I hope you’re enjoying Crush Them All.  If you’re looking for more information on the available heroes, this is the place.  I describe how to get each hero, what they are useful for, and which runes to give them.  There is so much to talk about for every hero, and I will be adding to this over time.  There are so many interesting heroes, that I could write about them for ages. I hope this helps you.

General Information of CTA Hero Encyclopedia

The recommendations will mostly be based on PVP.  Some PVE builds will be mentioned, but they will be specifically called out. The builds on here are mostly vanilla builds, not niche team builds.  There are a lot more possibilities than what is contained here.  Feel free to experiment.  Feel free to build a hero I say not to use materials on. 

I use the following terms to describe at what stage a hero is useful.  They do not have precise definitions, but here are ballpark numbers:

1. Early Game – Up until you get about four 7 heroes
2. Mid Game – Once you have about four 7, but are still using Common heroes in your arena team
3. Late Game – When your arena team is no longer using Common heroes
4. End Game – When  your arena team is no longer using Rare heroes (with 1 or 2 exceptions)

For me, Early Game took about 9 months to a year.  I moved to Late game at about 16 months, and will still be here for another year or more.

I expect that the rune suggestion part of this encyclopedia will be the most used part.  Therefore, let me tell you a thing or two about runes.  Most people are going to get most of their runes from the Blitz shop.  Viking and Nature (available Wednesday and Thursday) are the two best, followed by Assassin, then Navarre, then either Solar or Ice depending on your tactics.  I don’t recommend buying Valken, as burning is not very good.  You can also buy Epic Rune Chests, and whales certainly should.  

Rune Dust is used to upgrade runes, and is difficult to come by.  Therefore, except for your first set or two, you really want to only upgrade good 4 star and above runes.  The longer you play, the more picky you want to be with your runes.  Early on, it’s fine to just match the recommended set.  End Game, you’ll be looking for the correct set with the correct primaries with the correct secondaries. Mikado and Arwim have taken the rune recommendations from this guide and created a rune spreadsheet that shows the different useful rune combinations.

I’ve added a Target Late/End Game Rune Stats section to the better heroes.  This basically assumes you’ll have 7* Scud, 7* Onyx, and one 7* crit sister, and is designed against Ornok, although it should still be viable against glad.  It assumes max 5* runes, with perfect set, primary, and 1-2 desired secondaries.  

For backline DPS, I mention 750 range.  This is a guideline, earlier in the game you don’t need nearly as much, later you may want more. The width of the Arena is 1800 units wide from crystal to crystal, so there is only so much range that can be useful.  If you build speed teams you could use more, but generally you’re going to meet near the middle.  Therefore there is little use going above 900 range. 

For crushers in the slay event and heroes that get the Arena buff, the buff does not actually change your base stats.  The team buffs are excluded from this buff, but runes (and artifacts for Slay Event) do get the buff.  Because of this, you can’t count on ATK team buffs during the weeks your heroes get the Arena buff, and you still need to use Damage runes for your damage dealing heroes.  

Sometimes I’ll offer more than 3 sets, but you can only equip 3.  What this means is it may be team dependent, or rune quality dependent.  Heroes like Valkyrie aren’t very useful early on, but her team buff is vital in the end game.  Having her crit buff can change the optimal rune sets.  Early on, you won’t even have scud for his buff, and adding that may change them too.  Damage is really important early on, but less so later on as your atk buffers gain stars.

General class information:

• Knights have a shield that provides 20% shield HP (cannot be healed).  Attacks cannot hit the shield and the hero at the same time, so it requires at least 2 hits to kill a knight

• Lancers get a 30% chance to stun.  It’s not that noticeable on most heroes, but on Monki King and Ser Shu, it is very noticeable

• Brawlers have a hit combo, which increases their damage as their combo counter increases.  The damage is increased by 5% per combo, and it’s exponential.  So your damage is multiplied by 1.05^(combo_count).  There’s a max combo of 30, which gets a multiplier of 4.32

• Rogues have a 10% base dodge chance and get 2x more gold, which means 3x gold.  The gold is ok for staging.  Luka, Pinky, and Kasumi are rogues, so it’s convenient that they are the best stagers of their element

• Samurai have a high chance to evade AOE damage.  Since they have low attack range, this doesn’t matter too much, but if you can get the attack range to hide behind a tank, they can survive a long time.  Their SP2 says it has a “high chance to do a critical hit,” but I tested Kage, and it does about the same as an sp1.  I’m guessing it just means they have higher base crit rates than most heroes.

• Rangers have a 100% chance to crit against flying heroes.  This isn’t usually important because by the time you clear their front line heroes, the battle is decided

• Gunners ignore 96% of opponent Def. 

I use the term Base Attack to refer to damage before Def is applied.  Gunners can do more damage, but have a lower Base Attack, since they ignore 96% of Def.  I use the term Base DPS to refer to Base Attack times Base Attacks Per Second.  Again, Def is ignored for this term.  Net DPS includes Crit Chance and Crit Damage.

Debuffs work differently in CTA than in some other games.  Instead of subtracting the debuff, they use this equation: (1+Rune_Buff + multiplier*Team_Buff)/(1+multiplier*Debuff), where the multiplier is normally 1, 0.2 in Arena, and 0.15 in Blitz, and Buff and Debuff are in decimal form (buff = buff%/100%).  Because of this, Debuffs can be over 100% and work fine.

I have provided some damage calculation analysis here.  I’m using a damage calculator I created, provided here.  If you find things in my calculator that don’t match what you see, let me know.  I’ve tried verifying it as much as I can, but there are limitations.

I give a lot of my own opinions here, so I feel like I should give my “credentials.”  I’m right under 8mil total power, with 5.5mil of that being hero power.  I’m ranked 1289 in total power, but I’m able to generally stay in Legendary 1, moving up or down on good weeks or bad.  I get top 100 in The Warlord Coliseum (third tier of Blitz).  I do spend on the game, I’m about midway between f2p and whale, at 525 days.  I created an Alt account when I wrote my beginner guide, and have tested out much of what is written there.  At 30 days, it has 168k power, and is in Platinum 2 Arena, and I used 800 of its flooz to reset my guild library.  Outside the game, I’m an engineer, and that has given me a pretty good understanding of the math in the game.  I’ve spent a lot of time on the CTA Discord, asking and answering questions, so I’m usually repeating the general consensus from there.

Akwa

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Water Hero Chest

Base Stats: 48 ATK, 48 DPS, 1.0 APS, 360 HP, 20 Def, 200 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description: Water Energy Ball shoots a ball of energy pushing back opponents and dealing x0.25 damage to each enemy hit.  It has a width, so it can miss ground units based on the spawn height of Akwa relative to other heroes.

Team Buff: 10% Attack Speed – per 10% Attack Speed – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP and PVE: Attack Speed Buffer.  End Game: Freeze or DPS

Early Runes Sets:Don’t spend many materials until late game

Late Freeze Build Runes Sets: Vitality, Chilling (ideally 11+% freeze chance), and either Swift or Damage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 200, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

Late DPS Build Runes Sets: Vitality, Damage, and one of the following: Swift, Rage, Precise

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 200, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 200+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries, Primaries)
• 17.5+% Crit Rate or Freeze Rate (Precise or Chilling)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 50+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 50+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Akwa is kind of a niche hero.  Her buff is water attack speed, so she’s usually paired up with either Atlantus or a freeze group with heroes such as Frost Queen, Namida, Snowman, and pirato.  She has decent enough HP and Def to survive in the front line, as long as she is not the very front.  She also does decent damage.  Her sp2 has pushback, which can slow down the dps of backline heroes. This sp2 has a width, so it may not hit all ground heroes, it depends on Akwa’s height, and the height of opponent ground heroes.   As a brawler, her damage increases with her combo, this includes her sp2.  Combine all of this and she is placed in the A Tier for PVP.  I generally wouldn’t place her in a team as the sole water hero though.

For runes, there’s two options for Akwa, depending on who is with her on her team.  If she’s going pure DPS, she wants Vitality for survival, then two damage rune sets: Swift, Damage, Rage, Precise.  If she’s going for a more crowd control path, she will want Vitality, Chilling, and swift.  Frost Queen will amplify the freezing capability of this, which is talked about in the Frost Queen section.  Either way, Akwa will want some attack range to ensure she is behind the front line tank, as she cannot be the most front tank.

Alda

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Fire Hero Chest

Base Stats: 38 ATK, 38 DPS, 1.0 APS, 240 HP, 6 Def, 555 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description: Multi Fire Arrows shoots five arrows each dealing x1 damage to the enemy hit. Each attack has a 10% chance to deal 0.6 ATK*base_aps for 5 seconds.

Team Buff: Universal 300% Crit Damage – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: all DPS teams

Primary Use: PVP: End game dps and buffer.  Guild Slay Event: Crit Buffer.

Early Runes Sets:Don’t spend many materials until late game

Late Burning Runes Sets: Three of: Burning, Ignite, Damage, Swift

Rune Primaries:

• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Burn Duration

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 35.2% to get to 750 range

Late DPS Runes Sets: Three of: Damage, Swift, Rage, Precise

Rune Primaries:

• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 35.2% to get to 750 range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Burning Option:

• 20+% Burn Chance (Ignite)
• 100+% Burn Duration (Burning, Primaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 35+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 50+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Crit Option:

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 125+% Crit Damage (Rage, Secondaries)
• 300+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 70+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 50+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Alda is one of the Crit Sisters.  She and Valkyrie are able to give Crit buffs to everyone and are fondly known as the Crit Sisters.  This makes her very good in both the Slay Event and PVP.  Alda is not in any Crusher Chests, which makes her difficult to obtain and difficult to get high .  Once she does get to 6.  Once she does get to 6, she can do great damage, especially against two commonly used earth tanks: Gladiator and Leaf Blade.  

For runes, I have provided two options.  I don’t have a high Alda, so I have not tested these options, one will probably dominate the other, I just don’t know which one will do it.  Alda has burn chance in both her sp1 and sp2, so she is one of the few heroes that has the chance to be a good burning hero.  The other hero is Spark, and Spark has a 100% chance to burn on her sp2.  Alda’s chance is much lower, so it’s not obvious if the burn build will be better than the pure DPS build.  It’s important to note that burning damage cannot crit, which is why few heroes use it.

Since I’m not sure how effective burning will be for Alda, I have provided options to that build: Burning, Ignite, Damage, and Swift, with Atk, Atk Speed, and Burning Duration primaries.  For the DPS build you’ll want three of: Damage, Swift, Rage, and Precise with Atk, Atk Speed, and Crit Damage primaries.  Either way, Alda will need about 35% attack range to keep her out of the front line AOE smasher range.

Angelica

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Legendary

Unlocked from: Legendary Chest

Base Stats: 42 ATK, 14 DPS, 0.333 APS, 500 HP, 20 Def, 650 Attack Range, 100

 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Revive has a 50% chance to revive a dead hero and provide a percent of their health back.  The health returned is based on her .  According to Menace 13: Angelica can revive the same hero multiple times, and she can revive two heroes in less than 10 seconds. I think she can’t revive the same hero in less than 10 seconds though, and I think she can’t revive two separate heroes in too short a period of time, but either it’s less than 10 seconds or it’s bugged.

Team Buff: Universal 500% HP – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: well in Slay boss for both survival and dps teams.

Primary Use: Slay Event: For her Ultimate

Runes Sets:  Intelligent – Don’t spend many materials on her

The lackluster Legendary.  At 3, Angelica is useful in the Guild Slay Event because her Ultimate doubles the attack of your team.  It also applies a shield, which may help too.  She has the lowest dps in the game, which basically makes her useless in PVP.  She can resurrect fallen heroes, but it’s not enough to add her to your Arena team.

Since her only real use is her ultimate in the Slay Event, give her weapon level 3 with Intelligent, and be done with her.

Arcana

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Light Hero Chest

Base Stats: 30 ATK, 30 DPS, 1.0 APS, 320 HP, 15 Def, 540 Attack Range, 150  Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Light Arrows shoots five arrows each dealing x1 damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: 200% Crit Damage – per 200% Crit Damage – per above 3

Synergizes with: team in blitz

Primary Use: Blitz: Crit buffer.  Guild Slay Event: Crit Buffer.

Runes Sets: Stunning optional  – Don’t spend many materials on her

Arcana is a mediocre rare hero.  Crit buffers are nice for the Guild Slay Event and blitz, but since she only buffs Light heroes, it doesn’t translate over to Arena unless you are starting with Spike.  Light doesn’t have enough dps heroes to justify using a Light only Crit buffer for Arena.

You don’t need to spend any materials on Arcana.  If you do, let me suggest Stunning.  She has a high attack rate, so she will occasionally stun for you.  Swift could be added to help with this, but it seems like more than you’d want to add.

Atlantus

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Atlantus Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 100 ATK, 40 DPS, 0.4 APS, 430 HP, 12 Def, 220 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Smash Attack jumps and smashes the ground dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 350 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Special Ability: Anti-Stun

Team Buff: 200% Crit Damage – per 200% Crit Damage – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Late game front line AOE smasher.  Guild Slay Event: Crusher – Hitter.

Crusher – Hitter Runes Sets: Swift, Precise, Frenzy

Rune Primaries:

• Crit Dmg
• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Specific

Late PVP Runes Sets: Vitality, Damage, then one of: Precise, Swift

Rune Primaries:

• A total of 70-150% AOE
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Dmg

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 220, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 300+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 250+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 200+% AOE (Primaries)
• 40+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

I love front line AOE smashers.  They have such high damage potential.  Atlantus can do this in the late game.  He is immune to stun, which is very useful with all the Monki King’s flying around in Diamond and Legendary.  He has his own Crusher Chest, which means you can increase his fairly easily.  Most people don’t because of the other heroes in his chest; only Onyx is good in PVP.  

Most people aren’t Hitters, so I’m just going to talk about the Late Game PVP Rune setup.  You’ll need Vitality as a front line dps, then two of: Damage, Precise, and Swift.  You probably won’t need Rage as Atlantus buffs crit damage.  For primaries, getting to 100% AOE is important, then Atk, Atk Speed, and Crit Damage.  Generally you don’t need attack range, but if your tank has attack range (based on what runes are available), then Atlantus may need some attack range too.

Bat

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 52 ATK, 52 DPS, 1.0 APS, 250 HP, 8 Def, 350 Attack Range, 250 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Rapid Darkness shoots three balls each doing 1.65x damage to one target

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with: beginner team with heroes

Primary Use: PVP: Early to mid game one on one dpser

Runes Sets: Damage, then two of: Swift, Precise, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk
• Crit Dmg
• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Specific

Until recently, Bat was the best common that is not a tank.  Dragon Bot has surpassed him.  Bat is a very good choice for your 4th common to get to 7.  Bat has very good dps for a common, but as a 4th hero, he may not make it to your arena team.  He will still be very useful in GW and Blitz.

For runes, early on you may not have many Atk buffers, and that makes the Damage set very valuable.  Swift, Precise, and Rage all increase your dps, so these are all useful too.  Early on use what you have.  Later on, look for Atk Speed, Atk, and Crit Dmg primaries.  These runes will be useful as long as bat is useful.

Big Eye

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 25 ATK, 25 DPS, 1.0 APS, 450 HP, 8 Def, 310 Attack Range, 180 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Rapid Charge shoots three balls each doing 1.65x damage to one target

Team Buff: none

Synergizes with: no one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

A flying tank.  If you can come up with a reason you need a flying tank, let me know!  Big Eye is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Black Beard

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Water Hero Chest

Base Stats: 45 ATK, 45 DPS, 1.0 APS, 360 HP, 12 Def, 150 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi-Hit attacks three times doing a total of 5x damage to one target

Team Buff: 400% Def – per 400% Def – per above 3

Synergizes with: blitz team

Primary Use: Blitz Tank

Runes Sets: Vitality

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Specific

Below average HP for a Knight.  He’s mostly used as a Tank for Blitz.

Blue Fish

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 32 ATK, 32 DPS, 1.0 APS, 310 HP, 8 Def, 350 Attack Range, 250 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Bubble Stream attacks three times each doing 1.65x damage to one target

Team Buff: none

Synergizes with: no one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Blue fish is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  You can give her chilling for freeze, or nothing.

Bugonaut Archer

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 28 ATK, 28 DPS, 1.0 APS, 200 HP, 15 Def, 424 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Fire shoots five arrows each dealing x1 damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: none

Synergizes with: no one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero.  Chilling is optional.

Bugonaut Archer is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  You can give him chilling for freeze, or nothing.

Bugonaut Fighter

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 30 ATK, 30 DPS, 1.0 APS, 240 HP, 15 Def, 120 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks seven times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: none

Synergizes with: no one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Bugonaut Fighter is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Bugonaut Giant

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 70 ATK, 35 DPS, 0.5 APS, 400 HP, 20 Def, 160 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks three times dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 dealing a total of 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Team Buff: none

Synergizes with: no one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Bugonaut Giant is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Bugonaut Spear

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 56 ATK, 28 DPS, 0.5 APS, 280 HP, 15 Def, 220 Attack Range, 110 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing Multi-Hit attacks one time (not sure why it’s called multi-hit) attacking all heroes in a line with a fixed aoe radius of XXX (cannot be increased), dealing 5x damage to each enemy hit.

Team Buff: none

Synergizes with: no one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Bugonaut Spear is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Bungun

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Easter Event, Reminiscence Event

Base Stats: 26.4 ATK, 22 DPS, 0.833 APS, 270 HP, 10 Def, 420 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Yolky Egg throws a big egg that lands behind the target dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 dealing 4.15x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.  It also has a 100% chance to blind that makes the blinded target miss 70% of the time.  This currently does not hit flying heroes, hopefully will change in the future.

Team Buff: 2% Dodge Rate – per 2% Dodge Rate – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: Blitz and GW: Crowd Control

Early Runes Sets: Don’t need much for Gold or Platinum, Swift Is nice

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Atk Range is nice

Late Runes Sets: Swift, Stunning, Dazed

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• AOE
• Stun Duration

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 78.5% to get to 750 range

Bungun has a lot of potential.  Her problem is that she is an event hero, and therefore very difficult to get to high .  You can use her at low .  You can use her at low with the Late Rune Set as a crowd control hero.  She does AOE, so she can crowd control the front line.  Her other downfall is that she doesn’t have a whole lot of base attack range, so she can be difficult to keep alive.  I feel like there are better crowd control heroes that are easier to use, like Frost Queen and Monki King.

For her runes, she needs Swift set, so that she gets to her sp2 quicker, and more chance to stun when you add the Stunning set.  Dazed is then used to increase the stun duration.  For primaries you’ll want atk speed, AOE, and Stun Duration.  She needs a fair amount of attack range ~80% to survive the Late Game Arena.

Chaos

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest, Furiosa Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 160 ATK, 80 DPS, 0.5 APS, 440 HP, 20 Def, 220 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi-Hit attacks three times dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 doing a total of 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Kronos did some testing through friendly battles, and it appears that the aoe starts about 170 in front of Chaos.

Team Buff: 400% Def – per 400% Def – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: PVP: Mid to Late Game Front Line DPS

Runes Sets: Vitality, Damage and one of the following: Nimble, Precise, Swift, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• HP
• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage
• AOE – Small Amounts

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 220, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise) or Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 250+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 400+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 30+% APS (Primaries)
• 50+% AOE (Primaries) – need about 2x the aoe as attack range
• 20+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Chaos is the front line killer.  His sp2 is a small aoe that can be devastating to a front line group.  Once people start using fewer front line heroes, his usefulness decreases, as his 1v1 damage isn’t as good.  The all dark teams love this guy, as there are not a lot of choices for dark tanks outside of Ornok.

Most people use him as the front line DPS.  You’ll need the vitality set for survival on the front line.  Then your choice of Damage, Precise, Swift, and Rage.  For primaries, use DPS primaries: Atk Speed, Atk, Crit Dmg, and possibly small amounts of AOE.  Some attack range may be needed to stay behind your front line tank.

For Dark Only teams, Chaos can be used as a pure Tank.  He has decent HP and great Def for a Tank.  You’ll want Vitality, Nimble, and Guard sets with HP primaries.  Look for Def and movement speed secondaries, but avoid attack range.  I didn’t put this in the primary use as it is a niche build.

Circe

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Halloween Event, Reminiscence Event

Base Stats: 100 ATK, 50 DPS, 0.5 APS, 250 HP, 6 Def, 545 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Possess takes control of an enemy hero for a duration that depends on of Circe, reduced if the opponent has higher of Circe, reduced if the opponent has higher .  She targets the 4 farthest back opponents within twice her attack range, and of those 4, it’s random.

Team Buff: 400% HP – per 400% HP – per above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: PVP: Crowd Control

Early Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 20+% Attack Range (Secondaries) can allow her to possess back line heroes

Circe is a Halloween event hero, who can be very annoying to fight.  She possesses opponent heroes to fight for her.  These heroes cannot use their sp2 for her, just their sp1, but once she starts possessing your main hero, it can be devastating.  There is a lot of RNG (random number generation – aka randomness) on how well she will help a team in any given battle.  Early on she’s great to add to any team, but later on she becomes less useful.  She doesn’t have great DPS herself.  Because she flies and has decent range, she is difficult to kill early on, but both Namida and Thorn can attack her.  Thorn is usually not a threat until later on, but Namida can slow Circe down at any time.  For some reason, Circe seems to be better at defending than attacking.  I don’t really understand why, it seems to be who she possesses is based on the position in the battlefield, not necessarily relative to her position.  

Some details about how possess works.  She targets the farthest back 4 that are less than double her range.  Of those four, the one she chooses is random.  So if you increase her range, you can target backline heroes that will wipe out the other backline heroes or the crystal.  From friendly battle testing, Nephandi has reported that Circe always possesses someone.  Either resist doesn’t work on possess, or Circe will target another hero, if the first gets resisted.

She doesn’t need any runes to be effective.  Vitality can be used for survivability, but she doesn’t get attacked much, so it’s not that important.  Later on, attack range can help you choose which heroes to possess.

Clawdette

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Base Stats: 45 ATK, 45 DPS, 1.0 APS, 410 HP, 18 Def, 160 Attack Range, 145 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Snarling Claws attacks attacks 6 times dealing a total of 5x damage.   Each attack has a 20% chance to deal 1.2 ATK*base_aps for 5 seconds.

Team Buff: 50% DMG from Poison – per above 3 above 3– this is applied after %ATK is applied (so it multiplies, not adds with it)

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Early to Mid Game blitz front line dps, Late Game Front Line DPS

Late Runes Sets: Vitality,Damage, Swift

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Crit Dmg
• Atk

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 160, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

Target End Game Rune Stats: 

• 100+% Attack Range (Secondaries) 
• 20+% Poison Chance (Poisonous)
• 100+% Poison Duration (Blight, Primaries)
• 300+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 10+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 150+% HP (Primaries, Secondaries)

Clawdette is mostly used for her 20% trophy bonus in blitz.  She’s currently ranked in the B tier for PVP, but that takes a lot of commitment.  She’s something like the 5th best Blitz hero, which means not many people have made that commitment, and if they have, they are probably using S tier heroes.  As a brawler, her damage increases with her combo.  This increases both her raw damage and her poison damage.  Her poison damage is nice because it bypasses Def, and most End Game tanks have a lot of Def.  Her team buff also buffs poison which further helps her poison, but is also great when paired with Thorn, for his poison damage.

For runes, Clawdette requires the Vitality set for survival.  Then Damage and Swift sets for more DPS.  Poison does not crit, so I’m not recommending using Rage or Precise.  Blight or Poisonous may help with the poison, but as her poison chance isn’t that high, I think Damage and Swift will be better.  Swift also allows her to get to higher combos quicker.  Nimble could be used for survivability, or even Guard, as she has relatively high base Def.  She will likely need Attack Range, so that she can stay behind your front tank.  She won’t survive in the front.

Dark Hunter

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest, Sorrow Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 52 ATK, 52 DPS, 1.0 APS, 200 HP, 6 Def, 590 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Fire shoots five arrows each dealing x1 damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: 50% Attack Debuff – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: Everyone

Primary Use: PVP: Buffer and DPS

Runes Sets: Three of: Damage, Swift, Precise, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 27.1% to get to 750 range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise) 
• 300+% Crit Damage (Rage, 3xPrimaries, Secondaries)
• 300+% Atk (Damage,1xPrimaries, Secondaries)
• 40+% APS (5xPrimaries)
• 40+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Dark Hunter is one of the best PVP heroes in the game and is extremely easy to add to any team.  His team buff decreases the opponent’s attack, which is pretty much required to keep your tanks alive.  He has the best atk and raw dps of any ranger, and of any back line dps.  He has the second highest base Attack Range, which means he is very easy to keep alive.  He also has 25% base crit rate, which is one of the highest in the game.  The one thing that prevents him from being the perfect hero is that his sp2 does five attacks at 100% instead of 500%.  This is worse because def will affect the 100% attacks more.  It’s really not that bad.

Dark Hunter is all about the dps, and therefore you should consider the dps runes sets: Damage, Swift, Precise, and Rage.  You’ll want dps primaries: Atk Speed, Atk, and Crit Damage.  You’ll need some attack range late game, to avoid any of the AOE smashers.

I did some analysis on Dark Hunter with perfect 6 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 buffers.  Dark Hunter will do the most damage with Damage, Rage, and Precise sets.  Below are the results.

Dark Knight

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest, Furiosa Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 70 ATK, 70 DPS, 1.0 APS, 320 HP, 15 Def, 150 Attack Range, 120 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: 50% Def Debuff – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: Blitz: Tank.  Arena: All Dark tank

Blitz Runes Sets: Vitality 

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice

Dark Knight is mostly used as a blitz tank, but has a lot of potential in my opinion.  He’s ranked at C tier in PVP, but I think he should be higher.  He has the third highest base dps in the game, but most people want their dps in the back line.  He debuffs Def, which can be useful.  Below is how much his buff increases damage at 7 :

This is very useful against Ornoks with Guard sets.  

In blitz, all you really need is the vitality set.  All dark teams can pull him off as a tank with Vitality, Phalanx, and Nimble, with HP primaries.  I think there’s potential making him into a front line dps hero with Vitality and dps sets/primaries, with a lot of attack range, but I have not tried this.  Against a team with a lot of crowd control, he wouldn’t be able to use much of his dps, but there are many types of teams out there that he could work well against.

Dark Wolf

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest, Furiosa Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 81 ATK, 45 DPS, 0.556 APS, 400 HP, 10 Def, 535 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Dark Wrath attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: 25% Def Movement Speed – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: Speed Teams:

Primary Use: PVP: Buffer

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Dark Wolf is a niche PVP hero.  He is usually paired with Hikari or another movement speed buffer.  Dark Wolf decreases opponent movement speed, and Hikari increases your team’s movement speed.  These two heroes combined can keep the opponent’s team near their crystal.  This nerfs any attack range buffs.  It also allows your aoe to hit their crystal, and possibly defeat them without killing all their heroes.  It’s somewhat of a trick tactic that you need to watch out for.  I generally don’t use it except in Blitz, where I have to use every hero.

No runes are required, you just use him for his team buff.

Dragon Bot

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 44 ATK, 44 DPS, 1.0 APS, 280 HP, 12 Def, 430 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Dragon Breath attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit and debuffs the opponent’s attack by 50% for 5s

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Early to mid game one on one dpser

Runes Sets: Damage, then two of: Swift, Precise, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed (important because of debuff)
• Atk
• Crit Dmg

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Specific

Dragon Bot is the best common that is not a tank.  Dragon Bot is also known as DB.  DB is a very good choice for your 2nd or 3rd common to get to 7.  While Bat has more base dps, DB will usually out damage bat since he is a gunner and therefore ignores 96% of def. DB also lowers the opponent’s front line hero atk, which is very important early game to keep your main tank alive.

For runes, early on you may not have many Atk buffers, and that makes the Damage set very valuable.  Swift, Precise, and Rage all increase your dps, so these are all useful too.  Early on use what you have.  Later on, look for Atk Speed, Atk, and Crit Dmg primaries.  These runes will be useful as long as DB is useful, and that is quite a long time.  Once you replace him in Arena, he will still be very useful in GW and Blitz.

Fire Monk

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Provided near account creation

Base Stats: 54 ATK, 45 DPS, 0.833 APS, 320 HP, 8 Def, 450 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Cast attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit. Each attack has a 40% chance to deal 1.0 ATK*base_aps for 3 seconds.

Team Buff: 400% HP – per 400% HP – per above 3

Synergizes with: No One

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Fire Monk competes against Oceana as the worst rare heroes in the game.  You get him early on, but you should stash him for faster heroes.  Then you’ll only use him as a blitz filler.  His team buff is HP, and team buffs do not get the 10x multiplier in PvP that base HP and runes get.  This makes it useless.

Frost Queen

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Base Stats: 28 ATK, 28 DPS, 1.0 APS, 280 HP, 12 Def, 520 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Shot attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit. Each attack has a 10% chance to freeze the opponent for 2 seconds.

Special Ability: Freeze Explode!  At the end of freeze, ice around the frozen hero explodes dealing damage damage around the hero.  It has a base aoe radius of 350, and it can be increased.

Team Buff: 100% DMG from Freeze Explode – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Early and Late (not mid) Crowd Control

Early Runes Sets: Chilling

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• AOE – AOE Still works with the July 2020 Update, don’t worry that it’s struck through

Rune Secondaries: Atk Range is nice

Late Runes Sets: Chilling, Splash, stunning or anything with AOE

Rune Primaries:

• AOE
• Atk Speed – depends on build, some avoid this primary

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 44.2% to get to 750 range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Freeze Rate (Chilling)
• 50+% Atk Speed (Swift, Primaries, depending on build)
• 120+% AOE (Primaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries) or 17.5+% Stun Rate (Stunning)
• 60+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Freeze Explode!  Frost Queen has Freeze Explode, and this has huge potential.  Once she reaches 4, all freezes, whether caused by her or another hero, will explode.  Before 4, all freezes, whether caused by her or another hero, will explode.  Before 4, only freezes initiated by Frost Queen will explode.  If you give her chilling, all initial freeze explosions can freeze and explode again.  They cannot chain further than that.  There are some really strong builds that freeze most of the opponents for most of the time.  The problem is a team built around freeze explode requires a lot of good runes.  It’s worth noting, heroes with stun can also stun with Freeze Explosions caused by them.

Usually heroes like Akwa, Snowman, Namida, Valkyrie, and Pirato are paired with Frost Queen and are provided with chilling runes.  This way, lots of freezes will occur.  The damage caused by the explosion will be based on the hero that caused the freeze.    The damage done is 2 x Atk x (1+ buff), and it has the normal aoe decay.  It seems that it does the same amount of damage if the freeze comes from sp1 or sp2.  Crits on the freeze don’t seem to affect the damage of the explode either.  There are two radiuses to the explosions, the radius that damages and the radius that freezes.  It was previously believed that AOE runes only affected the freeze radius, but testing has been performed that shows both the freeze radius and the damage radius getting increased. This is why AOE is recommended in her sets/primaries.  Even though this is an AOE, Manta does not decrease the damage from freeze explosions, which has also been shown through testing.

For a given hero, there is only 1 freeze timer.  If another freeze were to happen, that time refreshes the timer.  Since it’s important that the freeze explodes (to freeze and damage other heroes), it’s important not to add the Frozen Rune Set (freeze duration) to any of these heroes.  Some people take this further, and don’t give Frost Queen attack speed sets/primaries.  That will depend on your build and your opponent, but I think most people will want attack speed on Frost Queen.  The more heroes you have, and the higher your Akwa is, the less attack speed you’ll need on Frost Queen.

Thanks to Friendly Battles, testing has been done on FQ’s freeze explode.  Menace13 has reported that the aoe of the hero that causes the explosion can increase the radius freeze explosion, but only if they have an aoe attack (either sp1, sp2, or sp3).  It’s weird that your ultimate can come into play.  Snowman has no PVP attack with AOE, but his sp3 does have it, and that allows any aoe runes to increase the freeze radius.  While Akwa’s sp2 does hit multiple heroes, but does not have an aoe radius, so she cannot increase the radius of the freeze explosion.

This is a really fun build, once you see it, you’ll want to build it.  The problem is almost all the heroes needed require a lot of attack range, which is difficult to come by.

Furiosa

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Furiosa Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 60 ATK, 60 DPS, 1.0 APS, 340 HP, 14 Def, 150 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.

Special Ability: Anti-Burn, Anti-Freeze

Team Buff: 3% Frenzy Chance – per 3% Frenzy Chance – per above 3

Synergizes with: Speed Teams / Female Arena Weeks

Primary Use: PVP: Tank.  Guild Slay Event: Crusher – Hitter or survivor.

Crusher – Hitter Runes Sets: Swift, Precise, Frenzy

Rune Primaries:

• Crit Dmg
• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Specific

Tank Runes Sets: Vitality, Phalanx, Nimble

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice, avoid atk range

Furiosa is the best hero for slay event.  When you use knight shield artifacts, she has the best survivability for almost all but water bosses.  Fire Weapon artifacts add fire crit damage, which is extremely important in the slay event, so she can dish out the damage too.  She’s immune to freeze which is handy against Frost Queen teams, so she has a place in PvP.  She can also be very useful during the female Arena weeks.

For the Guild Slay Event, being a survivor doesn’t require any runes, just artifacts.  I recommend focusing more on the PVP build, but if you want to be a strong Slay Event hitter, use Swift, Precise, and Frenzy with attack speed primaries.  Crit dmg helps too, but not nearly as much as attack speed.  For PVP, she’s mostly used as a tank, so use Vitality, Phalanx, and Nimble, with HP primaries.  Movement speed is nice, but avoid attack range.

Gladiator

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Earth Hero Chest

Base Stats: 63 ATK, 42 DPS, 0.667 APS, 840 HP, 25 Def, 150 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Shockwave Stomp smashes the ground dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 350 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Team Buff: 400% HP – per 400% HP – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Tank

Tank Runes Sets: Vitality, Guard, Nimble

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed and Def are nice, avoid atk range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 690+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 200+% Def (Guard, Secondaries)
• 17.5+% Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 18+% Movement Speed (Secondaries)
• <10% Attack Range, ideally 0% (Secondaries)

The main f2p tank of the current meta, Gladiator has a ton of HP.  He also has a significant amount of def.  Leaf Blade, Ornok, and Paladin are the only tanks ranked higher, and I think of Paladin as more of a support tank with his team buff and sp2.  All three of which are much more difficult to get to 7 than gladiator.  Once you get 1 or 2 commons to 7 than gladiator.  Once you get 1 or 2 commons to 7, it is time to start using Magic Medals on Gladiator.  

While you can technically use Gladiator as a front line AOE smasher, almost everyone uses him as a Pure Tank.  You’ll need Vitality, Guard, and Nimble rune sets with HP primaries.  Movement speed and Def are great if you can be picky.

Goddess

Section Last Updated: August 25, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Water Hero Chest

Base Stats: 28 ATK, 14 DPS, 0.5 APS, 200 HP, 10 Def, 520 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description: Mini Tsunami shoots a wave pushing back opponents and dealing x0.25 damage to each enemy hit.  It has a width, so it can miss ground units based on the spawn height of Goddess relative to other heroes, but it’s pretty large, and can even hit flying heroes.

Team Buff: 400% HP – per 400% HP – per above 3

Synergizes with: none

Primary Use: PVP: Early Game Crowd control, Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Goddess is nice because her sp2 has push back, which helps early game and in blitz.  She doesn’t need runes, but chilling can give her tidal wave a chance to freeze each hero it hits. She is also useful in the Guild Slay Event, as her Ultimate is a shield that is very helpful to keep heroes alive.  I generally prefer Merlinus over her, as Merlinus will heal also, but you can use both.  If you decide to use her in Guild Slay Event, Intelligent will allow you to use her Ultimates more frequently.

Gold Knight

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Base Stats: 40 ATK, 40 DPS, 1.0 APS, 480 HP, 15 Def, 150 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: 25% Movement Speed – per 25% Movement Speed – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz Team

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Light Hero Chest, Furiosa Crusher Chest

Primary Use: Blitz: Tank.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Vitality 

Rune Primaries:

• HP
• Any

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice

Gold Knight can be a decent tank in Blitz.  His team buff is movement speed, which is helpful for a mostly Light team in blitz.  This can push back the opponent closer to their crystal, and allow aoe heroes like Spike and Siegfried to hit the crystal, if they have enough AOE.  Other than blitz, there’s not much use for Gold Knight.

He can use weapon level 3 with vitality runes for Blitz, I wouldn’t do much more than that for him.

Green Faery

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Earth Hero Chest

Base Stats: 40 ATK, 20 DPS, 0.5 APS, 250 HP, 14 Def, 460 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Shield adds a shield similar to knight shield to a random hero.  The shield has 15% of Green Faery’s HP.  This can be useful in Slay Boss event for survival.

Team Buff: Universal 400% HP – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: None

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Green Faery adds a protective shield to a random hero for her sp2.  This guarantees at least one extra hit, and for the slay event, this can be useful for survivor builds.  It’s not that helpful in PVP.  She’s not that good, one of the worst epics in my opinion.  I took a quick poll in the CTA Discord, and they agree, she’s the worst epic. I just use her as Blitz filler.

Groovine

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Groovine Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 48 ATK, 48 DPS, 1.0 APS, 350 HP, 9 Def, 550 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Bee Swarm is a horizontal projectile that moves across the screen slowing opponents hit.  The slowdown rate is based on the stars of Groovine.  I believe it has a width, so it can miss ground units based on the spawn height of Groovine relative to other heroes.

Team Buff: 400% Atk – per 400% Atk – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz Teams

Primary Use: Guild Slay Event: Crusher

Crusher Runes Sets: Intelligent

Groovine is a crusher with a relatively poor quality crusher chest.  The only hero I really like out of her chest is Thorn, so I don’t buy many of her chests.  Her ultimate turns other elemental damage (other than fire) into earth damage.  This is very useful against water bosses in the Guild Slay Event.  Since my Groovine is relatively low , most of my damage comes from other heroes when they are doing earth damage.  To get more time for the ultimate you’ll want the Intelligent rune set.

Healer Bot

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 10 ATK, 10 DPS, 1.0 APS, 300 HP, 2 Def, 490 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Healing Beam heals an injured hero for 6% of Healer Bot’s HP each second for 5 seconds.  It doesn’t specify, but I believe she chooses the hero with the lowest %HP.

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

One of the two newest commons, Healer Bot just isn’t that great.  Her sp2 heals for a total of 30% of her life, where Merlinus heals for 100%, and Vlad heals based on damage.  This means she needs 2 more than Merlinus to heal slightly more than him.  As Merlinus isn’t that great of a healer, this limits the use of Healer Bot.  I don’t recommend using her except for filling a slot in Blitz.

Hikari

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Light Hero Chest, Starter Pack, Fortune Chest if f2p

Base Stats: 40 ATK, 40 DPS, 1.0 APS, 525 HP, 6 Def, 150 Attack Range, 170 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing Hit attacks one hero dealing 5x damage

Team Buff: Universal 30% Movement Speed – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: Speed Teams:

Primary Use: Stager.  PVP: Buffer.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Hikari is a niche PVP hero.  He is usually paired with Dark Wolf.  Dark Wolf decreases opponent movement speed, and Hikari increases your team’s movement speed.  These two heroes combined can keep the opponent’s team near their crystal.  This nerfs any attack range buffs.  It also allows your aoe to hit their crystal, and possibly defeat them without killing all their heroes.  It’s somewhat of a trick tactic that you need to watch out for.  I generally don’t use it except in Blitz, where I have to use every hero.  Hikaris is also used in staging to speed up the rest of your stagers.

No runes are required, you just use him for his team buff.  Frenzy is useful for staging.

Hooky

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Base Stats: 36 ATK, 30 DPS, 0.833 APS, 420 HP, 20 Def, 450 Attack Range, 125 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Hook Gun grabs a distant hero and pulls them closer.  It can affect flying, and make flying heroes temporarily vulnerable to melee heroes.  The distance pulled closer depends on the of Hooky.  150 at 2 of Hooky.  150 at 2, 170 at 3 (not sure higher).

Team Buff: 3% Attack Range – per 3% Attack Range – per above 3

Synergizes with: No One

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Hooky is a relatively new Blitz Hero.  His damage isn’t that great.  His team buff increases earth attack range, and not many people use a lot of earth heroes.  In addition, you can get all your required attack range from runes.  His sp2 pulls opponent heroes nearer, which can help, but doesn’t seem to be enough to use him.  I just use him as a blitz filler.

Ice Cube

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Water Hero Chest

Base Stats: 54 ATK, 45 DPS, 0.833 APS, 710 HP, 14 Def, 150 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.  Each hit has a base AOE radius of 150 and a 10% chance to freeze for 2s.  Damage is reduced by aoe decay

Team Buff: Universal 400% Def – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: Against teams with a lot of

Primary Use: PVP: End Game Tank

Tank Runes Sets: Vitality, Nimble, anything with HP Primaries (Guard and Resist are decent options)

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed and Def are nice, avoid atk range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 690+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 17.5+% Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 30+% Movement Speed (Secondaries)
• <10% Attack Range, ideally 0% (Secondaries)
• 25+% Resist 

Ice Cube Just got a major buff in the July 2020 update.  This puts him at the 3rd highest HP in the game.  As many people have been building fire heroes to take out Glad and Leaf Blade, fewer people have been building Earth heroes that would take down Ice Cube.  Ice Cube would also have the elemental advantage against these fire heroes.  This gives him use right now, and probably in the future, and may make him the best tank outside of Ornok.  As he’s epic, he’s out of reach for most people.  Glad is still the best for most f2p.

For runes you’ll need Vitality and Nimble with HP primaries.  Any third set with HP primaries will work, as Ice Cube doesn’t have high base def, and guard is the normal third set for barbarians.  Movement speed and Def are nice for secondaries.

Ice Knight

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Christmas Event, Reminiscence Event

Base Stats: 48 ATK, 48 DPS, 1.0 APS, 370 HP, 15 Def, 150 Attack Range, 135 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.  Each hit has a 10% chance to freeze for 2s.  

Team Buff: 4% Freeze Duration – per 4% Freeze Duration – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz Teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

As an event hero, Ice Knight is somewhat difficult to unlock, and very difficult to get medals for.  His team buff is increased freeze duration, and many freeze builds do not want that because they rely on freeze explode (Frost Queen’s skill).  I just use him as Blitz filler.

Jasmine

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Fire Hero Chest, One Eye Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 45 ATK, 45 DPS, 1.0 APS, 240 HP, 8 Def, 150 Attack Range, 200 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Dancing Blades attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit.  

Team Buff: 200% Crit Damage – per 200% Crit Damage – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz Teams

Primary Use: Blitz: Crit buffer.  Guild Slay Event: Crit Buffer.

Runes Sets: Don’t spend many materials on her

Jasmine has some use for buffing fire heroes Crit Damage.  This is very important for the Guild Slay Event, as critical hits are where most of the damage comes from.  It also helps with a fire team in Blitz.  She’s also very fast, and can be used in staging.  

Joan Of Arc

Section Last Updated: August 26, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Light Hero Chest, Atlantus Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 42 ATK, 28 DPS, 0.667 APS, 500 HP, 12 Def, 220 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing Multi-Hit attacks one time (not sure why it’s called multi-hit) attacking all heroes in a line with a fixed aoe radius of XXX (cannot be increased), dealing 5x damage to each enemy hit.

Team Buff: 400% Def – per 400% Def – per above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Joan of Arc buffs Light Def.  As there are only two Light heroes (Spike and Paladin) that have and need a lot of Def, she’s not very useful.  She does have decent base HP, but Spike, Paladin, and Siegfried would all be better Tanks.  I just use her in Blitz.

Kage

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest, One EyeCrusher Chest

Base Stats: 75 ATK, 75 DPS, 1.0 APS, 260 HP, 6 Def, 150 Attack Range, 170 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing Hit attacks one hero dealing 5x damage

Team Buff: 50% HP Debuff – per 50% HP Debuff – per above 3

Synergizes with: Everyone 

Primary Use: PVP: Buffer.  Guild Slay Event: Buffer.

Runes Sets: Vitality – Don’t spend many materials on this hero unless you want to spend a lot

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Particular

Target End Game Rune Stats: 

• 250+% HP (Vitality, Primaries, secondaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, secondaries)
• 100+% Crit Damage (Primaries, secondaries)
• 40+% Attack Speed (Primaries)
• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• <10% Movement Speed, ideally 0%  (Secondaries)
• >10% more Attack Range than tank (Secondaries)

Kage is generally used for his HP debuff, which is useful in all aspects of the game.  If you’re close to beating a new daily dungeon level, you can throw Kage in for some extra % done to the boss.   

Kage, being a samurai, has low range and has a high chance to avoid AOE.  While this normally does not matter, as he will be in the front, with a significant attack range investment he could theoretically be very tough.  He also has the second highest base dps in the game.  This gives him a lot of potential, but I haven’t seen anyone fund him enough to test out this potential.  

Most people just use him for his Buff, which is plenty useful up through Mid game.  For that, a Vitality set is nice to keep him alive for a bit longer, so he’ll do some damage for your team.  If you wanted to fund him, I’d go Vitality then two of: Nimble, Damage, Swift, Precise, Rage.  

Kasai

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Fire Hero Chest, One Eye Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 62 ATK, 62 DPS, 1.0 APS, 260 HP, 6 Def, 150 Attack Range, 170 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing Hit attacks one hero dealing 5x damage

Team Buff: 400% ATK – per 400% ATK – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Target End Game Rune Stats: 

• 250+% HP (Vitality, Primaries, secondaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, secondaries)
• 100+% Crit Damage (Primaries, secondaries)
• 40+% Attack Speed (Primaries)
• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• <10% Movement Speed, ideally 0%  (Secondaries)
• >10% more Attack Range than tank (Secondaries)

Kasai has the 4th highest base DPS, but one of the lowest base HP.  His buff is Fire Atk, and most PVP teams prefer universal Atk Buffs.  He’s a samurai, so he has a high chance to dodge AOE attacks.  The problem is he would need attack range to get behind a tank, and he’s just not worth spending on to get this.  I just use him as a buffer in Blitz.

Kasumi

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Dark Hero Chest, Starter Pack, One Eye Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 38 ATK, 38 DPS, 1.0 APS, 240 HP, 8 Def, 120 Attack Range, 220 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Assassination teleports behind a hero and attacks 5 times 1x each time.  This can happen every 8s.  I’m not sure how the target is chosen.  

Team Buff: Universal 10% APS Debuff – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: anyone

Primary Use: Stager. PVP: Buffer.  

PVP Runes Sets: Vitality, Nimble – Don’t spend many materials on this hero unless you want to spend a lot

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Particular

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 650+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries) or 17.5+% Stun Rate (Stunning) or 25+% Resist 

Kasumi has an sp2 with teleport, which makes her very fast for staging, and the best Dark staging hero.  She also debuffs opponent attack speed, which is useful in PVP.  During the Female Rogue Arena week, she can be quite strong.  Teleporting into the backline can be disrupting.  She has a lot of uses, but she’s really not good enough for most people to spend a lot of materials on her.  If you get her to 4 early enough, she’s useful just for her debuff, so you can use her in your arena team.  You don’t really need to give her runes, but if you do, Vitality and Nimble will help with survivability.

Krouki

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Earth Hero Chest, Sorrow Crusher Chest, Groovine Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 45.6 ATK, 38 DPS, 0.833 APS, 280 HP, 10 Def, 490 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Shoot Big Bullet attacks one hero for 4.15x damage. 

Team Buff: 200% Crit Damage – per 200% Crit Damage – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler.  Guild Slay Event: Crit Buffer.

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Krouki has some use for buffing earth heroes Crit Damage.  This is very important for the Guild Slay Event, as critical hits are where most of the damage comes from.  It also helps with an earth team in Blitz.

Krünk

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, LightHero Chest

Base Stats: 33.6 ATK, 28 DPS, 0.833 APS, 600 HP, 14 Def, 410 Attack Range, 120 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Shoot Big Laser attacks one hero for 4.15x damage. 

Team Buff: 400% Atk – per 400% Atk – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler. PVP Buffer

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Krunk is tied for the third most HP in the game.  This makes him a backline tank, which isn’t very useful.  He does buff Light Atk, which is useful in Blitz.  If you’re using Spike, it’s also useful in Arena and GW.  He doesn’t need any runes for this buff though.

Leaf Blade

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Earth Hero Chest, Starter Pack, Furiosa Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 50 ATK, 50 DPS, 1.0 APS, 370 HP, 16 Def, 150 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks three times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit. 

Special Ability: Auto Shield Makes LB immune to damage for 7 seconds.  It starts at 30% HP and can be bypassed if you kill him above that level.

Team Buff: Universal 400% Def – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: Anyone

Primary Use: PVP: Late game Tank.  

Runes Sets: Vitality, Phalanx, Nimble

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed and Def are nice

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 690+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 17.5+% Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 250+% Knight Shield HP (Phalanx)
• 30+% Movement Speed (Secondaries)
• <10% Attack Range, ideally 0% (Secondaries)

Leaf Blade is arguably the second best tank in the game.  As a knight, he has a shield.  But more importantly, he has an Auto-Shield ability, which makes him immune to damage after he falls below a certain %.  It is possible to bypass this Auto-Shield if enough damage is applied to kill him, when he is above that %.  When combined with Vlad, the Auto-Shield is long enough to mostly refill his health, which means you basically have to kill him twice.

The main build for him is pure tank with Vitality, Phalanx, and Nimble Rune Sets with HP primaries.  Movement speed and Def secondaries are nice to haves.  Since it takes a long time getting him to 6 or 7, you can be a little picky with the secondaries.

Light Knight

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 25 ATK, 25 DPS, 1.0 APS, 350 HP, 15 Def, 120 Attack Range, 220 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks seven times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit. 

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler. 

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Light Knight is a fast common, so he can be used for staging.  Light Knight is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Luka

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: First Hero

Base Stats: 37 ATK, 37 DPS, 1.0 APS, 240 HP, 8 Def, 120 Attack Range, 220 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks seven times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit. 

Team Buff: 25% movement speed  – per 25% movement speed  – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz teams

Primary Use: Stager.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Luka is your first hero!  Luka is a fast Water hero with a movement speed buff, so he is primarily used for staging.  He’s the best water hero for staging.  Other than that he only has use as a Blitz filler.  You can give him frenzy to speed up staging, but runes are not required for this hero.

Magmus

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Fire Hero Chest, Furiosa Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 130 ATK, 65 DPS, 0.5 APS, 520 HP, 18 Def, 220 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi-Hit attacks three times dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 doing a total of 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Kronos did some testing through friendly battles, and it appears that the aoe starts about 170 in front of Chaos.  Magmus likely has the same 170 value.

Team Buff: 400% Def – per 400% Def – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: Blitz: Tank.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Vitality 

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise) or Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 250+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 400+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 30+% APS (Primaries)
• 50+% AOE (Primaries) – need about 2x the aoe as attack range
• 20+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Magmus is the best Fire Tank, but being the best in an element is not good enough to be useful in Arena.  I use him primarily as a tank in Blitz.  Some people use him in Arena, but his tankiness doesn’t stack up against Gladiator.  It’s also easy to protect Gladiator with Spark, where Magmus would require Namida to lower Water heroes’ attack.  Spark is much easier to get to higher as he’s a rare, while Namida is a Blitz hero and requires flooz.  Atlantus is fairly popular late game, so you really do want water protection.  That said, Namida is a great hero, so if you’re going to use her, you’ll already have water protection.

Magmus just needs a 3 rune set of Vitality for Blitz.

Manta – Preliminary

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Base Stats: 45 ATK, 45 DPS, 1.0 APS, 350 HP, 8 Def, 410 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Water Bubble creates an aoe orb originating at Manta dealing 0.2x damage with an aoe decay to all enemies hit, debuffing the amount of healing they recieve for 15 seconds.  The aoe has a base radius of 500.  There were many complaints about her SP2 when she was introduced, so this may get changed in the future.

Team Buff: 100% AOE Damage Debuff – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: PVP: Late Game Debuffer

Late Runes Sets: swift, chilling, stunning

Rune Primaries:

• AOE – Mostly
• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries:  Attack Range, needs 82.9% to get to 750 range

I was not a Beta tester for Manta, so this is my best guess without actually seeing her in action or experimenting with her.  Manta was just released in July 2020 as a Blitz hero.  She decreases opponent AOE damage.  I’m not 100% sure what this means, it either means anything with an AOE radius, or anything that can be buffed by AOE runes.  These two definitions mostly overlap, but Frost Queen’s Freeze Explode is where they do not overlap, so I do not know if that is impacted or not.  Heroes like Goddess, Ra, Akwa, and Spark are not affected by this debuff.  This can be very useful against AOE smashers like Siegfried and Atlantus, and Late/End Game heroes with aoe, like Thorn, Tesla, and Scud.

Her sp2 is similar to Thorn’s, but not as big of a radius, which means Manta’s sp2 will not be able to hit the full map, like Thorn’s can with six maxed 6 primaries.  This means she won’t be a back line killer.  Her sp2 also reduces the healing of heroes it does hit, and since it will primarily hit the front line, it will reduce the healing provided to the tanks.  This can be useful in both early game against Merlinus and late game against Vlad.  Her damage isn’t that great, she has relatively high base attack, but only has a 10% crit rate.  Below is some preliminary analysis showing her dps capability.  It assumes all APS primaries, when she will need a few AOE primaries to hit the front line with her sp2.

People who used her in Beta testing seem to have a better impression of her than I do, and I’m willing to have my mind changed when I see her in action.  I’m guessing she’ll end up at A tier with what I’ve seen so far.  My thoughts of her right now is that the 50k flooz requirement to get her to 7 is more than she’s worth.  Her sp2 and team buff might make her someone you use for defense, but not offense.

Mecha Valken

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest

Base Stats: 78 ATK, 65 DPS, 0.833 APS, 330 HP, 20 Def, 180 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Big Boom is an aoe attack dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 300 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Team Buff: 400% Def – per 400% Def – per above 3

Synergizes with: Team

Primary Use: Blitz: Tank.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Vitality 

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice

Mecha Valken is really good early on.  When you use him in Blitz, he’ll probably do the most damage for his team.  I remember really liking him.  He just doesn’t scale as well as others.  His team buff is Fire Def, which is nearly worthless.  As a front line hero, he just doesn’t have the HP to survive long enough to do damage later on, except in Blitz. 

Mecha Valken just needs a 3 rune set of Vitality for Blitz.

Merlinus

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Base Stats: 21 ATK, 14 DPS, 0.667 APS, 270 HP, 12 Def, 550 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Heal restores a friendly hero’s HP by the amount of Merlinus’s max HP, and then dispels all negative effects.  

Team Buff: 500% HP – per 500% HP – per above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Light Hero Chest, Blitz Shop

Primary Use: Guild Slay Event – Ult Shield.

Don’t spend materials on this hero, but if you must:

Blitz Runes Sets: Intelligent (for slay boss), Vitality, swift

Rune Primaries:

• HP
• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Nothing specific.

Merlinus is bad in PVP.  I feel like every f2p player will see Merlinus fully heal an opponent tank in Gold or Platinum, and think this hero is amazing.  Even early game, there almost always is going to be a better option in Arena, namely crowd control.  As Merlinus only has 280 base HP, he’s going to need at least 1 higher than the tank to fully heal it, and sometimes 2 higher than the tank to fully heal it, and sometimes 2.  He’s also on the ground, so every now and then, he’s going to have to heal himself from any front line aoe attacks.  I use him most in the Guild Slay Event, as his Ultimate is a shield that is very helpful to keep heroes alive.  

Featured offers were introduced like a year ago, and before that progression was slow enough that Merlinus had some use, but now you progress so fast early on that he doesn’t have a use.

If you want to use Merlinus in PVP, he’ll want Vitality and Swift with HP and attack speed primaires.  In Guild Slay Event, Intelligent is useful to get more Ultimates in.

Misty

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest

Base Stats: 24 ATK, 20 DPS, 0.833 APS, 280 HP, 8 Def, 395 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Shoots a poisonous ball that lands behind the target dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 dealing 4.15x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.  Each enemy hit has a 30% chance to deal 1.2 ATK*base_aps for 5 seconds.

Team Buff: 400% ATK – per 400% ATK – per above 3

Synergizes with: teams

Primary Use: PVP: Mid to Late game aoe gunner dps.

Late Runes Sets: Damage, then two of: Swift, Precise, Rage, Poisonous, Blight

Rune Primaries:

• 30-50% AOE 
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Dmg

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 89.9% to get to 750 range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Crit Build

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise) 
• 150+% Crit Damage (Rage, Secondaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 70+% APS (8xPrimaries)
• 30+% AOE (1xPrimaries)
• 35+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Poison Build

• 20+% Poison Chance (Poisonous) 
• 90+% Poison Duration (Blight, 2-3xPrimaries)
• 250+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 50+% APS (5-6xPrimaries)
• 30+% AOE (1xPrimaries)
• 96+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Misty is a really good hero that I always forget about.  She has the lowest base damage of any gunner, but she’s an aoe gunner, so she’ll hit multiple heroes, and she has a 30% chance to do poison.  For her poison, her attack is applied once per second for 5 seconds.  Her team buff is Earth Attack, which is great for an Earth team, and it’ll at least buff her own attack.  

Since Misty does a high percentage of her damage from poison, I think a poison build would work on her, the problem is getting the poison runes.  You cannot easily get the voodoo chest, to directly get poison runes.  You’d need to buy Epic Rune Chests, and a lot of them to make that build.  Once you start using the Crit Sisters, the damage setup definitely becomes better.  You’ll want Swift, Rage, Precise with 30-50% AOE, Atk, Atk Speed, and Crit dmg.  

Mizu

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Water Hero Chest

Base Stats: 56 ATK, 56 DPS, 1.0 APS, 260 HP, 8 Def, 150 Attack Range, 170 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing Hit attacks one hero dealing 5x damage

Team Buff: 400% ATK – per 400% ATK – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler. PVP Buffer

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Mizu is one of those heroes with an elemental attack buff and decent attack, but not enough survivability to be useful. His buff is Water Atk, and most PVP teams prefer universal Atk Buffs.  He’s a samurai, so he has a high chance to dodge AOE attacks.  The problem is he would need attack range to get behind a tank, and he’s just not worth spending on to get this.  I just use him as a buffer in Blitz.

Monki King

Section Last Updated: September 7, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Arena Shop

Base Stats: 38 ATK, 38 DPS, 1.0 APS, 210 HP, 8 Def, 320 Attack Range, 180 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Combo Attack is 7 quick aoe attacks dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 300 dealing a total of 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.  Due to lancer’s 30% base crit chance, this has an extremely high chance to stun everyone hit.  This attack appears to be unidirectional, meaning it won’t hit opponents behind the attack.

Team Buff: 10% APS – per 10% APS – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: Stager. PVP: Crowd Control.

Early Runes Sets: Vitality then two of: swift, splash, dazed

Rune Primaries:

• AOE 
• Atk Speed
• Stun Duration

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range is nice, avoid movement speed if possible

Late Runes Sets:  swift, splash, dazed

Rune Primaries:

• AOE 50+% total – and must be at least 20% higher than Attack Range
• Atk Speed
• Stun Duration

Rune Secondaries: 30+% Attack Range, avoid movement speed if possible

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Perma-Stun Build

• 110+% Stun Duration (Dazed, 3xPrimaries)  
• 67.5+% APS (Swift, 5xPrimaries)
• 50+% AOE (Splash, 1xPrimaries)
• 48+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Backline Stun Build

• 110+% Stun Duration (Dazed, 3xPrimaries)  
• 37.5+% APS (Swift, 2xPrimaries)
• 145+% AOE (Splash, 4xPrimaries)
• 48+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Monki King, aka MK, is the best Fire stager as he has one of the fastest movement speeds of any Fire hero, an aoe sp2, and a team buff that increases his attack speed, which helps him tear through opponents quickly.  He’s also the best Early to Late game Crowd Control hero out there, so he’s very useful in PVP.  I spend a lot of time in the questions section of the CTA Discord, and often get asked to help people build their arena team.  I always recommend Monki King to newer players for his sp2.  His sp2 is an aoe that has a high chance to stun.  The tool tip doesn’t explicitly say what his sp2 does, I’m of the opinion that it is a 100% stun unless it’s dodge or resisted.  Some people say that he attacks 7 times,  with his natural 30% stun chance, this works out to a 91.8% stun chance.  Either way, it’s very high, and without runes it will stun the entire front line.  With aoe runes, you can stun some back line heroes too.

Early on, most people don’t have attack range secondaries on MK, and aoe gunners can hit him if they have some AOE buffs.  I recommend getting a Vitality set for survival, then buffing his sp2.  Swift gets more frequent sp2s, splash increases his aoe to help stun backline heroes, and dazed increases his stun duration, so pick 2 of those 3.  Late game, you can get attack range, and use that for survivability.  With that, you can just use swift, splash, and dazed.  You’ll need your aoe to be at least 20% higher than Attack Range.  I have heard of a Xak/MK team that doesn’t use Attack Range, but tries to stun lock the opponent.  When it works, it’s great, and when it doesn’t, those two slots were just wasted, but there are some people who pull it off well.  If you use both Xak and Monki King, you have to be careful that Monki King does not outrun your tanks, as Xak increases movement speed.

Monki Mortar

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest, Sorrow Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 42 ATK, 35 DPS, 0.833 APS, 230 HP, 6 Def, 405 Attack Range, 170 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Shoots a big bomb that lands behind the target dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 dealing 4.15x damage which is reduced by aoe decay. 

Team Buff: 400% ATK – per 400% ATK – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Dark Team Buffer.  Mid to Late game aoe gunner dps. 

Late Runes Sets: Damage, then two of: Swift, Rage, or Precise Sets

Rune Primaries:

• 30-50% AOE 
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 85.2% to get to 750 range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 200+% Crit Damage (Rage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 300+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 50+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 30+% AOE (Primaries)
• 96+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Monki Mortar is tied with Scud as the highest base damage AOE gunner (ignoring Torch).  He also buffs Dark Attack, and Dark is a very popular element.  Where other elemental buffers are downplayed because they’re not universal buffers, Monki Mortar is still great because of the number of great Dark heroes.  There are some all Dark Arena teams out there, but many still have 5 or more dark heroes, so Monki Mortar would buff half of your team.  He’s not a must have, but he can be useful to a lot of teams if you’re going Dark.

For runes, Monki Mortar is going the basic dps set with three of: Damage, Swift, Rage, or Precise.  He’ll want 30-50% AOE from his primaries to hit the full front line and possible Monki Kings/other front line flying heroes.  The rest of the recommended primaries will be attack, attack speed, and critical damage.  Later on he will need Attack Range to stay out of the front line AOE smashers.

Monki Roboti

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Lucky Spin Chest

Base Stats: 64.9 ATK, 50 DPS, 0.77 APS, 450 HP, 20 Def, 145 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Big boom smashes the ground dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 350 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Team Buff: Universal 400% ATK – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: Everyone

Primary Use: PVP: Buffer.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Vitality 

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 100+% Crit Damage (Secondaries)
• 150+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 80+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 200+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 48+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Monki Robot is a unique hero as you can only get medals for him from the Lucky Spin Chests.  He has a universal attack buff, which is very good.  He doesn’t have the base dps of some of the other brawlers, but has more HP than those, so he has decent survivability.  I generally prefer Onyx and Scud as my universal buffers in Arena, but if you’re starting with Spike, you can use him, as he’d get other Light buffs.  I do use Monki Robot every GW though, his universal buff is very valuable in a 2nd or 3rd GW team.  He’s also very good in Blitz.

Monki Robot is mostly used for his buff, so I just give him a Vitality set so he can survive longer, and help tank if I don’t have a higher star Siegfried or Spike in a Light Blitz team.  You may decide you don’t need to give him runes and just use him for his buff.

Musashi

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Earth Hero Chest

Base Stats: 50 ATK, 50 DPS, 1.0 APS, 300 HP, 8 Def, 150 Attack Range, 170 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing Hit attacks one hero dealing 5x damage

Team Buff: 25% Movement Speed – per 25% Movement Speed – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz Teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Musashi buffs Earth movement speed.  His stats aren’t that great, so I just use him to buff other Earth heroes in Blitz.

Namida

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Base Stats: 30 ATK, 25 DPS, 0.833 APS, 320 HP, 6 Def, 415 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Bubble Rockets shoots a missile at each of the three farthest back opponent heroes dealing 1.08x damage per missile.  Each hero hit will have slowdown applied to them, slowing their movement speed, aps, and any timed sp2s for 5s.  The amount slowed down is based on , it starts with a 0.6 multiplier at 2, it starts with a 0.6 multiplier at 2, and decreases by 0.05 for every above that.

Team Buff: 400% ATK Debuff – per 400% ATK Debuff – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Crowd Control.

Runes Sets: Swift, Chilling, Stunning – Optional splash if you don’t have decent stunning runes

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed – Most important
• AOE 

Rune Secondaries: Some Attack Range is nice

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Solo Crowd Control Build

• 17.5+% Freeze Rate (Chilling)
• 90+% Atk Speed (Swift, Primaries)
• 30+% AOE (Primaries)
• 17.5+% Stun Rate (Stunning)
• 50+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: Paired with

• 17.5+% Freeze Rate (Chilling)
• 70+% Atk Speed (Swift, 6-7xPrimaries)
• 60+% AOE (2-3xPrimaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries) or 17.5+% Stun Rate (Stunning)
• 50+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Namida is one of the two most recent Blitz heroes and has great crowd control.  Her sp2 attacks 3 back line heroes and slows them.  She is also an aoe gunner, so she attacks the whole front line.  Many people add chilling to her to crowd control both the front line and back line.  She also debuffs opponents Water damage, which is quite useful against some freeze builds that use a lot of Water heroes.  She also flies, which makes it quite difficult to kill her without going through the tanks first.  Many regard her as the 2nd or 3rd best Blitz hero, so she is very useful.

While Namida could be built to do damage, most build her for crowd control, as there are many Earth tanks that Namida would be weak to.  She normally uses Chilling, Swift, and Stunning sets to get as much crowd control as possible.  Attack speed is the most important primary, but some AOE can be helpful too.  It’s worth noting, when paired with Frost Queen, Freeze Explosions caused by Namida can cause stun, if she has stunning runes.

Natura

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Earth Hero Chest

Base Stats: 51 ATK, 34 DPS, 0.667 APS, 440 HP, 12 Def, 240 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Piercing attacks one time attacking all heroes in a line with a fixed aoe radius of 300, dealing 5x damage to each enemy hit.  I’m not sure if this has an aoe decay or not

Team Buff: 400% Def – per 400% Def – per above 3

Synergizes with: No One

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Natura buffs Earth Def, which isn’t a good reason to use her in Arena.  There are 4 better Earth tanks to tank in Blitz, so I don’t use her as a Blitz tank.  I just use her in Blitz as a filler.

Necromancer

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Base Stats: 57 ATK, 38 DPS, 0.667 APS, 250 HP, 15 Def, 605 Attack Range, 130 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Summon Skeletons summons either a Skeleton Infantry, Skeleton Archer, Skeleton Giant, and Chaos every 10s.  His current rates of summoning are 10 in 21 will be Skeleton Archers, 6 in 21 will be Skeleton Infantry, 4 in 21 will be Skeleton Giants, and 1 in 21 will be Chaos.  If Chaos is summoned, his team buff does not get added.

Team Buff: Skeletons get 200% HP/ATK/Def – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: (possibly?)

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise) or Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 250+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 400+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 30+% APS (Primaries)
• 50+% AOE (Primaries) – need about 2x the aoe as attack range
• 20+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Necro is a really cool hero, and with the July 2020 update, he is no longer horrible.  He spawns Skeleton Infantry, Skeleton Archer, Skeleton Giant, and Chaos heroes.  The update decreased the rate of Skeleton Infantry, and removed a weaker version of Skeleton Archer.  His current rates of summoning are 10 in 21 will be Skeleton Archers, 6 in 21 will be Skeleton Infantry, 4 in 21 will be Skeleton Giants, and 1 in 21 will be Chaos.  Being a Blitz hero, he is quite expensive to get to 7.  With this buff, I may give him 3 runes for fun, but I’ll just use him as a Blitz filler, and for his 20% Blitz bonus during his week.

Neko

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest

Base Stats: 80 ATK, 80 DPS, 1.0 APS, 300 HP, 20 Def, 155 Attack Range, 180 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Neko combo attacks one hero 5 times dealing 1x damage each hit.  Neko’s combo counter increases with each hit, but all hits use the combo at the start of the sp2.

Team Buff: 25% Movement Speed – per 25% Movement Speed – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 100+% Crit Damage (Secondaries)
• 150+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 80+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 200+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 48+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Neko has the highest base dps of any hero, and highest damage potential with her brawler combo.  She buffs Dark movement speed, which is useful in some primarily Dark builds.  She has very low HP and low attack range, so her survivability is low.  Unlike samurai, who also have high base dps, she does not dodge AOE, so even if she does get behind a tank, she will still likely die.  I just use her as a Blitz filler, with no runes.

Oceana

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Water Hero Chest

Base Stats: 48 ATK, 40 DPS, 0.833 APS, 360 HP, 8 Def, 410 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multicast attacks three times for a total of 5x damage to one opponent.

Team Buff: 400% HP – per 400% HP – per above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Oceana competes against Fire Monk as the worst rare heroes in the game.  You’ll only use her as a blitz filler.  Her team buff is HP, and team buffs do not get the 10x multiplier in PvP that base HP and runes get.  This makes it useless.

One Eye

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: One Eye Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 32 ATK, 32 DPS, 1.0 APS, 480 HP, 8 Def, 120 Attack Range, 220 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Ninja storm attacks 5 times dealing 1x per hit to one opponent.  

Team Buff: 10% APS – per 10% APS – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP and PVE: Attack Speed Buffer.  Guild Slay Event: Crusher – Hitter.

Crusher – Hitter Runes Sets: Swift, Precise, Frenzy

Rune Primaries:

• Crit Dmg
• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Nothing Specific

Early Buffer Runes Sets: Vitality

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range is nice

Late Buffer/DPS Runes Sets: Vitality, then two of: Swift, Damage, Rage, Precise

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 120, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

One Eye, aka OE, is a niche hero.  He buffs Light attack speed, so he’s used in primarily Light teams.  As a crusher, he does great damage to Gun Lord.  He doesn’t have great survivability against him though, since GL will do 2x damage to OE.  OE has decent HP for a non-tank class, so if he can get behind a tank, he will have decent survivability. 

The different rune combinations are above.  OE doesn’t really need runes, unless you’re going to be a hitter or you have a specific build that you need OE.

Onyx

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Dark Hero Chest, Atlantus Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 108 ATK, 54 DPS, 0.5 APS, 300 HP, 12 Def, 250 Attack Range, 150 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Smash Attack jumps and smashes the ground dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 350 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay

Team Buff: Universal 400% Atk – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: everyone

Primary Use: PVP: Early to end game Buffer. Mid to End game front line aoe smasher.

Runes Sets:Vitality for survival, Damage then one of: Nimble, Swift, Rage, or Precise Sets.  

Rune Primaries: 

• AOE 
• HP
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range to stay behind your tank

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 350+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 200+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 200+% AOE (Primaries)
• 40+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Onyx is a great hero that doesn’t seem to get enough recognition because she’s slightly worse than Scud.  A lot of teams use her in the end game (L2+), as she has a great buff, and forces opponents to have attack range on all their backline heroes.  She doesn’t have the survivability as a properly runed Scud, who will not be in range for most AOE attacks.  If you are doing primarily dark dungeons and buying Atlantus Crusher Chests, your Onyx won’t lag too far behind Scud in .

Onyx doesn’t need runes early on, as she will die quickly no matter what runes you give her.  Once she has caught up in , you can give her runes so she can contribute.  Vitality is a must for survivability.  Nimble will also help with survivability, if that’s what you want.  The other option is to focus more on damage, by giving her 2 dps rune sets instead of 1.  Damage, Swift, Rage, and Precise all help with damage.  It’s probably best to give her HP primaries early on, again for survivability.  Later on AOE, Atk, Atk Speed, and Crit Damage can all be used to prove her with more dps, but you may still want some HP primaries too.

Ornok

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Legendary

Unlocked from: Legendary Chest

Base Stats: 76.8 ATK, 64 DPS, 0.833 APS, 500 HP, 35 Def, 150 Attack Range, 110 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Shield Power Force pushes back nearby heroes and deals aoe damage with a base radius of 300 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.

Team Buff: Universal 300% Knight Shield HP – per above 3 above 3 (reduced by PVP multipliers)

Synergizes with: everyone

Primary Use: PVP: End game Tank

Runes Sets:Vitality, Nimble, and one of: Guard, Phalanx

Rune Primaries: 

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed and Def are nice, try to avoid attack range

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 690+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 17.5+% Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 250+% Knight Shield HP (Phalanx)
• 30+% Movement Speed (Secondaries)
• <10% Attack Range, ideally 0% (Secondaries)

Ornok is arguably the best tank in the game.  He’s about 6th in baseline health if you combine health and his knight shield, and second in def.  Paladin is the only hero that beats Ornok in both stats.  Where Ornok trumps Paladin is the elemental weakness.  Currently there is only one end game Light dps hero (Tesla) and one late game Light dps hero (Siegfried), where there are many end game Dark dps heroes (Vlad, DH, trickster) and many late game Dark dps heroes (Sorrow, Monki Mortar, and Onyx).  The downside with Ornok is that he is extremely difficult to obtain at high .  Many whales that have been playing for years do not have him at 7.  Many whales that have been playing for years do not have him at 7 yet.  Most f2p will only use Ornok in Tier 1 blitz.  Ornok’s buff is for knight shields (another reason why Ornok is great), so for that purpose only, some people start using him at 5.  At 7.  At 7, his buff increases shields by 1200%, which basically doubles any knights total health (HP + Shield).

For runes, it only matters for end game. Vitality is a must, but the other two, I’m not sure about. The options are: Phalanx, Guard, and Nimble. All sets in HP primaries. Since most people who build this are whales, they can also be picky with secondaries. You’ll want Def and movement speed secondaries. You probably want them all to have Def, and some to also have movement speed. Movement speed is great to nerf the opponent’s attack range. If you push their tank back a bit, their DPS may be stuck at the crystal, which may be closer than their attack range.

I did some analysis with perfect 6 runes with Ornok versus Tesla, who is the Onok killer due to being a Light hero.  Tesla has Damage, Precise, and Rage sets with all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  Ornok has a few options for his sets, all used HP primaries and Def Secondaries, except the last case which used Def primaries and HP secondaries.  I used all 7 runes with Ornok versus Tesla, who is the Onok killer due to being a Light hero.  Tesla has Damage, Precise, and Rage sets with all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  Ornok has a few options for his sets, all used HP primaries and Def Secondaries, except the last case which used Def primaries and HP secondaries.  I used all 7 buffers.  Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx sets gave Ornok the highest survivability.  This is good news, as it doesn’t depend on Guard, which could mean there could have been a different best configuration against Scud, or another gunner.  I did switch the attacker to Scud, without changing runes, to verify this was still the best.  The fourth option shows how much better HP is than Def:  All Def primaries will die twice as fast as All HP primaries.

Paladin

Section Last Updated: September 8, 2020

Rarity: Epic 

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Base Stats: 35 ATK, 35 DPS, 1.0 APS, 550 HP, 40 Def, 150 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Angel Barrier creates a dome for 8s healing everyone inside for 1% of Paladin’s Max HP each second.

Team Buff: Universal 25% Negative Buff debuff – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: End game Tank

Runes Sets:Vitality two of: Phalanx, Guard, Nimble

Rune Primaries: 

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed or attack range depending on the team, avoid the other one.  Def is nice to have

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 690+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 17.5+% Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 250+% Knight Shield HP (Phalanx)
• 30+% Movement Speed (Secondaries)
• <10% Attack Range, ideally 0% (Secondaries)

Paladin is one of the best tanks out there. He has great survivability between his HP, knight shield, Def, and healing sp2. His weakness is the elemental weakness to Dark dps heroes. Depending on when you add him to your team he has to worry about Vlad, DH, Trickster, Sorrow, Monki Mortar, and Onyx. If you place him behind another tank, he can be a very good supporting tank with his heal.

For runes, he only has one build with a few variations.  He’s a tank, so he requires the Vitality set.  Phalanx, Guard, and Nimble all would help also.  He requires HP primaries.  Def secondaries are nice.  If Paladin is supporting Ornok or another tank, then you want Paladin behind that tank, so you would want to give him attack range, and avoid movement speed.  If Paladin is your main tank, then you would want movement speed, and avoid attack range.

Petunia

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Earth Hero Chest

Base Stats: 90 ATK, 45 DPS, 0.5 APS, 300 HP, 16 Def, 405 Attack Range, 180 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Every 6s, turns a random hero into a frog, removing that heroes def and preventing it from attacking.  The duration of the frog is 7s plus 1s per above 2 above 2

Team Buff: Universal 500% Def – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: PVP: Early Game Crowd control, Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Petunia has a very fun sp2 called Frogify, that turns opponents into Frogs.  It happens every 6s, so it is not affected by attack speed.  She can be added early on to help slow down the opponent’s attack, but she doesn’t need runes to do this.  Later on, her crowd control doesn’t hold up to buffers and better crowd control heroes.  Then she becomes a blitz filler, and maybe used in GW.

Pinky

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Lunar New Year Event, Reminiscence Event

Base Stats: 42 ATK, 42 DPS, 1.0 APS, 200 HP, 12 Def, 120 Attack Range, 230 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks 4 times to one opponent for a total of 5x damage

Special Ability: Life Steal heals Pinky based on the amount of damage he does

Team Buff: Rogue 200% Atk/HP/Def – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: No one

Primary Use: Stager.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Pinky is a fast Earth hero with a movement speed buff, so he is primarily used for staging.  He’s the best Earth hero for staging.  Other than that he only has use as a Blitz filler.  You can give him frenzy to speed up staging, but runes are not required for this hero.

Pirato

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Water Hero Chest

Base Stats: 33.6 ATK, 28 DPS, 0.833 APS, 200 HP, 6 Def, 408 Attack Range, 180 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Shoots a big bomb that lands behind the target dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 dealing 4.15x damage which is reduced by aoe decay. 

Team Buff: 400% Atk – per 400% Atk – per above 3

Synergizes with: Teams

Primary Use: PVP: Water Atk Buffer.  Mid Game: Freeze or DPS

Early Runes Sets:Don’t spend many materials until late game

Late Freeze Build Runes Sets: Chilling, Swift, Precise

Rune Primaries:

• 30-50% AOE 
• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crt Dmg

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 83.8% to get to 750 range

Target End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 200+% Crit Damage (Rage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 300+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 50+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 30+% AOE (Primaries)
• 96+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Pirato is a great hero that is out of the current meta.  There are many Gladiator and Leaf Blade tanks out there, Earth heroes that are resistant to Water and therefore to Pirato.  He can be found in some Freeze Explode builds, but generally isn’t used as much as he would be without the Earth tanks dominating the meta.  For example, he has better base attack and better attack range than misty, but misty is higher tier, because she’s not water.  He buffs Water Attack, so he can be paired with Atlantus.

To work with the freeze explode team, Pirato uses Chilling, Swift and Precise.   He needs some AOE to hit Monki King with low attack range buffs.  Attack speed is next important, the faster he attacks, the more he will freeze.  Attack and Crit Damage are also useful.  He needs a lot of range to avoid front line AOE smashers, but since this is a freeze build, if you can keep their front line frozen, they won’t get an AOE off.

PumpKing

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Halloween Event, Reminiscence Event

Base Stats: 48 ATK, 40 DPS, 0.833 APS, 550 HP, 20 Def, 220 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Poisonous Spurt is a spew attack dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 440 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.  Each enemy hit has a 30% chance to deal 1.2 ATK*base_aps for 5 seconds.  This attack appears to be unidirectional, meaning it won’t hit opponents behind the attack.

Team Buff: 50% DMG from Poison – per above 3 above 3– this is applied after %ATK is applied (so it multiplies, not adds with it)

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: Late game Front Line AOE Smasher

Late PVP Runes Sets: Vitality and Damage, then one of the following: Precise, Swift, Rage, Poisonous, Blight

Rune Primaries:

• A total of 50%-150% AOE
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Dmg

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 220, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 20+% Poison Chance (Poisonous)
• 300+% HP (Vitality, 1xPrimaries, Secondaries)
• 350+% Atk (Damage, 2-3xPrimaries, Secondaries)
• 120+% AOE (4-5xPrimaries)
• 72+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

PumpKing is a Halloween event hero that has the largest AOE in the game with his sp2 at 440.  He also buffs poison damage, which does get the Arena/Blitz/GW multiplier applied to it.  He’s ranked B Tier in the PVP tier list.  I’m not sure we haven’t found the right team for him.  He obviously works well with Misty and Thorn and their poison.  If you sit him behind Gladiator or Leaf Blade, he should have plenty of survivability.  He is a Barbarian so he’s in the first spawn group, which means a hero would need to pass him if he spawns first.  He likely also needs some attack range to stay behind the front line hero.  I just use him with 3 piece Vitality set in Blitz.  The above is what you could use with him, but since he’s so difficult to get for, you may have better use of those materials than on PumpKing.

Rȃ

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Easter Event, Reminiscence Event

Base Stats: 57 ATK, 38 DPS, 0.667 APS, 190 HP, 15 Def, 350 Attack Range, 130 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Mini-Sand Storm creates a wave of sand to push back opponent heroes and deal 0.25x damage to each hit.  It has a width, so it can miss ground units based on the spawn height of Ra relative to other heroes, but it’s pretty large, and can even hit flying heroes.

Special Ability:  Summon on Death (Mummy).  When Ra dies, a mummy is summoned with high HP.  The Mummy uses the runes from Ra.  The mummy has 1100 base HP and 120 movement speed.

Team Buff: Magician 200% HP/Atk/Def- per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: None

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Stunning optional – Don’t spend many materials on this hero

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 690+% HP (Vitality, Primaries)
• 17.5+% Dodge Rate (Nimble)
• 30+% Movement Speed (Secondaries)
• <10% Attack Range, ideally 0% (Secondaries)
• 25+% Resist 

Ra is the Egyptian Sun God.  His first form has a sand pushback, which is useful for early game Arena.  Once his first form is defeated, he becomes a mummy that has a lot of HP.  It’s a fun mechanic, but not a very useful one.  I just use him in Blitz as a filler.

Robin Hood

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Provided near account creation

Base Stats: 30 ATK, 30 DPS, 1.0 APS, 270 HP, 6 Def, 590 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Fire shoots five arrows each dealing x1 damage to the enemy hit.

Team Buff: 200% Crit Damage – per 200% Crit Damage – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz Teams

Primary Use: Blitz Filler.  Guild Slay Event: Crit Buffer.

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Robin Hood has some use for buffing earth heroes Crit Damage.  This is very important for the Guild Slay Event, as critical hits are where most of the damage comes from.  It also helps with an earth team in Blitz.  Runes aren’t needed for this buff though, so don’t spend many materials on him.

Rufus

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Dark Hero Chest, Sorrow Crusher Chest, Atlantus Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 48 ATK, 40 DPS, 0.833 APS, 240 HP, 10 Def, 430 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Large Caliber attacks one hero for 4.15x damage. 

Team Buff: 200% Crit Damage – per 200% Crit Damage – per above 3

Synergizes with: Blitz Teams

Primary Use: PVP: Late Game Buffer and 1v1 Gunner

Late Runes Sets: Damage, then two of: Swift, Precise, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 74.4% to get to 750 range

Target End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 125+% Crit Damage (Rage, Secondaries)
• 325+% Atk (Damage, 1xPrimaries, Secondaries)
• 80+% Attack Speed (8xPrimaries)
• 84+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Rufus, the only hero that is in two Crusher Chests.  If you buy Crusher Chests, he will be one of your first rare 7 heroes.  Since the July 2020 update, he buffs Water Crit Damage, which allows him to get used in a few teams now.  He has good attack for a 1v1 gunner, but he has low attack range, so it’s difficult to keep him alive in PVP.  He has potential in water teams and in gunner teams.

For runes, you’ll want the standard DPS set: Damage, Precise, and Rage.  Swift can be used if it has good primaries also.

Scud

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Fire Hero Chest, Starter Pack, Sorrow Chest

Base Stats: 42 ATK, 35 DPS, 0.833 APS, 210 HP, 8 Def, 400 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Shoots an explosive that lands behind the target dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 dealing 4.15x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.

Team Buff: Universal 400% Atk – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: Everyone

Primary Use: PVP: Early to end game Buffer. End game aoe gunner dps.

Early Runes Sets:Vitality for survival then two of: Damage, Swift, Rage, or Precise Sets.  

Rune Primaries: 

• AOE 
• HP
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, the more the more likely Scud will not be hit by front line AOE

Late Runes Sets: Three of: Damage, Swift, Rage, or Precise Sets.  If you run with sorrow, you can skip the Damage set

Rune Primaries:

• 30-50% AOE 
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 87.5% to get to 750 range

Target End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 200+% Crit Damage (Rage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 300+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 50+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 30+% AOE (Primaries)
• 96+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Scud is the best hero you can get from Magic Medals / request from Epic Sunday.  Even though you can use Magic Medals on him, you should not use them on Scud.  Scud’s 4 ability is to buff the entire teams Atk, which is extremely useful.  As a gunner, Scud will bypass some of the opponent’s Def, which allows him to do great damage.  In addition his attacks do aoe damage, so he can hit the entire front line, and with some AOE runes, some of the medium ranged heroes, like Monki King.  In the Legendary Arena Leagues, he can be found on almost every team.  It is recommended that you request Scud for every Epic Sunday request until you get him to 7 ability is to buff the entire teams Atk, which is extremely useful.  As a gunner, Scud will bypass some of the opponent’s Def, which allows him to do great damage.  In addition his attacks do aoe damage, so he can hit the entire front line, and with some AOE runes, some of the medium ranged heroes, like Monki King.  In the Legendary Arena Leagues, he can be found on almost every team.  It is recommended that you request Scud for every Epic Sunday request until you get him to 7.

Early on Scud can be added to any PvP team to buff their damage.  For an epic, he is the easiest to get to 7, because he is in the most popular Crusher Chest.  Once Scud is 6, because he is in the most popular Crusher Chest.  Once Scud is 6, he will be able to do damage for your team.  His attack range is fairly low, so in order to be out of most aoe range, he will need about 85-90% attack range to survive most Late to End game battles.

Early on, Scud does not really need runes as he will not survive an opponent SG or Spike’s sp2 AOE.  I suggest using vitality to keep him alive, so that he has time to do damage.  AOE primaries on AOE gunners are nice, so that you are able to kill Monki King behind the front line.  This will allow your front line to do more damage, as they won’t be stunned as much.  Or it forces Monki King to add range, which degrades his AOE.  In the end game, it is common to go up against high Def heroes like Ornok and Paladin, so having a gunner who ignores 96% def is very valuable.  Useful primaries to increase his damage are: Atk, Atk Speed, and Crit Damage.

I did some analysis on Scud with perfect 6 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  I considered Ornok, Leaf Blade, and Gladiator, but the order of best to worst did not change based on the defender, or if Spark was used, or if Scud used 1 primary for AOE.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  Ornok had the highest times, due to the lack of elemental weakness to fire.  I used all 7 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  I considered Ornok, Leaf Blade, and Gladiator, but the order of best to worst did not change based on the defender, or if Spark was used, or if Scud used 1 primary for AOE.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  Ornok had the highest times, due to the lack of elemental weakness to fire.  I used all 7 buffers.  For Ornok, below are the results without using Spark as a defender.  Scud will do the most damage with Damage, Rage, and Precise sets.  Below are the results.

Ser Shȗ

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Lunar New Year Event, Reminiscence Event

Base Stats: 42 ATK, 30 DPS, 0.714 APS, 430 HP, 32 Def, 340 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Spear Charge jousts the opponent dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 400 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.  Each opponent hit gets an attack debuff for 4s and is stunned for 2s.  The attack debuff starts at 10%, and increases for higher

Team Buff: Lancer 3% Atk Range – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: 

Primary Use: PVP: Crowd Control.

Runes Sets:  Vitality and two of: swift, splash, dazed

Rune Primaries:

• AOE 50+% total – and must be at least as high as Attack Range
• Atk Speed
• Stun Duration

Rune Secondaries: 25+% Attack Range 

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 300+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 250+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 150+% AOE (Primaries)
• 40+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Ser Shȗ is basically Monki King, but on the ground.  Flying is one of the best aspects to Monki King, it helps so much with survivability, and Ser Shȗ doesn’t have that.  She does have more base HP, which helps, but it means she will need higher for survival.  She buffs Lancer Attack range, which can help Monki King, Onyx, and Atlantus, but it’s only 3% per for survival.  She buffs Lancer Attack range, which can help Monki King, Onyx, and Atlantus, but it’s only 3% per , so it’s not that great.  Her sp2 stuns and debuffs attack (the debuff increases with ), which is nice, but later on, most of the dps is coming from the back line, which would require about 100% AOE.

For runes Ser Shȗ need a Vitality set for survival, and two of: Swift, Splash, Dazed.  Splash is the worst one, so if you have good runes of the others, skip Splash.  AOE, attack speed, and stun duration are the desired primaries.  You’ll need some attack range to avoid being hit by aoe gunners, how much you’ll need depends on how much attack range your tank has.  Attack range nerfs some of the AOE, so the more attack range you get, the more AOE you’ll need.

Siegfried

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Light Hero Chest

Base Stats: 38.4 ATK, 32 DPS, 0.833 APS, 780 HP, 14 Def, 200 Attack Range, 125 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Shockwave Stomp smashes the ground dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 350 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay. 

Team Buff: Self 800% HP – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: 

Primary Use: PVP: Mid to Late game front line AOE smasher.

Late PVP Runes Sets: Vitality and Damage then one of: Rage, Precise, Swift

Rune Primaries:

• A total of 90-150% AOE
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Dmg
• HP

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – Base of 200, whatever is required to stay behind your front line tanks

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 300+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 250+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 200+% AOE (Primaries)
• 40+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

While Siegfried is out of the current meta, he can still do significant AOE damage with his sp2.  There are so many good Dark dps heroes, and this makes it risky to run Siegfried.  If he’s in the front, he will melt against many Late game teams.  If you give him ~100% AOE, and he lives long enough to get his sp2 off, he can destroy the back line, especially if it has dark heroes, which again a lot of teams use.  His “team” buff is HP, and only affects himself.  It does not get the 10x multiplier in PVP, so while not useless, isn’t as good as it seems.  

For runes, Siegfried needs Vitality, then two of: Damage, Rage, Precise, and Swift.  He needs ~100% AOE, I personally use 150% AOE, and get quite close to the opponent’s crystal.  100% gets 700 range, where 150% gets 875 range.  Most people aim for 750 range, when they can afford it, so 100% will take care of any hero with only some attack range.  Very few people will get more than 875 range, so 150% makes sure I hit everyone.

Skeleton Giant

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 90 ATK, 45 DPS, 0.5 APS, 380 HP, 20 Def, 220 Attack Range, 100 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Shockwave Stomp smashes the ground dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 350 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay. 

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with: 

Primary Use: PVP: Early game Tank. Early to Mid game front line AOE smasher.

Runes Sets: Damage Then Vitality sets then one of: Swift, Rage, or Precise Sets.  Splash set if you are desperate for AOE.  

Rune Primaries: 

• A total of 70-150% AOE 
• HP
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Nothing specific.

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 300+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 250+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 200+% AOE (Primaries)
• 40+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Arguably the best starting hero in the game.  Commonly referred to SG.  SG is very useful in all PvP aspects until late game (commons fall off around the Diamond 3 / Legendary 1 arena level), where commons cannot compete against rare and epic heroes.  As a common, it is easy to get SG to 7 by requesting medals in the guild, medals from daily dungeons, and Magic Medals.  Because of the exponential aspect of evolving and awakening, by focusing on SG, he can be your best hero very quickly, and hold this rank for months.  He will be useful past the one year mark for most people.  

SG has enough HP to survive being on the front line, but he really shines with his damage.  He has the highest damage and damage per second of any common tank.  His sp2 is an aoe that can decimate entire teams.  Most guides recommend focusing on dark daily dungeons, and that works out really well with SG, and heroes that buff SG.  Most guides also recommend focusing on Sorrow’s Crusher Chest, and 4 out of those 6 heroes work great with SG.  For these reasons, SG could be the best starting hero.  

While SG is your best hero, it’s best to build your arena team around SG.  You will want 5-7 buffers/debuffers and 2-4 crowd control heroes.  Buffers/debuffers must be 4to activate their buff.  Most crowd control heroes use their sp2, so they need to be 2to activate their buff.  Most crowd control heroes use their sp2, so they need to be 2 or higher.  Useful buffers include: Scud, Onyx, Monki Robot, Monki Mortar, Valkyrie, and Alda.  Useful debuffers include: Dark Hunter (DH), Kage, Kasumi, and Vlad.  Useful crowd control include: Monki King, Namida, Circe, Frost Queen, Xak, Goddess, Ra, Petunia, Bungun, Ser Shu, Trickster, Valkyrie, anyone with stunning, or any water with chilling.  

For runes it depends on how far you’ve progressed.  Just starting out, it’s important to get to weapon level 3.  I recommend using the Damage set, but the Vitality set can also be useful.  Starting off the set is more important than the stats, but you’re looking for HP, Atk, Atk Speed, Crit Dmg, and AOE primary stats.  Once you get to weapon level 6, you will want to use the Damage set and Vitality sets, you should have plenty of both by this time.  Runes with AOE primaries become more important.  Eventually you’ll want about 100% aoe so you can hit backline heroes.  When you reach weapon level 9, it will depend on what runes you have.  If you’re low on aoe, you can add splash runes.  If you have enough AOE, or have some in the following sets, it’s best to use one of the following: Swift, Precise, or Rage.  

As your arena team builds up, SG will remain as a front line AOE dps hero.  Once you get a couple 5 damage buffers, the damage set is no longer required.  You will want the Vitality set and two of the following sets: damage, swift, precise, and rage.  You will still want 100% aoe to hit their back line heroes.  Other useful primaries include HP, Atk, Atk Speed, and Crit Dmg.

Skeleton Infantry

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 30 ATK, 30 DPS, 1.0 APS, 300 HP, 6 Def, 160 Attack Range, 200 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks seven times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit. 

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with: 

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Skeleton Infantry is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  After maxing SG, Spike, Dragon Bot, and Bat, it’s good to max Skeleton Infantry and Skeleton Ranger, so that you will only get rare and epic heroes in the Dark dungeon.

Skeleton Ranger

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 30 ATK, 30 DPS, 1.0 APS, 300 HP, 6 Def, 160 Attack Range, 200 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Multi Hit attacks seven times dealing a total of 5x damage to the enemy hit. 

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with: 

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Skeleton Range is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  After maxing SG, Spike, Dragon Bot, and Bat, it’s good to max Skeleton Infantry and Skeleton Ranger, so that you will only get rare and epic heroes in the Dark dungeon.

Snowman

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Christmas Event, Reminiscence Event

Primary Use: End Game: Freeze Crowd Control

Late Freeze Build Runes Sets: Chilling, Swift, then two of: vitality (if you have low attack range), rage, precise

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 70.5% to get to 750 range

Snowman is a fun hero that was introduced over Christmas of 2019.  His sp2 rolls out a giant snowball that lowers opponent Def by 50%.  This can be really good later on against heroes like Ornok, Paladin, and even Glad.  If you attach chilling to him, he will then have a chance to freeze each of the heroes his snowball hits.  He buffs Water attack, which is nice in the freeze build, and can help heroes like Atlantus.  A fun quirk to snowman is the hero that kills him gets turned into a stationary snowman for a time.  This can be useful early on when people are building teams around one front line AOE smasher (like SG or Spike).

Most use Snowman for Freeze crowd control, and for that you’ll want Chilling and Swift.  The third depends on how strong your Snowman is and what runes you have.  If he’s fairly low , you can give him Vitality for survival.  For high , you can give him Vitality for survival.  For high , it’s mostly precise for dps.

Sorrow

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Sorrow Crusher Chest

Primary Use: PVP: Mid to Late Game DPS

Runes Sets: Damage, then two of: Swift, Precise, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 21.0% to get to 750 range

Sorrow is the favorite Crusher for PVP.  She buffs all gunner atk, which then buffs her own damage.  Once she gets to 6, she will start doing great damage for your team.  As a gunner, she ignores 96% of the opponent’s Def, which can be important.  Her sp2 has a stun, while useful, it’s not nearly as important as the damage she does.  Since her Crusher Chests are very good, it’s generally best if you buy more of these than other Crusher Chests.  This allows her to get to 6, she will start doing great damage for your team.  As a gunner, she ignores 96% of the opponent’s Def, which can be important.  Her sp2 has a stun, while useful, it’s not nearly as important as the damage she does.  Since her Crusher Chests are very good, it’s generally best if you buy more of these than other Crusher Chests.  This allows her to get to 6 fairly quickly. Her Crusher Chest also contains Monki Mortar, Scud, and Dark Hunter, which are very good together in an Arena team.  Late game she fades out as more difficult heroes to build can out damage her, such as Thorn and Tesla.  She has a decent base dps, and with her high base attack range, she is easy to keep alive, and you do a lot more dps while alive than while dead.  

Sorrow is all about the dps, so it’s best to use the rune sets that increase damage: Damage, Swift, Precise, and Rage.  Since she buffs her own atk, Damage becomes less effective later on.  If you add Valkyrie and Alda, then Rage might also become less effective.  The best rune sets are going to depend on what your team is, and how many they have.  Sorrow has very high base attack range, so she only needs a little to avoid the front line AOE smashers.  That makes her fairly easy to build, as attack range can be difficult to find.

I did some analysis on Sorrow with perfect 6 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 buffers.  Sorrow will do the most damage with Damage, Rage, and Precise sets.  Below are the results.

Spark

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Fire Hero Chest

Primary Use: PVP: Debuffer and DPS

Runes Sets: Burning, Damage, and one of: Swift, Ignite

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Burn Time

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 48.5% to get to 750 range

Spark has a really fun sp2 that shoots across the screen.  It only has a certain width, so it may not hit all the ground units, depending on how high Spark is standing relative to the opponent ground heroes.  This gives him some RNG on how useful he is.  Since he can hit a lot of heroes, it means Vlad will then be forced to heal multiple heroes, instead of focusing on healing the tank, which is nice.  Spark’s team buff is a Fire damage debuff.  This is extremely useful keeping Gladiator and Leaf Blade alive.  The 4x fire damage advantage drops to 1.5x when Spark is 7.  As Scud does a ton of damage, this is very useful late game.  

Spark’s sp2 has 100% chance to burn, so the Burning rune set is very useful to increase his damage.  Ignite would only affect his sp1, so it’s not quite as useful, but as there aren’t many uses for Ignite, you can stick them on Spark.  Damage and Swift are what you’d ideally like if you have good runes on those.  As someone who hasn’t bought many Epic Rune Chests, I had higher priorities than Spark for runes, so I use Ignite, since I had some decent ones.

Spike

Section Last Updated: September 9, 2020

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Base Stats: 31.2 ATK, 26 DPS, 0.833 APS, 580 HP, 30 Def, 200 Attack Range, 140 Movement Speed

SP2 description:   Heavy Blow smashes the ground dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 350 dealing 5x damage which is reduced by aoe decay. Each opponent hit has a 30% chance to be stunned for 2s

Team Buff: None

Synergizes with: 

Primary Use: PVP: Tank. Early to Mid game front line AOE smasher.

Early Runes Sets: Damage then Vitality sets then one of: Swift, Rage, or Precise Sets.  Splash set if you are desperate for AOE.  

Rune Primaries: 

• A total of 70-150% AOE 
• HP
• Atk
• Atk Speed
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Nothing specific.

Tank Runes Sets: Vitality, Guard, Nimble

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement Speed and Def are nice

Target Late/End Game Rune Stats: 

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 300+% HP (Vitality, Secondaries)
• 250+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 200+% AOE (Primaries)
• 40+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

In my opinion, Spike is tied with SG as the best common hero in the game.  SG wins out the best starter common because of his ties to other dark heroes, but Spike has great base stats and sp2 for a common.  You can easily use Spike as your main starter common.  If you do not choose Spike as your starter common, he is a very good 2nd or 3rd common to get to 7.  Spike is very useful in all PvP aspects until late game (commons fall off around the Diamond 3 / Legendary 1 arena level), where commons cannot compete against rare and epic heroes.  As a common, it is easy to get Spike to 7.  Spike is very useful in all PvP aspects until late game (commons fall off around the Diamond 3 / Legendary 1 arena level), where commons cannot compete against rare and epic heroes.  As a common, it is easy to get Spike to 7 by requesting medals in the guild, medals from daily dungeons, and Magic Medals.  Because of the exponential aspect of evolving and awakening, by focusing on Spike, he can be your best hero very quickly, and hold this rank for months.  He will be useful past the one year mark for most people.  

Spike has very high base HP to survive being on the front line, but his damage is not as good as SG’s.  He has the highest HP and Def of any common.  His sp2 is an aoe that can decimate entire teams, and as an added bonus, it has a chance to stun.

One concern about using Spike is the number of Dark backline dps heroes that get used later on.  Early on, these heroes will not be that strong, and Spike will do 2x damage against them if he has enough AOE, usually killing them in one hit.  Once the Dark backline dps heroes are strong, you’ll have other commons to 7, and likely rares will be getting close to being able to Tank for you.

If you choose Spike for your starting hero, it’s best to build your arena team around Spike.  You will want 5-7 buffers/debuffers and 2-4 crowd control heroes.  Buffers/debuffers must be 4to activate their buff.  Most crowd control heroes use their sp2, so they need to be 2to activate their buff.  Most crowd control heroes use their sp2, so they need to be 2 or higher.  Useful buffers include: Scud, Onyx, Monki Robot, Krünk, Thor, One Eye, Arcana, Valkyrie, and Alda.  Useful debuffers include: Dark Hunter (DH), Kage, Kasumi, and Vlad.  Useful crowd control include: Monki King, Namida, Circe, Frost Queen, Xak, Goddess, Ra, Petunia, Bungun, Ser Shu, Trickster, Valkyrie, anyone with stunning, or any water with chilling.  

For runes it depends on how far you’ve progressed.  Just starting out, it’s important to get to weapon level 3.  I recommend using the Damage set, but the Vitality set can also be useful.  Starting off the set is more important than the stats, but you’re looking for HP, Atk, Atk Speed, Crit Dmg, and AOE primary stats.  Once you get to weapon level 6, you will want to use the Damage set and Vitality sets, you should have plenty of both by this time.  Runes with AOE primaries become more important.  Eventually you’ll want about 100% aoe so you can hit backline heroes.  When you reach weapon level 9, it will depend on what runes you have.  If you’re low on aoe, you can add splash runes.  If you have enough AOE, or have some in the following sets, it’s best to use one of the following: Swift, Precise, or Rage.  

As your arena team builds up, and you have a few 7 heroes, Spike will switch to a pure Tank hero.  You will want the Vitality set, Guard set, and Nimble set.  You will no longer want 100% aoe, you will want runes with HP primaries.

Once you transition Spike off your arena team, you can either keep him as a tank for blitz and GW, or switch him back to a front line AOE smasher.

Sprout

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Sprout is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  Sprout is good against Frostwing, but if you’re focusing on PVP, Bat will be the fourth best common.  You can then use Bat with Groovine’s ultimate to do a lot of damage against Frostwing also.  And that way you won’t be wasting materials on a hero that is not good in PVP.

Spyro

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Fire Hero Chest

Primary Use: Blitz Filler. PVP Buffer

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Spyro is a lancer with low base HP, which makes it difficult for him to survive and be useful.  He does buff Fire damage, so he is useful for buffing Fire in Blitz and GW.  He doesn’t need runes for his buff though.

Swift

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Swift is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Tellus

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Earth Hero Chest

Primary Use: Blitz: Tank.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Vitality 

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice

Tellus is the tankiest of the brawlers.  He has this Block Damage ability, that no one seems to understand the mechanics of.  Not many people have spent enough materials on him to really test him out, so there’s a possibility of him being stronger than we think.  Most just use him as a Blitz Tank, with three Vitality runes.

Tellus has an ability called block, which reflects damage and stuns the opponent.  The chance of blocking is ~20%.  I’m not sure how much damage is reflected, I’ve seen reports of 50%.  The one test I performed was 25%, but that was before def was applied, so maybe it’s 50% after def.

Tesla

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Fortune Chest

Base Stats: 43.2 ATK, 36 DPS, 0.833 APS, 360 HP, 6 Def, 390 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Electric Hit throws an attack that lands behind the target dealing aoe damage with a base radius of 150 dealing 4x damage which is reduced by aoe decay.  This currently does not hit flying heroes, hopefully will change in the future.

Team Buff: Self 800% Atk – per above 3 above 3

Synergizes with: and Against Ornok

Primary Use: PVP: End Game DPS

Runes Sets: three of: Damage, Swift, Precise, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 92.3% to get to 750 range

Target End Game Rune Stats: Built for no Arena buff

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 260+% Crit Damage (Rage, Secondaries)
• 150+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 90+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 100+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Target End Game Rune Stats: Built for Arena buff

• 17.5+% Crit Rate (Precise)
• 260+% Crit Damage (Rage, Secondaries)
• 390+% Atk (Damage, Primaries, Secondaries)
• 50+% Atk Speed (Primaries)
• 100+% Attack Range (Secondaries)

Tesla is the end game counter to Ornok.  Her “Team” buff is a self buff that gives her massive amounts of attack.  Her normal attack has a chance to stun, and her sp2 is a small aoe stun.  Most end game teams use few front line heroes, so this isn’t that important, but it can help take out late game teams.  It does give a full dps team some crowd control.

A 7 Tesla will have 640% Attack from her self buff, and another 640% from a 7 Tesla will have 640% Attack from her self buff, and another 640% from a 7Scud and Onyx, so she has a lot of Attack %.  During buff weeks, team buff does not get the bonus applied to it, so Damage runes are still important.  Swift, Precise, and Rage are the other rune sets she needs.  She’ll want attack speed and crit damage for primaries, but attack primaries can be used, if they have attack range on them.  Tesla needs a ton of attack range, as end game, most teams will have a 100% aoe Onyx or other front line AOE smasher.

I did some analysis with perfect 6 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  Ornok used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  While Tesla is good against other heroes, she’s really the counter to Ornok, so I was focused on him.  I used all 7 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  Ornok used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  While Tesla is good against other heroes, she’s really the counter to Ornok, so I was focused on him.  I used all 7 buffers.  Tesla will do the most damage with Damage, Rage, and Precise sets.  Damage, Precise, and Swift comes in a close second, and it has the added benefit of quicker attacks, and therefore more frequent stuns on Ornok.  Below are the results.

Thor

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Blitz Shop

Primary Use: Blitz Filler. PVP Buffer

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Thor is an interesting hero that can be used with mostly Light teams as he buffs Light attack.  His sp2 is Rush, that looks like a whirlwind that can send him behind the opponent’s front line.  He has a decent amount of HP, so he can disrupt an opponent’s hero position.  As many teams use Dark dps, and Light is weak to Dark, Thor doesn’t usually last very long at that location.  As Spike is usually the second or third common worked on for f2p players, Thor can be used to buff him in a second GW team or blitz.  He doesn’t need runes for this buff.

Thorn

Section Last Updated: September 6, 2020

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Groovine Crusher Chest

Base Stats: 40 ATK, 40 DPS, 1.0 APS, 400 HP, 6 Def, 500 Attack Range, 160 Movement Speed

SP2 description:  Poisonous Wave creates an aoe orb originating at Thorn dealing 1.2 ATK*base_aps for 5 seconds.  The aoe damage has a base radius of 600 and is reduced by aoe decay.  

Team Buff: 200% Atk Debuff – per 200% Atk Debuff – per above 3

Synergizes with:

Primary Use: PVP: End Game DPS/Backline Clearer

Runes Sets: Blight, Swift, Damage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• 90-150% AOE, ~100% more than attack range

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 50.0% to get to 750 range

Target End Game Rune Stats: 

• 90+% Poison Duration (Blight, Primaries)
• 150+% Atk (Damage, Secondaries)
• 150+% AOE (Primaries)
• 60+% Attack Range (Secondaries)
• 17.5+% APS (Swift)

Thorn has the best AOE attack in the game.  It has a range of 600, it attacks both ground and flying heroes, and it does a total of 6x damage.  The downside is that it’s poison, and you can’t crit on poison damage.  It’s not amazing damage, but it forces Vlad to heal other heroes other than the tank, and that is extremely valuable.  As an Earth hero, he has a damage advantage over Water heroes, which is valuable taking out freeze teams and Namida in general.  

For runes, Thorn will need Blight, Swift, and Damage sets.  Attack range counters AOE, so the more attack range you have, the more AOE you’ll need.  You’ll need some attack range to get out of the range of front line aoe smashers.  The other useful primary is attack speed.

I did some analysis on Thorn with perfect 6 runes, 5 AOE primaries, and remaining are aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 runes, 5 AOE primaries, and remaining are aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 buffers.  Thorn is meant more for killing backline heroes than the tank, so I included her sp2 damage, and that’s the important metric here.  Thorn will do the most sp2 damage with Damage, Swift, and Blight sets with 5 AOE primaries, 1 aps primary, and 3 poison duration primaries.  Below are the results.

Tiny Dragon

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Tiny Dragon is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

TNT – Preliminary

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Primary Use: PVP: Late Game Backline Clearer

Late Runes Sets: Damage and two of: Precise, Rage, Swift

Rune Primaries:

• AOE
• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 56.3% to get to 750 range, as much movement speed as possible

I was not a Beta tester for TNT, so this is my best guess without actually seeing him in action or experimenting with him.  TNT was just released in July 2020 as a Blitz hero.  He has a new team buff that increases the duration of burn.  I believe this was Godzilab’s attempt to make burning more important, I just don’t think they went far enough.  Right now it’s 10% per star, starting at 4, and I think 15% or 20% per star would have been more interesting.  For the few heroes that burning isn’t bad for, you really need +120% burn duration from runes to make it work, so an additional 40% at 7, and I think 15% or 20% per star would have been more interesting.  For the few heroes that burning isn’t bad for, you really need +120% burn duration from runes to make it work, so an additional 40% at 7 isn’t nearly as big as it seems.  

The more exciting aspect to TNT to me is his SP2.  He summons a bomb that runs toward the opponent and explodes after 4s.  Attack range makes this worse, as it starts the summon farther away from the opponent.  In addition Kamikaze spawns a bit behind TNT, maybe 20 units.  Movement speed, either from team buffs or runes is a must for this.  Kamikaze has a base movement speed of 140, and 4 seconds only gets him 560 towards the opponent.  At 750 range, this would barely hit the front hero.  With just runes, you can get to 230 movement speed, which would allow the summon to move 922 in 4s.  Even with AOE buffs, this might not be enough for Late Game.  If you add Xak to the team, the summon could move 1480, and explode in the middle of the opponent’s team, hitting everyone.  Xak alone will allow Kamikaze to move 1120.  I see this as the most likely use of TNT, being paired up with Xak.  

TNT’s damage isn’t that great, he has relatively high base attack, but only has a 10% crit rate.  Below is some preliminary analysis showing his dps capability.  It assumes six APS primaries and three AOE primaries.

It’s not great for a hero that’s meant to kill the tank, but TNT has potential to be a better back line killer than Thorn.  The problem is he has to rely on another hero, who doesn’t do a whole lot of dps in order for this to happen.  People who used him in Beta testing seem to have a better impression of her than I do, and I’m willing to have my mind changed when I see him in action.  I’m guessing he’ll end up at A tier with what I’ve seen so far.  My thoughts of him right now is that the 50k flooz requirement to get him to 7 is more than he’s worth.  

Torch

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Fire Hero Chest

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Torch is a weird hero.  He’s a back line class, but has the lowest attack range.  If you want him to survive, you’d have to give him a whole lot of attack range.  Then he’s got an aoe sp2, so you’d then need to give him a whole lot of aoe, to counter the attack range.  The best I can say about Torch is that he buffs Spark’s Burning damage in Blitz.  He’s horrible for an epic hero.  Don’t spend materials on this hero!

Trickster

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Easter Event, Reminiscence Event

Primary Use: PVP: Crowd Control and End Game DPS

Crowd Control Runes Sets: Swift, Dazed, Stunning

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Stun Duration

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 47.0% to get to 750 range (for late game survival)

DPS Runes Sets: Swift, Damage, and one of: Rage, Precise

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 47.0% to get to 750 range

Trickster was just released over Easter 2020, and has a lot of fanfare.  He has decent base dps, decent attack range, and some really interesting crowd control.  Both his normal attack and sp2 try to apply attack down, slow down, def down, and stun, the durations of which increase with .  His team buff increases negative effects, increasing these durations even more.  Most people are going to use him for his crowd control, but some may use him for his dps.

For Crowd Control, Trickster will want Swift, Dazed, and Stunning with attack speed and stun duration primaries.  Early on, if you can just get some attack speed on him, that will be enough.  Later on you’ll need some attack range to avoid front line AOE smashers.

I did some analysis on Trickster with perfect 6 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 buffers.  Trickster will do the most damage with Damage, Rage, and Precise sets.  Below are the results.

Valkyrie

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Water Hero Chest, Starter Pack

Primary Use: PVP: Mid to End game dps, buffer, freeze crowd control.  Guild Slay Event: Crit Buffer.

Early Runes Sets:Don’t spend many materials until mid game

Late Runes Sets: Three of: Chilling, Swift, Damage, Precise, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range, needs 36.4% to get to 750 range

Valkyrie is one of the Crit Sisters.  She and Alda are able to give Crit buffs to everyone and are fondly known as the Crit Sisters.  This makes her very good in both the Slay Event and PVP.  Valkyrie is not in any Crusher Chests, which makes her difficult to obtain and difficult to get high .  Once she does get to 6.  Once she does get to 6, she can do decent damage, but she can help freeze at any .  Water is weak to Earth, so she doesn’t do much damage against two commonly used earth tanks: Gladiator and Leaf Blade.  

Early on, Valkyrie doesn’t need many runes.  Chilling and Swift can be useful to increase how many times she freezes heroes.  Later on, it depends on how you want to use her.  Chilling and Swift can still be useful, or you can try to do more dps with her.  Then you’d select three of: Swift, Damage, Precise, and Rage.  

I did some analysis on Valkyrie with perfect 6 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  Valkyrie isn’t known for her damage, but this will provide you with an idea of how much damage she can do.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  Valkyrie isn’t known for her damage, but this will provide you with an idea of how much damage she can do.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 buffers.  Valkyrie will do the most damage with Damage, Rage, and Precise sets.  Below are the results.

Vlad

Rarity: Epic

Unlocked from: Blitz Chest, Blitz Rewards

Primary Use: PVP: Mid to End game dps, buffer, healer

Late Runes Sets: Damage, Precise then one of: Swift, Rage

Rune Primaries:

• Atk Speed
• Atk
• Crit Damage

Rune Secondaries: Nothing specific

Vlad is one of the best PVP heroes in the game and is extremely easy to add to any team.  His team buff decreases opponent attack speed, which helps keep your team alive and with fewer crowd controls.  He also heals based on damage, which helps keep your heroes alive even more.  A significant portion of Legendary Arena team use him, and the ones that don’t, only do so because Blitz heroes cost a lot of flooz and require a whole lot of saving between Vlad events.  

For runes, most people run a Swift set on Vlad.  This allows him to heal more frequently, which is great for the survivability of your other heroes.  It is not necessarily going to be the best dps though.  Precise is a must, because his base crit rate is really low.  The other two depends on what primaries you have and your team composition, but it’ll be either Damage or Rage.  You’re looking for mostly Attack speed primaries, but attack and crit damage will help with dps for the remaining runes.

I did some analysis on Vlad with perfect 6 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 runes, all aps primaries, with atk and crit damage in first 2 secondary slots.  For Ornok I used Vitality, Nimble, and Phalanx, with HP primaries and Def Secondaries.  I used all 7 buffers.  Vlad will do the most damage with Damage, Rage, and Precise sets.  Below are the results.

Voodoo Archer

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Voodoo Archer is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Voodoo Dagger

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Stager.  Blitz filler.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Voodoo Dagger is a fast common, so he can be used for staging.  Voodoo Dagger is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities. 

Voodoo Spear

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Voodoo Spear is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Vulcan Archer

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Vulcan Archer is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Vulcan Fighter

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

Godzilab didn’t even make an emoji of this hero.  Enough said.

Vulcan Hammer

Rarity: Common

Unlocked from: Silver Chest, Daily Dungeon

Primary Use: Blitz Filler

Runes Sets: Don’t spend materials on this hero

While at quick glance, Vulcan Hammer has similar stats as Skeleton Giant, one of the best commons.  The main difference is her sp2 aoe is only 150 instead of 350.  This really limits her use to only attack front line heroes, where Skeleton Giant can also hit the backline with enough AOE.  Vulcan Hammer is not a top 4 common hero.  By the time you get 4 commons to 7, you’ll be focusing on Rare for Arena, so the next common you use requests on doesn’t depend on the common’s stats or abilities.  

Wolfie

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Earth Hero Chest

Primary Use: Blitz: Tank.  

Blitz Runes Sets: Vitality 

Rune Primaries:

• HP

Rune Secondaries: Movement speed is nice

Wolfie is a decent tank in an element full of great tanks.  He buffs Earth attack which is useful in Blitz.  I just use him as a Blitz tank with 3 Vitality runes.

Xak

Rarity: Rare

Unlocked from: Premium Chest, Blitz Chest, Fire Hero Chest

Primary Use: PVP: Crowd Control.

Early Runes Sets: Vitality then two of: swift, splash, dazed

Rune Primaries:

• AOE 
• Atk Speed
• Stun Duration

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range is nice

Late Runes Sets:  swift, splash, dazed

Rune Primaries:

• AOE 75+% 
• Atk Speed
• Stun Duration

Rune Secondaries: Attack Range – depends on build.  78.6% gets 750 range

Xak is a really good Stun hero.  His sp2 is a massive stunning AOE.  He generally works well with Monki King, who will increase Xak’s attack speed, and therefore how often he uses his sp2.  If you increase Xak’s attack range, he can stun the back line, which is important starting around Mid game, but can be useful early on to stun other crowd control.  Xak also has a shield for an Ultimate, which is useful for survival in Guild Slay Event.

For runes, early game Xak could use vitality for survival, otherwise it’s the same from early and late game.  You’ll want swift, splash, and dazed runes, with AOE, attack speed, and stun duration.  The more attack range you get the more AOE you’ll need, but attack range helps with survivability.  I have heard of a Xak/MK team that doesn’t use Attack Range, but tries to stun lock the opponent.  When it works, it’s great, and when it doesn’t, those two slots were just wasted, but there are some people who pull it off well. 

By MrMoogle, aka EMoogle