New player questions

[zenflight]

1. How important is the start of the game? Should I be resetting for optimal starter characters? I have replayed the first 4 matches a few times on different difficulties to see what feels best. And I think I'm going to go with hell mode for the challenge. And I don't know if I should reset one more time to fish for the champions I like or not.
2. Is there a lose condition, and should I reset after a loss streak or get in a bad spot or should I just keep playing the same campaign through losses?
3. Can you heavily invest in the starter players and make them incredible? Or will i eventually swap them all out when I unlock the ability to recruit new players?
4. Is there a way to focus fire enemies in team fights?
5. Are there any settings that are important to have on or off to play the game on hell mode?

[hairlessOrphan]

1. If you're min-maxing, you should be re-rolling for specific match and routine traits. The stats and heroes can be changed / trained over the season.

2. Iunno.

3. Yes, you can. And should!

4. Nope. I think the chaos tries to model the chaos of a teamfight in MOBA's? There is a stat called "presence" that isn't explained very well, but it makes a character more likely to be targeted. There's a hidden optional rule when starting a game to increase the presence of characters below 30%HP. Gaining or removing that (mostly through equipment) is the only way you can even influence targeting, and in-game that's only for which of your characters are likely to be targeted (as in: you can't influence your opponent's presence in-game).

[Deworx]

1+3. After rerolling, try to at least get 1 with top traits (or maybe 2) and focus on those. Depending on the traits you can keep both until the very end. Others should be swapped out, if you get the training partner trait on 1 - then don't swap him out yet, he'll be usefull later, you can also grab one later during transfer window. It's impossible to get 5 with top traits on hell difficulty, even 3 is very hard.. and 2 also takes quite some time.

5. You can only change a few things in option on hell mode, like equipment quantity between seasons, battle format (maybe do B05 on all battles during playoffs) and.. well, just check it out and make sure you press on hell mode at the end again, so it counts as playing on hell-mode.

[Axariel]

If it helps, you can make custom characters. I have one file with and one without. If you don't want to use them, you should reroll for the best traits. Although match traits are more important, watch out for terrible training traits like Eat First or whatever it is called; no one can convince me that that is a good trait.

I really don't know if you can actually lose the game; I would assume not. If you are going to scum for good traits, you might as well do it for wins though.

There is probably nothing more important to winning on hell mode than over-investing in one or two athletes.

There are champs that can focus fire, there are also champs that block these abilities. for the most part, your champs will always be more likely to attack someone with high presence (the most important tank/top stat IMHO).

I think that recalls are great. You can also use the option to call champs to defend lanes. both of these options can be abused by players and the AI. For example, you can call defenders to your bot lane to set up a gank with high health. The AI did this to me maybe 2 times throughout a "full run."

[Xuande]

1. It isn't that important unless you're refusing to do any sort of trading/youth academy. Otherwise, you'll have chances to replace weaker members and incentives to unevenly train your team.

2. Not sure, but there doesn't seem to be a win condition either. Its a "play until you reach the end and/or get bored" sort of thing, there's a ceiling on how tough each league can get.

3. I started a Hell Mode run recently to find this out. I suspect that I'll be able to win each league on the first go, but will take non-playoff losses along the way. Then again, I play Random Matchups = On and expect to have early season matches where my stats are dwarfed, so playing with it Off would be a lot easier for a flawless attempt. You will regardless have times where you're outstatted in matchups, unless you're going hard into min/maxing specific traits.

4. There's a hero that does this somewhat innately through locking onto a random Melee hero until it dies, and another who can isolate a single enemy Round 1 preventing it from being present for targeting/attacking. Mostly, you isolate enemies through on-field card effects that damage or debuff, though its often more efficient to pick advantageous teamfights instead.

5. Not really, its personal preference. Note that many setting changes don't "count" as Hell Mode for the purpose of Steam achievements if you're the type to care about that. Make your non-Hell settings first, then click Hell, then check for any settings that reverted. Those settings have to stay put for it to "count" as a Hell run. If you don't care about achievements, none of that matters.

I like Random Matchups = On and Youth Academy = Off as my main changes, making the run a little harder. Custom characters is fun, but overpowered - not that you can't get a similar effect through abusing infinite rerolls with non-customs if you're so inclined.

The settings like custom pathing/recall access/mandatory teamfights benefit the player more than the AI, so I leave them at default.

[Skully]

1. The start is only super important on Hell. Otherwise you can easily change characters as you go up the ranks. If you're not playing Hell. Have fun, use all the heroes get to know them. Even if you don't like them its important to know them when you're facing them.

2. Don't sweat losses in the early game. Just keep playing, learn the heroes and develop strategies. Even while learning you shouldn't have too much trouble getting promoted each season. When you beat the game or are bored because its too easy on a normal or easy mode then play on hell. It's much more rewarding.

3. You can invest in them. Target the one with the traits you like the most and invest heavily. You can take them all to season 2 with you or you can invest heavily in a couple and dump the lamers.

4. No. This is RNG and down to Presence. You can learn about presence from these forums or look in the archives in game. Look at the Hero section.

There is one hero who excels at targeting the right enemy at that's Xiangxu the pirate girl. She's Mid or Jugg. You need to get her cards into the discard pile and rack up Reaper points. They'll show next to her hero icon. Every round she will target the enemy hero with the least amount of health no matter where they stand in combat ie front or back line - at least until she runs out of reaper points which she uses up each round.

She's my favorite hero. I use her to take out healers or Niels. She's super fun to play and build around.

5. When not playing Hell mode you can set characters to custom and set up a team exactly how you want. You can also unlock all heroes at the start so you can experiment with different combos that aren't usually available until late game. If you do this the AI will have access to all heroes too. So beware.