimed primarily at late game players looking to easily change up their E3 teams without losing hero copies.
In my opinion, there are only two heroes (
Vesa & 
Cthugha) which might be worthy of regressing at 10
to help make your first E3. Those are the only Heroes I think are good enough and rare enough to want to save the hero copies, but not so strong that you’d want to make them into your first E3.
The down sides of regressing are:
- Maybe most importantly, you have to get a rare resource (Soul Symbols) which is ONLY available when completing the 300 scroll tier during a Heroic Summoning event. The 300 scroll tier is generally a bad tier to stop on, so you’ll likely want to use at least 400 Heroic Scrolls during the event.
- You lose out on roughly 3x 5. It’s exchanging 1x 6 fodder for 3x 5 copies of the hero you’re reverting. So you’ll lose 6x 5 fodder and gain 3x 5 hero copies you don’t plan to use for fodder.
- You do not get any gold back which was spent to level the hero
- You only get back 60% of the other costs
- Promotion Stones & Spirit for leveling the Hero themselves
- Magic Dust & Gold for the leveling the Hero’s Stone
Soul Symbols) which is ONLY available when completing the 300 scroll tier during a Heroic Summoning event. The 300 scroll tier is generally a bad tier to stop on, so you’ll likely want to use at least 400 Heroic Scrolls during the event.
gold back which was spent to level the hero
Promotion Stones & 
Spirit for leveling the Hero themselves
Magic Dust & Examples and Justification for this Guide
As a new player your main problem will not be getting god tier hero copies, it will be having enough fodder to MAKE that god tier hero into your first E3 unit.
While you wait to acquire those godly hero copies, your main short term goal for each tier is to have ONE hero who is easier to build, but will still anchor your team. The rest of your team is filled with heroes who do really well at that tier but not so well that you’d be sad to use them as fodder to make heroes in the next tier.
Some of this may not make a lot of sense until you look at the lists of heroes below, so if if this part is confusing consult the tier list provided and come back to this explanation.
Let me try and highlight what I’m talking about with some examples.
Lets consider two players transitioning to the mid game. They have the exact same hero copies and are apparently close to making their first E1 unit, but the manner in which they built their early game teams differ:
Player A – 10 
Valkyrie, 10 
Skerei, 9 
Horus, 9 Vesa, 9 
Sigmund, 6 
Heart Watcher
In the bag: 5x Dantalian, 3x Lutz, 3x Starlight, 1x Ormus, and 6 Ormus
Player B – 10 Valkyrie, 10 
Dantalian, 9 
Lutz, 9 
Starlight, 9 
Ormus, 6 Heart Watcher
In the bag: 5x Skerei, 3x Horus, 3x Vesa, 1x Sigmund, and 6 Sigmund to swap in for boss battles
Player A followed the E3 tier list and has the better team, no doubt. They will be doing more damage and further progressed in every aspect of the game aside from Aspen dungeon. But they aren’t THAT much better because they’re still in the early game. This game is not about early game teams, it’s about long term team planning.
Let’s say both players get another 
Valkyrie copy. Player B is in a substantially better position to advance. Player A isn’t going to want to use ANY of his current team as fodder and has to create a new 9 food from scratch to make an E1 Valkyrie while Player B has a 9 Starlight just BEGGING to be used as food.
And if both players get two Valkyrie copies? Boom, instant E3 Valkyrie for Player B using Starlight, Lutz, and Dantalian as food.
Let’s look at the two players now.
Player A – 10 Valkyrie, 10 Skerei, 9 Horus, 9 Vesa, 9 Sigmund, 6 Heart Watcher
In the bag: 2x Valkyrie, 5x Dantalian, 3x Lutz, 3x Starlight, 1x Ormus, and 6 Ormus
Player B – E3 Valkyrie, 6 Sigmund, 5 Sigmund, 9 Ormus, 6 Heart Watcher, 5 Vesa
In the bag: 5x Skerei, 3x Horus, 2x Vesa
Player B is now miles ahead of Player A. An E3 Valkyrie supported by a Justice Aura will CRUSH Player A in every single aspect of the game.
On the other hand, if Player B instead had started off with this team:
10 Valkyrie, 10 
Lord Balrog, 9 
Baade, 9 
Thale, 9 
Emily, 6 
Faceless
They’d be in a similarly good position to advance their Valkyrie, but their team would be substantially worse until then and it would have taken them longer to get there.
Finding that sweet spot of heroes which are good enough to use early game while being bad enough to use as food going to the mid game is what this guide is hoping to accomplish for new players!
TL;DR; How Do I Build My Team From Day 1?
- Sign in/Create account account and get a 5 Norma.
- Make a team with 5 Norma and whatever random heroes you have. Replace 3 and 4‘s with 4 and 5‘s when you get them. Anything will do.
- Make a 6 Norma using copies of Abyss heroes in the Basement Tier.
- Evaluate your hero copies and fodder, pick a Core hero from the 6-9 Fodder Tier and work towards making that hero a 9.
- While building that Core 9, pick some other heroes from the 6-9 Fodder Tier and make them 6.
- Remember you’ll need 28 same faction 5 fodder to build your 9 Core hero, so try to diversify your other heroes’ factions.
- Remember you’ll need 28 same faction 5
- If you have the fodder and hero copies to make some of those Support 9 eventually you can take some of them to 7 or 8, but don’t sacrifice the progress of your Core hero to do so and don’t do it for more than 1-2 of them.
- Once your 9 is completed, evaluate your hero copies and fodder, pick a new Core hero from the 9-10 Fodder Tier and work towards making that hero a 9.
- While building that 10 Core hero, take 1-2 of those Supports from the 6-9 Fodder Tier and take 1-2 heroes from the 9-10 Fodder Tier and work them towards 9.
- Take the rest of your Supports from the 6-9 Fodder Tier and use them as food. Their usefulness has passed.
- Remember you’ll need 36 same faction 5 fodder and 28 any faction fodder (in the form of a 9) to build your 10 Core hero.
- Take the rest of your Supports from the 6-9
- Once your 10 Core hero reaches 9, use either your Core 9 hero or one of the remaining 6-9 Supports as the 9 food for your new Core 10 hero
- Now that your 10 Core hero is complete you are much closer to an E3 unit than you think! You’ll need 186 total 5 heroes to make your E3, but the good news is that your current team already provides 148 of those!
- You’ll overall need 3 additional 9 fodder to make your first E3, so your team should be 10 Core, 3-4x 9 Support, 1-2 whatever units to complete an aura
- Evaluate your hero copies and fodder, pick a new Core hero from the E3 Tier and work towards making that hero a 9.
- If you do not yet have 3 9 Support heroes, work towards building those as well.
- Once your E3 Core hero is 9, use all your 9 Support heroes and 10 Core hero and you can essentially make them into an instant E3 if you have the hero copies.
- Welcome to the mid-game!
Practicing what you Preach: How has My Team Progressed?
Days Played: 74
VIP Level: 4 (3x Monthly Card, 1x Black Friday Card)
| Timeframe | Core Hero | Support Heroes | Aspen Smash | Tower Level | Boss Damage | Notable Hero Copies | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| End of Week 2 |  5 Norma | Random 4 and 5s | N/A | ~75 | ~100k | None | Get Norma to 6 |
| End of Week 4 | 7 Norma |   | Easy 50 | ~150 | ~500k |  | Got lucky with 3 Vesa copies in the first month. Orb Forest to build her up. |
| End of Month 2 | 8 Vesa |  | Normal 1 | ~275 | ~10m | x2   | Orb Abyss to get Norma built up, eventually use her to 10 Vesa. |
| Current | 9 Vesa |  | Normal 50 | 360 | ~30m | x2 | Get Norma to 9 and use branches in forest to try and get 2 more Vesa copies. Not a lot of options for E3 yet. If no Valkyrie copies drop while branching for Vesa might try for Horus just because I think he’s awesome. Will make decision on using Vesa as Fodder vs Hero Regression once I have enough hero copies of my goal E3. |
The Natural 4 Heroes (Nat4) Tier
Most of these heroes are 100% fodder, but there are a couple of notable exceptions in each faction which are worth holding on to in the early game.
If you don’t see a 4 hero on this list, assume it is safe to use as a resource to evolve other 4 Heroes.
Also important to note that these 4 heroes in each faction can be evolved to 6 and are the easiest 6 and 9 to make if you need some quick(ish) fodder later in the game.
I’ve made some notes about heroes which might be important to keep for reasons OTHER than using them.
Not shown here but still important is to take note of the specific Nat4 that 6 evolutions need. If you have a pair of Valkyries which need to be made into a 6 dont use your only 
Kargath as random fodder for another evolution.
| Hero | Faction | Useful at | Stop at | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Akasha |  Abyss | 4 | 4 | The only Abyss assassin for Shelter events, try to keep some 4 copies of her. |
 Aleria | Abyss | 4 | 6 | Excellent early game for hard hitting single target bosses, even useful to clear some tougher campaigns at low levels. |
|
Norma | Abyss | 5 | 6/9 | Amazing early game for PvP defense, Brave Trial, and Aspen Dungeon. Solid early game tank for other modes. Not only that you get a pair of free copies early in the game to help get her to 6 quickly (which you should absolutely do). This hero is the all-star of Nat4 heroes and should be one of the first 6 heroes of any F2P or light spender. |
 Thale |  Forest | 5 | 5/6 | A good enough healer if you have no other options. |
 Wind Walker | Forest | 4 | 4 | The only Forest Ranger for Shelter events, try to keep some 4 copies of her. |
 Roy |  Fortress | 4 | 4 | The only Fortress Assassin for Shelter events, try to keep some 4 copies of him. |
 Sierra | Fortress | 5 | 5/6 | A decent early game CC option for Tower of Oblivion or Brave Trial. Her damage is terrible though. |
|
Bonecarver |  Shadow | 4 | 6 | Can dish out quite a bit of damage for a 6 hero. The only Shadow Assassin for Shelter events, try to keep some 4 copies of him. |
 Deathsworn | Shadow | 4 | 6/9 | His damage is pretty good for a 4. Probably only worth using at 9 if you have a Flamestrike on your team. The only Shadow Mage for Shelter events, try to keep some 4 copies of him. |
 Glen | Shadow | 4 | 6 | Like Thale, can manage as an early game healer if you have no other options. The only Shadow Priest for Shelter events, try to keep some 4 copies of him. |
The Basement Tier (Nat5)
These heroes have very limited uses even early game. You’ll almost always use their 5 variants as fodder. It’s likely that you’ll take some of these to 6 (or even 9 later in the game) for the explicit purpose of using them as fodder. Note the lack of forest heroes in this tier.
My subjective reasoning for heroes in this tier roughly falls into one of the following categories:
- The hero is very weak
- The hero is on the weaker side, and has copies which are hard to get
| Hero | Faction | Shards | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Fat Mu | Abyss | Common | Does some moderate burn damage, might not be completely useless with the upcoming phoenix pet, but for now there are better options |
 Gusta | Abyss | Common | Low damage tank with a stun, but the stun and debuff he gives have really poor proc rates |
 Bleecker | Fortress | Common | Awful damage, his stun doesnt shine till 10 and you’ll never want to build him early considering how long it takes to get him going, and by mid-game there are better options at 10 |
|
Emily | Fortress | Rare | A support hero who isn’t good at supporting till 10. Even then she doesn’t give that much of a boost to useful stats. |
 Honor Guard | Fortress | Common | Awful damage. His 6 skill CAN be useful as a temporary team survivability boost if you toss him in slot 1 but overall a very underwhelming hero. |
|
Baade | Shadow | Common | Has attack oriented skills with a horrible base attack stat. |
 Field | Shadow | Rare | Field has some potential as an assassin counter or single target aspen specialist, but not really reasonable. |
 Kharma | Shadow | Rare | Kharma can be good against Miki, Horus and Tower of Oblivion but is generally a poor hero because blocking isn’t really that important to counter. |
The 6-9 Fodder Tier
These heroes will do well on your early game team, but usually aren’t worth taking to 10.
My subjective reasoning for heroes in this tier roughly falls into one of the following categories:
- The hero is on the weaker side, but has copies which are easy to get
- The hero is somewhat strong, but has copies which are hard to get
- The hero has almost no use in PvE content
Don’t get too attached to these heroes! Your 9 
Lord Balrog may have carried you the first 2 months of the game, but your team will be MUCH better off if you use him as food to make a 10 
Groo.
Core Heroes
Your first 9
should come from here, and that hero will carry your team until you get your first 10. It’s not unlikely that this hero will be used as fodder to make your first 10.Heroes in this list are generally sturdy, do decent damage and/or have some form of self healing. The self healing is better if it’s a passive skill so it can still apply when CC’d.
If you get 3 copies of a powerful 10 Core hero you may be able to bypass this tier altogether. If for example have enough copies for a 9 
Dantalian before a 9 
Norma, you could opt to use Dantalian at this tier and then further take him to 10 after you evolve one of your Support heroes to 9.
Special note about Norma. She’s a Nat 4. Doesn’t matter. She’s maybe the best option on this list. She doesn’t do much damage, but she is incredibly hard to kill at this tier.
| Hero | Faction | Shards | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Lord Balrog | Abyss | Common | Solid tank with a decent heal on his active skill, but his damage is terrible. |
|
Norma | Abyss | NO (4) | See the notes in the Nat4 section or at the top of this section. |
 Dragon Slayer | Forest | Common | He does more damage than the abyss options but his self healing is weaker. Might be even better with the upcoming phoenix pet. |
 Miki | Fortress | Rare(?) | Not bad in the early game if you stack some block on her stone. I think she’s the weakest option here though due to the rarity of her copies and the fact that her heal is inconsistent. |
Supporter List
These are the guys you should use to shore up some deficiencies in your Core hero.
Norma and Lord Balrog need some damage support, while Dragon Slayer and Miki could use supplemental healing. You may make a one or two of these guys into 9 while working on your Core 10, but most of them will become food at 6. You can use some of the heroes from the above Nat4 list to fill in here as well.
| Hero | Faction | Shards | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Margaret | Abyss | NO | She syngergizes well with snake if that’s your monster. Her single target damage leaves a bit to be desired. |
|
Faceless | Forest | Common | She can dish out some pretty good damage, but is a complete glass cannon. |
|
Malassa | Forest | Rare | The Forest version of Margaret. |
|
Starlight | Forest | Common | She’s mostly useful in Brave Trial for her healing passive. She’s not superb otherwise. However you get a free copy in your first month and she’s a common drop from hero shards. The fact that she’s so easy to evolve while not being terrible boosts her early game rating. |
 Iceblink* | Fortress | Rare | Solid PvP unit in slot 1. Lowers the damage of attackers. Synergizes with Corpsedemon as he does bonus damage to Frozen units. |
 Aidan | Shadow | Rare | Very strange hero and difficult to rate. Decent PvP unit, especially on defense, but requires a specialized team to really work. I’d avoid building him in general. Leave him in your bags if you want to play with him later. |
 Kamath* | Shadow | NO | CC machine pretty much exclusively for PvP. |
 Walter* | Shadow | NO | His recent nerf really hurt his damage, but he has stuns for days against single targets. |
* PvP focused unit. Sometimes worth taking to 10 and beyond for PvP, but they aren’t generally regarded as heroes you’d build your whole team around even if you do decide to focus on PvP in the future. Might want to avoid using these as fodder if you plan to build PvP teams in the future.
The 9-10 Fodder Tier
These heroes have potential early and into mid game, but you’ll usually not want to take them to E3.
Do note that you only need ONE 10 to act as fodder for E3, you shouldn’t make more than one 10 hero you only plan to use for fodder in the early game.
Also note that this is the LAST tier where you’ll be able to get hero copies from hero shards.
My subjective reasoning for heroes in this tier roughly falls into one of the following categories:
- The hero is somewhat strong, and has copies which are easy to get
- The hero is quite strong, but has copies which are hard to get
- The hero has minor use in PvE content
Your 9 Core and 10 Core heroes are likely to be from different factions due to the way that 5 and 6 fodder gets distributed.
If Dragon Slayer is your 9 Core hero, you won’t be able to make a 10 
Groo as easily as a 10 
Dominator because the Groo and Dragon Slayer will be competing for Forest fodder 6 through 9.
Choosing your Core 10 will be an interesting choice you’ll have to make. There are several viable options here and your decision will largely be shaped by what hero copies you pull.
If I get 4-5 Groo copies early my 6 Starlight is going to be used to make him a 9 and I’ll use a 9 Norma to get him to 10. If I get 4-5 Dantalian copies, I’m more likely to use Norma as 6 fodder and then use Starlight as a 9 fodder later on.
Core Heroes
This hero will carry your team until you get your first E3. This hero will almost certainly be used as fodder to make your first E3.
Heroes in this list are generally sturdy, do good damage and have some form of powerful self healing.
While some of the heroes in this list will do well as a 9 Core hero, these heroes are generally harder to come by and are generally more likely to be used as your first 10 Core.
For example, you’re much more likely to have the copies for a 9 Dragon Slayer before you have the copies for a 9 Dantalian, but if you do get 3 Dantalian copies early feel free to use Dantalian as your 9 AND your 10 core.
| Hero | Faction | Shards | Works as a 9 Core? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Dantalian | Abyss | Rare | YES | Before his recent adjustment his self-sustain was nearly unstoppable. He does more damage now, but at the cost of some of that self healing. His self heal is still quite powerful at 10 though making him one of the best options at this tier. |
|
Groo | Forest | Rare | NO | This hero is a superb tank especially at 10 when he gets a heal added to his active skill. Enemies hitting him have their armor and attack transferred, while his attacks further steal attack and crit. Add on a counter attack and you have an annoying little wall of a hero. |
 Corpsedemon* | Shadow | NO | YES | A tank who heals based on his opponent’s health and provides CC when getting hit. He doesn’t have a much damage but is really good at keeping your team (and himself) alive. |
 Dominator | Shadow | Common | NO | It’s probably a surprise to see this hero here. Dominator is terrible until 10. And he’s terrible AFTER 10. But at EXACTLY 10 he can do very well as a self-sustaining lifesteal tank. I’d say he is the weakest option in this list as his damage leaves much to be desired. |
Supporter List
A Core 10
hero is generally more self-sufficient than a Core 9 hero, so these supporters are less important than their 6-9 counterparts. Still having a 9 or two from this list can round out your team as you build your first E3.| Hero | Faction | Shards | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Eddga | Forest | NO | Surprisingly decent and versatile unit. Can dish out some decent damage especially at 10. Placing him the front line gives him more survivability while placing him in the back line bolsters his damage. |
 Rosa | Forest | NO | Not a bad support unit through 9. He doesn’t heal but he reduces enemy damage and armor, and boosts team damage. The additional skill he gets at 10 to add a critical mark is too unreliable. |
|
Mirage | Fortress | Common | He synergizes with Wolf and does rather good damage. He’s the reward for the 3rd month of daily checkins. |
 OD-01 | Fortress | Rare | He’s OK pretty much anywhere, but not really fantastic at anything other than as an anti-priest specialist. |
|
Ormus | Fortress | NO | Amazing healer. But that’s literally all. No team buffs, no enemy debuffs, poor damage, can’t tank. Hopefully the upcoming healer changes REALLY help this guy out. |
|
Lutz | Shadow | Common | Like Starlight, you get a bonus copy early on in the game and is a common drop from hero shards making him one of the easiest heroes to make. He does mediocre damage but improves your team damage by lowering enemies armor. He has a one time heal effect when his health drops low which makes him OK for Brave Trial and early Aspen, but his health needs to be topped off to take advantage of it. |
* PvP focused unit. Sometimes worth taking to 10 and beyond for PvP, but they aren’t generally regarded as heroes you’d build your whole team around even if you do decide to focus on PvP in the future. Might want to avoid using these as fodder if you plan to build PvP teams in the future.
Maybe-E3 Tier
This can be considered as a nebulous grey zone between the previous tier and the next tier. These heroes can do well at E3, though they usually wouldn’t be your first choice. It wouldn’t be completely crazy to use these heroes as fodder either though if you have a plan for your endgame team(s) which do not include them.
The simplified way to think about this tier is if you plan to use anything here as an E3 unit, put them in Supporter list in the E3 tier. If you don’t plan to use them at E3, you can consider them part of their respective list in the 9-10 tier.
Core Heroes
| Hero | Faction | Shards | Works as a 9 Core? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Cthugha* | Abyss | NO | YES | The immunity to burn and bleed is super useful in some situations. His damage is deceptive because he steals the damage of other DoT heroes and counts it as his own (though he does increase that damage slightly at 10). His self-sustain isn’t as good as I would have hoped it to be. He has much more use as a PvP hero, but is still good enough in early game to carry a PvE team. Good option for an early game Hero regression at 10 if you want to use him for PvP later in the game. |
|
Karim | Abyss | Rare(?) | NO | Prior to 9 he’s essentially a much better Aleria. At 10 he becomes a complete monster, especially for aspen dungeon. |
|
Vesa | Forest | NO | YES | Does great damage on top of excellent healing. She shines in all aspects of early to mid game, PvE, PvP, or Aspen. She drops off considerably at E3 though due to the scaling of health vs her heals. She’s still good but not quite the top tier hero she used to be unless she benefits greatly from the rumored upcoming priest buff. Good option for an early game Hero regression at 10 if you want to use her as your Core hero but not lose the hero copies. |
Supporter List
| Hero | Faction | Shards | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Queen | Abyss | Rare | Prior to 10 she does some decent counter attack damage and severely neuters heroes who rely on crit. At 10 she adds a huge bleed DoT on top of it. |
 Demon Hunter* | Forest | NO | She gets a huge survivability boost and CC immunity at 10 with the change to her active skill. She’ll do decent damage in PvP content but is a bit of a glass cannon. She silences a ton, but silence is a very weak form of CC. |
|
Flame Strike | Fortress | NO | With her rework she’s a solid DPS and burn hero. Good synergy with Sigmund on PvE teams and Cthugha on PvP teams. |
 Blood Blade | Shadow | NO | He does great damage and synergizes with Wolf. The bonus heal he gets at 10 is a great survivability boost. With the release of Horus you’ll have a really hard time justifying his spot on a team over either him or Jahra. Primarily a PvE hero. |
* PvP focused unit. They can be very strong in PvP but wont find as much room in a PvE team. Be very careful about using these heroes as fodder if you plan to make PvP teams for late game.
The E3 Tier
These heroes are awesome, god tier units. You don’t want to build a bunch of them them super early. Don’t use ANY of these heroes as fodder unless you know you have absolutely no plan to build them.
Core Heroes
These heroes can (and will) carry your team all on their own.
With the E3 passive heal, any of the heroes on this list can clear Nightmare Aspen dungeon. Any of them will do excellent damage in PvE content. None of them (with the exception of Barea and maybe Sigmund) perform that poorly in PvP content either. These heroes at E3 will rock your world as a solo unit but still have places in many end game viable teams.
The only heroes here who work as a 9 Core or 10 Core are Valkyrie and maybe Horus. The other options on this list lack the self-sustain prior to E3 to carry you through all aspects of the game.
| Hero | Faction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
 Barea | Abyss | He can do decent damage at early stars, and does a decent job at shredding armor, but he doesn’t really get going till 10 when his active skill doesn’t require his target to have lower health than him. Barea is pretty much exclusively for PvE content. |
|
Skerei | Abyss | He does a truckload of damage even with one copy at 9 or 10. But he’s one of the hardest to rate as he synergizes with copies of himself. If you have enough copies floating around for an E3 and a 10 version he’s easily the most powerful burst hero in the game. |
|
Valkyrie | Forest | Complete beast in PvP and great in PvE. Her damage scales with HEALTH so she ruins faces while being able to take a hit. She can’t be CC’d because she’ll heal extra and do even more HP based retaliation damage. Somewhat susceptible to DoTs and burst damage but what hero isn’t? One of the top priorities for almost any team if you have the copies. |
 Sigmund | Fortress | The armor shredding king. At higher stars he can keep an enemy at 0 armor all by himself. Like Heart Watcher, adding even a 5 copy to your (PvE) team will likely increase damage you do. He can break tanky nodes in Aspen with relative ease. He does respectable damage on his own with a sizable burn DoT, but the reason he stands out is his armor stripping. |
 Horus | Shadow | Newest hero appears to be amazing all around. Great burst damage, boss damage, self buffs, self sustain and adds additional damage when blocking. I’d say he’s like a less resilient, but more damaging Valkyrie. |
 Jahra | Shadow | Solid all around unit for PvP and PvE. Does a little bit of everything. Self sustain, attack steal, decent burst, decent poison DoT, decent chance to CC. |
Supporter List
These heroes are great, and will generally fill out the rest of your E3 team late game. However they cant really solo carry you through the mid game like the Core heroes can.
| Hero | Faction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
 King Barton* | Abyss | He gets 100% counter-attack at 9. Until that point he’s a decent slot 1 tank but not the world beater he’s known to be. His sub-par of boss damage is what keeps him from being a part of the Core list. |
 Kroos | Abyss | He’s a really good addition to almost any team but he won’t be carrying you early game like some other heroes can. You don’t want to make him your 1st or 2nd E3, but on a team with an E3 or two he’ll do wonders even at 9 or 10. |
 Heart Watcher | Forest | Replacing your weakest hero with even a 5 copy of Heart Watcher will likely more than double your (PvE) team’s damage. Not only that, her heal on crit helps her easily clear a ton of Aspen levels at higher stars. Get her. Use her. Love her. Note that if you’re lucky enough to have Valkyrie as your primary damage dealer, she does not boost her damage nearly as much as she would for other heroes. E3 is a lower priority as she is primarily a support unit, but she belongs on essentially every PvE team even at lower stars. |
 Valentino* | Fortress | A great PvP unit, does good burst damage as well as amazing CC. He gets better at 10 with the guaranteed stun on his first target. |
 Xia | Fortress | Monstrous burst damage as well as reduces the damage of her target. She is quite squishy and cannot solo carry a team all by herself, but as your second or third E3 you’d be hard pressed to do better. |
* PvP focused unit. They can be very strong in PvP but wont find as much room in a PvE team. If you have ANY intention of building a PvP team you should hold onto these copies.
A Brief Note About PvE and PvP Later Game Team Building for New Players
PvP teams are ever shifting and very dynamic. There are many different team compositions which can work for you depending on how the meta shifts.
Right now Valkyrie is the meta defining hero, but that can change at any point. I know less about PvP team building and will leave the discussions about that to other posters and threads.
PvE teams are generally focused on maximizing damage on 1-3 high health and/or high damage targets. This is much more rigid and you have less leeway if you want to maximize your damage output.
- First and foremost, Heart Watcher is the single largest boost to your team’s damage. At 10 she QUADRUPLES every hero’s damage by round 7. She belongs in every PvE team. Get her as soon as you can. Even a 5 Heart Watcher will substantially increase your team’s single target damage if she stays alive.
- Next biggest impact on your damage will be armor stripping. Sigmund is the clear winner here, but Barea isn’t a bad option. Lutz and Rosa work here as an earlier game options.
- There are only 3 heroes who can really function as a primary healer: Belrain > Vesa > Ormus
- Kroos is never a bad choice as he is a general all around support star. He’ll never take center stage in any one area, but he provides supplemental armor stripping, percent based healing, and a mini-Heart Watcher effect.
- Trying to work in some enemy attack reduction can help if you’re having trouble surviving. Valkyrie, Xia, Jahra, and Skerei are top tier choices which have this, but Karim, Rosa, and even Aleria can fill this role early game.
- After that, put in as much damage as you can.
- These goals should not be sacrificed just for an aura, but there are several Auras which do apply to a well balanced PvE team
- Color Mixing (Rainbow) Example:
- Redemption (2 Light, 2 Fortress, 2 Forest) Example:
- Justice (3 Fortress, 3 Forest) Example:
- Pollution (3 Forest, 3 Abyss) Example:
Belrain
Jahra
Skerei
Aleria
Color Mixing (Rainbow) Example:
Amuvor
Das Moge
Redemption (2 Light, 2 Fortress, 2 Forest) Example:
Asmodel
Justice (3 Fortress, 3 Forest) Example:
Pollution (3 Forest, 3 Abyss) Example:Infographic
Coming soon!
One Response
Hello, dear author!
Your guide is very interesting and informative, thank you very much for it!
Sorry for bad English.
In the process of reading I had a misunderstanding of some things. Can I write a question to you, so that you can clarify to me, a beginner, that I did not understand or understood wrong?