User blog:Calvinthesneak/Heroes Beginner Guide

Building a Strong Hero Lineup
Definitions:

 Tank  = Hero who stands in the front and takes a lot of damage, protecting heroes behind them.

 DPS  = A hero that provides a lot of damage (“dps” means “damage per second”).

 Healer  = A hero whose primary function is to restore the health of OTHER heroes.

 Support  = A hero who provides indirect support to a team. An example may be via buffing attack or defense or by de-buffing the enemy team (e.g. Jorgen or Nebula).

Here is what you want in a team of 5 heroes: 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 DPS. Fill the last two spots with more DPS, more Healers, or Support heroes, depending on who you have and what their synergy is. Do not double-stack tanks, do not have more than 2 healers.

Look for heroes who offer compatible artifact buffs and work to build a team that has synergy. For example, if you use Ginger for DPS (who does physical damage) and you pair her with Orion (whose artifact buff gives magic penetration) his artifact buff does not help her and vice versa. These heroes lack synergy.

Typically, you should build a team that is either based on Magical attack or Physical attack and work to improve their artifact weapons so that they boost each other’s effectiveness in combat.

Got the idea? Good. Now…

DO NOT LEVEL UP AND WORK ON A BUNCH OF HEROES AT ONCE.
You DO NOT have the resources to level up all the heroes you will acquire. The game will eventually give you most heroes in about 2-4 months of playing. You’ll get a bunch of them in the first month alone. You will NEVER have enough resources to make them all top-notch heroes. Trying to do that was the biggest mistake that I made starting out and I regret it often.

Player Level 1 – 20

Here you are focusing on building a basic team with Astaroth, Galahad, Thea and Probably Arachnae and whoever else the game gives you. You’re collecting some heroes based on events taking place in game and maybe farming some soul stones along the way. You’re promoting heroes through green rank and into blue. Your options are limited so you work with what you have.

Player Level 20 – 40

Now you have more options available. You probably have Ginger and hopefully a second healer and some more DPS options than just Arachnae, Phobos and Heidi. You’re focusing on Astaroth, Galahad and Ginger. Hopefully you’re looking at the hero tier list and comparing heroes you have to their approximate ranking. You’re getting a feel for who you like and who works well together.

Player Level 40 – 60

Here you’re beginning to promote heroes to violet rank. It’s time to really consider ditching Arachnae. Ginger is still good for a while if you don’t have other, better options. You should have a couple of tanks that you like and at least two healers. You’re starting to separate heroes into teams that are physical and magical and not just making hodge-podge teams of whoever is highest in power. You probably have Keira who is a better long-term investment than Ginger and maybe Qing Mao who can be decent. Maybe you have Elmir or Ishmael to work on a bit. Perhaps you have Krista/Lars or you’re working with Cornelius and Orion?

Player Level 60 – 80

After you’ve played for a month or two and you have a bunch of heroes in the level 40 – 60 range at blue +2 or low violet, look at your pool of heroes and decide which heroes will make a good A-Team and a good B-Team. Try to build two teams that follow the model I listed above (1 tank, 1 healer, 1 dps, etc…). They’ll be your A-Team and B-Team.

Between now and player level 80 or so, they should be your main focus. One team should be physical damage based and one should be magic damage based so that you can split resources effectively. You’re gearing up to become strong.

You need two good tanks. Here’s a hint; one of them is Astaroth. The other is probably Galahad but maybe not. You need two good healers with the best healer going to your A-Team and the other to B. You need to have complimentary DPS heroes in each team and if you have Jorgen or Nebula they should be finding places in your teams as well. If you don’t have support heroes; stack DPS instead or toss in a backup healer. When you reach player level 80 you don’t need this guide anymore. Good luck and Godspeed.

A Note About Your A-Team
Your A-Team is what you’re all about. You need to put 90% of your glyphs, artifact resources and ALL of your sparks of power (gift of the elements) into this team. The other 10% of your resources go to your B-Team.

Your A-Team is going to be your defense team in bronze/silver/gold league and also in Arena. It’s the tip of the spear and it had damn well better be sharp. You need to sink the bulk of your resources into this team because there are many heroes who become absolute monsters when they’re given all your resources but who are otherwise relatively weak when only given some.

YOU WANT A MONSTER ON YOUR TEAM.
Who is a monster when given a ton of resources? Ishmael… Ishmael is a monster when he’s got everything. He is also a wet noodle when he’s only got half of your resources and will die before the tank dies (how does he do that all the time?!) which means that you wasted resources and got nothing for them [Edit: Just to be clear, I do NOT recommend making Ishmael your main hero]. When you pick a monster - maybe Jhu or Elmir or K’arkh or Keira or Satori or The Twins(Lars/Krista) - you commit. You give your A-Team Tank a bunch of armor/health/magic defense and buff their artifacts but you give your monster everything you possibly can. Your monster gets 55% of all your resources, your A-Team tank gets 35% of your resources and your B-Team gets the rest (starting with the tank). If your monster is a duo (like K’arkh/Faceless or Lars/Krista) you split the resources focusing on the stronger of the two (so K’arkh or Lars) but you still need to spread it between them.

You give your EXP potions to the A-Team, keeping the B-Team a few levels behind (but not too far) and a hollow C-Team that you keep for show to throw people off in Grand Arena. Your C-Team is the cast off heroes you thought you loved but who ultimately let you down (damn you, Ishmael!) You keep them close-ish in level to your B-Team but that’s just so people can’t easily identify them as a turd wad right away when they see them in Grand Arena.

Which Heroes to Invest In and NOT Invest In
Generally speaking, when you start, you can safely invest in Astaroth and Galahad and have no worries; they’re good for the long haul. Arachne can help you through your 30’s/40’s and Ginger can help you a bit further but neither should be taken full-term. Even Thea is useful later on as a healer for your 2nd or 3rd Grand Arena team so level her to help you through the starting parts of the game until you get a Celeste or Martha to heal.

Less controversial than who you should invest in is the list of heroes NOT to invest in. Pretty much anyone in the low end of C tier or below from the tier list. It bears repeating so I’m including that portion of his list here, with some additions:

It’s not recommended to invest in: Markus, Chabba, Lilith, Judge, Fox, Mojo, Heidi, Daredevil, Phobos, Dark Star, Dante, Artemis, Astrid and Lucas. Beware of putting more than just levels into Arachnae and Ginger because although they are decent DPS (and still cause me problems sometimes) they seem to disappear in the highest echelons of game play. Maybe take Ginger to violet but don’t go further than that until you’re level 90 and know better.

As of June 2020, these are some recommended heroes for end game, when everything is at maximum.

Tank: Aurora, Astaroth, Luther, Cleaver

Support: Sebastian, Andvari, Jorgen, Nebula

Healer: Celeste, Martha, Dorian, Thea

Physical DPS: Jhu, K'arhk, Keira, Yasmine

Magic DPS: Lars, Krista, Helios, Orion

META
Most Effective Tactics Available

You'll often hear people talk about META, so I thought I'd include what it is for those that don't know. Defining a META for Hero Wars is rather difficult due to the wide range/variety of heroes. Basically once you've picked a DPS/Monster, you'll want the META for that particular hero. Valid combos have been noted throughout this article, but if you need further help, go look in the Rankings for your particular server, see what heroes the top teams are using.

NOTE:

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The text here is borrowed from a beginner's guide for mobile versions of hero wars. Most of the information applies to Web and Social Media versions, but there are some differences. The original post can be found: https://www.reddit.com/r/HeroWarsApp/comments/dvd2ay/micahfetts_beginners_guide_to_hero_wars/ ======