Early Hero Builds

Guide on how to understand the stats and inner skills of the classes, created as I was advancing gradually through the tiers.

Intro

As I was playing the early and mid game, I found it hard to find good advice on how early hero teams synergize with each other. Most good guides tend to focus on the late game, but by the late game players have already played for a long time and have familiarity with different hero classes.
As is usual with guides, this reflects my experience and does not claim to be definitive, take all the advice you can find and do what works best for you.

General Tips

• Heroes classes are defined by their base stats, gear they can equip and skills they can get
  
• Individual heroes are further defined by the skills they actually get - which are the most important factor overall
  
• It's often mentioned that with good gear any class can shine. That's well and good but you can save yourself a lot of expensive gear by having a better hero class with better skills
  
• At different points of the game your best heroes will plateu and struggle to advance. (level cap due to training hall, not having good enough gear, poor class/skills, dungeon unlocks, ect.) This is the time to "clean house" - choose your worst 1-2 heroes, fire them and replace them
  
• Usually the best tier of heroes you have access to is the best to hire. However, delaying the purge until you unlock the next tier is rarely justified, as there's simply no good reason not to use the large number of hero slots at your disposal to have 1-2 new heroes being leveled. Asking "when is the right time to do it" is the wrong question as it should be a constant process.
  
• You can get the new heroes to level 5/10 fast. You are looking for rare skill or skills you really like. If they don't get those, just fire and rehire. Once you get the skills you like, let them level higher. These heroes will generally surpass your strongest faster than you would expect, due to having better base stats and skills, but the same level up xp requirements
  
• Be careful when trusting the "star power" shown for each hero. It's the game estimating their individual strength without much context. It's a useful quick shortcut to understanding who your strong and weak heroes are but bear in mind it currently tends to overestimate the value of pure tanks and glass cannons

Class stereotypes

The game naturally divides the classes into three types - red, green and blue based on what is essentially their most important class-based stat - Threat.
However, while similar-coded heroes will attract similar amount of direct enemy damage, their roles are more nuanced and each tier of hero of the same color is not a direct upgrade to the capabilities of the previous one. The random skills you get while leveling further branch out the stereotypes.

• Defence tank - this is the natural role of the Knight, though most red types can emulate him with defence skills. Defence can soak up up to 70% of damage received, making them suited for prolonged battles. However you need to constantly increase defence via equipment to keep up with harder content, otherwise the damage reduction falls to 50%, or less if you're very underequipped.
  
• Evasive tank - Ranger if they get good evasive skills. Buffing evasion to 75% is hard but the rewards are worth it - ignoring 3/4 of damage. Advantages of evasion is that on average it blocks more damage, and once you commit to it, it gives increasing returns until you hit the cap. Disadvantages is that it's less useful in small quantities, it's more random, and when you do get hit you get a big chunk of damage at once. Also the green types which have high evasion also have lower Threat, making them less suited to a tank role
  
• Offensive tank - most red types with most skill builds will mostly just try to do damage instead of tanking it. While a bad match for their high Threat stat, that's perfectly fine if you seek a short battle - they do their part DPSing, they can take some hits due to naturally high HP and defence, and then the battle is over before they get into real trouble. However don't be surprised if they struggle holding the ground in harder, longer battles.
  
• Green quasi-tank - green types with high evasion skills and low attack/criticals. They take some pressure off the red types and further protect the blue types. But overall the role is not a good match for green types due to red tanks having more Threat.
  
• Critical DPSer - green types with high attack, critical chance and damage. With good skills green types can do quite a bit of punch. They also naturally attract some damage their way - which is good news for the rest of the party, bad news for the green type itself - it needs to have at least some HP/defence/evasion to survive, as their Threat is too high to make green class cannons an option. Most of them have naturally high evasion and access to good evasion skills for this reason.
  
• Tough Spellcaster - blue types sporting enough HP to take a hit or two and survive in long battles. HP is much more important for them than defence/evasion as their low Threat means they need to survive the relatively few hits they will take, not to prepare to be a constant punching bag. They still need as much attack as possible as this is their main reason for being in the party in the first place. Their main weakness is that if paired with an offensive tank, they won't finish the battle before the tank kicks it and they'll die in turn.
  
• Glass cannons - blue types that have low HP but very high damage. Best at nuking the enemy in a short time, but the longer the battle drags on, the more likely they'll get hit randomly or die from AOEs. Having a pure glass cannon in the party means also going for more offensive red and green types because the glass cannon will die before them anyway, making the long-term survivability of the tanks irrelevant unless they can do some damage themselves and finish the job.

The Stats

Main stats are HP, Attack, Defence. Those are calculated via this formula:
Stat = StatBonus * ( Natural + ItemValue*ItemBonus)

• Natural - Stats your hero gains on leveling, generally not very high
  
• ItemValue - stats you get from the items you're wearing
  
• ItemBonus - added up % bonuses like +50% from shields or spells
  
• StatBonus - added up % bonuses like +50% attack

Secondary stats are not all visible - Evasion, Threat, Critical Chance, Critical Multiplier. Those are purely additive.


What those stats actually mean for your hero though is another topic. Basically each hero has two main functions - tankiness and damage and all stats contribute to one of these.

Tankiness
Threat determines the tankiness you really need in the context of a party. As a crude rule, greens need to be 2x as tanky as blues and reds need to be 2x as tanky as greens for the party to do their job properly. The way you build tankines is:

• HP - HP is the base stat for your tankiness all else is a multiplier. All other methods of defence rely on the hero already having high HP, which they effectively multiply. Also, HP is the only defence method where it's worth it to get just a bit of a boost - for defence or evasion, once you start accumulating it, you should try and go all the way for increasing returns the closer you get to the cap
  
• Def - The damage reduction translates to an effective HP multiplier of 1/(1 - Def/QuestDefCap), up to 3x max. QuestDefCap is apparently a well-guarded secret though, but the late dungeons need 4k-6k defence to get that sweet 3x bonus.
  
• Evasion - Translates to effective HP multiplier of 1/(1-Evasion), up to 4x max. No hidden stats so easy to calculate. As mentioned before, you should try and max out either evasion or defence.
  
• Regeneration - If your battle lasts X turns normally, X*RegenAmount is how much regeneration improves your base HP value additively

Damage

• Attack - Similar to HP, the main stat from which others build up
  
• Crit Chance -multiplies effective attack by 1+ (CritChance*(CritMultiplier - 1))
  
• CritMultiplier - same as above. These two stats can multiply attack a lot if you have them together. But only one of them by itself is a minor buff and also you need to have high attack in the first place.

Star power
Star power is what you see as the hero's overall strength. While the formula of calculating star power is not known, several important observations based on testing:

• Star power is a sum of attack power and tank power. Being a sum, as opposed to multiplle leads to underestimating offensive tanks and tough spellcasters, while overestimatinng pure tanks and glass cannons
  
• When calculating the unique abilities of ninja and dancer, the formula seems to estimate the chance for them to get targeted each turn by direct or AOE attack at around 20%. Usually it's around 45-60% depending on whether a red type is present. This results in major overestimationn of Ninja (who benefits from not being targeted) and underestimation of Dancer (who benefits from being targeted)

So while star power is a good shortcut for estimating how strong your characters are at a glance, it can also be very misleading when comparing characters of different builds.

Tier 1 Heroes

• You can go with the traditional Warrior+Thief+Mage or 2xWarrior+Mage.
  
• Basically you need the warrior to tank, the mage to DPS, and can fill the third slot however you like (thief can do a bit of both, second warrior will protect the mage better, second mage will dispose of enemies faster)
  
• Tier 1 heroes tend not to matter or stick around too much since early content is easy and Tier 2 heroes are just around the corner.

Tier 2 Heroes

• A solid option here is just to go with 3xMonk. Monk does not have good synergies but is simply a good all-rounder that outshines the rest of the classes via high criticals and evasion. You can also gear them easily
  
• Rerolling monks for better critical chance and evasion skills is generally a good idea as they'll stick around in your roster for a while, being versatile enough to fill any route
  
• Bubble element enchantment are a good thing to consider crafting and leveling as they boost monk skills and will also be useful for later heroes
  
• Eagle spirit enchantments work best with monk's critical damage boost
  
• Green types are a bit more reliant on luck than other classes - their DPS is based on Critical chance, and their survivability rests somewhat on their evasion, meaning they can perform better or worse in both roles based on luck
  
• Alternative is to go the more classic Barbarian/Monk/Cleric or Barbarian/Monk/Mage. However, barbarians are not good tanks, and Cleric is not a good DPS, making the classic build less attractive at Tier 2 than at other tiers

Tier 3 Heroes

• Knight+2xDruid is very powerful at this tier
  
• Knight is an extremely tanky hero due to high defence, meaning they can survive long. However they have very low damage so surviving is pointless unless someone can bring in the damage. You want defence and HP skills on your knights to make them shine. Attack, critical and evasion skills are less relevant.
  
• Druid is a good DPS but also quite good at surving occasional stray hits and AOEs. Thus as long as the knigth is taking most of the damage they can consistently dish out good damage until they bring the enemy down, making them a very strong synergy. Druids need mostly attack skills to compensate for their deficiency on that front, criticals also help a bit.
  
• Knight+Monk+Druid is still an adeqate build as the Monk's DPS can match the Druid
  
• With Musketeer you need guns (paid content) to make them shine. Their main advantage over monk is their 3rd skill slot but overall the two classes are very comparable.

Tier 4 Heroes

• 2xRanger+Sorcerer seems to be best at this tier
  
• Rangers have higher attack but much less defence than Knight making them much worse as defence tanks.
  
• The only way to make Rangers truly shine is evasion skills - if you get enough of them on the Ranger this turns them into a great evasive tank, and the rest buffs and higher attack definitely are nice extra perks
  
• Alternatively, attack boosts turn them into offensive tanks, and a good companion to a pure glass cannon Sorcerer.
  
• Ranger+2xSorcerer is also a decent choice but you'll have to deal with regular Sorcerer injuries.
  
• Sorcerers benefit most form attack skills and tend to get plenty of those but bear in mind those give diminishing returns - +100% skill means 2x damage, two +100% skills mean 3x damage, so the second skill effectively adds +50% real increase. Weapon attack multipliers are counted separately but problem is Sorcerer's attack does not come from weapons. HP skills work really great on them as they increase survivability and consequently the damage they can do before they kick it. Defence and evasion are useless with low HP, while critical chance and damage skills need to be paired with each other to snowball, which is unlikely to happen on the Sorcerer making them inferior to pure attack boosts, even with the diminishing returns on those.
  
• Ranger+Monk/Musketter+Sorcerer is also ok but the Monk/Musketeer is neither tanking or DPSing well enough to match the Ranger/Sorcerer in usefulness
  
• Knight and Druid are still ok but they synergize with each other better than with Ranger/Sorcerer due to being specialized in long battles and survivability
  
• Wanderer is ok on its own but a bad team player. They can be good evasive tanks but they have too low Threat for a proper tank (so they don't attrack damage as well to shield others) and they don't bring as much damage to the table as the Monk/Musketeer

Tier 5 Heroes

• Samurai as a defence tank - compared to Knight they lack in defence (both shield slot and innate skill) but benefit from the HP given by the potion slot which synergizes well with their high defence. They also have one more skill slot at level 35. Overall will struggle compared with a good defensive Knight or evasive Ranger
  
• Samurai as an offensive tank - their innate skill boosts them a lot in this role but they lack attack item slots. So they need a good weapon skill for their innate to be relevant at all. Overall they're more likely to strike a balance between offensive and defensive tank rather than specialize.
  
• Ninja is a major upgrade over Monk/Musketeer, bringing the green types back into the meta. Evasion, critical damage and critical chance skills work great on them, making them compete with red types in tankiness and blue types in DPS in the same time. They are a bit riskier though as once an enemy targets them and breaks through their evasion to hit them once, their power drops.
  
• Spellblade is a bit underwhelming. Their flexible slots make them easy to equip and boost with elements, and they get good defence for a blue type. However they struggle in the DPS department and they're not too great in survivability either, as blue types need HP, not def. A good skill roll can still make them good enough. However the larger pool of skills they have access to makes that hard to achieve - they get a lot of defense, evasion skills and critical skills which they can't make use of. Their level 35 skill slot is their only major advantage.

Tier 6 heroes

• Berserker's yet another hybrid tank, though definitetely better than the Samurai. It's main advantage is its HP. Main disadvantage is lack of focus. If it gets evasion skills it can become a good evasive tank. If it gets defense-boosting skills it can become a good defensive tank. Some damage skills can help it pack a bit of a punch, though definitely nothing comparing to green/blue classes. However, it can very easily get into the "jack of all trades master of none" situation where it has a bit of evasion, a bit of defence, but neither high enough to provide major damage reduction
  
• Dancer is... awesome. Once its evasion gets high enough it's a decent evasive tank, and with some attack skills (weapon-boosting skill is a must) it can deal lots of damage too. Should avoid combining it with red types as that's a real waste of their potential to tank and retaliate. Other dancers or sturdy geomancers work best
  
• Geomancer has good HP, herb slot (more HP) and a strong attack-boosting innate. Their DPS potential is still slightly below that of the Sorcerer, due to lacking second spell slot. But the major HP advantage means a lot more staying power, provided their tank escort doesn't kick it too fast. Overall they are what the spellblade is pretending to be - a proper sturdy and powerful DPS-er

[DZHAMSHUD]

топ

[Ertxx]

but overal good

[Ertxx]

update for T7 heros

[Skydiver]

Well tier 1-2 are quite bad due to less skills slots. Tier 3-4 depends on what skills they rolled and if those enhance their class to its full potential. Bad combination - delete right now and re-recruit. Great combination - that's a keeper, may be worth giving a Titan soull. Average combination - those are the ones you keep initially but delete later to make space for your preferred tier 5-6 types.

[SeaGoblin]

so like, by end game, should you want to delete all your tier 1/2/3/4 heroes and recruit only tier 6?

[Julimo]

Thank you so much !

[Flinch]

This is a nicely made guide. I disagree on some points, but you do a decent job at expressing why you believe those opinions. So I wouldn't say you are wrong. Some thoughts:
I put spellblade, geomancer, and druid very close together in how well they do. I prefer 1-2 spellblades for their ease of equipment if you need to send someone out to get components and the cost of equip loss would be too high (aka it's a money saver class[even if you bought the engineer]). If you get a spellblade with rest reduction I personally would never, ever get rid of them. Other things are too minor to mention, and you did a great job weighing it so others can form their own opinions. Great work.

[SnofruBlack]

thanks ;)

[熊熊]

This guide was super helpful for someone like me just starting out.

[CelesticLeo]

This guide was super helpful for someone like me just starting out.