Quick Guide: Team/Heroes

There are a lot of characters and it can be very nerve-wracking trying to make sure your working with the right ones. This is a quick guide to get you started down the right path, that way you can move forward with more confidence.

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Note: This is not meant as a guide on the best heroes/teams currently. This is meant to help you understand what is generally looked for and how decks are built. The hope is that you will be able to better build your own decks and make decisions on where/how to equip them.

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Before we get started, here's a few things that are good to know, especially when asking the community for help.

* **Uni** - This is a short abbreviation used to identify certain characters. It comes from the Universal Chests (Select Chests). That is because they can only reliably be obtained from them.
	+ You \**can\** get unis from random chests, though rarely. However, you won't find unis in the combined (card) shop and a few other places.
	+ As a general rule, you don't want more than 2 unis in a deck (3 if you're pushing it). Otherwise you're going to progress at a much slower rate than you could.
* Deck Types - There are generally 3 types of decks. Physical, magical, and hybrid. This is usually determined by what type of damage your team (deck) uses.
	+ More info in the "Decks" Section

## Characters

### What characters should I use?

In all honesty, until you get to the really high levels, the number of stars a character has generally is the best way to tell who is going to do the best. However, in order to set yourself up for a better late game, you should probably make sure you're investing resources into the right characters. To help with this decision, there's a little user rating system. The little banner in the upper-left corner (with the hearts) can give you a pretty decent idea of how good a character is. So, to have a better team, you'll probably want to stick to the purple banners.

That being said, depending on what type of deck you're building, there are a few characters that you'll want to be sure to have in your team.

#### Magical Damage

Currently, Pepi is the best all-around magic dealer. So if you're running any sort of magic in your team, you should probably have her in your team. However, Pepi is a uni, meaning she'll level a lot slower than other characters. Cosmos, Luna, and Rayblue are also good heroes to include.

#### Physical Damage

With physical decks, there comes two major options. The Melee Dealer class and the Ranged DPS class. If going full physical, you should probably have both in your team. Currently, Eeo (uni) is considered the best ranged dps. Looking at mid to late game, Aftermath (uni) is considered the best melee dealer. However, she only starts being really effective after 15ish star. If you're running a fully physical team, you should consider Ashe (uni) because she has some good synergies. Moong is a great supporting melee dealer, but he won't be your primary damage at any point. Lastly, Ulrik S. Blitz, the main character, is not a bad pick in the early game, but kind of falls off in comparison to other physical damage dealers later in the game.

#### Tanks

Tanks are great early-game, but aren't consistently used in the late game. That being said, you should probably run one until at least mid-game. However, I found that it isn't terrible without one, though you will be ever so slightly behind where you could be. Generally, Kurahk and Michael are considered the best tanks, but Zeke isn't a bad pick either.

#### Healers

Healers are a must-have in every team. Otherwise you won't be able to sustain against anything. Currently, Valentine is considered the best healer due to her damage reduction ability. Toto (uni) also does a lot of healing and isn't a bad pick beyond being a uni. There are other good healers, but those are the two that currently stand out. Late-game, several people run two or more healers in their decks. Though, more than two generally isn't a good idea until you get to late-game.

### How should I level them?

How you level your characters can really depend on the deck you're running, but, generally, as long as you don't have too major of a difference in levels (10+ stars), you're probably fine. Many people recommend leveling one character at a time for 3-5 stars before working on another, however keeping a similar star level works well too. That being said, if you ever find one of your heroes consistently dying, you should take a look at their level, their equipment, and/or the healer(s).

## Decks (Teams/Comps)

### Deck Types

As mentioned above, there are three general types of decks. Physical, magical, and hybrid. What type of deck is the best? In the end, it comes down to personal preference and what you're using it for.

#### Physical Decks

Fully physical damage decks can be quite strong, having some great synergies between different characters. Physical damage heroes are able to deal consistently high dps, but aren't very good at burst damage. Theses decks are best at clearing dungeons and dealing with boss battles.

#### Magical Decks

Building fully magical damage has its perks. For one, you get Pepi, which is one of the highest damage dealing heroes currently. Secondly, magic characters all attack ranged, meaning that you can (well...) hit things from farther away. They are also generally better at dealing burst damage. Those two things combined make magical decks the best at fast tile clear times. However, they also generally do slightly less dps than physical decks do.

#### Hybrid Decks

The goal of a hybrid deck is to take advantage of the benefits from both physical and magical decks. They try to deal higher dps than a fully magical deck, but also do more burst damage than a purely physical deck. However, a hybrid deck won't ever be quite as good as either at certain things. Another advantage to hybrid decks comes from buffs/de-buffs. If, for example, you only have physical damage on your team, but a boss happens to have high physical damage resistance, then you'll do much worse than you would normally (same vice-versa). Another issue could come from buffs such as in the contaminated lab, for example. There, each round you get a random buff for your team. Occasionally, you'll get either a physical or magical damage buff, which is very nice if you are running that deck type, but can sometimes break your team if you have the other. However, with a hybrid deck, you can rest assured that you'll still have a good amount of damage.

### Deck Set Effects

Another thing that doesn't majorly change the game, but can still be helpful when deciding between characters, is deck set effects. Those are extra bonuses your team gets for having certain combinations of characters in your deck. With some exceptions, you'll generally need two or more of a kind to get an effect, those effects increasing in value with more characters. The basic set effects come from either class (Melee dealer, healer, magician, ect.) or race/group (Human, goblin, pirates, therian, ect.). Race/group bonuses will give you increased (by percentage) attack, while each class's bonus will give your team something related to that class (for example, extra HP from the healer set effect).

### Deck Compositions

Lastly, when crafting your deck/team, you'll want to consider different positions in your team. Firstly, you'll want a healer. Secondly, a damage dealer. Then last, you should consider a supporting role.

#### Healers

Healers are perhaps the most important part of any team. Without a healer, your team won't be able to sustain through any damage, even with life-steal (heal for % damage dealt). So, at a minimum, you'll want at least one healer. Some decks, most commonly found in later-game, will use multiple healers to better sustain through higher damage. However, you probably shouldn't use more than two until you get to somewhere around late game.

#### Damage Dealers

These characters are the core of each team. All other characters' purpose (generally) being to support them in some way. This is where you are (mainly) choosing between deck types, giving you more flexibility in this role than any other. When selecting damage dealers, you'll want to consider different types of damage (beyond physical vs. magical) such as point damage (directly to the enemy) vs splash (area of effect). Generally you'll want a decent mix of both unless you're building for a special purpose.

#### Supports

Supporting heroes are sometimes the trickiest to find since they don't have a very defined role. What you're looking for here is a character that has good supporting abilities/skills. These are things like stuns, freezes, or other crowd control (cc), or buffs for allies/de-buffs for enemies. Tanks also fit in this role, and they probably will fill it until mid to late game.

## Final Notes

While it might seem that there are very clear cut options of "this is better than that", there really is a lot of flexibility in creating a team. However, I do want to re-affirm that for the early/mid game, stars will determine ability far beyond anything else will. That is the case until late game, when things start approaching max level (making level differences negligible). That being said, if you take star levels into account, you might try playing around with different teams until you find one that works well for you.

Even with this guide, feel free to ask questions. The community, though small, is very welcoming and ready to help whenever you have a question.

I'll try to keep this guide updated as heroes are re-worked/balanced or new ones come out. But if it's been a while, you might still consider asking about specific characters. I last updated/checked this in April 2022.