Advanced Gameplans

Getting Started: Understanding the numbers[]

STOP - Read Tips and Strategy before continuing.
This guide assumes you have read and have a general understanding of everything in Tips And Strategy and are familiar with the following pages: Heroes , Rarity tiers , Map Levels.

Super Basic Summary: This guide is meant to be an example and suggestion of how to optimize your progression, focusing on targeted hero rarities and what you need to get through the early game and into the late game to minimize waste from bad rarity selections gained through daily bosses. Daily bosses are linear in progression - and do not reset. This means theoretically there can be a point where you are no longer able to kill a daily boss and gain a rarity. This guide is meant to help you avoid that and always be able to make either an informed, or optimal choice with your rarity progressions.

Please know that there are a lot of people that disagree with my hero suggestions and progression list. That's fine. You do you. It's meant as a guide - a suggestion - not a strict letter of the law playlist. If you can understand what I am saying, you can dive through he DPS charts and make your own plan towards getting your targeted rarities and end game hero progressions.

To start with, understand that this game is all about your "E" level damage. There are four considerations when picking your team roster are:

What level am I trying to reach

At what map level can I afford them?
What is their base damage?
How high do I want to push their rarity?

Scenario:

You want to reach level 1,500 in order unlock your second alter (for better shard packs and Altar rewards). You will need a hero that can push somewhere around 1.5e307 dps to reach the level while killing every monster at the end of the run within 1 second and be able to reliably kill bosses within the time limit.

Example Solution 1: All In!

You look at the charts, and decide to take your Feralheart to level 1500 without any advanced heroes. You see that you have to get Feralheart to Galactic 1 in order to do this off rarity DPS and level bonuses alone (putting Feralheart at e333 before other bonuses). This will cost you 53 rarity upgrades. Feralheart can reach 1500 at Eternal 1, but requires you to find an additional e59 in DPS on that character from artifacts, souls, gilds and gear upgrades, saving you 10 rarity upgrades over the course of your game.

Example Solution 2: Transition to Final Hero

Again, we look at the charts and see that Sun Zi has a base DPS of e76. From base damage alone he can reach 1500 at Eternal 1 (E314) at 40 rarity upgrades. I know from personal experience he can reach it at Godlike 1 (e267) with gear and gilding bonuses for 30 rarity upgrades. This requires me to use at least one starter hero at Legendary 1 to reach level 400 and earn the 3.5E81 gold to hire him.

The Three Phases of the Game[]

The above example revolves around acquiring targeted rarity upgrades on your highest DPS hero (or chosen hero) every time you complete a daily boss or mythic chest. The fewer heroes you have the better, as it will allow you full manipulation and consistent DPS gains over the course of your runs.

The way the heroes are laid out there are three phases of the game:

Starter Heroes
Transition Heroes
End Game Heroes

Starter Heroes:[]

Starter Heroes are the heroes you start your RUN with. Not necessarily the heroes available in the early game. Starter heroes are heroes you can gold purchase by killing a monster with just clicks. By the time you unlock all of the click damage upgrades (Mighty Glove / Bloody Glove / Gracefull Dagger) you are able to click and kill a level 60 or below monster with arrow storm for an initial gold investment. Meaning every hero from Brath The Merciless or Cheaper are viable targets as a starter hero. So long as your starter hero (or combination of heroes) can reach level 400, you can unlock and acquire transition heroes.

Transition Heroes:[]

The transition hero is the hero you use to reach level 1,500. At 1,500 you begin to aquire the shards necessary to begin unlocking End game heroes. Transition Heroes are from McCliff or later. McCliff can be acquired using shards gained from the level 400 altar. This is where people tend to target their rarity upgrades to reach 1500 to farm high level shards.

End Game Heroes:[]

End Game Heroes are those that can reach level 1,500 with zero or very few rarity upgrades. This consists from Prenax The Deceiver, and higher. Most notably Almmaharret who is the last hero that can be unlocked using a blank soul recipe without requiring a previous stack of intermediary hero shards. With their massive base DPS's they are capable of pushing five hundred to a thousand more levels at equal rarity than any starter or transition hero. This is where the real game grind begins as you craft shards for the Space Trooper or Soul Eater as a final Hero.

The most consistent source of shards will eventually be daily quest and packs purchased for gems (or daily quests that ask you to purchase packs of shards for gems). So understanding how the mines work and putting together a mining squad will be important to push from an End Game hero to a Final Hero.

What High Level Play Looks Like[]

High end play typically looks something like this:

Have Spatial Portal set high, from level 499 and upward.
Hire the starter hero
"Map Jump" by clicking various levels to continue leveling the starter hero in order to purchase the Transition or End Game hero.
(Alternatively, use the Midas trick to skip the previous step)
Purchase the end game hero, let the game run until it can overcome the Daily Boss health total.
Complete Daily Bosses, open mythic chests.
Purchase remaining heroes, max all other heroes, let the run continue to max level.
PVP if wanted / needed.
Wash Rinse Repeat.

Note: This means most "high" level players only ever purchase two heroes during daily runs. It will be their extreme rarity Starter Hero (usually Feralheart, sometimes a Common grade Midas) - and finally their highest DPS hero.

What? A Common Midas as your Starter and Transition Hero?[]

The fastest way to start a new run is to use Midas and a high level special portal. Midas can be of ANY rarity and this trick will still work. The following is an Almmarett example:

Have Spacial Portal set to level 901
Use gold from Magic Bag to purchase 50 levels on your avatar hero (unlocking arrow storm)
Go back to level 55-60 and use arrow storm to kill a monster
Have auto advance selected so you return to level 901
Increase Midas Level to 100, activate Midas Touch
Wait 30 seconds - purchase Almmahrett.

This is what end game players do. It cuts out an hour or more of raw low level grinding or significantly reduces the number of "map" clicks and scrolling required to unlock their end level heroes. The special portal can be set higher or lower to target other specific break points. This is the most efficient method of starting a run. Alternatively, this can be used to instantly "Max" your over rarity starter hero to get DPS up. Though this means you now have two heroes in your roster taking up rarity space.

This does require you to have unlocked a Final Hero in the first place. Using this method also means the effective DPS of any rarity increases to lower level heroes is obsolete. This will be an important concept to keep in mind when selecting and choosing how for to take your starter hero during early gameplay.

What End Game Heroes Mean[]

End game heroes change your entire roster. Unless the hero directly contributes to 'reaching' the end game hero, increasing rarity on them is a waste of resources and effort. For optimized gameplay this leads to two major strategies:

"Starter Hero: All In!"[]

Use a starter hero and increase rarity to reach level 1,500
Ignore transition Heroes, useful for global bonuses
Unlock final Hero and either Map Jump or Midas Trick to acquire target rarities on end game hero.

Pros: Simplified game Plan - level progressions with dramatically "Jump" every 10 rarities (every 4-6 days). Low Chance of "wasting" rarities.

Cons: If using the midas trick - Without Galactic X - if using both Midas and a Starter Hero you will use up two slots during upgrades, meaning it could get dicey transitioning to Space Lord / Soul Eater at VERY VERY late game, due to progressive Daily Boss HP increases. Can be solved by throwing a PVP match with heroes you don't want upgraded.

Recommended Heroes to go all in With:

Feralheart (Sub Optimal) - Easy to use - starts with +2 Rarity. Cannot be sacrificed later for shard packs. DPS Caps around e450 with gilds. No Global Support Skills
Gormmash (2nd Best) - Feralheart But better. An Additional e20 in DPS over Feral (100 map levels) at equal rarity. One global support skill. Can be sacrificed at altar after final hero purchased for massive shard packs.

Transition Teams![]

The transition teams strategy is how the game is "meant" to be played. You grab a hero and gradually increase and spread out your rarity upgrades as you go up in level. As you progress you use two or three heroes to unlock your final hero dps until you can unlock the next shard hero and begin again. Eventually you are forced into using the Midas trick to ensure enough slots are available for targeted rarity upgrades.

Pro's and Cons

(+) You feel like you are constantly achieving something. As progression is smoother - but slower.
(+) You're unlikely to overinvest in any single hero
(-) You are likely to have many rarity upgrades spread out over 4 or more heroes
You will have to use the Midas Trick to transition to end game heroes (eventually).

If going this route, I highly recommend only increasing rarity as necessary, and then in batches of 10, just enough to reach the next rarity rank (Where the level bonuses become the bulk of DPS gain). Do not put any starter hero above legendary 1. Any starter Hero at Legendary 1, gilded (with Amulet of Power) and with gear upgrades can unlock any transition hero. Remember: you can shuffle gilds from low heroes to high heroes if you spend a few souls.

Transition Options:

Justice / Albert / Angmarth - All three of these guys can hit 1500 at Godlike 1. Easy heroes to transition into, though there are better options from McCliff and Later.

McCliff - He is the highest value "normal rate" Shard hero that can be acquired from the level 400 altar. Better DPS than Sun Zi at equal rarity (Yes, even Galactic X)
Sun Zi - (Not Recommended) Purchasable for 550emerald from the shop. Significantly earlier access compared to McCliff with proper questing and crafting. Lower DPS - cannot be sacrificed later for shards once an end game hero card is acquired. Needed later for the mines.
Sir Zeliek - Free Hero for playing the game 15 days consecutively. Lower DPS than Sun Zi, but is a "Free" hero and can help if you only play casually.

Other shard heroes ARE available through the level 400 altar. If you are patient you can wait for those to unlock before targeting rarities. The number of shards required for those heroes is higher than the ones mentioned above. You will be trading your time for a higher Base DPS. Please do your own research to see what is worthwhile for you (Hero Shards)

Final Thoughts[]

However you choose to do it, the point of starting the game is first to race to 400, then to 1,500, and finally unlocking Almmaharret to enter the end game. Some final thoughs:

Base DPS and Rarity level are the only relevant factors in raw DPS totals.

All other skills are marginal improvements (Feralheart, Gormash, Dal'ek, Sun XI, are all bested in DPS at the next tier hero card). Understand this when making your decision. The premium Shop Heroes with 800%'s are an exception.

Farming shards is a matter of putting every hero you can into the mines without ruining daily quests.
Two star gear on "safe" heroes and using the Altar on them will give 10 additional shards per sacrifice.
Farming for loot drop is essential for gilds / hearts / gear. Gear is essential for shards. Until you have an end game hero, do not set your portal any higher than level 1 gear drops (Level 1 loot stops at 1000). Avoid brute force crafting. Use the gear you find.
Everyone eventually uses the Midas trick to transition to late game heroes.
PLAN your hero upgrades so you can always manipulate rarity to the desired target hero.