Strategy Guide - Guide for Dungeon Boss

Dungeon Boss Strategy Guide

INTRO:
------

Dungeon Boss is a RPG-ish timer-based game where the goal is to collect Heroes
 and buff them to complete dungeons, PvP, and other tasks.  
The game uses Energy and timer mechanics as the limiting factor in what all
you can do.  

However, the timer is well done in that there is lots of stuff to do
every day unlike most of the building-games where the timers become longer and
longer as you progress.   

Be aware that Dungeon Boss is a PAY TO WIN game.  There are plentiful IAPs that
can be bought to speed up progress and enable you to have a big advantage over
other players.

The good news is that the devs seem to be extremely greedy and have priced the
IAPs quite high relative to the benefit gained.  As such, it would take a HUGE
amount of cash to really gain massive advantages.  This tends to work out well
in that you rarely feel totally outclassed relative to other players.

For example, when you unlock a 3 star hero they make a special offer to pay
30 bucks to allow it to gain halfway to 4 star, and evolve to the 2nd tier,
plus a bit of cash.  So 30 bucks for ONE hero, to gain halfway to an 8% boost
and one extra ability.  Meh.


There is an excellent wiki for the game, as well as a pretty good forum.
As such, I am NOT going to go into extreme detail about gameplay items.
The goal of this guide is to focus more on STRATEGY elements you can employ to
improve your game.


HERO TOKENS:
------------

The goal is to collect heroes which you use to do various tasks.  Each hero must
be UNLOCKED first, which generally requires you to collect enough hero tokens
to do so.  Tokens are gained from completing dungeons, PvP, the shops, events,
quests, and the Portal which takes various currencies in the game and gives
random rewards, including unlocking heroes.

Once unlocked, you continue to collect tokens to increase the stats of a hero
by means of a Star system.  Each Star a hero has (6 max) adds about 8% to all
their stats, relative to the baseline stats of a particular hero.

Heroes start off with 1 to 3 stars, and the 3 stars will seem better due to
better stats.  However, in several cases the 1 star or 2 star heroes can be
just as good once buffed to the same level.

A 3 star hero takes 100 tokens to unlock.  A 2 star takes 30.  1 star takes 10.
Once you unlock it takes 20 to go from 1 star to 2 star and 70 from 2 to 3.
Then 100 more to 4 star, 150 to 5 star, 250 to 6 star.
So basically its the same total number of tokens for ANY hero to get to a 
certain star level.


TOKEN SOURCES:
--------------
There are a lot of different heroes, each having a certain number of ways to 
acquire tokens.  Some heroes are extremely difficult to level up despite 
being very strong initially.   Some are very easy to level because there are
a lot of ways to do so.  We will go over these.

Here is a list of where to get tokens for a given champ:
http://dungeonboss.wikia.com/wiki/Upgrading_Heroes


1. Dungeon - Complete a dungeon to get a hero token.  Mostly the 1 star and 2
star heroes can be boosted in this manner.  The capstone 7stamina dungeons can
boost a few selected 3 star heroes:  
  Brom the Reaper.
  Black Diamond the Rogue
  Ignus the Wall of Fire dude.

2. Daily Rewards - Periodically you receive hero tokens for certain heroes
as part of the daily reward.

  Shadowblade the ninja
  Rocky the Mushroom  
are the primary ones, with others showing up only once per year pretty much,
 except for Nitpick who shows up early on twice. And Dagrund Blacksmoke.

3. Quest Rewards - 
  Nimriel the Elf Archer is the main hero you get from doing
quests...particularly the ones you get from advancing the game by doing
dungeons and completing chapters.  She otherwise cannot be gotten.
  Rocky the Shittake also shows up as quest rewards.

4. PvP Rewards - Several 2 and 3 star heroes are given as PvP tournament 
rewards.  Every 2 days a tournament finishes and rewards are given based on
your rank...which is based on how many trophies you own.

5. Treasure Room - Only Lupina the Werewolf can be found in treasure rooms
 within dungeons that randomly show up.  If you get the "Awesome" chest
 you get ONE token...IF and only if you win that dungeon.
 Lupina is an oddball in that this is one of the only ways to boost her.

6. Portal Reward - There are 4 different portal summons available, each 
 with its own list of hero tokens or unlocks that can be obtained.

7. Shops.  There is the Gem shop that takes Gems with random hero tokens
 per day available..usually the 2 or 3 star champs, not available in
 dungeons.
 There is a PvP Honor Shop with 1 lower-star hero token available.
 There is also a Pwn Shop with a seperate hero token available every day.

8. Special Events - These create dungeons and quests which give hero tokens.


EVOs and ASCENDING HEROES:
--------------------------

The second way to buff heroes is to collect EVOs and ASCEND them. Each one
can be ascended twice, gaining new abilities.  Sometimes this is very good
as a hero gets passive abilities or boosts existing abilities. But not
always...sometimes an ascention only gives a new Active ability that will
be only very rarely used.
Thus it is important to ensure you use your EVOs wisely to boost the right
heroes.


LEVELING UP:
------------

You yourself start off as level 1 and gain player XP, seperate from your
heroes.  As you level, you can hold more stamina (the timer mechanic) and
your heroes can also level up not to exceed your own level.

Leveling up heroes boosts their stats and a level difference between
battling heroes/creatures can cause the lower level to miss sometimes.

You can also level up each hero's ABILITIES separately which increases
their strength...in exchange for gold.

As you get more and more heroes, you have to pick which abilities to boost
as it gets really expensive.  



PAYING TO WIN:
--------------
There is nothing wrong with supporting the developers of a game.  However I
do not believe you need to 'cheat' or pay2win.  Hence, we look at the various
IAPs available.

I highly recommend getting the DAILY GEMS if you decide you like the game 
after playing a day or so.
It costs 3 dollars which is reasonable and provides 100 gems immediately and
50 per day for 30 days = 1600 gems total.   This is a HUGE number and also
helps prevent you from wasting them by doing something stupid before you know
what you are doing.  Buying 1600 gems outright would cost 10 bucks I believe.

It also gives you VIP1 which adds 2 extra free 10,000 gold summon every DAY
as well as doubling or tripling some of the minor daily rewards such as gold
or potions.  The VIP status is PERMANENT. It also allows Full hero unlocks
in the gold-summons which is helpful to have early on.


Further VIP rewards are fairly weak to be honest, considering their cost.
You gain them after wasting 8,22,50,100 bucks to get to VIP2,3,4,5 
From there VIP6 is 170ish, then 300ish, 450ish, 750ish, and 1000 bucks.

Seriously... 1000 bucks spent for virtual currently on a video game!?! WTF?
If you do this, you need help. I'm for real. You have addiction issues.
There is no reason to waste money like that.


When you unlock a hero, you will also be accosted with the chance to pay a
small fortune (30 bucks) to boost that hero.   However, you only gain
enough tokens to HALF-WAY boost them to the next Star level.  And enough
for 1 ascension.   This really is not worth 30 bucks at all.



THIS IS THE END OF THE OVERVIEW AND MECHANICS SECTION:
------------------------------------------------------
Now, we will focus on actual strategies.  I recommend going to the wiki
and reading all the pages there for new Players.


GOALS:
------

I am going to assume that you want to play all aspects of the game well,
instead of focusing on PvP only or Campaign only, etc.  This may not be
the case of course and you can still use the info here to adapt to what
you want to do.


STARTING OUT:
-------------

You start with Rognar the tanky dwarf and acquire Willow the archer and
then Yasmin the healer.  From there, which heroes get unlocked is somewhat
random, depending on your luck and ability/desire to pay2win.

Telling you that Igorok is awesome isn't all that helpful since there is
no way to affect anything that would lead to you getting him. Well, other
than paying for lots of gems and summons obviously, which we avoid.

You will run the dungeons to 3 star them, but from there it is up to you
to determine which ones you run regularly in order to acquire hero tokens.

The more dungeons you unlock, you quickly much start prioritizing how you
will spend your stamina to start focusing on certain heroes.

HERE is a list of all the dungeons and which hero tokens they contain:
http://dungeonboss.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons

You will quickly be able to get through several chapters.


INITIAL HEROES TO GET:
----------------------

You will want to focus on running dungeons every day to acquire tokens for
these heroes, early on.  These are the champs that you have control over
obtaining:

1) Willow Swift - She is a basic champ but is quite strong both for PvP and
   campaign.  She gets 3 different offensive special attacks as you ascend.
   She also gets the ability to buff other Nature champions, as well as 
   a useful dodge passive.
   Focusing on her early will let her hit 3 star/4 star before anyone else
   due to the head start you receive with her.
   NOTE: Her Sniper Shot AUTO-CRITS any Nature,Dark,or Light heroes.


2) Chief NubNub - This guy is amazing!  His special not only heals up the
   whole team immediately but KEEPS HEALING for 2 more rounds...AND boosts
   the team's crit rate!  AAAND recharges in 4 rounds!!!

   His first ascension is KEY as it adds a big team-heal for free every time
   he attacks and crits, and his rate is 14% crit...more when he Voodoos.
   He is also much tougher than crappy Yasmin and lives long enough to heal
   his team.   Usable in PVP too, but absolutely KEY in Special Events and
   long dungeons.
   He is easier to get tokens for since he appears in Portal summons as well
   as the pvp honor shop, as well as quite a few dungeons.


3) Shadowblade - He starts off 2 star and you get tokens for him as early
   quest rewards.  He is a solid offensive character and gets extra tokens
   due to being in the Great portal summons.  He is also useful for being
   a Fast character for later PVP. 
   NOTE: His Ultimate AUTO-CRITS any Nature,Water, or Fire heroes.


4) Tsume - He is a 2 star that is a tough melee fighter with an area effect
   attack.  The trick is that he hits much much harder as he gets wounded
   making him strong in both pvp and campaign/dungeon.   He only has 1
   dungeon though until chapter 5, so advancement is slow at first.  But
   he is worth unlocking and also gains tokens from Great Summons.  He is
   a PVP monster potentially as his area effect damage dispels enemy buffs
   plus a good chunk of damage.  If the enemy is unlucky and tries and
   fails to finish him off, his Ult will do up to 3.5x damage and kill their
   whole group pretty much.
   As such he really punishes area-effect damage, bad AI targeting in PvP
   and just plain bad luck due to misses, weak damage rolls, etc. You cant
   "pass" in this game, so playing around Tsume sometimes just isn't 
   possible.


5) Yoko - He is a 2 star sumo dude and the first hero with a strong disable.
   His ultimate Dazes the entire enemy party and gives them near 40% miss
   rate for 6 turns.  This is pretty nice in early PvP.


6) TORCHY - Honorable mention for PvP only. He has a 1 target attack and
 is fast.
He is one of the very few counters to kill off a Bovus before it can
stampede. (aka. Win).
It doesn't hurt to do a few dungeons to get him to 2 stars or even 3.


I would AVOID Rognar because he doesn't do anything particularly good.
He has no taunt so he doesnt tank.  His Ultimate has no other effect...its
just damage.   He is just meh.

I would avoid Brom as well, even though he is a 3 star and thus tempting.
I happened to Full Unlock him early in a summon and he was amazing.  
But unless you also do so, by the time you get 100 tokens to unlock him via
 the 1 early dungeon, you will have better options.

Selwyn the Ice Mage also has a very strong disable (freeze) and is tempting.
He was very disappointing though as his damage is pitiful and his health is
awful.  If you have extra stamina though and want to PvP right at level 10,
he will give you a good advantage... a bit more reliable than Yoko, but
expect to get 1 shotted by Willow...a lot!
You probably dont want to boost him, but unlocking him is worthwhile.

Avoid Ignus too for the same reason as Bron.  He is mediocre at best and
takes too long to unlock.


Avoid all the other 1 star champions.  You will eventually unlock them but
there is no rush.

Most likely you will wind up gaining other champions by various means and
will use them instead. But boosting the champs above will never be a 
waste.


HERO SYNERGY:
-------------

Certain heroes have passives that buff other heroes in the party with certain
tags.  Hence the idea theoretically is to get a group that strongly buffs
each other.   This works very well in PvP defensively as you can bait people
into attacking you and be deceptively strong.

Note that many of these party-buffs require ascended heroes.

The downside is that you may be including less powerful heroes into your 
party.  I would MUCH rather have overpowered IGOROK in my team instead of
someone who sucks but adds 15% to 1 stat to my other heroes.


Here is my list of all known synergies:


Ignus - 15% attk      Fire
nitpick - attack      fire

Bovus - 15% health    warriors.
Yoko    Health 15     warrior

Nub - 15/25% health         goblin
Bramble  Atk AND Crit/Skill  GOBLIN

Julius - Attack/Crit  Beast
lupina - crit          beast
mangle - attack       beast
Pigmus - extra atk    Beast
Torchy    Attack      Beast

Rocky - 15/25 crit    Nature
Tsume - 15% attack    nature
Willow  Health 15%    nature

William  Defense15%   Water
Yasmin  Health 20     water

Dagrund  atk 15       caster

Zomm    Health 15/20  Undead
Pontifex atk/def      Undead

BlkDia   crit/skl15   light


Here is the list of Heroes for each relevant tag:


Warrior:  Bovus, Stonecrusher, jabber, yorick, brom, lupina, Mangle,
  overlord, stonecrusher, takumi, sifu, squinch, tsuma, yoko, zurk

Beast:  Bovus, Jabber, Julius, Lupina, Mangle, Piggy, Torchy

UndeaD: Ekko, Yorick, Brom, Zomm, Overlord

Goblin:  Nub, King, Squinch, Zurk

CasteR: ignus, kobal, nitpick, pontifix, selwyn, therand



EXAMPLE SYNERGY GROUPS:
-----------------------

Here is a nature-synergy team:

Rocky - buffs everyone's crit by 25%
Tsume - buffs everyone's attack by 15%
Willow - buffs everyone's Health by 15%
Bovus - buffs TSUME only (a warrior) Attack AND crit unknown amount.

In total this team has 10 synergy points, so to speak.  And 3 of the
heroes are pretty strong.   Rocky is kind of dubious and needs 1 ascend
to actually get his Aura...and his 1st ascend is EXPENSIVE! Esp for a
2 star hero.


Beast Team:

Julius - Attack AND Crit by some amount.
Pigmus - Chance of extra basic attack for everyone. Extra burn dmg.
Lupina - Add CRIT to everyone.
Mangle - Add attack to everyone.

Lupina and Mangle are pretty bad champs, but this team has CRAZY synergy
 with each one buffing each other member, for 12 synergy points.

You can replace Mangle who really sucks with the bat (Torchy) who is more
useful overall and more worth buffing.   Bat ALSO buffs all beasts, but has
less health.

Bovus is also a beast and a good champ.  However, he only buffs warriors
and thus reduces the synergy. The good news is that MangleJaw IS a warrior
as is Lupina. So he could replace Pigmus if you don't have him and only
lose 1 synergy point.

If you don't have Julius, you can replace with Bat, and keep Mangle.





As you can see there is potential for an Undead team, Fire, Goblins, and 
Warriors.
Along with potential for partial synergies such as a Water team with 
Tank/healer and 2 other water teammates.


In my experience it is good to consider synergies and include when possible.
However, you do not want to include junk heroes JUST to get synergy bonuses.


HERO COUNTERS AND SUCH:
-----------------------
ALL Heroes have an Element tag and usually one of several other tags such
as Beast, Demon, Elf, armored, fast, etc. Some tags are basically meaningless
currently whereas others have a lot of support.

Try to remember that Fire burns Trees.
This helps remember that Fire heroes do 30% bonus damage vs Nature heroes.
Nature gets a bonus against Water.
Water gets damage bonus against Fire.
Light vs Dark and vice versa.

Furthermore, there is a damage PENALTY for heroes attacking elements that
gain bonuses vs them.  i.e.  Nature gets bonus vs water but water gets
a 25% PENALTY vs nature.


In addition, there are several heroes that have special abilities against
other heroes of a particular tag.   Here is my list:

Lady Nimreal - 2x damage vs TANKS
Pignius,Squinch - A skill deals extra damage vs DEBUFFED enemies.
Rognar,Samurai - Never misses.  Counters sneaky rogues,etc with dodge.
Julius,Squinch - 2x damage vs TAUNTING foes.
Bovus - Purges a buff from enemy.
Jabber - 2x damage vs Dwarves
Phemus - Ignores enemy TAUNT
Phenol - Counters enemy melee with Taunt/Selfheal and Poison Skin.
Willow - Sniper shot ignores armor. Crits vs Nature. Removes buff.
Tsume - Removes buff with his area effect attack.
Zurk - 2x damage vs CASTERS
Yorick - takes less damage from ROGUES.
Selwyn,StoneFist,Igorok,Icebloom,Archangel - Immune to freeze.
William - 2x damage vs beasts.
Therand - 2x damage vs Armored foes.
Yasmin - 2.5x damage vs UNDEAD. (tho her damage is pathetic to begin with)
Yoko - 2x damage vs ROGUES
Brom - Ultimate reduces max health. (i.e. prevents healing)
Lord Zomm - GAINS STATS when diseased instead of debuffed.
Overlord - extra damage vs LIGHT
Archangel - Immune to Lots of stuff, 2x damage vs DEMON.
Paladin - 2x damage vs DEMON
Ekko - immune to SPIRIT attacks. (which is kind of a dubious category)
Masuta - 2.5x vs UNDEAD.  Immune to critical hits.



HEROES TO LOOK OUT FOR:
-----------------------

While you have little control usually over what you get, heres some heros
to prioritize if you can.


IGOROK the Overpowered - Best hero in the game. He has huge health, high 
offensive and defense stats and his ultimate freezes enemies and does a ton
of damage. He's in his own league and cannot really be countered effectively.
However, getting tokens for him is extremely hard.

JULIUS the monkey - Decent tanky champ with good combat stats.  His Ultimate
does area effect damage and a random debuff.  The randomness is less desirable
but it does put him above pure AoE damage champions.  He also has better base
combat stats than most heroes including Bovus.  He also has beast synergy
and Nature(which has the most element synergy possible)
Getting tokens for him is extremely difficult, same as Igorok.

BOVUS the Minotaur - Similar to Julius. His Area effect takes 1 energy from 
foes making him weaker in campaign but WAYYY better in PvP.  Can ONLY get 
tokens from Great Summons, but can unlock him pretty fast.  About 100 summons
is what it takes typically to acquire him, which is only 1 million gold minus
all your free summons per day.  By 2 star he is still pretty good which you 
can expect to happen after another 200 great summons, give or take.
He is also pretty reasonable to Ascend and gets strong abilities.

MASUTA the light ninja - A better version of Black Diamond basically. She is
important due to the synergy between the two...two FAST rogues with AoE Ults
can be valuable in PvP for sure.  You are guaranteed Shadowblade and Willow
which completes the all-fast team without having to use relatively crappy
Torchy (flying fire dude).

AUGUSTUS the paladin - Good combat stats, almost to Julius level.  His 
skills start off with 3 charges instead of 0 making them a lot more usable.
His Aegis Wall is amazing to reduce a big boss attack to 0. Or used when
its up to effectively provide healing in a long campaign dungeon.
Armored makes him tougher.  huge self heal plus small heal to others makes
him very well rounded.


YOUR CAMPAIGN TEAM:
-------------------
In general there are 2 modes of campaign and/or special events:
First is the easy-mode ones that you are re-running to get hero tokens.
Second is when you are advancing doing new or hard dungeons.

I have found that the tank/healer team isnt really necessary or useful:

First, the true tanks do no real damage, nor do healers.  So running a
dungeon takes a long time and is boring.

Secondly, the "tanks" are not THAT much tougher than anyone else so they
tend to get killed.  Thus its better to spread out the damage
among the team and heal it all, vs concentrate it.

Third, there aren't a lot of 1 target heals in the game... and the area
effect ones are WAY better.  

Fourth, the bad guys use attacks that hit multiple targets or do area 
effect damage.  So the tanks aren't even all that great at tanking.


As such, I recommend guys that hit pretty hard and are tough enough to not
get killed easily.  It is also a good idea to get dudes that have strong
ultimates...ideally some disables.


In theory you would pick certain heroes depending on what the enemy
has.  i.e. If its a Water dungeon, you'd pick 4 nature to counter and
have bonus damage.

It is a good idea and works...BUT this is generally too much effort and
work, and is not really necessary.  
I find it is much better to focus on a handful of GOOD heroes and buff
them for all purpose work.

Do not spread out your gold and resources with a lot of 1 star junk heros.


LADY NIMREAL - You will unlock her through quests by level 20 or so. I
think you can still complete a daily "do 2 pvp raids" quest to get tokens
for her, UNTIL you hit level 25... then no more tokens from that daily!!
Anyways, she is a very valuable addition to the team for PvP as well as
campaign and should be included as soon as you can get her.

My personal lineup is: Igorok first, then Julius, Lady Nimreal, NubNub.

When doing lower level dungeons that use 4 dudes, I substitute Bovus for
Nubnub for a bit more damage. (Bovus uses Julius's beast buff)


BEING FRIENDLY:
---------------
You can have a certain number of friends which you can use every day to
help you in 1 particular fight by summoning their Main Hero who then
uses their Ultimate.

When you go to your Friends section it gives you a list of recommended
buddies to invite.   This is NOT how to do it.

Instead, troll the chat and when you click Chat, you can click each
person and see their Level and Hero.  The idea is to invite mostly high
level dudes to help you out with big Area Effect damage ultimates,
preferably with disablers such as Igorok, Julius, etc that cause debufs
on the enemy.

You can also invite several really low level people asking questions as
they are brand new and will be grateful for few friends...and will thus
use your hero a lot and thus give free honor scrolls.

You also want to ensure that you have a variety of UTILITY among your
friends.  This is best done by LOWER level heroes, since they arent much
good for actual damage spells.  

The best heroes for this are:
-- Archangel for resurrection of a fallen hero.
-- NubNub - fat healing for whole party to prevent a death.
-- Yorick - Death Mark on an enemy Boss to multiply all damage by 2.5!
-- Abagail - Huge Attack buff for entire party, plus a big attack.
-- Mushroom - haste for entire party.
 and so on.

Friends are important because they make challenging boss battles easier
but more importantly they make it POSSIBLE to complete certain events
that are otherwise basically impossible.

Example: There was an Igorok event marked as Hard.  I fought a long hard
fight to get to the boss.  He literally ONE SHOTTED my entire party. I
quit.  That was stupid in retrospect as it WAS winnable if I had good
friends.   And Pay2Win...

Here is what I should have done:   Have friend use YORICK to put Death
Mark on enemy Igorok boss.  Now he eats 275% normal damage from anything.
Then, I use my own Nimriel to Get over here and Daze him. Then Julius
barrel to random-debuff him.
THEN, I pay2win 10 gems to let Friend #2 use his level 60 Pignus cheap
shot.  It does QUADRUPLE damage due to have 3 debuffs on em... all that
multiplied by Death Marks 275ish%.
Instead of 3000ish, he would eat 34,000 give or take!
Sure it costs me gems, but I would have gotten 2 quests and the chest
out of it.

So Yorick+Pig practically kills anything with 6x damage roughly. Plus
whatever you can add to the mix.

I could also have gone with fat disable.  Void Blade to debuff his stats
then a high level plague dude to Disease him down to 1/2 damage. The
problem with that is that once the debuffs wear off, you still lose...
Its good for most reasonable fights tho.


LEVELING UP HEROES AND ABILITIES:
---------------------------------

Your heroes max level is your player level.  
You mine as well keep all heroes levels maxed ..there is no reason not to.
You just use your supply of XP potions and do a lot of clicking/tapping when
 you get a level.  You should never need to buy XP pots ever.

However, as you get more heroes and level up, you will quickly find that it 
gets expensive fast in order to level up their ABILITIES.

As such, I recommend you do NOT level up abilities for every new hero you
find.  There is not much reason to do so.  Only level up abilities for heroes
 you are currently USING, either in PvP or campaign. 

Eventually you will want to level up some abilities to have additional heroes
for the Tower of Pwnage at level 28+.  But by then you will have a better
 grasp on the game.

Instead, you want to use your gold for lots of Heroic Summons to get hero
unlocks and more useful goodies. (i.e. getting Bovus the Minotaur)


CONTROLLING YOUR PLAYER LEVELING UP:
------------------------------------

Ok, so this is kind of an odd subject but important.


Boosting your player level gives the following benefits:
a) unlocks certain dungeons and things to do.
b) Lets you hold more stamina.
c) Higher max level for your heroes.

Thus, it seems like a good idea to level up as much as possible. This
overlooks a key point though:  Leveling up actually DECREASES your overall
power level in many ways.

It is possible for the player level to outpace the rest of your progress. 
You do NOT get tokens or gems or gold or anything else for leveling up.
Many events SCALE based on your player level.  PvP effectively scales on
your level, as does Tower of Pwnage.

It mostly hurts you in PvP since you get put in higher and higher brackets
while gaining player levels does not intrinsicly add any power to your
heroes, in and of itself.

Therefore, you want to MINIMIZE your Player XP gained at some point.  This
thus allows you to do things that actually make you stronger overall and 
be more powerful at a lower level, relative to everyone else.

Furthermore, there is a daily quest that buffs Lady Nimreal for winning 2 pvp
raids.  At level 25 however it STOPS GIVING NIMREAL TOKENS!!!!

I would recommend leveling up as fast as possible so you can hit level 10 
quickly. I would then moderately level to 20. Then apply the brakes.

This is because you can PvP at 10 and get free gold/honor.  At 20 you can
do the EVO island.  28 is the Tower of Pwnage, but you need to have a good
complement of heroes do to well there anyways.

Going from 20 to 30 stamina is a big boost, but from 50 to 60 isn't as 
significant.  This is really one of the biggest reasons to level up.

Here are some tips on doing so:


1) AVOID all quests that give Player XP.  These quests give you XP equal to 
doing 5 to 10 dungeons EACH which is a very large amount.  Yet the rest
of the reward is pretty weak...10 gems and some gold maybe.  You don't miss
out much by avoiding these.  Except that you are forced to skip some guild
quests which may or may not be a problem for you.

This is the easiest way to slow down leveling. You don't lose much at all by
doing so, and it is very minimal effort.
The only exception is the Nimreal quest... You will likely want to go ahead
and eat the 25XP for 2 PvP wins to get her 3 tokens per day.  This stops at
level 25 by the way as tokens are not given anymore.


2) When doing a dungeon, RETREAT after winning if there is only a woooden
chest present.  The wooden chest of course means you won't get a Hero Token
and only get a bit of random crap.
This saves you 5XP per retreat.

Exceptions:
--If you got AWESOME on a treasure room as you do not want to skip the
  Lupina token reward, which only sticks if you WIN that dungeon!

--If you are doing special event quests that require you to COMPLETE
X dungeon Y number of times.  Note the Kill So-and-so X number of times can
still be done without completing the dungeon. Just kill the boss then run.

--If you are doing the 15 stamina EVO Island run.  You gain 5XP but always
  get a useful EVO in the chest.


3) Related to above, do NOT complete any dungeon that you already have the 
token for.  The only reason you would start such a dungeon of course is for
Events and Kill X number of Y critter quests.
Make sure to take it off of AUTO MODE so it does not autocomplete for you.


4) Avoid QUICK LOOTING.   This one takes more dedication to the cause, but
is worthwhile since you can NOT retreat from the wooden chest in quickloot.
So you eat the XP for nothing.

I typically quickloot the long,hard dungeons on the most recent 2 chapters
for example, but then just run the previous chapter's dungeons since I can do
so on AUTO mode easily. This is a good compromise for me.  You can decide
for yourself how hardcore you want to be in this.


5) Note that PVP raids give 2XP per win, and usually reward you about 5000 gold
on average, and ~40 honor scrolls.  Plus about 12 wins every 2 days gets you
 6 to 8 hero tokens and another 1500 honor scrolls if in the top 10.
As such, PvP raids are more cost-effective for the XP gained than dungeons.


6) The Tower of Pwnage is VERY efficient.  It gives ZERO XP right now, but has
huge rewards. 

A truly hardcore SlowRoller would prioritize Tower of Pwnage, and only do the
Kill X quests and such that one can do WITHOUT completing a single dungeon.
I am not quite that hardcore and this would be boring for me.  But I want to 
point out the advantages so you can decide for yourself.

Basically you need to change your mindset like this:
Think of Player XP as a COST.  It costs you 5 XP to do this dungeon complete.
500XP till next level means 250 Raids or 100 dungeon completes, or 10 guild
xp quests completes. Or some combo of them.  So you want to get as much 
advancement as you can for what it costs you XP-wise to do so.



PLAYER VS PLAYER RAIDS:
-----------------------

The first thing to know about PvP is that the balance is fairly poor. This
is mostly because the game is too offensively-minded and the Ultimates are
too powerful relative to normal and secondary attacks.
As such, the game generally comes down to whoever can land the first 
overpowered ultimate wins.

Since the defender gets to go first, there are several combinations that
are basically unwinnable for the attacker.
Also, there is little strategy options available in many cases. Also, you
CAN NOT TANK the damage and try to heal later.  Two big AoE Ults will 
pretty much wipe out most of your party.

As such, PvP basically consists of looking for victims/scrubs/idiots who 
did not set up their defense properly while mostly  avoiding good teams. 

Every 2 days is a tournament that ends and another begins.  Try to hit
top 10, as it gives you 1500 scrolls, and a good number of tokens..like 8 for
some random champion...usually Pontificus the undead guy, who is mediocre.
#1 gets gem bonuses and up to 2500 scrolls.   But #11 drops from 1500 to 500
scrolls which is quite a big drop.  Trying to be #1 is too costly and not
realistic, since the Pay2Win crowd has several advantages.
First of all, a higher VIP rank allows for extra raid tickets per day.
Secondly, VIP allows a discount for using gems to buy more tickets.

Yes you can spend 25 gems to refresh and get 4 more tickets. (If VIP it
might even refresh and give you 6 or 8 or whatever. I am not sure).
In general you do not want to spend gems in this way.  However, if you
are around rank 8-15ish and a tourney is closing soon, you might spend the
25 gems to get Raid tickets to push you to the top 10.  It will get you
1000 honor scrolls extra, 2+ extra hero tokens, 40 more honor scrolls and a
10,000 gold summon from the daily "Spend 20 gems" quest.
In other words, you get quite a bit for your 25 gems invested...AS LONG as
doing so propels you from rank 11 to rank 10+.  Otherwise it is not worth
it most likely.

So, Top 10 is a realistic goal and well worth competing for since the big
drop-off rewards-wise happens at rank 11.


Doing well in PvP requires 3 things:   Understanding the turn order, using
proper champions in the right order , and knowing how to pick victims.
It also helps to:  Have good champs. Understand counters/elements.

-- TURN ORDER:
There are 3 speed categories in the game.  Fast, normal, slow.

We start with fast heroes and the defender's LEFTMOST Fast hero goes first.
Then YOUR LEFTMOST fast hero goes next.   Then their next-to-leftmost goes
and so on until all fast heroes have gone.
THEN, same thing happens with normal heroes.  Then slow heroes.

Hero order is determined by the order which you add them to the team. The 
first one added is at the furthest leftmost box.   Next one gets put to
the right of that first one. And so on.
  
Note that the order only matters if you have multiple heroes of the same
 speed category.
Say you have Stonefist(slow),Willow(fast),Yasmin(medium),Bovus(medium).
Since willow is your ONLY fast champ she will always go after their first 
fast champ.  It doesnt matter where she is placed.   In this case, only
Yasmin and Bovus order actually does anything, where Yasmin will go right
after their 1st normal speed hero goes. Then  their 2nd normal, then Bovus.

A lot of people use this quirk to throw off enemy calculations...and this can
definitely trick newbies into not quite understanding the turn order getting
baited into attacking a team where they will lose.

The reason turn order is SO vital is due to the immense power of certain hero
ultimates.   If their IGOROK goes first, he freezes your whole team most likely
and takes em down to 1/4th health, or kills them if he crits.
And that is just their FIRST dude.  The rest of their team gets an entire 
round to beat up your frozen heroes. You lose.

But if they stupidly put their healer first, then their healer goes first and
basically does nothing but an autoattack and your BOVUS does a stampede
and takes 1 energy from all of them and their Igorok can only do a normal 
attack, instead of killing your team.  Your Nimreal murders him. You win.

Oh...and Turn order is SET IN STONE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME AND NEVER
EVER CHANGES!
This means if you KILL their leftmost normalspeed champ before it gets a 
chance to go, it will still take up that "turn slot", and then your first
leftmost normal will then go.  

So even if they have 4 awesome disablers, but you had 3 fast champs and 1
disabler...if your 3 ninjas kill their leftmost normal speed, then it would
SKIP THEIR TURN and YOUR first leftmost would get to go before any of their
normals!   Your disabler disables their disablers and your 3 fast clean up
next round.



-- DISABLER CHAMPIONS:
Whoever gets the first ultimate ability off with a disabler champion usually
wins because they are so strong.
As such, the defender should pretty much always win.   BUT, due to stupidity,
and the fact that YOU get to pick a victim, the reverse is true.

Love is NOT the most powerful force in the universe...its stupidity and it is
hugely potent in this game's PvP.

Heres the list of disablers:


BOVUS - Stampede disables their entire team's ultimate for 1 round.  Fights
tend to be decided after 1 round.  You can do the math...
Bovus stampede ALWAYS hits everyone (assuming no daze,etc) and it ALWAYS 
takes energy.  This makes him incredibly reliable.  He is also pretty much
guaranteed to get unlocked fairly quickly by the great summons portal.
Note that the -1 energy affects the defender's secondary abilities too, so
they cannot even use those actives.
You will see a LOT of Bovus, so get used to him.  You will also use him as
your #1 attacking hero most of the time.

IGOROK - Polar Pounding freezes MOST of their team...usually.  Does retarded
damage too.   Oh, and hes practically unkillable on round 1 before he can go 
off. Willow can only half-injure him even if she crits with sniper shot
and she even gets a damage bonus for being Nature vs Water!
Stacking immune-to-freeze heroes doesn't really help since they still eat
damage to bring em to 1/4th health...

YOKO - Does NO damage on Ultimate but Super-Dazes entire enemy team for 6
freaking rounds.  His daze causes miss chance that increases as he levels.
By level 30ish, his daze is 40% miss.  It goes UP as you level.
The main problem is that he is unreliable.  If you are unlucky their Igorok
will STILL kill your whole freaking team even though the odds are against it.
The no-damage thing is kind of a bummer too...    He isnt all that good 
statwise either, though he does get double damage vs rogues who are common.

JULIUS - Semi-disabler.  Big AoE damage with a random debuff.  Not a huge 
threat, but a step up from a typical party. If he dazes or freezes your Bovus
you probably lose. 
Oddly he also seems to the Designated Decoy vs Nimriel who usually targets
(and 1 shots) HIM, instead of your Bovus...which is actually a good thing.

ROCKY the Mushroom - Kinda wierd but his Spore Cloud ultimate gives his team
haste...which gives 50% dodge rate!!    Its basically a uberdaze on the 
enemy team effectively.  Plus an extra basic attack from each team member.
Even better for Defense since teammates can Ult AND use a secondary power.
Note that the dodge ONLY lasts until each hero gets to move twice then wears
off. So it basically works against most of the enemy 1st turn Ultimates.

SELWYN the mage - A really BAD version of Igorok. Which means pretty good!
His ult does pathetic damage but does FREEZE most of the enemy team fairly
reliably.
However, everyone plays Willow and she does bonus dmg vs him and will 1 shot
him before he can do anything.  Keep that in mind.

ICEBLOOM - Wierd caster that freezes EVERYONE, including your own dudes. But
she HEALS your dudes that got frozen.   Typically used with a freeze-immune
team, but then why bother to even use her?  Just use Selwyn or Igorok?
The good news is that she can NEVER EVER get 1-shotted due to her Unbreakable
Heart buff.  I guess in theory she could use her freeze on round 2 to heal
her party while freezing everyone.  Meh.

THERAND dwarf caster - Has a big area effect attack that Uber-Dazes everyone
just like Yoko, except with even MORE miss-effect. 65% by level 32.
AND it does actual damage.  AND he doesn't miss, which means
an enemy daze effect before he can go would have ZERO effect!
He also does double damage to armored guys and ignores their armor.
He would seem to warrant more use, but has the same problem as Yoko.
Daze is UNRELIABLE, and you want reliable PvP wins.  You do NOT want to waste
a ticket and lose rank because their dazed Igorok STILL wiped your team...
Also, he can get 1 shotted by Willow, which is kind of a common theme...

KOBOL - Another oddball that is never used.  He has an AoE that inflicts
disease which reduces attack by half.  Its a reliable version of Daze pretty
much which seems awesome.  Hozes their heal and gives them 0% crit!
However Kobol is squishy and killed by Fast enemies.  Also, a diseased Igorok
STILL freezes the whole team...he just drops everyone to 60% health instead 
of 20% health.
Basically his "disable" doesn't stop THEIR disables...just the damage part.

ALEXANDROS - His damage reflection stops half the damage from enemies. And
it always works.  The problem being that it doesn't stop their disable effects
which like Kobol above is a lethal failing.

Noob Trap - Paladin dude.  His Aegis Wall stops ALL damage from the next
            attack and puts it on the whole party.  Awesome counter right?
            WRONG!  The wall is NOT HIS ULT and therefore is NOT charged
            up when attacking.  On defense, the AI will always use SMITE.

Noob Trap#2 TAUNT.  Using a taunt on defense does not work.  AI will STILL
            use their ULT first and not their taunt.  THEN, once they taunt
            the AI will REFUSE TO USE any other team member's specials!!!


-- PICKING A VICTIM:

So you hit Raid and 3 dudes come up.  Each one showing a single hero portrait.
This portrait is NOT THEIR LEFTMOST DUDE NECESSARILY!!!  Its just someone in
the party.  It basically is just a distraction/decoy for noobs.  ALWAYS SCOUT.

Next it shows their Power Level where each hero has some arbitrary number
associated with it that somehow conveys their overall "goodness" or something.
Its basically a bunch of crap as it tends to include factors that don't really
matter all that much (such as ascentions).
The number of stars is what you really care about as this impacts stats.

The leftmode potential victim is deemed to be the weakest, with the worst
reward in Trophies which affect rank.  However they can sometimes have tons of
gold or give a high number of Pvp scrolls, moreso than harder ones.

So, youve scouted and seen their heroes.  As long as it is not something stupid
like 6 star heroes or whatever, you look at their LEFTMOST NORMAL SPEED HERO.
Thats it.  Fast heroes cannot disable...just do damage.  Slow heroes...we dont
care about. By the time they go, the battle is likely won or lost.

IF they have a strong disabler as their leftmost NORMAL SPEED champ, then fight
someone else. (i.e. high-star Bovus, any Igorok, high star Yoko are strong
 disablers).

IF they have a so-so disabler as their leftmost normalspeed champ, consider
countering.  (i.e. Selwyn, Icebloom, Kobol, a 1 star Bovus at level 30, etc)
See below second on countering.

IF they have a bunch of fast dudes, then it mostly comes down to hero stats.
They definitely go first but your slower heroes will be stronger overall.
Subbing in NubNub can destroy this team with aoe heal.

OTHERWISE, attack and kill them with BOVUS, and 3 other dudes.  Bovus stampedes
and you win.

If you cant find any of the 3 potential victims that look tasty, then Reroll
and try again. It costs a bit of gold but not too bad.  This is fairly rare
though, especially at lower levels.  There are SO MANY SCRUBS that do the
order wrong or think their high AoE damage hero is going to win for them.

You really don't want to take risks in PvP due to the limited tickets. It
puts you behind compared to others.  Better to take guaranteed lesser
win, vs a risky big win.

Remember also that ALL the defender's abilities start off charged and ready,
whereas yours do not.  This is ANOTHER reason why a defensive or tanky 
attacking strategy does not really pay off... After everyone Ults, they 
still have their secondary attacks for rounds 2 and 3, whereas you are stuck
with autoattacks pretty much.



-- YOUR LINEUP:

Well if it is not obvious by now.... BOVUS is your leftmost champ almost 
always.  He stampedes and takes out the enemy ultimates for 1 turn.  You win.

My personal lineup at level 34 now is BOVUS(3 star), IGOROK (3 star still), 
JULIUS(3 star still), and Lady Nim (4 star).  With 4 star NubNum substitution
as needed.

My secondary team is Torchy,Shadowblade,Willow or BlackDiamond, and Igorok
or Bovus or NubNub, specifically meant to take out enemy Bovus teams, as
discussed below in the Countering section.


In addition to Bovus, your team comp will vary depending on what you've got.
But since Bovus is a Beast, Nature, and Warrior, there is likely some synergy
that you can work with.

Lady Nimreal is probably a shoo in, but you might go with Willow instead if 
you took my advice and got her boosted up.  She is certainly easier to boost
relative to Nimreal, is FAST, and she has NATURE synergy which works with
Bovus.

If you go that route, Tsume looks promising. Added last to the lineup, vs
the stupid AI, you can get some legendary 350% Soul Shreds when hes 90%
dead...   And more synergy since he also boosts Nature allies.

Adding Torchy as a Beast would give you 2 fasts, to take out a weak bovus,
and you'd have Synergy buffs:
Willow buffs Tsume,Bovus (nature)
Torchy buffs Bovus. (beast)
Tsume buffs Willow,Bovus. (nature)
Bovus buffs Tsume. (warrior)

Thats 6 points of synergy.  Not bad. And does NOT RELY ON LUCK AT ALL
insofar as all these champs are easily available thru dungeons or cheap great
summons.

The problem is that only 2 fasts might not kill their bovus, so watch out
for that.  I usually use 3 fasts vs an enemy bovus.   But it depends on the
star-levels of each hero.

Anyways I hope you get the idea.



-- COUNTERING CHEESE:

It is possible to adjust your lineup to counter certain others. Here are a few
examples:


0) Don't forget the basic countering system that we have already talked about
earlier.  Fire -> Nature -> Water -> Fire.  Light <-> Dark.
And don't forget various 2x damage modifiers.   If you are playing the paladin
KNOW who the Demons are!  Use William?  Know your beasts.  Make sure Nimriel
targets actual Tanks vs just armored tanky dudes, all other factors being
equal.


1) They have a low star Bovus as their disable. 

Use TORCHY as your leftmost fast champ.  He is FIRE and does
 high bonus damage vs a single Nature target like Bovus or Julius.
Torchy kind of sucks but the first enemy fast if any should have little chance
of killing him before he goes off, even if the AI is smart enough to target him.
However, unless you have been adding stars to Torchy, he is unlikely to KILL
the enemy.  Ive found that my 2 star Torchy 1-hits 1 star Bovus, does 75% dmg
to 2 star bovus, and about 50% to 3 star bovus.

So you will need Shadowblade/Willow as a backup to finish the job.
Note that Willow AUTO-CRITS Nature foes with her sniper shot making her damage
reliable.  And so does Shadowblade with his ult.

Your 2 or 3 fast guys kill Bovus. Instead of their Bovus going, it then skips
to YOUR 1st normal speed hero. Which is your Bovus. Or Igorok.
Now, YOUR Bovus goes first instead and stampedes for the win. Thats the idea.

You can also have Igorok who freezes for the win.  Or rarely, NubNub who heals
everyone up after their 3 heroes have gone.   You go with the healing route 
when their lineup includes a lot of defensive heroes or area effect ones that
are unlikely to be able to actually kill anyone on your team. then you drop
the heal over time effect and wear them down.


2) They have a Water caster like Selwyn, Icebloom,Yoko, Therand.

Yoko is likely too hard to kill, but Willow's sniper shot can usually 1-shot
Selwyn.  Note that Icebloom has a "dont die yet" shield so cannot be 1shotted.
But she isn't really a proper disabler anyways cuz she freezes EVERYONE.


3) They have IGOROK as their first champ.
Um... click the Back button.  He is just too hard to kill reliably. It is
doable but you need luck and 3 or even 4 fast champions to do it unless
you have him out-statted (i.e. 4 star fast heroes).


4) They have the two Area Effect fast champs, black diamond and Masuki.
   Rest of the team is either fast or no disable.

In this case, I substitute NubNub in for Bovus.  He is hard to kill.  Even
Torchy cant 1-shot him, especially if you listened to me and have been 
advancing NubNub.  Since Bovus stampede doesnt help if 3+ enemy gets to go
before he does, subbing him out makes sense.

The enemy AI will use their ults for area damage which dilutes the damage
over the whole team. nubNub uses Voodoo and near-full-heals the entire 
team with his insane heal over time effect.
Ninjas just cannot overcome that ridiculous healing power once their Ults
are used up.  Enemy AI will always use their aoe ults which dilutes their
damage over your whole team.

5) They have Tsume.  You want to do one of two things when facing him.
Either, let him Ultimate without damaging him (so that it does weak damage),
OR, you want to Disable him and finish him off before he can Ult.  Either
approach works, but you need to make sure to have enough damage to do the
trick.
Say you Bovus and Stampede. You need to check the turn order and KNOW when
Tsume gets to go next turn and how many heroes you have to attack him and
how much damage they can do.  Last thing you want is to not QUITE kill him
then he Ults for 350% damage and wipes your team.


-- BAITING NOOBS:

I have just started trying this approach. In the past I have attacked
certain teams and have gotten UTTERLY WRECKED.  Like WT actual F happened?
I had no clue how I managed to lose so bad.  Enemies heroes didnt have
many stars.  But they did massive damage. Or were tougher than expected.

This was probably due to SYNERGY TEAMS that use oddball configs that look
weak, but are much stronger than expected.
There is also a HIDDEN-ish buff that sometimes comes around.  Like say it 
is Day of the Beast...All beasts will get some bonus. 10% to something.

So, the idea behind this section is to make a team that uses synergy to
be a lot tougher than you might think.  But it uses oddball or junk heroes
to bait the enemy into attacking you.

Like using Yoko first, then Bovus, ZURK, and Tsume.
They don't realize that all 4 are warriors and have a 30% health buff 
applied to Zurk/Tsume, with the other 2 having a 15% health boost.
And Tsume buffs 15% attack on 3 of them. 
Surprise!

Not to mention Yoko's disable and Tsume's ability to utterly wreck their
entire team if the attacker underestimates just how much damage it will
take to kill Tsume.  By going last he will have eaten some AOE damage
for sure and they might have even focused him.  Bad mistake...

The point of doing this is to get free PVP Trophies WITHOUT having to RAID
for them, which saves XP and/or gets you a higher rank.

You will want to pick some point between having a team that provides max
baiting and thus free trophies and satisfaction of watching your team
crush theirs... vs using a team that is capable of usually winning.

For example, I tried the above team for a week and removed Zurk because
I kept losing and he is SO BAD.  I added Brom who  has WAY better combat
stats and is a warrior too.  This loses 1 synergy point but is overall
stronger and I still seem to get attacked about the same, but I almost
always win.  Even when their Power is like 6700 vs my 5200 in 1 case.

Even then though, it still loses peroidically.  Given, its vs enemies
with Power levels way above mine.  But when I used Bovus/Igorok/Julius/
Nimriel,  I hardly ever got attacked and almost always won...except for
truly ridiculous overkill attacks by Pay2Win Whales with 6 star heroes
at level 30.

If you don't want to take risks, just add Bovus as your first champ then
followed up with several good AOE champs and/or disablers.  I was lucky
to get Igorok/Julius.  You will probably use whoever your main PVP team
is.


TOWER OF PWNAGE:
----------------
At 28, this becomes unlocked.  It is a great way to advance in the game,
as completion awards 300 gems, 100k gold, and 2k Pwnage Points. Plus you
get a lot of Stamina bonuses and a few hero tokens along the way.

The problem is that you have been relying on a handful of heroes so far.
This does NOT WORK anymore.  Thus at 28, you need to do the following:

a) Use Great Summons...A LOT!   You ought to have a freaking TON of gold
by level 28. Like 3 million or more.  This is because you should have 
been only maxing abilities on a handful of heroes and its cheaper at 
lower levels.
Thus you should either have gold or a lot of summons.  This will allow
you to get a whole bunch of the junk heroes unlocked, and stars added
to them.  It also boosts Willow/Shadowblade, Bovus, etc.

b) Use XP potions and do a lot of clicking to get EVERY HERO YOU OWN to
max level.  This boosts their stats so they can be effective decoys
and not get killed by the very first attack that comes their way.

c) Max out the hero abilities of your strongest secondary heroes. You
need a few actual fighters that can do damage after all.

d) Boost some ULTs of key heroes...not maxed but maybe 10-15 levels.

e) Figure out which Ults are highly effective but do NOT need leveling
up.  I have a list one few page down to learn.

Ok good.  The main thing you need to learn to Pwn the tower is how to 
soak damage by figuring out which sacrifical lambs to utilize for each
floor.
Ultimates are so powerful in this game that NO one team can win on their
own.  Something will eventually happen...usually a Lady Nimriel will
Ult and 1 shot one of your key heros. Or NubNub simply won't be able to
cycle his heal fast enough.

As such, you usually send in your garbage champs to soak their ultimates
then send in a real team to cleanup.  You also generally want to save 
your A-Team for the higher floors because the enemy will be 4-6 levels
higher than you potentially!   In these battles, throwing scrubs at them
will not accomplish much.

You also have to save your BOSS KILLER team for the last floor.

Occasionally their leftmost hero will be wimpy (like a healer) and you
can eat their first attack then use a Stampede, Igorok Pounding, or 
whatever and win a straight up fight, with a healer to restore health.
But its relatively rare and its kind of a 1-shot deal since they have 
to fight a while to restore their ultimates.



-- SOAK 101
First you analyze their champions.  The goal is to force most if not all
of their heroes to use their ultimate. 
If they have multiple AOE effects that go first, you can send 1 dude.

If they have single target abilities first, then you send in 2 or 3 
wounded champions.

If they have a strong single target like Nimriel AND an AOE following, 
you sometimes have to just fight with a Dummy Team and duke it out as
throwing away 2 dudes to do 0 damage isn't worthwhile if you can use
4 to make a fight of it.

Make sure to watch your elements and weaknesses.  For example, you see
Masuri the light ninja.  DO NOT send an undead to eat the damage!! 
She will go first, do TRIPLE VS UNDEAD and 1 shot them.  You lose a hero
just for 1 ability pull.  Same way with the elements... no Nature hero
to tank a fire hero who goes first, etc.

Also remember damage penalties vs element. If they have Bovus,Julius
and Nimriel, then you really want a Fire hero to eat the two AoE effects
since they will resist the damage, then they will die to Nimreal but 
soak 3 big attacks.


-- DUMMY TEAMS

I like to start with 4 Fast heroes.  They are pretty good for the first
3 floors typically.  Being useful in PVP you likely already have them
leveled up and with some increased stars.

A key to dummy teams is to use someone with a strong but cheap ULTIMATE
that has a big impact.  Once they use it, you can use them as Fodder for
the next floor.  The first champ should be a BOOSTER/DISABLER.
For example, I put ABAGAIL first.  Her Ult boosts attack of your whole
team which is HUGE.  And she does a ton of damage, even with a modestly
boosted Ult...like 10 levels put into it, which is fairly cheap.

* Therand is another good one.  His Detonator uber-dazes the enemy team.
* Yoko also uberdazes and is a goodish fighter.
* Mushroom gives everyone dodge and haste and rank 1 ult works fine.
* Selwyn the ice mage Ult is very good. 
* Lupina's fear boosts everyones damage.
* Yoricks Death mark at rank 1 makes 1 hero take 250% damage.
* Squinch sets everyone on fire and gives allies 150% damage.
* Phenol poisions everyone.
* Bramble buffs everyone with dance.


Basically any of the DISABLERS in the PVP section work well.
Then, anyone with pretty good AOE damage like Pontifex the undead guy,
Rognar, etc.
Use em once, then dispose of as cannon fodder.

I also use the FREEZE team which is Igorok/Icebloom/Selwyn/Stonefist,
which is awesome against an enemy team that starts with Icebloom/Selwyn.
(not igorok tho, he does too much damage to ignore and not bait).
This team allows Icebloom to use her freeze effectively (since your team
is all immune to it).  You'd then cycle out and use Selwyn first next
fight, then Igorok.


-- BEATING BOSS:

Boss resurrects himself like 6 times, changing element each time and 
becoming harder.  Fortunately, he is easy to kill.

You need a TANK.   I prefer William.  Stone fist works well too.
Anyone with a taunt.  Speed is irrelevant since BOSS is FAST and always
gets 1st attack.
This is pretty much the ONLY time using a tank is particularly effective.

Next, you need Lady Nimriel for Sweet Deeps (DPS).  Her tank hunter and
Ult are key to winning fast-ish.

Then you need a healer.  NubNub or Yasmin with 1 ascend work fine.

The 4th dude can be a redundant tank, healer, or a DPSer.  The boss DOES
have a "dispel" ability but its very very rarely used.  Boss cant really
1-shot anyone either, so the 1 non-taunt round isn't usually a problem.
William can buff the team defense before his taunt wears off to avoid
a death.
Nubs heal over 3 rounds, and Yasmins 2 heals should be plenty...you dont
need both of them.

So some ideas are:
IGNUS - wall of fire stays up and lets him fry every turn, while
        Ignus gains 150% damage due to pyromancy.
BROM/SHADOWBLADE/etc - Plain ole high attack stats.
THERAND - armor-piercing/armor-hunt does high damage if you max his
         basic attack, especially with 1 ascension to get dynamite.
Willow - 2 single target Ults.
and so forth.

just remember...DO NOT get your 3 key heros KILLED or injured in lower
levels!!!


USING YOUR CURRENCIES EFFECTIVELY:
----------------------------------

The currencies in the game are:

GOLD - Buy Great Summons. Level up hero abilities, Refresh PVP foes.
HONOR SCROLLS - Buy Honor Summons.  Honor Store.
PWNAGE PTS - Pwnage Store only.
STAMINA - Used to enter dungeons
RAID TICKETS - Raiding other player's dungeons.
HAMMERS - Upgrading your dungeon.
Potions - Upgrading a hero level, Heal, Energy, Resurrect.

and
GEMS - Lots of other stuff...

While it is difficult to compare 1 currency to another, here is my best
guess.

1 gem = 2000 gold. Based on the Gem Store's going rate.  This does not
seem like a particularly good deal, so you really don't want to convert
gems to gold.  Mostly because gems have so many other uses.

Still, this makes a Great Summon cost 5 gems effectively, vs 300 gems
for the Heroic Summons which is a lot better but 80x more expensive.
Managing GOLD is best done by severely limiting which hero abilities
you level up.  Max ONLY your most active heroes.
Do not use PVP selection rerolls often.


1 gem ~= 5 honor scrolls.  This is based on Honor store vs Gem 
store comparisons.  For 700 scrolls you get 3 tokens of some weaker 
hero. Vs 250 gems for 3 tokens of a stronger hero.
I would pay 1500-2500 scrolls for 3 stronger hero tokens.
Also, 5 honor scrolls buys 2500 gold, compared to 1 gem=2000 above.


1 gem = 1/6th of a raid ticket,  Based on paying 25 gems to buy 4
tickets.  In general this is not a great idea, but does have its uses.
Lets say you are rank 12 and a tourney is about to end. 
You invest 25 gems to get 4 more tickets.  You then do 4 more raids.
Assuming you win and hit Rank 10 instead, this will get you:
 -- Around 160ish honor scrolls from winning 4 raids.
 -- 20,000 gold from 4 raids.
 -- 1000 honor scrolls. Rank 10 is worth 1500...rank 12 worth 500.
 -- 2 hero tokens from improved rank.
 -- 8 Player XP.

Personally I believe this is one of the more worthwhile uses of gems
when done in exactly this manner.  


20 Gems = Refresh a dungeon's rewards.  This is usually a lousy idea
since you still have to play the dungeon, pay stamina, and gain XP.
You can typically pay nothing and get a token from another dungeon.

However, this option becomes viable when doing EVENTS.  Many events
say you must COMPLETE X dungeon Y times.  After the first complete,
the hero token is done.  Since you will be completing ANYWAYS for
quest rewards, you are effectively paying 20 gems for 1 token.
Considering its 250 gems for 3 tokens in the Store, this is a bargain!
You can do this twice before it goes up to 50 gems.
Even then, if the Hero Token cannot be obtained normally (Igorok,
Julius, etc) then it has a lot more value than a dungeon-hero token.


25 Gems = 25 Stamina.
This is a horrible idea.  All it is doing is fast-forwarding the
clock by 2 hours effectively.


1 Gem = 12 Pwnage Points.  Based on comparing the store costs.
        10,000 for rare EVO vs 800 gems.
        There is no way to buy Pwnage with gems or vice versa tho.


Gems to buy XP potions - AVOID AT ALL COSTS.  You should get tons of
potions naturally.


Gems to Refresh available stuff in the Shop -- Another lousy move.
It literally just makes all new items appear, including a new EVO
and a new HERO token.  Waiting 1 day does the same thing basically.
There are so few worthwhile hero/evo to buy that it is not worth
refreshing.

Consider using your HONOR Scrolls to buy Gold.  One honor summons
costs 500 scrolls.  OR you can buy 250,000 gold with it and get
25 Great Summons instead, which is a lot more worthwhile.
This works because the Honor Shop purchaces are fairly rare to find
anyting good (Ive only seen 1: NubNub).  And honor summons arent
all that amazing, compared to 25 greats.



RANDOM OTHER TIPS:
------------------

1. Remember when doing Kill X Creatures quests... you do NOT have to
COMPLETE the dungeon.   Kill all the critters then retreat if the 
hero token is gone or is one you don't care about.
Ditto with the "find 25 shineys", etc.

2. Memorize the best locations for each Creature Type.
-- Dark/Light: you hardly need a specific dungeon. You likely 
   complete just by doing your usual dungeons or other quest.
-- Minotaur - The Abyss has mostly minotaur foes.
-- Imps - Bottomless Pit I think has 2 groups of imps.
-- Monks - Theres 1 dungeon that has 2 groups of monks.
-- Samurai - Shogunate Fortress has ALL samurai!


3. EVO Island Schedule:
       Monday: Dark
       Tuesday: Water
       Wednesday: Fire
       Thursday: Nature
       Friday: Light 

4. XP Island - Even though it seems fairly useless, definitely run
it once to get the 1 time GEM reward.  If you run out of other stuff
to do, you can run it for free to get a Phenox Thoxian token with
some luck...it does NOT appear in the chest, but as a random drop.
You can also use secondary heroes for lower ranks and give them a LOT
of hero-XP for completion. (279XP).  Note the PLAYER XP is standard
5XP for completion.


5. Gold Island - Gives Therand Fiddle token occasionally, plus a 
   large amount of gold.  It gives you 1 additional thing you can do
   if you run out of playtime.


6. Have a list of the Celestial EVOs you need for ascending your 
desired heroes.  That way you can check the SHOPs daily and be ready
to grab one that you need.
In the shop they don't let you look closer at the EVO for sale and
thus it is not obvious what good any given one is.