Heroes of Arca short guide

This guide will help you quickly learn the game, as well as learn some features of the game mechanics and tactics Heroes of Arca

There are five simple rules to win more often.

• First rule: don’t leave your hero alone when fighting with the Faceless. Summon some creatures!
  
• Second rule: try to avoid leaving your creatures without cover. Set up Defensive Barrier.
  
• Third rule: don’t try to win a battle using only the offensive magics. The main sources of damage to the enemy are your creatures.
  
• Fourth rule: learn your opponent’s behaviour. All enemies in Heroes of Arca have their tactics and stick to it.
  
• Fifth rule: в There are no useless skills in Heroes of Arca! Don’t neglect using and buffing such skills as Blessing and Weakness.

Following these simple rules, you will manage to handle even the most dangerous opponents with ease.

Tip: Learn your potential – there are detailed descriptions of all spells and advices for their usage in the hero window (click on the Cleric portrait or press «I»). Become familiar with them, and the game will become much easier.

Some features of spells that are going to help you in combat:

Summoning spells.

Guardian
This summoned creature is hardly the main destroyer of enemy hordes, but he’s great to win some time and to foil enemy’s double attack or triple Destruction .








Sword Master
he shooter’s ability to attack twice can sometimes turn an outcome of battle, and this skill can finish the combat in virtually one turn if combined with Double Attack and Blessing.








Archmage
The most vulnerable character in your party and simultaneously your primary weapon. This flying old man can inflict up to 83 damage on the first development level! Of course, the Archmage should receive triple Blessing, and then be blessed once more... Now imagine what would happen if you play Double Attack on top of that! Certainly, you need a great luck to make that happen, and Archmage has to survive the opponent’s attack. But it’s worth it, as even after the Archmage’s death your hero will lose only 10 hit points! And you can summon the oldie once more ;-)

Note. Buffing summoning magic has one feature you should never forget - every level of a skill provides a hit points bonus to the creatures, and every fifth level adds a damage bonus. This means your creatures are getting significantly stronger every five levels. Thus, attacking an opponent having 5th level creatures is a very bad idea unless you’ve got at least a pair of the same creatures.

Neutral spells

Defensive Barrier
No doubts it’s needed and useful, but many players are making a mistake pumping it to the max level. Keep in mind that some enemies in Heroes of Arca ignore the barrier, especially bosses.










Blessing
You shouldn’t neglect this magic for 5 reasons:
1. Your creatures are rising their combat levels by gaining experience for the damage they deal. Blessing increases the damage, thus your creatures rise their levels faster.
2. Blessing’s effect is summarized – that means triple Blessing will be summarized with Blessing on the additional turn.
3. The most killer combo in the game looks like this: you’ve got high-level creatures, a triple Blessing was rolled, you’ve used Double Attack, and then a double Blessing rolled. An opponent isn’t likely to survive that combo even on the latest game stages.
4. Blessing is often rolled with Defensive Barrier.
5. Sometimes Blessing doubles the inflicted damage.

Note. Despite all said above, Blessing can be pumped with the found artifacts, so you don’t have to waste the gained levels on it.

Weakness
This spell should be used not to decrease the damage received by your creatures, but rather to slow down the enemy development in combat. Enemy creatures raise their combat levels by inflicting damage. Thus, if they inflict less damage, they gain the levels slower.

Note. As for Blessing, artifacts are usually enough to buff Weakness to the acceptable levels - you don’t have to spend skill points on it.

Offensive spells

Stun
Chance of this magic to paralyze depends on the opponent’s magic resistance.









You can learn the level of magic resistance in the character’s information window (just click on that enemy in combat):












The chance to paralyze is calculated by this formula:

<Stun skill level>/(<Creature Level>*<Magic Resistance>)*100

Thus, a chance of paralyzing a 1st-level Imp with Magic Resistance 25, if you’ve invested 5 skill points into Stun, is 5/(1*25)*100=20%.
Length of Stunning is equal to its level - i.e. in the aforementioned example Imp will be paralyzed for 5 turns.

Explosion
Despite low damage, this magic can sometimes be much more useful than the everyone’s favorite Destruction.
Example:
Enemy has three creatures with 10 hit points each and a barrier with 15 durability points. You’ve rolled triple Explosion (1st level)... Let’s calculate the damage enemy summoner will receive: 17 damage from the Explosion itself and 10 more for every his dead creature, 47 damage total. Triple Destruction would inflict 15 damage to defensive barrier, 10 damage to one creature, 8 damage to another creature, and that’s all. Thus, the summoner would suffer only 10 hit points. Use the offensive spells deliberately!

Destruction
The most favorite magic of most players. But we have to disappoint you - one can win a battle with just Destruction only in rare occasions. Use the Destruction when it’s appropriate, for instance when:
1. enemy summoner has no defensive barrier and no creatures;
2. you can finish the creature even if Destruction will be rolled just once;
3. you fight with the opponent that attacks only with magic, and your hero has more life.

Order Magic

The most important things you should understand about this kind of magic:
1. Order magic can be used only after certain number of turns.
2. These spells are activated in combat with a separate menu in the top part of screen, so they can and should be combined with the primary spells.
3. After using ANY spell from this school the turn counter returns to zero.


Double Attack
We have mentioned this spell with a vivid name many times above. The only thing one can add is that the spell allows your creatures to attack twice per turn, so you’ll face the hard choice many times - would you use Double Attack or Heal.







Heal
This magic is undoubtedly worth waiting for 10 turns, but it has another feature as well - every level of Heal adds one to healing creatures by the repeating summoning. So we recommend to pump this magic to the maximum level.







Sacrifice
The best helper when fighting the bosses. Sacrifice drains health from the enemy in a percentage amount, which makes it extremely effective and the most dangerous magics in the game. But you should keep in mind that all your summoned creatures will disappear when you use this magic, so use it wisely ;-)

Some useful tactics and tips:

- If you fight with the single neutral creature, and its attack doesn’t ignore defensive barrier, the simplest way to win is: summon creatures on the first turn, erect Defensive Barrier on the second, then simply regenerate the barrier every turn while your creatures are dealing with the hapless opponent.

- Watch the levels of your creatures (especially if you decide to use Sacrifice), or else you risk to be caught in a situation where you’ve used Sacrifice, and on the next turn the opponent raised his combat level and fully healed.


















- The Faceless summoners are among the most powerful enemies in the game, but you can handle them if you keep in mind one trick: set the attack targets for your creatures to the enemies across: Guardian attacks the central creature, Sword Master attacks the top one, Archmage attacks the bottom. This simple way will allow you to deny the summoner mage to raise combat levels of his creatures with the repeated summoning.

- If you’ve rolled three identical spells during summoning, and you’ve summoned a 3rd level creature, spend an extra turn on summoning that creature again. This way you’ll get a creature of Hero rank from the very beginning of the game, which is a major advantage.

We’ve discussed the five rules in the very beginning of this guide… you should know that the Faceless are using these rules, so you can and should use that against them. For instance, if you know a rule “don’t leave your hero alone versus the Faceless”, you can tell with 95% chance that an opponent without creatures will summon them. Same about the rest rules. Predict the opponent’s behaviour, and he will have no chances against you.

Keep in mind that a 5th level player can defeat a 12th level Faceless in Heroes of Arca if he would think. After all, you’re ♥♥♥♥ sapiens, and your opponent is just AI (Just between us: the AI isn’t the smartest).

Lifehack: Furrcifer often provides good advices on defeating the enemies. If you’re constantly losing a battle, listen to this talkative little animal.

That’s all for now! We’re going to expand and enhance this guide as and when necessary.
Good luck in the world of Heroes of Arca!

[yogsu]

helpful, thx!