Section 01
Five ideas that generate most of the specific answers in this guide. Learn these and you can reason out the rest yourself.
Infantry engage first, then Lancers, then Marksmen.
Every troop ratio is really a bet on how long the fight will last. If the enemy dies quickly, your back rows never take a turn and the march capacity they occupied was wasted. If the fight is long, your damage dealers get to work and heavy investment in them pays.
This single rule explains why Crazy Joe wants 90% Infantry and Bear Hunt wants 80% Marksman. When a new mode appears, ask how long the fight lasts and you can build for it before anyone publishes a ratio.
Roughly a 10% damage swing each way
Expedition skills apply whenever a hero is deployed with troops — rallies, garrisons, gathering, PvP, beast hunting, truck escorts, the Labyrinth.
Exploration skills apply in hero-only modes — the Exploration campaign and Arena.
A hero can be excellent at one and mediocre at the other. There is no "best hero" in the abstract, only the best hero for what you're doing right now. Levelling the wrong tree is the most common wasted investment in the game, and it's usually why a high-power player loses Arena constantly.
Heroes also carry a subclass: Growth (wrench) for city development, Combat (crossed swords) for fighting. Sending a Growth hero as a rally captain wastes them entirely.
When a rally launches, the leader's Expedition skills drive the whole rally. Joiners contribute troops and their own troop stats — their hero skills don't apply.
This is why a hero with a percentage-based, all-troops buff is worth far more than one with high personal stats. One good rally leader multiplies twenty people at once.
It's also the strongest argument for concentrating hero shards rather than spreading them. Five players with decent rally heroes is worse than one player with a great one, because only one of them leads.
Most consumables score event points on a specific day. The same speedups, shards, crystals and materials are worth roughly double when spent inside the right window.
Spending them the week before an event is the single costliest habit a free-to-play player can have — and it's entirely avoidable.
Several ceilings are set by things outside your control, and recognising them saves you from grinding at a locked door.
| Wall | Set by | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Hero level cap | Your Furnace | If every hero sits at the same level, that's the wall. XP does nothing until the Furnace moves. |
| Hero generations | State age | You cannot unlock a generation ahead of your server, no matter how much you spend. |
| Beast levels | State age | Higher-level beasts appear as the server matures. |
| Charm Lv 17–18 | State reaching Gen 8 | Plan charm targets around what your state has actually unlocked. |
| Legendary T6 Chief Gear | State reaching Gen 6 | Same. |
| Building levels | Your Furnace | Nothing may exceed it. |