Fighting in Elemental Heroes. Essentials Guide

Essentials or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the bomb this stuff.
Actually, this is a rough translation of the guide [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=644146635] made by alik.kpi

Combat Basics

The fight is taken place on the board which is divided into hexagonal cells, 12 cells wide and 8 cells high. The fight is turn-based, each unit is moved in its turn depending on its speed and which side was attacked. When all units finish their turns the new round is started. Each round the player can use magic spell just once. Combat is finished either when all units of some army are dead, either when one of the players decided to give up (details see below Surrender).

Here is a screenshot which was made in the early stage of a game.

Translator's remark:
Units are actually cards, each allows you to summon one creature for the battle. Cards have health points (HP) and charges. HP determine how much damage this creature can take before it dies, and if, unfortunately, it dies you lose 1 charge of creature's card. Card charge is spent in case of unit death only. If your creature had 1 HP remaining at the moment battle was finished next time you go into battle this creature has 100% health.

New cards and cards charges can be received after a victorious battle (the higher tier of the card, the lesser is the chance to get it) or bought for gold / diamonds (cards charges can be bought for diamonds only). My advice: do not buy new cards for diamonds you would need them for upgrading cards and premium mode.

Three basic cards have an unlimited quantity of charges. There are 14 tiers of cards for each race (Nature, Fire, Ice and Shadow). The 14th tier cards are actually boss cards

Ground and Flying Units

By the type of moving units fall into 2 categories: ground-bound and flying ones. The flying unit can fly over enemy/friendly unit or any obstacle on the board, ground ones just have to walk around. That brings us to the quite important thing in the game -- obstacles.

Obstacles

The game put some obstacles onto the battlefield in a random way; these cells are not passable for ground units and no unit can be onto this cell. Such 'relief' can be put to your advantage, for example if the battlefield is divided so there is only one pass (or even 2) you can block it with the only one unit (or two). Just mind that if you expose your 'blocker' unit to more than approach to it, it will be attacked from as many sides as possible.

Melee and Shooting Units

Units are of two types: melee fighters and shooters.

Melee units (and they are more common here) can attack from the cell next to enemy's unit only (up and close).

Shooters can strike enemy units at any distance, however if the mark is out of range (distance is larger than 7 cells) the damage would be just a half of a normal shot. In this case attack icon over the enemy unit is shown as a broken arrow (no weapon is lost, just out of range).


In the case your target is standing on the nearby cell, shooter's damage also would be halved (that's a penalty for the shooter in close quarters combat, the only unit which does not have this penalty is Fire Golem). So, naturally, before making a shot it would be wise to move this unit away from enemy standing too close; or move it closer if the distance is bigger than 7 cells. It is important to stress it out: moving shooter unit does not end its turn. It is possible to move it closer or move it out and after that make a shot. Another important note is that if a shooter is standing close to the enemy unit it can not attack some distant unit, only the closest one.

Counter-Attack (Retaliation)

During melee combat (when you are attacking unit next to your cell, either with melee, either with shooter unit) if enemy unit survives it usually strikes back (exceptions are given below in Unit Unique Traits section). Every unit can retaliate one time per round.

So here is a tip - strike opponent unit with either unit with the largest Defense, either with a useless one to 'take off' counter-attack so all your further attacks would not be retaliated. However there are units that can strike back twice (as Vampire), or retaliate every time they are attacked (as Griffin and Shadow Gladiator), watch out when you attack them.

There is no counter-attack for the shot from the distance. Obviously, it is not effective to go for melee with a shooter unit (it will inflict only half of possible damage and will get hit back). On the contrary, attacking enemy shooter with your melee unit is a very good idea: the retaliation would be only half of its normal power, thus if that shooter would not have a place for maneuver to move out, it would either skip the turn or strike with half of its possible damage plus retaliation.

Turn - Possible Actions

During its turn, the unit can move, attack, end its turn, wait (postpone its turn), use its special ability (of course if the unit has any, see section below).

It is possible to move unit for the amount of cells equal to its Speed (if Speed=5 then this unit can move for 5 cells during the round).

• The movement does not end the turn if there is a possibility to move it few cells more or to attack. It is possible to move unit close to enemy and attack or select attack icon from the very beginning (in that case unit will move and attack at once).
  Attack always ends unit's turn.
  It may be useful to split movement and attack. E.g. move your unit few cells away, apply 'Ghosts' spell on area taken by the enemy, then come back and hit.
  
  
• To end turn may happen to be necessary, when the unit have not used all movement available and can not for some reason attack enemy. If unit ends turn without any movement it takes a defensive stance and gets +10% bonus to defense.
  
  
• To wait - this is to postpone unit's turn until all units finished their turns (both enemy and yours) and only after that to make your move. The Wait option is available if current unit *did not move* a single cell. It may be tactically beneficial to postpone your turn in case when you expect the enemy unit to come closer (either within range of shooter unit, either within movement distance of melee one).

Time for unit’s turn is limited. In case of fighting the mob - it is 3 minutes, and in case of PvP - it is 30 seconds. If this time run out the turn is ended automatically. Use your time wisely.

Turn Priority

Combat is divided into rounds during which each unit (card) has its turn to move (unless some special cases, see below Magic). At first turn priority will be given to units with the highest Speed value. In other words, if armies are built up with units that have Speed 6, 5 and 3, first of all there will be moved all units with Speed 6 from either side, then units with Speed 5 and only after that units with Speed 3. In case units in the same army have the same Speed, the one which initially stood higher on the battleground will be moved first (on the initial screen of hall these cards are leftmost in your hand). In case of different armies the priority will be given to unit from the attacking side (on the battlefield attacking army is always put on the left side of screen), then the one from another side, and so on. So priorities are:

1. Speed
   
2. Attacking army and
   
3. Slot number

Example. Let the attacking army consists of:
Ifrit (Speed 4), Asp (Speed 5), Demoness (Speed 5), Fire Golem (upgraded to 10th lvl, Speed 6) and Fire Mage (Speed 4)

And defender has:
Griffin (Speed 6), Kirin (Speed 6), Monkey king (Speed 3), Minotaur (Speed 4) and Firefly (Speed 4)
So turn priority will look like:
Fire Golem, Griffin, Kirin, Asp, Demoness, Ifrit, Minotaur, Fire Mage, Firefly and Monkey King.

If more than one unit has used a wait option, then turn priority is given in the reversed order, e.g. after postponing their turn the slowest units will be moved first and the fastest ones will get their turn at the end.

For example, you attack having on your hand Satyr (upgraded to 10th lvl, Speed 6) and the fastest card of your opponent is only of speed 6; so if you postpone Satir’s turn, it will get 2 turns consequently, at the end of round one and on the beginning of round two.

If the unit was frozen/blinded it misses its turn. You can dispell the curse with Dispell bad, however, if the turn is currently given to slower unit, the cursed unit will still miss its turn in this round. The exception is given in case that unit has postponed its turn before it was cursed. In such case after dispelling this unit gets its turn after all units finish their turns in the current round.

Example:
You participate in boss raid vs Frost Giant with army of Shadow units, the fastest unit is Shadow Spirit, it is also put in the leftmost slot. Other units from left to right: Vampire, Death, Dark Angel and Leach. In the previous round you casted Ghosts 4th level on the Frost Giant, this spel slowed down boss for 2 rounds. At the beginning of the current round Shadow Spirit postponed its turn, then turn was given to Frost Giant. The Giant casted Block of Ice on Shadow Spirit, Vampire and Dark Angel. The next unit to move is Death. If you cast mass dispel, Vampire will not be given a turn, while Shadow Spirit will get its postponed turn.

Information About Yourself and your Opponent

The click on the panel with avatar and character nickname opens a box with information about race (icon in the bottom left corner of avatar), class (icon to the right of previous one) and main stats of your character or of your opponent.

Unit Information

During combat you can get an information about any unit on the battleground just click-and-hold on this unit (actually on the cell which this unit is standing on). In the opened panel there are all main stats of the unit, health points, short description (melee or shooting type, ground or flying, speciality if any, quantity of magic charges, card tier (the number in the right bottom corner of unit picture) and upgrade level (the number in the right upper corner of unit picture). Also all spell effects (buffs and debuffs) are shown here as icons.

Attack/Defense, Dodge and Damage calculation

To distinguish damage from melee/shooting attack from the damage made by spell, let’s call the first one ‘physical’, and the second - ‘magical’.
The result of physical attack can be following:

• the strike is blocked
  
• target dodged from attack
  
• some damage is received
  
• critical damage is received

In case of block and dodge no damage is applied. In case of critical - the damage is doubled.

Every card has min-max range of damage it can inflict, when the target is attacked first of all some number from this range is randomly picked up, this number is called base damage. This base damage can be either increased or decreased depending on unit’s Attack vs target’s Defense.

The damage is calculated in following way: for base damage the random number is picked up from the range of minimal and maximal , then attacker Attack and target Defense are compared. If Attack is greater than Defense, then damage will be increased proportionally, if less - then decreased proportionally, if they are equal, the base damage remains the same.

In case the attacker unit has a special ability like ‘ignores 40% of defense’ (e.g. Horror), then the remaining (only 60% for Horror) part of Defense value will be used for the calculation of damage.

If shooting unit attacks engaged in melee combat, then melee penalty is applied (50% damage). The ‘broken arrow’ penalty is applied if target is out of range (more than 7 cells).

If attacker has a trait ‘hates someone’ (like the case with Snow Witch, it hates Priestess), then its damage is increased for 50%.

The applied damage is decreased by amount of Physical Defense (character statistics, can be checked in Inventory screen) in percents

Spell Book

During the turn of your unit, once per round, you can use a spell from your book of magic.

Spells are of following types:

• applying damage (to 1 target or to some area)
  
• healing (recovering hp)
  
• buffing or debuffing some unit stats (Attack, Defense, Speed, and so on)
  
• applying shield from damage (either physical, either both; from 20% up to 50%)
  
• increasing dodge chance from physical attack
  
• blind/freeze (forcing unit to miss its turn)
  
• immobilizing (unit does not miss its turn, but cannot move)
  
• forbidding shooting (unit can not shoot but can engage enemy in melee)
  
• dispelling good spells from enemy units or dispelling bad spells from yours.

Every spell has its price in Mana points. Amount of your Mana is shown in the bottom of right page (also it shown beneath your avatar, a numbers in violet color, current / max). The maximal amount of mana depends on Knowledge stat (max mana = knowledge * 10). Of course, Mage class has more mana than Fighter, also more powerful and upgraded spells cost more points of mana, thus mages can use much more powerful spells.

Some spells after being upgraded to 4th level becomes even more powerful and are applied ‘en masse’ (e.g. mass healing heals all units in your army). There are two exeptions: mass Dispel bad and mass Dispel good are available after upgrade to 2nd lvl.

If you have some spell upgraded to 2nd, 3rd, 4th level (4th is maximal) you still can use spells of 1st, 2nd and 3rd level. But if you are using only max version you can check box with ‘show max upgrade only’.

Power of some spells (damage, healing) depends from Spell power stat (of course, mage has this stat higher than fighter, thus mage deal much more magical damage).

If you happen to got into fight without full mana, during first round (before first use of magic) you can buy 100% of mana for 1 diamond (‘+’ button below mana amount). It maybe useful in 3rd portal, when you spent all your mana in PvP fight and need mana to deal with boss.

Remark from translator:
There is no either mass Blind, either mass Block of Ice.

Combo of spells:

• Mass Slow down and then mass Speed
  
  
• Mass Roots and then Ghosts 4th lvl
  
  
• Mass Roots and then mass ‘Don’t shoot’

The spells above are quite easy to obtain and upgrade, so expect that they will be used against you.

Mana can be Restored With

• wait some time without fight; each 3 minutes it is restored for 10%, so from 0% to 100% it tooks 30 minutes.
  
• visit magic well, it exists on every location, can be visited as many times as you need; each visit restores mana up to 100%, each visit costs you 1 action point.
  
• get level-up (both mana and action points are restored to max amount).
  
• buy 100% mana for 1 diamond (either in combat, either in hall, either on the location).
  
• user with premium account always starts combat with 100% of mana.

It is worth to note that premium account is useful exactly for the 3rd portal, as well as 100% mana for each fight, either for larger chance of getting boss card.

Duration of Spell Effects

Both positive and negative spells have a effect duration – a number of rounds during which they are applied, after reaching end of last round these spells lost their effect. If spell duration is only 1 round its effect will be dismissed at the end of the current round, thus it is more effective to cast it at the beginning of the round, otherwise it would be in effect for a very short period of time (e.g. if it is turn of the last unit and the spell is casted, as soon as turn will be finished the spell will be dismissed).

Race Bonus

If army consists of units of the same allegiance (like nature), then it receives race bonus. Each race has its own bonus.

Ice gives bonus to Defense, enhance defensive spells, increase chance to block physical attack and Physical Defense (character stat shown on the Inventory screen).


Ice bonus for 35th level player

Fire gives bonus to Attack, to duration of positive spells, increase chance to deal critical damage, some part of target defense is ignored.


Fire bonus for 35th level player

Nature boosts health points, improves healing spells and Physical and Magical Defense.


Nature bonus for 35th level player

Shadow provides bonus to damage from spells, duration of negative spells is prolonged, increases chance to dodge from incoming attack and add ability to steal mana.


Shadow bonus for 35th level player

Amount of available bonuses changes depending on character level. In combat it is easy to see if race bonus is applied by presence of special race icon (in the upper corner, just beneath avatar of the character). Exact numbers are given in tooltip for this icon.

There is no definitive answer which race is better and if it worth to build army to keep this bonus, or put only strongest units in it. It depends not only on your style and tactics but also what units are accessible for you. It is usually considered that race bonus for Shadow is the best for the mage; bonus of Ice or Fire is the best for the fighter, and Nature bonus is for rogue. However your opinion could be different, so try and experiment, create your own build.

Unit Unique Traits

Most of units have their own unique traits, so here is a short list

• Frostling and Shadow keeper have natural magic resistance, so they can dodge from enemy spell.
  
  
• Imp and Shadow Demon have chance to dodge from physical attack.
  
  
• There is no retaliation for the attack of Mara, Asp, Demoness, Hellhound, Hydra and Shadow Assasin
  
  
• some creatures can attack twice, such as Bars Rider, Illuminant, Chimera, Dark Archer and Fallen Angel
  
  
• more than one target can be attacked by: Fire Mage, Hellhound, Balrog, Red Dragon, Hydra and Leach.
  
  
• some units have rather high chance to deal critical hit (plus to players one), these are: Polar Bear, Volcano, Minotaur and Basilisk.
  
  
• additionally to physical attack some units can also cast magic spell, such creatures like: Yeti (Stun), Ice Eagle (Frost Lightning), Frost (Freeze), Kelpie (Frost Lightning 4th lvl), Zimova (Slow down), Priestess (Blind), Firefly (weakness), Kirin (Blind), Satir (Immobilize) and Devourer (decrease defense to 0)
  
  
• Ice Golem and Frost Giant have magic defense (up to 50%)
  
  
• Ice Knight and Dark Guardian have physical defense (up to 40%)
  
  
• Shadow Spirit can steal mana from opponent.
  
  
• Phoenix has 50% chance to re-birth after death.

Some units have active abilities - they can cast spells on friendly units. When such unit got turn all units upon which its spell can be casted are highlighted with blue glow. Applying of such ability ends unit turn (as like as attack), so if it is necessary to move out it is better to do prior casting a spell.

• Snow Witch (Frost Shield - physical defense)
  
  
• Shaman (Bloodlust -- increase damage dealt by unit to the max value – analogue of Might spell)
  
  
• Monkey King (Heal)
  
  
• Driada (Dispell bad)
  
  
• Death (Bring back dead unit of Shadow race)

Demoness has ability to get back to the starting point, good for hit and run tactic. If it necessary to do not get back, at first move her in cell next to target, then attack.

Trint during attack nets target with its roots, target cannot move until this Trint dies or moves out.

Vampire attacks with consuming health points from its target (50% of damage that was dealt to target); can retaliate for 2 attacks.

In the case when Cannibal deals a final blow to target it heals its health points by amount of max hp of victim. It is very effective to finish with Cannibal units that had big max hp.

Ifrit has a Fire Shield. It is activated if Ifrit was attacked directly; it is activated even if Ifrit was killed, this shield strikes back with 50% of damage that was calculated for the attack. Thus if Ifrit had only 3hp, and was attacked by Vampire with calculated damage of 250, Vampire will be hit with fire for 125 of damage.

Fire mage besides target also attacks all cells around the target (so he can deal damage to 1-7 units). So watch out, it can be dangerous both for enemy and your units, especially if you are lower than 10th lvl.

Damage from Leach shot is applied not only to the target but also to all nearby units except Shadow ones. In case of Shadow units damage is applied to the target, no area effect for Shadow units standing in nearby cells. Melee attack from Leach has no area effect.

Red Dragon attacks with fire covering 2 cells, the target cell and one behind it. This flame can hurt friendly units as well. Translator's remark: this area effect is not applied for boss minions.

Artefacts

With help of artefacts player alter and enhance necessary character stats, chances for dodging (both magic and physical attack), magical and physical defense, speed. It is possible to collect sets that increase dodge (magic and/or physical) chance to maximum, or increase health and Spell power. Just remember that the total chance for dodge (it calculates from units one + artefact bonus + race bonus + magic spell ‘Shadow’) cannot be higher than 80%. The same is true for physical/magical defense.

Settings

In Settings (icon with gear in right bottom corner) you can switch off music and/or sound effects, also you can switch on accelerated combat animation. This is highly recommended to swicth on this setting, it significantly reduces time required for combat.

Translator's remark:
Time required for combat is really important in 3rd portal, as its first part is basically a race for a limited time through the maze with at least 5 mobs standing your way.

Surrender: Retreat or Buyout

Don’t pick up the fight you cannot win. If you see that there’s no chance to win the fight, or even worse, you cannot deal even minimal damage to your opponent – consider surrender as not an option but the only possible of way out. Retreat has 2 options: to retreat - run away with losing charges for all cards you have in hand (not the best choice) or to buyout either for gold, either for diamonds and keep charges for cards that survived. The exact sum of buyout depends on army strength; price in diamonds is totally inadequate, so my advice is to buyout for gold.

Addendum

Locations

The are 8 locations in each portal. Each location is aligned to some race, most of mobs on this location are of the same race. Each race has its own starting location and one more location. Inside your starting location you cannot be attacked, however you certainly can be (and will be) attacked. The second location which I mentioned has an obelisk.

Obelisks

Obelisks are present on each second location, in other words there are obelisks for each race in each portal. These obelisks are actually portals to dungeon location. Inside these you can find resource piles and treasure chest, however to get them you have to fight with 3 mobs. These 3 mobs are even more important for the player, as you get a card of monster after you won the fight with it. Even in 1st portal these dungeons can significantly improve your army and inventory (3rd mob usually drops something useful and chest may hide even blue artefact besides a chance of getting card with this monster). But obelisk becomes even more important in 2portal as you can get a card of 11th tier inside of the obelisk dungeon.

So inside obelisk

• on Ice location you can get Polar Bear,
  
• on Nature location – Devourer,
  
• on Fire location – Fire Elemental,
  
• on Shadow location – Leach

Quests

Quests usually allows player to get diamonds for free, so daily quests are quite as a source of free diamonds. However some quests are actually better be postponed, such as ones with resetting portals. Some times grind is not what you really need in this game. Receiving experience during grind leads to higher level and expose you to even more dangerous players and brings more hire level (and tier) mobs. So you have to think twice before resetting portal, it may be more wise to wait a little bit and upgrade your card or spell before getting a new level.

There is a little trick for those who get bugged with being attacked over and over. If you buy shield 30 minutes before 12PM UTC+2.00 (the end of day in Kyiv) you can finish your daily quests (before the end of day and after). Thus you will get 3 + 3 diamonds for quests, having spent 5, at the end you will have +1 diamond. Of course, this game is all about fighting with other players but if you cannot survive any fight, it is better to use this tactic.
If you don't care about your rating you can use few more tricks:

1. You can have no army at all - in other words all card slots can be empty, thus if you get attacked you lose this fight automatically. This tactic can be used for gathering resources from mills.
   
2. You can put in these slots your 3 basic cards (their charge quantities are endless), or you can have a second team (build up from cards you are not using); in this case you can survive initial hit and retaliate with some spell (e.g. Ghosts 4th level).

[creatio]

Really cool!

[alik.kpi]

Good job!

[Dar3devil]

Please, feel free to comment if you find any error or typo