GGC420: General Guide to Crusading

For Beginners, Returning Players, and Veterans alike

Okay, okay, settle down class!

Welcome to CQ General Guide to Crusading, ggc420. My name is semi-authorized-not-really-Professor kamakiller, and I’ll be your guide to today to Questing in the realm of Hasla!

This class is geared to new crusaders who have been playing for a while but still haven’t fully grasp the game and returning players who are trying to catch up on what has been going on recently. If you feel like you have a pretty good grasp of the section, feel free to skip it; it’s not compulsory to read everything! A lot of stuff has changed so hopefully this will help y’all! Veterans are welcome to stay, even if you played for a long time you may learn something new, as well as correct me if I make any mistakes!

I know the game has ingame guides to Berries and Bread and such, but some of us are forgetful or haven’t seen this game in years, and personally I don’t like some of their guides. I still will include a guide of some of the things covered ingame for a refresher to everyone, as well as some optimizations.

Any veterans out there can stay and enjoy the class too!

Without further adieu, let’s start ggc420!

Navigation

So if you haven’t figured out, this guide is REALLY long.

Use the Outline to navigate through this Guide if you want to skip sections.

Glossary

When you go anywhere, whether its Reddit, Discord, IRC, Facebook, Ingame chat, etc., there will be a lot of acronyms like “SBW” or “tSM” and so on that usually don’t make sense. See this for a Glossary of common words used. You don’t need to know all the skill acronyms, but at least know most of the ones other than that.

General Suggestions

In the Hero Town, go to the top right corner of the screen where you will find a Menu button. 

In the menu, go to Settings.

Make sure “Watch Video” is checked here. If your device is older and needs some help running the game, checking Limited FPS also may help. 

Also, go to the Game Tab, uncheck the box that says “See Champion cut in.” These can be cool the first couple of times but they become really annoying after a while.

Depending on how you hold your device/your play style, you may want to check “Direction of opposite block creation” (Left-Handed) and “Reverse Goddess Location” (Two-Handed). These settings mostly depend on how you play the game, test them to see what fits you best.

Scroll down and I would check “Lock First Obtained Master Hero” and “Lock First Obtained SBW”. These settings automatically lock your weapons and heroes and they can’t be retired or salvaged without unlocking them first.

If your device has a larger resolution that doesn’t fit the game entirely, you can check “See Letterbox, Pillarbox Design” to fill the black space on the edge with something. This one doesn’t matter to much.

Exit Settings, go back to Menu, and then go to Favorites. 

This lets you put 3 of Quest, Challenge, FoS (Fortress of Souls), LoPF (Legend of Primal Flames), or Practice on your Portal screen (after you tap Start from the town). These are shortcuts that instantly bring you to those stages so you don’t have to tap the Adventure Tab and find them. I generally like to have FoS (Fortress of Souls), LoPF (Legend of Primal Flames), and Challenge on my screen since their paths are pretty long and I use them pretty frequently.

If you don’t see one of these, that just means you haven’t unlocked them yet. Keep progressing in Story to eventually unlock them.

This is just some quality of life stuff. Let’s move on to the actual game!

Starting Off

We’ve all been here before. When you first login to your first CQ day and you’re like “what the hell am I doing with my life” and might make some bad decisions. So, let’s see what to do.

Upon completing Episode 1, the player has already gotten Leon, Mew, and Archon for free, and upon completing 2-1 and 1 FOS Stage, they are given 2 6* SBW’s, and upon reaching level 20, they are given a free 6* hero, and upon reaching level 40 they are given a free 6* SBW selection. What’s the best way to use these?

Your First Team

The 1-24 reward wizard, Archon, is a good hero. So is your Player Level 3 reward priest, Mew. Archon Mew is an extremely strong combination. But why?

We can check what the hero does in the Library of Dimensions. The Library of Dimensions is a handy compilation of pretty much everything in the game; heroes, weapons, equipment, etc..

The Hero Tome is where you can check all Heroes’s Passives. Knowing Passives is important since they tell you how the hero works.

If you tap on Archon’s Block Skill, we can read her passive.

Essentially,

• Archon’s 3-chain deals 270% of her attack power to the enemy 
• Archon’s 3-chain also increases all ally’s Armor Penetration and Resistance Penetration by 30% of Archon’s Attack Power.
• If Archon has a buff active on her (for example, her own Armor/Resistance Penetration buff) when she uses a 3-chain, then she will summon 3 additional Electric Spheres, each of which dealing Magical Damage equal to 80% of her Attack Power.

Therefore, if we want to use Archon, we would be constantly tapping her 3-chains. If Archon is buffed, then her 3-chain will deal bonus damage.

Now let’s check Mew’s passive.

Essentially,

• Mew’s blocks heals allies.
• If an ally uses a 3-chain, Mew generates one of her blocks instantly and gains 10 SP.

Put the Special Skill Mana Recycle on Archon, and after you 5* Mew, she unlocks a skill called Energy of Goddess. Put that skill on Mew. These two skills generate a relatively constant stream of blocks for Archon so Archon can 3-chain much more. The more 3-chains Archon can consecutively use, the more damage she is capable of doing.

We’ll be replacing Archon pretty soon, but this team can carry the earlygame until you reach Player Level 20, where you get a Hero Selection ticket.

Hero	Name	Skill	Weapon	Usage
	Mew		–	1-chain
	Archon		HA/HACD/CC	Become buffed -> Tap 3-chain

This combination is easily one of the best ones in the game and especially effective for beginners. To finish the composition off, a paladin called Alexander will be provided in the Quests (later) at around Episode 4 in the Volcano stages. Alexander is a pretty good tank. We’ll talk about ways to improve your heroes later, since Alexander scales very well with a progression system called Inheritance and Sigils. 

Also, while you’re clearing Story, remember to do your Quests.

Story Quests can be tedious but the rewards they give are well worth it.

You will soon have a lot of shiny books and pages called inheritance, and you may notice your hero’s level bar becoming purple as you inherit them. 

DO NOT INHERIT YOUR HEROES PAST 16!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’ll talk about this in a lot more detail in the Inheritance and Colosseum section; however, this is important enough that I will stress it here.

Gem Earning and Spending in the Early Game

Gems are a currency that primarily are used to obtain heroes. They can be earned through Quests, Max Leveling heroes, and Colosseum. Besides obtaining heroes, gems can also be used to expand inventory, refresh meat/keys, refresh FoS stages, bargaining, Gem Rod/Float in Fishing, etc..

For a beginner, your #1 priority is Fishing Gem Gear. If you haven’t noticed already, there is a mode called Fishing where you can catch fish which gives Fish Coins. You can buy pretty much anything with Fish Coins; gold, meat, FoS Dust, Shards, Crystals, Legendary Bread, VIP Ticket, Inheritance Book, Ancient Pages, and this honestly is basically a collection of anything you need to progress in this game. The Gem Rod and Gem Float are the only equipment worth buying in the Rod and Float purchasable/attainable gear, and rushing the Gem Float is great because you can complete the Tome Completion rewards easily (High-tier Bait, more Legendary Bait, Books, guaranteed Contract Hero) and also give yourself an extra weekly VIP, possibly a book, and a lot of meat. If you run need FoS materials, you can also buy them here. See Fishing later on in the guide, but the Gem Equpiment’s return cost makes up for its high cost of 99 gem.

I’d suggest all players to get the Seiren’s Doll first. Firstly, it’s unlocked at FR 0 as compared to FR 3. Secondly, it has a Freshwater bonus, which is superior on the final Fishing stage and also during Events. All gem equipment have the same stats except the Sea/Freshwater bonus. In this case, the Freshwater bonus only exists on Seiren Doll as of current.

After which, you can start doing 10 pulls. Having the heroes from the 10 pulls can help you make a better choice for who to pick with your 6* selection ticket that you get at level 20.

Tl;dr Buy the Gem Float, then you can choose to either get Gem Rod or just start doing 10 pulls. Both are good choices.

Types of Heroes

There are 5 types of heroes. Legendary, Promotional, Premium, Limited, and Otherworld.

Legendary Heroes can only be obtained through farming Ancient Dungeons. They’re marked by a gold border in the Hero Tome. 

• Legendary Heroes start from 1* and can be promoted all the way to 6*
• Their average stats are not on average 15% higher than other heroes of the same rank
• Despite their name, most Legendary heroes aren’t very “Legendary” Don’t get fooled by their title.

Promotional Heroes can be obtained by promoting 3* heroes into 4*. They are represented by a gray contract.

• Promotional Heroes can be promoted from any 3* Hero. They start from 4* and can be promoted to 6*.
• Promoting from 3* -> 4* is completely random. 4* -> 6* produces the same hero at a higher rarity.
• Promotional Heroes also can be obtained by contracts via chance.

Premium Heroes can only be obtained through Contract Pulls. You cannot promote these heroes. Premium Heroes are marked with a Gold Contract icon in the Hero Tome. If you click on the hero in the Tome, it will also specifically display “Contract” underneath the hero.

• Premium Heroes start from 4* and end at 6*
• Premium Heroes cannot be promoted and must be pulled via contract

Limited Heroes can only be obtained during a certain Event. They are labeled under “Secret Hero” in the Hero Tome. These heroes aren’t obtained normally and are available for limited times every year.

Otherworld, or Collaboration heroes, are special event heroes from other games. These events generally come once and never come back again. Some collaborations do make a reappearance.

Useful Legendary/Promotional Heroes

Promotional Heroes and Legendary Heroes are the heroes you can obtain without spending Gems. Unlike most other games, many Promotional Heroes are actually good and can be used in many different situations. Here’s some heroes you will want to have in your arsenal for midgame or lategame.

Susanoo	Joan	Roskva	Alexander	Drake	Heim
Sigruna	Hanzo	Niven	Crow	Spiny	Archon
Maria	Mew	Yeowoodong	Woompa	Nurspy	Seiren

Wherever you are in the game, these heroes can be useful. I’d get these heroes as soon as possible, along with their respective SBW’s. You can check here for what weapons they should be using.  

Picking a Hero

You can read this for a more in-depth explanation of why.

Basically, pick the wizard Bihwa.

So, why Bihwa?

Bihwa has, currently, the second highest damage scaling in the entire game. She excels in Story and Colosseum, and with some ally help, she can clear Challenge relatively easily. With higher investment and improved sigils, she can take on later Challenges in the Endgame.

If you’re looking for damage, Bihwa is pretty much as high as you’re going to get. Her biggest issue is that she doesn’t have any way to buff her Resistance Penetration and will have to use pure stats and ally penetration buffs to help her pierce enemy resistance fully. Thankfully, there is an easy-to-obtain penetration buffer that synergizes quite well with Bihwa, Maria.

Maria is a Legendary Priest that can be farmed relatively easily. She pairs well with Bihwa. It’s suggested you go look for Maria in her Legendary Dungeon, Black and White, which comes on Wednesdays and Thursdays every week.

If you already have Bihwa somehow, the next hero to get would be Genevie.

Genevie has massive single target damage and also provides a lot of team utility, most notably shredding enemy armor and resistance by 50%. She excels in Challenge and Raids, and she can cover Bihwa’s biggest weakness. Her own weakness is that her single target burst ability also comes with extremely poor AoE and waveclear damage, however waveclear is one of Bihwa’s biggest strengths. These two heroes complement each other quite well and cover each other’s weaknesses. 

Using them together can be difficult without Remi Level 7 as a Champion, however there lacks many teams that can clear Challenge or Raids without a Level 7 Champion. It’s highly recommended you rush investment into Remi when you unlock Champions.

Bihwa’s Compositions

The main one we’ll be looking at today is Bihwa Maria Drake/Nurspy

Hero	Name	Skill	Weapon	Usage
	Drake		Critical Chance	1-chain
	Nurspy		–	Use block after Ally 3-chain
	Maria		–	Use block after Ally 3-chain
	Bihwa		Critical Damage x2	3-chain

To use this team, use Bihwa 3-chain and then use Maria/Nurspy 1-chains. If you’re using Drake, you can use Drake 1-chain before Bihwa 3-chain.

Prioritize the Champion Remi and dump all of your Battleloids to Remi. We’ll talk about Champions later on, but Remi is essential for most teams in late-game Challenges.

When you start off, after you reach Level 20, chances are you won’t have Maria or Nurspy or Drake yet. In this case, I would use the free Priest, Mew, the game gives you.

Hero	Name	Skill	Weapon	Usage
	Mew		–	1-chain
	Bihwa		Critical Damage x2	3-chain

Use any 1-chain support as a third hero, or level some heroes while you progress through Story. Alexander works, Bihwa Mew can duo pretty well though.

Bread and Berries

Bread Training

For a hero to be promoted from 1* to 2*, 2* to 3*, etc. eventually until 5* to 6*, the hero needs to meet two conditions: First, the hero is max leveled. Second, the hero is max bread trained.

Levels are gained through playing stages. Whenever you play a stage, your hero gains a certain amount of EXP. Orchard also can give hero EXP for leveling up. However, let’s talk about the bread.

When you tap the Grow button in the bottom right corner of the hero selection screen, you will be given 3 tabs: Bread, Berries, and Inheritance. For now, let’s focus on the bread.

In the Bread menu, there’s a bar under your hero that shows you how much Bread value you need to get the hero to the next level. That bar shows how much bread it takes to get to the next Bread level. In this case, the hero starts at Bread level 0 and can be trained to Bread level 1 by giving him 100 Bread Value points.

There are a total of 5 Bread levels. Depending on how many stars a hero has, the amount of Bread levels they have access to changes, starting from 2* with 1 Bread level up to 6* with 5 Bread levels.

Every Bread level add 10% more HA (Hero Attack), HP (Hit Points), Armor, and Resistance. +0 -> +3 = 30% stat boost from base.

Each bread has two values: the Bread Value, and then the Great Rate chance to it. The Bread Value is simple; when you feed it to a hero, the hero gains that much bread value. Great Rate is an interesting mechanic. Based on what the Great Rate is, there is that much chance for the bread to give you 50% more. Below, you can see that the Bread Value is 60. The Great Value is 40%. So, there’s a 40% chance that I will get 90 (50% more of 60) Bread Value. The remaining chance is the chance I only get 60.

Several Great Values from Breads can be added together for higher Great Levels. It is generally advised that you get enough bread for 100% Great Value, and after reaching that 100% Great Value, go for breads that have  more Bread Value but no Great Rate. The easiest 100% Great Rate would be 40% + 40% + 20% or 40% + 20% + 20% + 20%, and sometimes 20% + 20% + 20% + 20% + 20% if you happen to have a lot of 20% Great Success breads.

Once a hero is max trained, you can promote them if they are 2* to 5*. 6* units at MAX training can be inherited. We will get to that later.

In general, we suggest using only 4*, 5*, and 6* bread as they are the most efficient. 1* 2* and 3* bread are not worth the gold they cost to feed. Still save a few 1* 2* 3* bread in case you can finish up a training with 1 2* bread and avoid wasting better bread.

Here’s some bread sets for most efficient bread sets for each promotion:

Promotion	Breads
1* -> 2*	None
2* -> 3*
3* -> 4*
4* -> 5*	+
5* -> 6*	Mash a lot of 5/6*’s together with 100% Great

Generally most people won’t have the optimal 5* -> 6* configuration. For 1* -> 5* however, it’s suggested you use mainly the above setups.

Berry Feeding

Berries are similar to bread to bread in that they have a Berry Value and a Berry Great chance. However, there are 8 stats that can berried, and only the berries of the right type can berry the stat of the right type. So, imagine 8 bread bars that you have to fully bread, and that is essentially berrying.

The 8 stats you can berry are HA (Hero Attack), HP (Hit Points), Armor, Resistance, CC (Critical Chance), CD (Critical Damage), Accuracy, and Evasion. Each hero has a unique amount the above stats that you can give them. You can give the heroes berries as long as their stats are not maxed out, and the limit to how many berries you can give is until MAX all stats.

Berries can be found through Orchard. To do Orchard, click one of them and enter. You’ll see there are some requirements for bonus rewards. Don’t worry, you don’t have to fulfill every single one of these boxes to get the berry rewards, they are usually extra rewards that include gold, special berries, weapons, iron, bread, etc.. After fulfilling as many requirements as you can, send them off and wait for return. If you are impatient, you can use Life Essence to speed them up coming home. Life Essence currently does not have much use, however there could be future stages that need map pieces to complete.

When using berries, only use the Superior Berries. The Low-Grade and Normal are not worth gold, however keep some around to finish off 0.1 more CC left or something. If you want to guarantee a great, feel free to use the Great Success Chance berries for a good Great Rate boost. 

When using the Almighty Berries (All stat Increase 2%/3%/10%), try to make sure you have 100% Great Success. You definitely want the 50% increase on several all stats % berries. Try keeping these % berries to Warriors or Paladins with high HP and Armor/Resistance stats; these can be very difficult to berry.

When your heroes are 0-20% berried, the color of their bread training is white. If they are 20-50% berried, the color of their bread training is light blue. If they are 50-80% berried, the color of their bread training is dark blue. If they are 80-100% berried, the color of their bread training is magenta. If they are completely max berried at 100%, the color of their bread training is orange. You can tell how berried your allies/your enemies in Raid/Colosseum are based off that color.

Inheritance

If your heroes are MAX Trained and Level 60, you can now give them Inheritance. Inheritance are basically a separate leveling system where you can give the hero up to 25 Inheritance levels. Each Inheritance boost gives different stats

Every 5 inheritance, the same stats Increase. So when Inheritance to 1, 6, 11, 16, or 21 gives your hero more HP. Inheritance to 2, 7, 12, 17, or 22 gives your hero more Accuracy/Evasion. Inheritance to 3, 8, 13, 18, 23 gives armor/resistance. Inheritance to 4, 9, 14, 19, 24 gives CC (Critical Chance)/CD (Critical Damage)/CR (Critical Resistance). Inheritance to 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 gives HA. Each class has different increases per stat. See this for what bonus stats are given at each inheritance. 

Inheritance can be found in all Challenges, the higher the Challenge, the higher the rate. For details on Challenge Mode, see this guide on clearing it. We will briefly talk about Challenge later on, however this is mid-endgame content.

As a summary, Inheritance Pages can only inherit your units up to a particular level. I Inheritance Pages can only inherit up to 5, II Inheritance Pages can only inherit up to 10. Inheritance Books can inherit at any level. In general, use Pages until at least Inheritance 5, then use higher level pages and books to inherit any higher.

Please avoid dumping all of your books on one hero. Raising inheritance also puts you against tougher enemies and there is no way to back out of High Inheritance Colosseum. Avoid going over Inheritance 16 to have a manageable Colosseum.

Soulbound Weapons

Old Weapon to SBW

Soulbound Weapons (abbreviated as SBW) are weapons unique to a specific hero, and only that hero can use their SBW. To get a SBW, first you need an Old Weapon. Old Weapons have no stats and are purely used for forging into SBW’s. If you have an Old Hammer, it’d turn into a random Paladin SBW, same with any class.

Upon using 4000 iron, 350 Crystal Powder, and 7500 Gold on an Old Weapon, they will turn into a SBW. There are 2 possible SBW’s that come out of Old Weapons. The name of the hero who can use the SBW is given under both weapons along with their future weapon slots. Pick whichever one you need or feel will become more useful, or if they are both useless, pick either. Then, you will get that 4* SBW with the given slots for the given hero. A SBW always has 2 upgradeable slots and 1 Exclusive Passive upgrade unique to the hero it belongs to.

Upon using 8000 iron, 300 Crystal Shards, and 15000 Gold, you can make the 4* SBW into a 5* SBW. 5* SBW is no different from a 4* SBW besides that it has only 5* specific weapon upgrades. We’ll talk about this a little more in detail later.

Upon using 16000 iron, 270 Crystal Dust, and 30000 Gold, you can make the 5* SBW into a 6* SBW. 6* SBW enhances the Exclusive Upgrade slot. This often is a massive powerspike for the hero. 6* SBW’s also can be inlayed. We will touch on this later. However, note that a 6* SBW is almost always more powerful than normal weapons, so aim for your hero’s SBW.

Weapon Slots and Upgrades

Every weapon can have 4 different type of slots: Attack Slot, Defense Slot, Function Slot, or Exclusive Slot. The Exclusive Slot is a guaranteed slot on a SBW and cannot be changed, and usually are boosts. These are not important in upgrading.

A slots, D slots, and F slots can be upgraded. You can upgrade to get HA (Hero Attack), CD (Critical Damage), Apen (Armor Penetration), or Rpen (Resistance Penetration) on Attack Slots. You can upgrade to get Armor, Resistance, DR (Damage Reduction), or Max HP (Hit Points) on Defense slots. You can upgrade to get CC (Critical Chance), AS (Attack Speed), LS (Lifesteal), Accuracy, or Evasion on Function slots.

There is a range of stats you can upgrade based on what star level the weapon is. You can see this information in the Info button at the bottom right of the Weapons screen.

Weapon slots will be particularly important, and it may be hard to know what to upgrade. A general guideline on good conversions can be seen in here. There are three Sheets here, the second sheet provides weapon and ring conversions for each hero. We’ll talk about this more later as well.

(Pro-Tip: When upgrading Hero Attack or Critical Damage, upgrade at 4*/5*. All other upgrades should be done at 6*)

Inlaying and Sigils

If a SBW is 6*, you can inlay that SBW. The Forge button that was there from 4* to 5* and 5* to 6* is gone after it’s 6*, and now it says Inlay instead.

The process of inlaying is another way to improve your heroes in power by improving the weapon they have. Inlays in a way are like a ring for a weapon, however they are a bit more expensive.

Given a 6* SBW, you can destroy another 6* SBW to give one “Hole” to the original SBW. The destroyed SBW does not have to be the same SBW as the inlaying SBW.

There is a 5% chance when you destroy a SBW, you will get a Great! Success. Great Success gives 2 Holes instead of 1. Note Inlaying is not like 1 + 1 = 2, destroying 2 SBW’s will give you 2 chances to get a second hole, but does not guarantee to give you the second hole. You can guarantee a Great! Success by using 10 Fergus Points. If you are doing a normal inlay, you will be given 1 Fergus Point no matter the outcome of the weapon.

In these holes, you can put Sigils in them. Sigils are additional stats that you can put in the hole. They give the weapon the stat they have. You can find a list of available sigils and the stage they drop from here.

Certain sigils have a “Set.” Meaning, if you put the sigil with its Set Counterpart, you will get a bonus effect.

Rings

Rings are equippable bonus stats. A ring consists of a Main stat, which can be 

• Attack
• Resistance
• Armor
• Critical Damage
• Critical Chance

A ring also has 3 subslots, and the possible options on these differs based on the type of ring. The subslots can be in any combination of the given possibilities and can be the same stats.

Tower of Manacar Rings

Tower of Manacar Rings can be gained in the Tower of Manacar, World Boss, stages. See World Bosses later in the document. The possible subslots for Manacar Rings:

• Armor Penetration
• Resistance Penetration
• Damage Reduction
• Maximum HP Increase
• Attack Speed
• Accuracy
• Evasion

These rings effects can be used anywhere in the game.

Legend of Primal Flames Rings

Legend of Primal Flames rings can be gained in the Legend of Primal Flames. See this section later in the document. The possible subslots for LoPF Rings:

• (PVE Only) Mercenary EXP (Increases Player Level EXP)
• (PVE Only) Hero EXP (Increases EXP gain for all heroes)
• (PVE Only) Scenario Gold Increase (Increases Gold drops in Stages)
• (PVC Only) Physical Damage Increase
• (PVC Only) Magical Damage Increase
• (PVC Only) Armor Increase
• (PVC Only) Resistance Increase
• (PVC Only) HP Increase
• (PVC Only) Critical Resistance Increase
• Resurrection

Resurrection rings are banned in Arena and Friendly Duels. Specific classifications have been given for the rest of the rings.

Currency

We’ll “quickly” go over the type of currency in the game.

Gold

Gold is the base currency, used for almost everything. Upgrading weapons, training heroes, transferring skills, inlaying sigils, feeding berries, essentially everything. Gold is a common drop in Story and Explorations. You can get more gold by Fishing. It is not recommended you do Gold Dungeon as it is too key-consuming for the gold returns it provides. Use keys instead on Time Acceleration on Sundays.

Gem

Gems is a premium currency used for getting more heroes. Gems also can be used for increasing inventory slots, refilling meat, refilling dungeon keys, doing quests past QR Limit, etc.. We’ve talked about the best way to spend gems early. You can earn gems initially by max leveling heroes and doing Story Quests. However, once you finish all of the quests and max levels the majority of the heroes, the source of gems is from Colosseum, where placing into higher ranks, and your final placing at the end of the rank will decide how many gems you have.

Honor

Honor is a currency used for Hero Promotions, Skill transfers, and Home Decorations. You can get Honor by doing Colosseum, retiring heroes, and Honor Dungeon.

Bridget Point

Bridget Points (BP) are a premium currency that cannot be earned. BP can only be obtained via events and login awards. You get 300 BP a month via login rewards. BP can be traded in for Weapon Option Selects, SBW Selection Ticket, Hero Selection Ticket, Premium Class Contract (Ew), Milk (Ew), etc.. You can also use BP at Fergus’s Forge and Hellad’s Skill Transfer shop, however these are considered very poor investment of BP’s. Generally, it’s suggested for either Option Select or Hero Selection Tickets.

Fish Coin

Fish Coins are currency you earn for catching Fish. You can trade Fish Coins in for Meat, Gold, Powder, Shards, Crystals, Ancient Pages, Inheritance Book, VIP Random Option Ticket and a lot of things. You should prioritize earning as much as these as you can. Use Autofishing to get a lot of these overnight, and purchase the Gem Float as soon as you can. The earlier you buy it and use it, the faster it pays off. Most rewards are reset weekly, e.g. Meat can be purchased 20 times every week, the Inheritance book can be purchased once a week. It’s a good idea to purchase the Inheritance Book, 1600 Meat, Powder, Shards, Crystals, and VIP Random Option Ticket. You can buy other things, like Gold if you’re running out as necessary.

Meat

Meat is the regenerative currency that lets you do Story, Challenge, and Raid bosses. Meat refills at one per 3 minutes and you can increase your meat storage by leveling up. Colosseum and Pop Quizzes reward meat.

Dungeon Key

Dungeon Keys are the regenerative currency that lets you do Ancient Dungeons. Dungeon keys refill at one per 20 minutes. 

Colosseum Ticket

Colosseum Tickets are the regenerative currency that lets you do Colosseum. Colosseum victories reward Honor and Meat and also increases your Colosseum Point score, ultimately leading to a Gem Reward based on your rank placing at the end of the week.

Life Essence

Life Essence is a currency purely for speeding up Explorations. You can get more Life Essence from Life Essence Boxes, Orchard, Stages, and Daily Quests.

Lotus of Primal Flames

Lotus of Primal Flames are a currency for daily Legend of Primal Flames entrances. You have three of these per day. Dong Legend of Primal Flames give LoPF Rings, Blue Essence, and Red Essence.

Iron

Iron is the base currency for weapon forging. You can get more of these in Fortress of Souls, Fishing, and Salvaging Weapons.

Dust

Dust is the first tier Currency for Weapon Forging. These are needed to forge an old weapon into 4*. You can get more of these in Fortress of Souls, Fishing, and Enhanced Salvages. Tip: If you have useless 4* SBW that has terrible conversions and you don’t plan on using it for inlay, premium salvage it for some guaranteed Dust back.

Shards

Shards is the second tier Currency for Weapon Forging. These are needed to forge a 4* SBW into 5* SBW. You can get more of these in Fortress of Souls, Fishing, and Enhanced Salvages.

Crystals

Shards is the third tier Currency for Weapon Forging. These are needed to forge a 5* SBW into 6* SBW. You can get more of these in Fortress of Souls, Fishing, and Enhanced Salvages.

Blue Essence

Blue Essence is the base currency for Ring Subslot Conversions. You can find these in Legend of Primal Flames drops and Ring extractions.

Red Essence

Red Essence is the base currency for enhancing Ring Conversions. You can make any subslot or main slot Premium with 5 Red Essence. You can find these in Legend of Primal Flames. Note: Making a slot premium does count as a Conversion.

Weapon Random Option Ticket

Weapon Random Option Tickets are used to turn a weapon’s conversions (AA, AF, DF, FF, DD, etc.) into something except itself (DD cannot go to DD, DF cannot go to FD, AF cannot go to FA, etc.). 

You can use Random Option Tickets by hitting “Change Option” as seen above.

Weapon Option Select Ticket

Option Select Tickets can be used to change a specific conversion to another. (e.g. AA -> AF, DF -> DD, FF -> AF, etc.). You can pick only one of the conversion slots and change it to another.

Fergus Point

Fergus Points are used to guarantee Great Success Inlays on weapons. You get 1 Fergus Point if you’re doing an inlay, however if you are using 10 Fergus Points for a guaranteed great inlay, you will not get a Fergus Point. Fergus Points are otherwise acquired through events and FoRS 4.

PVE: Beginner to Challenger

Stage Terminology

First off, you’ll see me use “6-19N” or “7-3-3H” or something like that. These are ways to quickly reference a specific stage. In general, we will list The Episode Number – Sub Episode (if applicable, only in Episodes 7, 8, and 9) – Stage Number – Normal or Hard. So, 6-19N would imply Episode 6, Stage 19, Normal. 7-3-3H would imply Episode 7, Sub-Episode 3 (City 3), Stage 3, Hard Mode. This is the general naming convention.

Friend Heroes

If there is a particular stage that you can’t pass or don’t want to raise a hero to pass, you can always find a strong friend to clear the stage for you. 

Goddesses

See this for what Goddesses are.

Champions

See this for what Champions are.

How to Deal Damage

This might seem silly, but this plays a big enough role for basically the rest of the game it’s worth mentioning.

As you progress, you may notice your units dealing less and less damage as the stage progresses. Let’s see why.

There’s 4 types of damage in CQ. Magical, Physical, Neutral, and True damage. No hero uses True Damage to deal any damage so we’ll ignore that for now. Magical Damage is reduced by enemy Resistance, and Physical Damage is reduced by enemy Armor. Neutral Damage is special as it ignores Resistance and Armor. You can tell what type of damage the hero does based off their passive. For example, Archon’s passive:

Archon’s block skill deals physical damage and her passive/SBW deals magical damage. Here is Dorothy’s passive:

All magical, more or less. Here’s an example of a neutral DPS:

Very short version of the Defense vs Penetration in this game:

• Physical damage is reduced by enemy Armor.
• Magical damage is reduced by enemy Resistance.
• Armor Penetration helps pierce through Armor. Their Armor is (Armor – Armor Penetration). Armor cannot go below 0, but can go as high as it wants. The same applies to Resistance Penetration and Resistance.

For more specifics, see Math in CQ.

Ultimately, maintaining full penetration is of utmost importance in this game due to how armor reduction works. As a general rule of thumb, if the enemy has 300 armor more than your armor penetration (same with resistance), then you’re dealing around 50% of your actual damage. 300 armor is not a lot, and the amount of damage you’re losing only increases. It is super important to get as high penetration as you possibly can.

Secondary would be Evasion and Accuracy. Enemies don’t have Evasion until Episode 7, but in Episode 7, there is a TON of evasion. Generally, mobs can have up to 75% evasion. For this, you want Accuracy on your units. 

• Evasion is the chance for the enemy to dodge an attack. 25% evasion is a 25% chance to dodge any given hit, 75% evasion is a 75% chance to dodge any given hit.
• Accuracy subtracts directly from evasion. If the enemy has 75% evasion and you have 40% accuracy, you have a (75 – 40)% = 35% chance of not missing.

Accuracy is generally obtained on a ring.

Usually, try for at least Double Accuracy. A penetration slot pairs well with 2 Accuracy slots.

Episode 1-5: The episodes that don’t really matter

These stages are easy enough. No particular stage that is so difficult that it might impair your progress. In fact, use these stages to duo with Archon/Bihwa Mew and then use a 1*/2*/3* hero to level up. Leveling up a hero you have not before gets you a gem, so use these stages to farm up gems while you are clearing.

5-25H and 5-27H may impair you slightly due to the strong Magic Storm attack the boss has. Use the goddess Sera when you see the storm appear to block off the majority of the damage.

If you are struggling, there is probably something fundamentally wrong with your team. See Team Compositions later in this guide to get an idea what your team should be looking like.

Episode 6: Corps of Empire

Neth Empire is slightly harder than Episodes 1-5. There are a few stages I’d say be careful on.

6-4N: The Sneak Thief deals massive neutral damage if you don’t take care of him fast. Have an inheritance level on your tank or Sera, do not let him get on your DPS.

6-19N: This is a double healer boss duo is REALLY annoying to deal with. They really don’t deal any damage, however you can’t really kill them either as they will spam healing to infinity. When dealing with enemy heal bosses and you don’t have the damage to kill them, there are some options you can use.

• Massive Burst. Although this is the simplest, it also requires a good DPS. Archon with good weapon slots can kill fast given Bella or Chronos. You can also try a friend’s (get as many active friends as you can to get free meat and honor) high level hero who will usually decimate the boss in seconds.
• Stunlock. Particularly Cain, who essentially permanently stuns them in place and they cannot use any healing skills while stunned.
• Heal Reduction. Himiko and Anut particularly, cutting their healing massively for more subpar DPS’s to kill through their lesser healing.
• SP Drain. Transcended Fire Rain spam can drain their SP enough that they never use any healing skills. R-0 is the prime example, however any archer with some tFR’s saved up can as well.
• Heal Prevention. Why reduce when you can prevent altogether? Melissa and Viola are the prime examples.

If you’re struggling, feel free to use a friend hero real quick just to pass the stage.

However, more dangerous isn’t the stages, but is the mobs in the stages, particularly two of them.

Mutant Waves: The initial wave burst is massive. Don’t go in without a good tank that has at least 1 inheritance for that bonus HP. The initial waves bursts are fast and avoid letting them get on your DPS.

Scientist: The scientist throws poison at you that deals a % of the hero’s Armor/Resistance every second. This will quickly kill most Tank units if they are not tanky enough. However, luckily this is a debuff. Use Aubrey to void all damage from Scientists.

Flame Tank: The Flame Tank will shoot flamethrower fire at you which deals a % of the hero’s HA per hit. This means Flame Tanks will absolutely shred DPS units, and is heavily suggested to get a tank to absorb the damage instead of piling it all on your DPS. One flame tank isn’t too bad, however the issue is when there are several flame tanks, and that’s where we have problems. This again is considered a debuff, so use Aubrey to ignore all damage from Flame Tanks.

Commander: While most of the time you can burst him down before he can deal any significant damage, if he lives long enough he will summon several missiles that deal massive physical damage.

Episode 7: Elandia: The Heir of Light

Episode 7 is the first episode where mechanics are seriously in play. If you don’t know the mechanics of the stages, you are in for a rough ride. Episode 7 Normal isn’t too hard, except maybe 7-1-8N, but Episode 7 Hard mode is where you really don’t want to go in without knowing the mechanics. Blargel has an excellent guide on Episode 7 Normal and Hard mobs here, and Shintouyu has made a great overview of Episode 7 Hard mode stages here. I will pick out the most annoying enemies and stages that seem to give people a lot of trouble, as well as note on some of the more annoying mobs.

Calvary of the Lion: These guys do an AOE Heal and DR buff to their allies every once in a while. You can interrupt their heal by activating Goddess when the Lion Head appears over them. Don’t let them heal, you don’t want to deal with that many healed mobs with damage reduction.

Lion Heavy Infantry: Ever knew that you can get over 100% evasion? Well, you can’t, but this guy can. While he’s spinning his staff, his evasion becomes 115%, which can be reduced by accuracy but you will still be missing. Parry his spin with a 2-chain and he will go back to 15% evasion, which hopefully you have enough accuracy for…

7-1-7H: The Nosgard Manager gimmick is one that confuses a lot of people. Essentially, every time their SP bar fills up, they set your HP to 1, however you are provided a shield that more or less cannot be broken while its duration lasts. While the shield is up, however, any healing you do will deal a ton of damage. Note it’s not how strong the heal is, as long as you healed for something, the boss takes a fixed amount of damage. The key to beating this stage is to use a priest that heals several times with 1 block, like Woompa, Bari, Faust, Dara + Multihitter, etc.. Your DPS will be responsible for clearing the stage and the hunter after the Nosgard Manager is dead, however you will need a multi-tick priest to take out Nosgard Manager.

7-1-8H: Hellad’s most dangerous attack is the Iron Maiden attack, which will trap your backline hero in a trap and deal constant neutral damage to them. This will kill most DPS units easily and without trouble. Use Aubrey to remove the Iron Maiden prison as it will kill most DPS units quickly even with inheritance. When Hellad reaches 1 HP, she will become invulnerable to all damage and be able to deal all of her attacks simultaneously. Autoattack her 30 times to remove her invulnerability and ultimately kill her.

Note: in 7-1-8N, Aubrey is locked by the Story. In this case, your DPS needs to be frontline and bait the Iron Maiden to attack a priest. A frontline friend hero or a high HP backline friend can be very useful here.

7-2-3H: Red Velvet will drag your team across the screen all the way to the right every time his SP bar fills up. A purple wave will start approaching from the left and towards you. If it hits you, you get 1-shot. There are a few ways to deal with this. The intended way is for the Town Gardener, the archer boss on the stage, to knock you up when the purple wave comes. Whenever you tap Goddess, the archer launches you into the air temporarily, and you can tap goddess so the purple wave travels under you as you are in the air from the Town Gardener. However, sometimes the Town Gardener can miss his knock up and result in your death. It’s suggested you use Sera to block the purple wave as it comes and avoid the damage. Tap Sera as soon as you see the Purple wave come from the left.

7-2-7H: Quick note, use a frontline hero on this stage. The further away you are from the boss, the more damage it deals.

7-3-3H: There are two zones on the ground. The purple zone is at the right and while the boss is in the purple zone, they heal back any damage they take instantaneously. You can only kill the boss in the gold zone. The boss will at first walk into the gold zone for about 7 seconds before teleporting back into the purple zone. Either kill him in those first 7 seconds or use no frontline units or anyone that knocks back against him and let him slowly push you out of the purple zone, then kill him when he walks into the gold zone. No warriors or paladins or any hero that knocks back.

7-3-5H: Whenever you use a special skill in the boss fight, the paladin will gain a skull mark above him. When you use 5 special skills, the boss explodes the ground dealing massive neutral damage, stuns you, and knocks you back. The archer will also instantaneously attack when 5 special skills are used, comboing into basically a 1-shot. Avoid using too many special skills and kill them without tapping too many. 

7-3-8H: El Thalnos dispels a lot, and that’s what makes this boss particularly hard. If you have Alex SBW, definitely use it; his undispellable tanking will let your DPS deal damage without dispel interruption. Otherwise, be careful that he can dispel you pretty much every single attack. Use an inherited DPS unit to survive his attacks and a decent priest.

Episode 8: The Shadow and the Girl

Episode 8 has 4 Chapters and a different mechanic each Chapter. However, these 4 mechanics for the most part are very simple and mainly just a test of tankiness and damage. Compared to Episode 7, Episode 8 arguably is easier.

8-1 – The mechanic here is that you are given 2 bombs that deal neutral damage to the enemy. Whenever you use the bombs, they will be recharged to you after 5 seconds. The bombs can get rid of the Mini-ogre’s DR and Tank buff as well as interrupt the Elite Ogre’s attacks. This really isn’t necessary though, you can kill them without such precautions.

8-2 – There are two mechanics here. First is that occasionally between waves, you are given the option of getting red, blue, or yellow smoke bombs. The smoke bomb removes the right enemy’s defenses if you choose the right color. There is an arrow pointing to which smoke grenade to pick, pick that one. I’m not sure why they try to make you pick when they tell you which one you should.

The other mechanic is that there is a timer overhead counting. When the counter reaches 100, the boss will summon additional reinforcements and mobs to fight you. Certain bosses have abilities to speedup this timer with attacks. For the most part, the reinforcements aren’t too dangerous to deal with, just more mobs for you to kill through. Still, don’t try to draw the fight out too long.

8-3 – The mechanic here is Flares. Normally, the battlefield is darkened and you have a 50% chance to miss any given attack. By tapping a place on the screen, a flare will drop in that location and light up the stage as long as that flare lasts (the flares last 5 seconds). You have 3 flares available to use, and upon using them all, and they take 10 seconds to recharge all 3. The flares deals constant neutral damage over time.

There are three enemies that are specifically countered by flares.

Bigrat: When his HP reaches 1, he becomes invincible to damage and takes 20 seconds to resurrect. If he survives for 10 seconds successfully, he will resurrect to full HP and continue attacking. You can kill him by dropping a flare on him after he dies.

Suicide Rat: These rats, if you drop a flare on them, will explode and deal damage to their allies, effectively 1-shotting any enemy within range of them. Drop a flare on them to blow up a huge portion of the enemy.

Exploding Spores: After killing Muturats that carry these spores, they will roll out exploding spores towards you. When the spores roll a certain distance, they latch themself on the ground and detonate in 5 seconds, dispelling and then dealing neutral damage to your team. This neutral damage can be fatal to unprepared DPS units and priests. However, if you drop a flare on them while they are latched to the ground detonating, they will disappear without detonating. Get rid of as many of these spores as possible, however if there are many Mutarats, they will likely be able to detonate a few spores. Make sure your DPS has some inheritance to be able to survive at least one or two spore explosions.

8-4 – The mechanic in this Chapter is basically useless. You gain 1 Mana Block every second and the Mana Block fills up the bar at the top. There are two different type of Mana Blocks: Blue and Purple. Blue Mana blocks heal your team, Purple buffs your HA by 25%. These blocks stack up to 9 in a stage at any time and you can activate 20 of them to fill up the bar. The reward for filling the Mana Bar is detonating an explosion that doesn’t do too much damage of all honesty. To damage the final boss, you will need at least 1 blue Mana Charge, wait for that Blue Mana to generate before going all in. Still, don’t die while waiting. Use blocks to heal up if you need to.

There is an enemy that, upon death, uses Mana Absorption, which depletes your mana bar if you didn’t tap a Mana Block. Losing your bar isn’t that detrimental, though.

Episode 9: Temple of Illusions

These stages usually toss all mechanics out and just become a test of DPS. Though, mechanics are still here. Episode 9 does pretty much make inheritance and sigils a necessity.

9-1 – Usually, the entire ground is poisoned by Cobra’s and Scarabs. Upon completing waves, you sometimes may meet a QTE where your heroes must stand in the poison for a while while you tap the Tomb. Make sure your units have enough HP to survive this poison.

9-1-6N – First phase Sekhmet is just a lot of damage. However, the second phase Sekhmet is where we have issues. Lioness Sekhmet becomes immune to damage after receiving 20 hits. After 60 seconds, Lioness Sekhmet will nearly become completely immune to all types of damage and receives a massive damage buff. If you don’t have a capable DPS, borrow a friend hero to help you clear. This stage is pretty hard if you don’t have a single-hit unit that can kill her quickly. Friend heroes are recommended if you struggle. 

9-2 – Every 15-30 seconds, a UFO will come down and attempt to steal the most frontline hero. If the UFO is successful in stealing the hero, the hero instantly dies. Tap the UFO to release your hero.

9-2-6N – Anubisis and Resurrect Anubisis just deal a ton of neutral damage. He doesn’t have any form of immunity though, just be careful of UFO’s. He also initiates Berserk Mode at 60 seconds, which makes him more or less invulnerable to damage and deal massive damage. Kill him before this happens.

9-3 – All enemies in 9-3 linger at 1 HP for 3 seconds before dying.

In 9-3-4N, 9-3-5N, and 9-3-6N, there is a Mana Bomb that explodes after 90 seconds in stage. If you have not completed the stage by then, everyone is 1-shot.

9-3-6N – Jeraphim for the most part is not threatening if you have a decent tank; she can deal a ton of damage if you are unprotected, however. Don’t take longer than 60 seconds to kill Jeraphim either, Berserk Mode Jeraphim makes her invulnerable to all damage and ultimately kills you.

Episode 10: A Myth of Ice and Snow

Episode 10 is basically a DPS Check Episode entirely. Every boss you meat has a 30 second Berserk Timer, and that essentially means if you take longer than 30 seconds to kill them, you die. Due this, Episode 10 can actually be pretty difficult.

10-1 – 10-1’s main mechanic is Blizzard. Every 15 seconds, a Blizzard will cover the entire screen and dispel all buffs currently active on heroes. During Blizzard, all heroes have a 50% miss chance. Blizzard can be canceled upon using Goddess, however the dispel every 15 second is pretty painful to deal with. You might want to save your Goddess just for the purpose of removing Blizzard.

10-2 – The mechanic here makes your screen go foggy, however as far as I know, it does nothing except blur your vision.

10-3 – Icicles fall on your head, dealing high physical damage. This damage very easily can 1-shot weak DPS units without enough inheritance. 

There’s no real mechanics to any of the Bosses. You will have to kill them all within 30 seconds, however.

Challenge

Challenge is the Episode 8, Episode 9, and Episode 10’s version of a Hell Mode. The enemies in Challenge are significantly harder than any mob or boss in any of the Story Episodes. Challenge also is the source of Books and Sigils. See Inheritance and Inlaying previously.

See this guide for boss mechanics and teams.

Fortress of Souls

Fortress of Souls (FoS) is a set of 6 stages where you gain SBW Materials. Stage 1 drops Powder, Stage 2 drops Shards, Stage 3 drops Crystals. Stage 4, 5, and 6 you will fight Lord Soltar, dropping 2000 iron, Soulbox, and Enhanced Soulbox respectively.

The issue with FoS 4, 5, and 6 is that Soltar takes massively reduced damage from heroes without SBW. Make sure your DPS has a SBW, otherwise you will be drawing the fight much longer and extending the chance of you dying by quite a bit.

First 3 stages are no biggie. You should defeat these easily.

FoS 4: The hardest part of is his Mark or Ruins attack. This is the purple pillars that strike each one of your heroes once. When Mark of Ruins strikes a total of 15 times, he will call a much stronger attack called Death of Souls that hits much harder. Note Mark of Ruins only hits 1 hero at a time, so it actually is easier if you have two heroes or a single hero tanky enough to solo the stage since Death of Souls never occurs then. Consider not using a full team and rather only one or two heroes.

FoS 5: FoS 5 also is easier if you only use 1 hero, due to that whenever you use blocks, Soltar gains SP. Dead blocks do not generate SP, so wait for your two other heroes to die before solo’ing. If Soltar reaches a full SP bar, he releases several neutral damage waves that deal a ton of damage. If you do use a full team, make sure your tank can take the neutral damage dealt.

FoS 6: See this video (credits to leewhat) for a FoS 6 guide (previously named FoS 10, they are the same stage).

Essentially:

Every time Soltar’s SP Bar Fills up, he will perform an attack. This attack is different based on whether or not your units are in melee range or out of melee range.

• If you are in melee range, his attack looks like this. At the end of it, he will knock you back. As soon as you get knocked back, you need to immediately tap your Goddess to parry his attack successfully. A successful parry looks like this.
• If you are out of melee range, his attack will look like this. This one is harder to parry since tapping Goddess immediately does not work. This one might take a bit of practice; generally, the Goddess will say a message announcing to use her. As soon as you see the message (around when he’s pushed you back as much as possible), tap Goddess. A successful parry looks like this.

This attack will repeat every time his SP bar fills. Failure to parry will result in massive damage and usually the death of an ally.

Once Soltar reaches 1 HP, he will suck you in and cause a death animation. Essentially, when he reaches 1 HP, tap Goddess and you will be pulled out of his Death Pillar. A successful parry looks like this. 

Secret Story: Descendant of Soltar

1. Beat FoS10 normally. You can complete as many FoS10 runs before doing the following, you do not need to beat FoS10 before initiating the below steps.
2. Get 6* Joan, Lionel, Archon, and Aria. Yes, Joan too.
3. Clear 6-5N (if you’ve already done this, you do not need to do it again)
4. Go to the library. Go to the Stories menu. In the “History of Hasla” section, watch the story, “Descendant of Soltar”, and then the story, “Beyond the Darkness”.
5. Go to the Fortress of Souls stage select menu and a cutscene should play.
6. Wait for the daily reset for FoS10 to be available again, or reset it with a gem if you are impatient.
7. Enter FoS10 with Lionel, Archon, Aria, and Chronos.
8. Complete the stage while enjoying full invincibility and buffed stats. Levels, training, berries, and weapons are not important because it is completely impossible to fail this mission besides quitting the mission or disconnecting on the win screen. Your reward is a skin for Lionel and a Random VIP Ticket, and a free FoS10 clear.

Fortress of Raging Souls

The Fortress of Raging Souls are 4 additional levels of Fortress of Souls, but inherently harder. While Fortress of Souls takes random heroes from the previous week’s top 3 Colosseum players, Fortress of Raging Souls (FoRS) has fixed bosses. These stages are definitely harder due to some of the boss skills and their sheer stats. Rael is a boss where if you have the right heroes to burst her down, she is not too difficult by denying all of her mechanics, however if you do not have the massive burst units, she can be an extremely painful enemy to deal with.

FoRS Stage Buffs:

• All bosses have 80% Accuracy
• All enemies have 40% CR
• All enemies cannot be SP-Drained

The bosses are the 12 Legendary Heroes. They will have their normal skills and unique special skills, however have a lot more HP.

FoRS 1: Kriemhild, Sigruna, Demona, Melissa

• Kriemhild uses Flamespout and Strength of Oppression. Both attacks stun per hit.
• Sigruna uses Driving Feathers and Blade Storm. Enemies hit by Blade Storm lose 20% of their armor and has a chance to stun to become stunned.
• Demona uses Thorns of Hell and Phoenix Feather. Enemies hit by Phoenix Feather have reduced armor and resistance and also are dispelled of all buffs.
• Melissa uses Cursed Blessing and Smile of Goddess. While Cursed Blessing is active on enemies, all healing is blocked. Smile of Goddess increases all ally’s armor and resistance by 200 for 5 seconds.

Generally, Demona’s Phoenix Feather usually is followed immediately by a Kriemhild’s Flamespout, where the Phoenix Feather dispels your team and then Kriemhild stuns them all, leading to a stunlock. Use a tank that cannot be dispelled for this stage. The promotional tanks that have undispellable tanking are Alexander and Captain.

FoRS 2: Rochefort, Roland, Teresa, Cano

• Rochefort uses Wind Slash and Hawk Feather. When Rochefort initiates Hawk Feather, Rochefort has 75% chance to block the next attack and can block up to 10 attacks. Upon successfully blocking, Rochefort counterattacks and deals damage.
• Roland uses Revolution Hammer and Guardian of Light. Enemies hit by Revolution Hammer 5 times will be stunned. When Roland initiates Guardian of Light, Roland heals the team whenever he is hit. After healing 8 times, he will stun your team.
• Teresa uses NB-8 Grenade and The Last Light. Enemies hit by NB-8 Grenade next 2 blocks used will be ignored. Enemies marked by the Last Light lose 3 SP whenever they attempt to attack.
• Cano uses Call of Darkness and Love Impact!. Enemies caught in Call of Darkness lose 10 SP per hit. Enemies marked by Love Impact! have a 40% chance of missing their next attack.

This stage uses SP Drain frequently with Cano’s Call of Darkness and Teresa’s NB-8 Grenade can be deadly if not cleansed, as it leaves your heroes unable to activate blocks. Roland stuns also can be extremely annoying. Aubrey or debuff immunity is more or less necessary, and use a team not very reliant on SP or nullifies it. Shields are also effective for tanking a lot of the damage this stage uses, e.g. Seiren or Drake.

FoRS 3: Leon, D’Artagnan, Dorothy, Maria

• Leon uses Call of the Holy Sword and Final Judgement. Call of Holy Sword deals physical damage equal to 10% of his HP.
• D’Artagnan uses Consecutive Fire and Lapis & Lazuli. D’Artagnan ignores 1000 of the enemy armor when using Lapis & Lazuli.
• Dorothy uses Magic Beam and Consecutive Magic Beam. Magic Beam dispels hit enemies and enemies hit by Consecutive Magic Beam ignores the next two enemy blocks used.
• Maria uses Sacred Treasure of Goddess and Sanctuary of Goddess. Enemies healed by Sacred Treasure of Goddess receive penetration and defense buffs. 

Leon is the deadly one in this stage. Since he uses 10% of his 4 million HP and also ignores some of your armor while he’s at it. Coupled with Maria’s penetration buff and Dorothy’s dispel, it’s pretty hard to tank this stage as a beginner. I’d recommend utilizing hit immunity for this stage, like Captain, Mew, or Joan. Try not to drag out this stage for too long; Leon is not easy to tank.

FoRS 4: Rael

• If a hero is under Inheritance 14, then they will take 5% of their maximum HP as damage every second.
• Rael has 40% DR, 2000 Armor/Resistance, and 40% Evasion
• When Rael reaches under 50% HP, Rael gets +1500 Armor/Resistance, 35% Lifesteal, and becomes immune to debuffs
• When Rael reaches under 25% HP, Rael gets +25% HA and +50% DR.
• Rael will use Mark of Ruin, which are red skulls that attack your team once a second. If it hits a total of 20 times, Rael will use Storm of Death, which deals massive damage.
• Rael drains 10 SP per hit on the Mark of Ruin
• After 110 seconds in the stage, Rael will 1-shot any heroes currently alive. A warning will be given at 100 seconds.

This boss is difficult if you do not have the right heroes and sigils. You wlll need to out-damage Rael’s lifesteal, however she will have extremely high defense and damage reduction. 

In general, I’d suggest using Bihwa or Genevie here. Bihwa + Maria + a buffer or tank, or Woompa + Genevie + buffer or tank. You do not want this stage to go on for long, Rael becomes deadly if the fight extends. There’s not much you can do about Rael’s mechanics, most of them are unpreventable self buffs.

Legend of Primal Flames

Legend of Primal Flames is a set of stages to farm Essence of Mana to convert ring options and to improve them. You also can get specific type of rings that are slightly different than normal rings in these stages. See Shintouyu’s fairly comprehensive guide of the stages overall here. Here is a map of all the Hidden Stages and non-Dead Ends.

Most of the previous stages are pretty trivial, though, so I will set my sights on particularly the last stage, since it’s the best stage to farm (guaranteed 2 Red Chest drop, chance of 3rd if Hidden Stage is done), Crater of Primal Flames. 

• Note: If you cannot farm Oda, farm Search of the Totem – 2 (Stage 11) with a Relic of the Priestess ring (special 5* ring – this will take some farming). This stage, if you are wearing the ring, will guarantee 2 boxes if you do the Hidden stage. See this. 
• Note: You might’ve heard the hero Stein being thrown around as a Cheese hero for this stage. Stein does not work as a “cheese” hero for this stage anymore. Stein has been entirely reworked.

The final stage is difficult mainly because it requires extremely quick reactions. Throughout the boss fight, Oda (the boss) will give you Quick Time Events (QTE) which will require you to tap 3 blocks in a particular order very quickly. This will take some practice, and after you are used to his Quick Time Events (QTE), he will become less and less difficult the more you clear him. However, you can up the difficulty by attempting to do the Hidden Stage in this stage. The Hidden stage is reached if you complete the first two waves in less than 20 seconds. This is easy for certain units, but nearly impossible for others. If you reach the Hidden Stage, be prepared for some nasty mobs.

To reach Oda, it will be

Right Path -> Any Totem (Hidden Path) -> Right Path -> Revenant -> Oda 

or 

Left Path -> Dead End (No Hidden Path) -> Right Path -> Revenant -> Oda

Crater of Primal Flames: Hidden Stage

Hidden actually can be pretty hard. If you’re sure you can’t do Hidden, you can skip to the next section.

Initially, a wave of poisonous frogs will appear. If you are standing within melee range of them after killing them, they will poison you and give you a Poison Droplet. If a hero gains 5 Poison Droplets, they are killed instantly shortly after getting 5 Poison Droplets. In this case, all frontline heroes are at risk unless you are able to kill the frogs before they reach you.

After eliminating the frogs, the Crocodile Leader will spawn. The Crocodile Leader will spawn several more Crocodiles to fight for it. These crocodiles do quite a bit of damage and can be lethal if they reach within melee range. When the Crocodile Leader has lower than 30% HP remaining, he will activate a 30% Reflect buff on all mobs currently on the stage for 3 seconds. Reflect damage to this degree is essentially lethal to most DPS units. If you’re using Bihwa

To round it out, a Flaming Hippo will appear later on. The Hippo will swallow your entire team for 10 seconds and you must activate at least 15 separate chains for him to spit you out and take damage. If you fail this requirement, he will spit you out while dealing massive damage and you will remain stunned longer. After spitting you out, he will activate a 50% damage reduction buff. 

Note that these enemies don’t wait for the previous wave of enemies to die, they and stack on top of each other. This is particularly an issue if you don’t eliminate the Crocodile Leader since then the Hippo swallows you for 10 seconds and most buffs will likely have run out by then. This leaves you defenseless and stunned after he spits you out and the entire crocodile horde engages on you, which usually leads to death.

In general, it is highly not recommended for one to try to complete the Hidden Stage as it is pretty difficult. Bihwa can clear LoPF Hidden with the correct teams that utilizes debuff immunity against poison. Make sure she can eliminate all the crocodiles in 1 passive proc, otherwise her resurrection won’t hold. Against the hippo, avoid using too many Bihwa blocks. It’s recommended you actively aim for Bihwa 3-chains during his increased block generation while being swallowed.

After a few waves, you will meet the Revenant of Flames. The Revenant of Flames spits out a fireball every 1.5 seconds which hits your frontline. When his SP bar fills, he will blow you back and give you a QTE. If you complete it, he will summon a wave of mobs where he takes damage after the wave is cleared. If you fail the QTE, he will summon either a Toucan (Hidden Boss on a previous LoPF Stage) or a Crocodile (Hidden Boss). The Crocodile is described as above and activates reflect damage. The Toucan will evade essentially all of your attacks while dealing constant damage.

If you fail to eliminate the wave after Revenant’s QTE, then he will summon a stronger wave with 100% more stats and also Fire Geysers that knock your heroes up from the ground and deal massive damage to you. Essentially, if you do not kill the wave after either successfully doing or failing the QTE, you will intake massive damage. If you do destroy the wave after the QTE, Revenant will deal damage to himself. Once Revenant is dead, you will fight Oda.

Crater of Primal Flames: Oda

Oda has 6 phases. Every single time you kill him, he recovers all of his HP and enters the next phase. After he revives 5 times, killing him will end the battle. However, each phase he has a new surprise.

Phase 1: Whenever his SP bar fills, Oda will buff his Attack Speed by 25% and drop Lava Rocks on your team. Try to kill him as quickly as possible in this phase; The higher his Attack Speed is, the harder it will be to survive his normal Flame attack and also his Phase 6 Enhanced Autos. The Lava Rocks aren’t too dangerous, however they can easily take out squishy DPS units. Make sure your tank is tanking, or use Sera to negate this.

Phase 2: About 2 seconds entering into Phase 2, Oda will summon Meteors that fall from the sky and deals massive magical damage. He will do this as soon as you enter the phase and after every SP bar he fills up. If his SP bar fills up, he will also additionally buff his Attack Power by 25%. Try to end this phase as quickly as possible as well.

Phase 3: At the beginning of the stage and after every SP bar fills up, he will pull all heroes forward towards him and dispels them every hit. Then, a 3-block QTE will appear and you will have to tap the blocks in order. If you succeed, he gets stunned and the process repeats until you kill him. If you fail, he will deal massive magical damage and knock you back. If you survive (which you won’t unless you have some serious inheritance and sigils), the process will repeat until you kill him.

Note: Any QTE Fails, assuming you survived them, will increase Oda’s Attack Power and Attack Speed.

Phase 4: At the beginning of the stage and after every SP bar fills up, Oda teleports all heroes in front of him and gives you a 3-block QTE. If you successfully complete it, you will be teleported backwards and the flame pillar he causes will miss you. If you fail to complete it, you will be stuck in front of him while he blows up the area in front of him, dispelling every hit while dealing massive constant magical damage. Like previously, this will continue until you kill him or die.

Phase 5: At the beginning of the stage and after every SP bar fills up, Oda will give you a Identical 3-block QTE. Unlike previous QTE’s, you have much less time to complete it, however the QTE is guaranteed to give you the same block for all 3 blocks, so you must click the right block 3 times. If you succeed, you will get knocked up in the air and his attack will miss you.

Phase 6: First, Oda will repeat Phase 1’s Lava Rock Drop except he pairs a 3-block QTE. If you fail this QTE, Oda will use Blaze of the Eight Nakaras, which is a massive attack that 1-shots more or less any team; it is very difficult to survive this explosion. Afterwards. Oda will give you 4 very quick 1-block QTE’s.

As long as you hit at least one of the first three 1-block QTE’s and the last 1-block QTE, you will kill Oda. If you do not, Oda will give you another set of 4 1-block QTE’s. If you fail to kill him by then, he will give you another 3-block QTE, except it is randomized and you need to perform it as twice as fast. This is nearly impossible and you will most likely die to the second Blaze of Eight Nakaras if you have reached this phase. In addition, Oda’s autoattacks deal neutral damage and dispel all buffs per hit. These autoattacks are affected by Oda’s built up attack speed, thus you do not want him to build up too much attack speed.

Note, if you trigger Blaze of Eight Nakaras 3 times, you will get the Dark Himiko Skin. These fails can be done on different runs. See this video for how the attack looks like.

Secret Story: Elegy of Kurenai

1. Complete Crater of Primal Flames at least once defeating Oda.
2. 6* Himiko, Susanoo, Saiga, Mundeok (Yes Mundeok), and have Kurenai unlocked. Weapons, bread, and berries do not matter, champion level does not matter.
3. Watch the story, “The East Summit” in the library.
4. Farm LoPF until you get the ring called Relic of the First Priestess. This ring will be different from any other LoPF Stage as it is the only LoPF Ring with Manacar Conversion types.
5. Equip the ring onto either Susanoo, Himiko, or Saiga.
6. Bring Susanoo Himiko Saiga Kurenai into the stage. The wave you will be completely immune to damage, AFK-able.
7. When you reach the ‘boss wave,’ activate Kurenai immediately. She will be able to deal damage to you, however you have nothing to worry about if you activate Kurenai immediately, which will kill her. After watching the cutscenes, completing this will get you the 3* Kurenai.
8. In order to get the monument, rewatch the scene you just did in the library. This awards the monument.

World Bosses: Carried to Carry

Ascended Bosses

These bosses are not hard. You will probably find a carry if you can’t do it yourself. Pretty much any story team works here. Spam2Win.

If you’re having trouble, try inheriting heroes. A Bihwa with 6* SBW should be able to defeat these stages very easily.

Tower of Manacar

The mechanics are listed here, but these stages also are not too difficult with the rise of Inheritance. There are usually good allies to help carry you through some of these stages as well. 

Guardian of Ruins

See this for a Guardian of Ruins guide.

Seal of the Sanctuary

See this for a Seal of the Sanctuary guide.

These stages are very difficult. Don’t be too let down if you can’t beat them. However, definitely read about the mechanics. Both players need to know what the mechanics are to stand a chance of clearing. It’s best you pair up with someone that you can coordinate with.

Questing: Story Quests and Quest Rank

The Quest Tab is found under Settings and Chat.

Story

Story Quests are quests relating to Story Mode. Do these Quests as they can reward certain promotional heroes, gems, meat, a lot of bread, and a lot of berries. If you haven’t completed Story yet, always come back and check this tab. Story Quests do end eventually.

Rank 

Rank Quests are endless and will give you Quest Rank points whenever you complete one. Quest Rank will improve the quality of quests you get. There’s no reward for Quest Rank other than the increasing rewards the more Quest Rank you do. You have a limited number of Quests that you can do, and you can reject quests you don’t like a limited number of times. These reset daily and whenever you level up QR, these reset.

Daily

Daily Quests can be done once per day and reset every day on reset. These have some pretty good rewards for doing standard things, you should do these.

Weekly

Weekly Quests can be done once per week and reset on Weekly Reset. These have some pretty good rewards, do them over the course of the week.

Limited

Occasionally, during events a 5th tab with Limited Quests can appear. These generally revolve around the event going on and the rewards change based on event. There usually are some great rewards, definitely do them.

Colosseum and Real-time PVP: Descent into Cancer

Colosseum, Arena, and Friendly Duels are you fighting versus other player’s teams. In Arena and Friendly Duels, you fight the enemy’s teams in real-time, Colosseum you fight an enemy player’s team controlled by the game’s AI.

Colosseum

You can only fight in Colosseum using Colosseum tickets. When you use a Colosseum ticket, you can fight 5 times, each time giving you two choices for an enemy. A Colosseum Ticket expires after 5 wins, 1 loss, or after 60 minutes.

In Colosseum, you can additionally buy Buffs. 

There are 3 buffs you can purchase:

• +2 Leader Blocks, 1000 Gold
• Block Acceleration, 1500 Gold
• +50 Starting SP, 700 Gold

You can have several buffs at once if you choose to purchase them.

When you Win, you can see what you have received in the Victory Reward sections. Each win will reward Honor, Meat, and Colosseum points. Then you can proceed to the next round. Note that you can change your team in between rounds if you believe you can counter the enemy team better with a different team. Once you win 5 times or lose once, a summary screen will be shown to tell you the overall amount of Honor, Meat, and Colosseum Points you acquired in that ticket. If you time out the ticket, you will receive the amount of rewards with no loss penalty.

To get more Colosseum Tickets, you will need to farm them. Popo sells Colosseum Tickets, and you can get Popo by redoing a stage over and over again. The general consensus is that the stage 5-15N or 6-10N are the best stages for Popo. If you want a bit of resources while you want to farm, 5-30N and 6-30N provides decent amounts of gold for a bit more meat per run.

Based on the number of Colosseum points you have at the end of the week, you will receive Gem Rewards.

For those that remember when I said to not go past Inheritance 11, Colosseum is the reason. Colosseum pairs you with people that are near your higher inheritance hero, whether or not you use that hero in Colosseum or not. The bracket cutoffs are i5, i10, i15, and i20. I15+ units generally fight other i20 compositions and it can become very difficult to win. i11 units generally don’t fight perfect sigil enemies and generally is a lot easier. There’s more or less no reason to go to i12, 13, or 14 since those inherit levels aren’t much powerspikes. i6 would be nicer, but it can be a bit difficult to progress in Challenge with only i6 units. 

See the Colosseum Guide (next Guide~) for some strategies.

Arena

Arena is a Real-Time PVP Colosseum where you fight against enemies controlled by real players.

Unlike most Stages, Arena offers an opportunity to use a Striker hero. Striker Heroes can be summoned twice every match and they use the Hero’s Block and Passive. They copy the Leader’s Chain usage once they have landed.

Arena has 4 tiers: Masters, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Within each tier is Ranks. There’s 5 ranks in Gold, Silver, and Bronze: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. To advance a tier, you need to gain 5 Victory Bulbs. You gain a Bulb for a victory and lose a Bulb for a loss.

Arena has Banned Heroes which you can’t use. The top 5 most popular hero from last week will become banned for two weeks.

You will enter Arena with a team that you picked and will be matched up with a random opponent. If you win, you will receive 1 Victory Bulb. If you lose, you will lose 1 Victory Bulb. You can de-Rank if you lose without any Victory Bulb. However, you can not go down a Tier if you lose. Once you reach Silver, you cannot return to Bronze until next reset.

When the Week Resets, you will set to a Tier Lower than your previous Tier and at Rank 5. You will have to climb back up.

There is currently no Reward for Arena aside from Daily Quest and Weekly Quest rewards.

Friendly Duels

Friendly Duels is essentially Free-play versus other players. You can bring any team and fight against any player. You can fight a specific player if you both enter the same Waiting Room. 

There is no Reward for Friendly Duels aside from Daily Quest.

Fishing: Resources Supply

Fishing is essentially a free resource farm. Essentially, you can purchase Bait with gold and go fishing. When you catch fish and reel it in, you are rewarded with a fixed amount of Fish Coins and Fishing EXP. Higher Fishing EXP is needed to unlock higher fishing stages. Some fishing equipment require a certain amount of EXP to unlock before you can purchase.

Fishernyan provides a fishing guide, and I’ll review it relatively quickly.

On the Left you can see the Fishing Gear you have. If you want to change gear setup, you will need to exit and equip the rod, float, and bait that you want to have.

Trading Post leads to the shop where you can trade in Fish Coins for items.

Collection leads to the fishes you have caught and the collection reward along with them.

Automatic Fishing is unlocked at Fishing Rank 10. This will automatically reel in a fish every 80-100 seconds, however it could also be a piece of trash, in which case you will get gold.

To start Manually Fishing, tap the bottom right real button.

There will be a marker that runs back and forth across the Casting bar. It will bounce back and forth 4 times. Press the reel button when the marker is in the Dark Blue region for best rate increases.

There’s two different types of fish you could have caught. If you caught a Small Fish, your hero’s facial expression will look like this:

And if you have caught a Big Fish/Boss Fish, your hero’s facial expression will look like this:

You can also listen to the sound. See this video for the sound. 

If you are looking purely for FC: If it’s a Boss Hit, start pulling immediately. If it’s a Big Hit, first check the distance.

If the distance is less than 350 meters on Volcano, the fish is not worth to reel in (this distance changes based on stage, check other stages if you are farming those).  

If you are fishing for collection, pull all the fish. If you’re fishing for fish coins only, however, let go of all Small Fish’s by doing nothing. Tap the Reel button if it’s a big or boss hit.

Whenever you tap the Reel button now, you will fill up part of the Tension bar.

To be pulling the fish in, you must be in the green area at least. The red area pulls faster, however if you fill up the the tension bar entirely, it will release the fish.

If the distance is long enough, a QTE might appear. Complete these successfully, otherwise the penalty is the fish swims out for several meters, costing significantly more time.

The end result of the EXP and FC you have gained will be displayed. The size of the fish really doesn’t matter.

I suggest to all players to purchase the 99 Gem Float as soon as possible, particularly new players. 99 Gem Float will facilitate reaching Volcano fishing area, which has the best fishing rate, as well as completing Collections on each stage. This provides Legendary Bread, Inheritance Books, and a 4* Premium only Contract as you make your way to Volcano. 99 Gem Float also can purchase all weekly Fishing Post items as well as earn some extra Fish Coins, which allows it to quickly repay itself back after you purchase it. Gem Float is more or less essential on Fishing Events as well, so it is suggested you purchase it now and enjoy the barrage of Meat, Inheritance book, Powder, Dust, Crystals, and more or less an infinite supply of Gold. For beginners, it also can provide rare sigils without the need to do Challenge Mode, which is incredibly useful as sigils make farming Challenge a lot easier.

Efficient Manual Fishing

After you complete the Fishing Collection for maps, you are fishing purely for Fish Coins. Small fishes usually aren’t worth in this regard; they usually provide under 150 Fish Coins. On all maps, only Big/Boss Fishes are worth. Luckily, there is a way to discern Big/Boss Fish from Small Fish before you pull in the fish. See this video to note the difference between the Big/Boss hit vs the Small hit. If it’s a Small hit, don’t do anything and let the fish escape; it is not worth to reel these in. If it’s a Big hit, check the distance the fish is at. The distance is different based on which Fishing stage you are on. In Volcano, if the distance is greater than 350 meters, then the fish is worth to pull in. If it is not, it is simply a Big hit of a Small fish. If it’s a Boss hit, pull the fish in. 

Small Hit	Big/Boss Hit

With this technique, we skip all non-Big/Boss hits and this is a lot more efficient than pulling in every single fish in.

Alchemy: Creation

You can combine materials together with Alchemy. Currently, you can combine berries for higher tier of berries, higher tier of pages, and Treasure of Trista sigils.

Generally, the only thing worthwhile in Alchemy is making II or III Inheritance Pages to inherit from 6 -> 10 and 11 -> 15 without using books. If you happen to have a lot of unnamed sigils, you can purchase the Treasure of Trista and try your luck at getting some decent epic sigils, but this generally is too expensive to be worth the cost. Some Events will trade in event items in Alchemy. 

Otherwise though, don’t use alchemy; it generally is only a space saver after you have paged//berried most of your units and you simply need to save space in your hero inventory, and more often than not the returns on it are not good.

Team Building

There’s really no way to encompass all of team-building into guide, since there’s almost unlimited teams in the game. However, there’s a general set of rules that applies to most teams.

There are some guidelines that all good teams follow. Keep these in mind when you’re making a team.

1. The Leader

Every team must have a Leader.

In a Leader/Support/Support team, every 12 blocks generated by the game will contain 6 Leader blocks, 3 Support blocks, and 3 Support blocks (the other support).

All heroes can be classified into two categories: the ones that need a 3-chain to be effective, and the ones that don’t. 3-chain heroes are considered “Leader Heroes,” since when they’re in need of stringing together 3 blocks together.

There should be only 1 Leader-type hero in a team, as they’re in need of the most blocks to be effective. Having more than 1 Leader-type hero in a team forces one to be in the Support and they only get 3 blocks per 12 block cycle. Even worse, the two 3-chainers will be constantly fighting each other for blocks and it’s very unlikely both can be used effectively without each other’s 3-chains tripping over each other.

Make sure you know which heroes are 3-chainers (and thus need leader) and which ones aren’t. You don’t want to have 2 3-chainers on the same team.

Now, you don’t always need a 3-chainer on the team. However, if you do use a 3-chainer, they should be leader.

1. Types of Heroes and their Roles

I’d say there’s 3 general classes in the game.

• DPS Units. These heroes deal damage, and that’s their primary role in the game.
• Tank. A tank is defined as a hero who takes damage for allies. So, an example of a tank is Alexander. An example of someone who isn’t a tank is Drake. While Drake provides a shield, he does not take damage for allies.
• Buffers. A buff is defined as any positive increase in power of any game mechanic. In most cases, buffers affect a hero’s stat (Attack Power, HP, etc.). Most buffers tend to be Priests, though there’s a few exceptions. There’s generally two sub-classes of buffers.
  • Offensive buffers. These heroes buff Attack Power, Critical Chance, Critical Damage, and Accuracy.
  • Defensive buffers. These heroes often buffs Armor, Resistance, HP, Damage Reduction, and sometimes Shields.

Some units can mix roles, but these are the general roles all heroes fall under.

1. General Team Compositions

Standard team compositions (using the Hero/Roles in #2):

• DPS Buffer Tank
  • About as classic as you get. A tank protects the team while the DPS does their thing, with buffers supporting either the tank and/or the DPS. This team can be very flexible and can be both viable in Story/Challenge/Raid or Colosseum, depending on the choice of buffer and tank.
• DPS Buffer Buffer (both Offensive)
  • Buffs from different sources do stack in this game, creating the buff-stack archetype where one DPS is heavily buffed to output massive amounts of damage. This team is generally used in Story/Challenge/Raid content.
• DPS DPS Buffer (Offensive)
  • 2 DPS is a niche case to go for, as you can generally squeeze more DPS out of one hero by pairing 2 supports with them. 2 DPS generally throws survivability out the window and goes on the offensive, often one hero having a weakness in an area the other DPS can cover. If your hero doesn’t really struggle with any aspect of the stage, it’s generally better to use two buffers rather than another DPS. This team is generally used in Story/Challenge/Raid content.
• DPS Buffer Buffer (both Defensive)
  • Double defensive buffers can pair with a DPS in a Colosseum setup. This generally is only used in cases where the DPS needs to receive hits (Counter-based) to activate their passive, as tanks prevents the DPS from taking damage. These teams can be risky to use without a tank, however. This team is generally used in Colosseum.
• DPS Tank Tank
  • This tends to be a general Colosseum setup where a DPS is protected by two tanks. It’s not the most popular currently due to a limited amount of tanks but it’s a good beginner choice.

1. Using Chasers

A Chaser is a hero who responds to other ally’s block uses. There are a few types of chasers. The following is the common terminologies referring to units.

• 3-chain Chaser – These heroes only activate their passive if their block is used after an ally 3-chain. Examples include Hanzo, Nurspy, Maria, Nightingale, Hansung, etc..
• Reverse Chaser – These heroes need to use their blocks before ally chains. Examples include Genevie, Osiris, Vesper, Necron, Vane etc..
• Autochaser – These heroes activate their passive immediately when an ally taps a specific chain, generally 3-chains. Some heroes may respond to lower chain lengths. Examples include Bihwa, Genevie, Echidna, Hong-ran, Gueronica, etc..

In general, pay attention to the type of team you’re using when using a Chaser. If they’re a 3-chain Chaser/Autochaser, you should have a 3-chainer on the team. You should also be using them properly, so when using chasers, you want to tap their block after an ally 3-chain.

1. Synergy

Synergy does matter (believe it or not) quite a bit in this game. Make sure your units are working together and not stepping over each other’s toes. Here are a few examples of some more common team building mistakes.

Izuna is a DPS, and both Drake and Wolfgang are buffers. The reason why this team isn’t good is because of how Wolfgang operates. 

Wolfgang gives his allies a buff if his ally uses a block. The type of buff he gives is based on the class of the ally. In Izuna’s case, she is a warrior so she would receive an Armor buff from Wolfgang, and as a DPS, that’s not useful at all. Drake Wolfgang is often paired with Hunters or Wizards to capitalize on the Critical Damage/Attack Power buff Wolfgang provides, his buff to a warrior DPS is simply not useful.

Another example of anti-synergy:

This time, Wolfgang is paired with Archon, who is a Wizard DPS, and this should be good. However, the problem now is that Beatrice doesn’t work with Archon. Not because Beatrice isn’t a good buffer, Beatrice is an excellent HA buffer. Just that Archon must be leader since she requires 3-chains, while Beatrice only buffs whoever she heals. She buffs everyone if she 3-chains, however as a non-leader she cannot 3-chain easily. She then will use 1-chains, which makes her buff 1 ally, and generally the ally she buffs is the frontline if everyone is max HP, or the lowest HP ally, in which case it’s most likely Wolfgang since he tanks with SoP and therefore receives all the damage.

Essentially, Archon’s and Beatrice’s need for 3-chains trip over each other and it’s very difficult to use both effectively. 

Best advice I have at this point is to read their passives and try mixing them up.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to:

• leewhat 
• Vyrlokar