Building a great team isn’t as simple as choosing your four best fighters and jumping into combat. However, it does begin with making the best hero and troops possible, and then you can explore other ways to improve your team.
Hero Customization
Your hero levels up and increases skills by acquiring XP in battles and challenges. With each increase in level, you’re given a point to assign to one of two masteries (masteries are tied to mana colors). New weapons are unlocked as you increase each type of mastery. Changing your hero’s weapon is done on the Troops & Teams screen, not the Hero screen.
The final way to customize your hero is by choosing a class. Completing the training quest in a kingdom unlocks the hero class linked to it. You spend souls to increase class level and traitstones to unlock traits.
Select the class info to view class bonuses. Additional class bonuses are unlocked at 50, 100, 150, and 250 wins in battle as that class, as well as when the class reaches level 10.
Upgrading Troops
Use souls to increase levels; that in turn raises skills values. Each card has three traits that are unlocked by expending traitstones, but they must be unlocked in order. Sacrificing a specific number of cards allows you to change the rarity of a troop. Troops higher on the ascension path (common, rare, ultra-rare, epic, legendary, mythic) have higher stats and a higher maximum level.
You won’t earn orbs often. They can be used in place of souls or traitstones, or when sacrificing multiple cards for ascension.
Team Bonuses
Three categories of team bonuses come from troop selection: same mana, same type, and same kingdom. Your team needs two, three, or four troops from the same kingdom for a gradually better bonus. Type bonuses are awarded for three or four of the same type of units (split types count). For a mana bonus, your team must include four unique units that use the same color of mana (split colors count). The color of the weapon wielded by your hero counts toward the mana bonus. Your hero’s class (if sufficiently upgraded) impacts kingdom and type bonuses.
Kingdoms also convey team bonuses. Unlocking a kingdom opens a new banner. Banners provide mana bonuses when you match gems. Spending gold to level a kingdom up to 10 provides a skill bonus (attack, defense, magic, or health). Increasing a kingdom’s power (level and unlock traits on troops native to the kingdom to increase power) increases the skill bonus. Only one banner is active at a time, but kingdom bonuses are cumulative.