Guide FAQ for upcoming event

***Dated pre-Goddesses event, could use some rewriting (to be more general for all events) and shortening.***

The following information is specifically for the upcoming "New Hero Release Event". For past events see Hero\_Release\_Events, or in general Events.

## TLDR executive summary

* Even the newest player can get a super-powerful new hero to R2, which saves you 3000 gems later so whether you want it or not, you should get it. Plus it will become your new MVP so you'll definitely want it:-).

* New players should also consider whether you want to aim for R3 or not - it's not for everyone, but it saves you 800 gems later, and an event box also happens to cost 800 gems, so it's worth at least buying one of those.

* "Everyone" should save up 10 keys in RS, and at least 2k gems (maybe more) just in case you want them. You can always spend them later if you don't need to use them during the event.

* Established players should definitely get the R4, as it offers quite a bit more rewards over doing normal RS - this is the most efficient option for a F2P, offering a new hero for quite a bit cheaper than a usual R4.

* R5 is much tougher to obtain, and only for veterans who have the best heroes already and want an edge in tournament play (e.g., would a new hero's R5 help you if they were like Raida or Koi? granted, Shamiko sucked, but hopefully was an aberration). Random gains mean that you'll need to spend anywhere between 6-15k gems, but most likely ~8k will do it, plus having to play 59 levels during the event, powering that map up to almost +300 difficulty by the end. And then buy several (~3) event boxes too.

* R6 is almost completely beyond the reach of F2P, but a great way for a P2W to get ahead. You'll need to buy both money bundles, and the 10-box pack, plus play the levels, and several more boxes besides to finish you off.

* This is almost unquestionably the single greatest use of real-world money in the entire game (although some say they prefer unlocking a world, less for efficiency and more to avoid frustration, but in any case this is still very good): offering a late-game hero at a higher rank that can power your way through campaign, RS, and tournament situations, plus to later avoid up to 6.2k gem expenditures and also the time to have to obtain the 155 tokens to reach R6, which could take 22-78(39) days at 7-2(4) RS runs/day. Though you don't have to buy your way all the way to R6 for spending to be worthwhile - a newer player may do well to buy just 1-2 real-money packs (which you are limited to being able to purchase just 2) to reach merely R4-5.

* Any expenditures, whether of real-money or gems, is best done to "finish" a rank beyond what you can manage through playing, rather than as a substitute.

* Also consider using meteors to extend your plays - which should never be used in a normal RS situation, plus if you are an established player with good heroes (e.g., necro-Connie + 1-2 of Leif, Yan, or Helios) you shouldn't need them even for an event - but for a newer player looking to get ahead more quickly, should greatly help to reduce the amount of gems needed to be spent to finish a rank.

## Extreme basics before the event

### When is the next one?

The developers said "June" so...maybe July at this point?:-) In any case it's "soon".

### Is it worthwhile?

YES! Events are usually game-changing experiences. Going back through the history: necro-Connie, Koi, Raida, Azura, Caldera, Leif, Narlax, Yan, etc. - each hero when they were released became stronger than the last, and often the previous new hero was nerfed to make way for the new one to shine - e.g. when Koi was released, Azura was mandatory to win every single week in tournaments, but then she was nerfed HARD and it became Koi that was mandatory each and every week, at the time; and before that, Raida's healing was IMMENSELY useful to keep the then-powerful Caldera going in his Giant form longer, until after Koi was released and like Azura he was nerfed HARD; and after both of those, when necro-Connie was released, she basically replaced the vast majority of the utility of both of those heroes so that they became outright skippable - but that doesn't negate that AT THE TIME, when they were first released, they were "Meta". This btw is called "power creep". The last event, Shamiko's, shattered much of our faith in this system b/c she is SOOO terrible (even with her recently-added level-2 abilities, though those may help a little?), but she is an aberration in an otherwise unbroken stream of tremendously strong heroes. Basically, get the new hero at whatever rank you can, and yes it should indeed be VERY worthwhile. Or at the very least, be prepared for anything, so that you can take advantage of the new event hero if they look like they will turn out to be good.

Also note that if you miss it, you'll typically have the chance to buy the new event hero later, though you may have to wait something like four to six months for that opportunity, and later it will cost you 3000 gems to purchase the hero, plus significantly more time in RS to get the hero tokens, and also 800 gems to afford each awakening. Whereas during the event you can easily get the new hero for "free", and the new hero event tokens much faster, plus the 800-gem cost of each awakening is waived (ONLY if done during the event). So try not to miss the event, if at all possible!:-)

Finally, there are tons of other rewards offered during the event - random hero tokens, elixir, 30 tokens for a specific hero - that generally make it worthwhile to pause whatever you were doing and focus on this hero release event.

### Does it cost anything to do the event?

Yes, at the very least your time and if it is based in RS (as all have been except necro-Connie's) then the opportunity cost of using that resource instead of training your existing heroes for those several days. Also in that case it will use RS keys, and thus gems to buy those every day (which since RS medals are not awarded like normal, will be the FULL cost, not discounted by the receipt of the 50 gem chests every other play as usual). You may also want to use gems, especially to "finish off" a rank milestone that you had started towards using RS plays. Also, P2W players may find that the bundles offered are often touted as the most efficient use of real-world money in the entire game (though you are limited to being able to buy at most 2), or at least being on par with using money to unlock a later world like W6.

Note that in another sense, it costs you "nothing" to prepare for the event, b/c any keys you buy for RS can be used later for other purposes, and any gems not actually spent during it can always be put to some other use (buying heroes, awakening existing heroes, training them faster, etc.), plus eventually you may want all heroes at maximum rank anyway, so whatever you do to prepare for the event will not go to waste, no matter what happens. Thus, it is better to be prepared to fail than to be caught unawares, if the new event hero is supremely awesome!:-)

### What should I do to prepare for the event ahead of time?

In a sense you are already doing it - knowledge is power! Also, save up 10 keys in RS, at the most efficient rate of 2 keys per day for 5 days, and make sure to have some gems (like maybe 2000) saved up in case you need to buy some event boxes. In addition, make sure that your heroes are strong enough to handle the repeated RS style of play where the difficulty increases over and over again to insanely high amounts. e.g., see Realm Siege Strategy Guide, which explains things like Leif ~ necro-Connie >> Yan > Helios >> Efrigid >> Koi, etc. b/c of the unique circumstances in that particular game mode. i.e. it is far less about "power" than "scalability" of that power to keep up with increasing difficulty - particularly when even Koi can die in a single blow to the weakest enemy type, and also since he cannot remain in dragon form for the entire duration of the wave, he is actually not that useful (which makes sense, as he was designed to be MVP for the *tournament* style of the game, where huge groups of enemies come quickly in many waves, and where towers are virtually useless, whereas this is a *completely* different style of play, where direct hero power is much less important than their ability to aid towers on blessed spots that keep up with the higher difficulty settings).

Advanced / theory-crafting thoughts: Note that the cost to buy the 10 keys in advance is 80\*2\*5=800 gems, but this is intentionally not factored into the discussion of cost estimates below to make it easier to talk about direct gem costs spent *during* the event. Similarly, if you buy a hero to prepare for the event, that is considered optional and not factored into the direct costs below, even though it may affect your personal total cost. Also it is advisable to keep a bank of 10 such keys on-hand at any given time anyway, so that you can take advantage of "easy" maps in RS whenever they come along (e.g., literally level 1), or if nothing else you may use them for the next event. But anyway if you want to know the total costs of the event then simply add these 800 gems back in:-).

## It starts

### How will I know when it has started?

The event interface *should* pop up a few (3-7) days prior to its' actual start and give a precise countdown until it can open fully and the event officially begins - but don't trust this to happen (it apparently didn't give any advance notice for Raida's) and when it does it may not be sufficient time to prepare anyway. Thus, make sure to prepare for the event long before you see this (see previous question).

Also, you can't miss it - it will glow and be "different", and usually appears in the top-left of your campaign map screen as a treasure chest-like icon.

### How long will it last?

Every event lately has lasted 7 days - though the last one started 3 hours before the daily reset so if you hadn't used up your RS yet that day, you could squeeze in an extra "day" of play. That may not have been intentional but even so, you might look at the countdown timer when it comes and be prepared to take advantage of this just in case it happens again!:-)

After this time period has expired, you can no longer play the event levels in RS and therefore earn event rewards that way. Although there will be a second, extended time-period - lately usually using a second 7-day countdown - where you can still buy event boxes with gems, real-world money, and/or claim event rewards.

### How do you play it?

Generally you play the event instead of doing RS, though the necro-Connie event was special, and yet since then the Shamiko event used RS (as did all previous ones) so we expect the new one to do so too. Note that this means that you must have unlocked RS first, which occurs at the end of W2, after beating map level 40.

Basically: instead of the normal RS rewards, for a hero token of your choice (and if you play at higher difficulty settings, some RS medals that can be exchanged for gems; more on that below), a new option opens up in RS offering a unique currency in the form of "**event pieces**" instead - usually miniaturized versions of the new hero. Note that if you play at higher difficulty settings, you can get more of them (more detail given in next question). Unlike normal RS, these are not random levels that reset after playing, and instead are always the same level, over and over again (and thus get VERY challenging! though the Koi event let you get pieces from a choice of two different levels, as well as having odd mechanics like cards bought with in-battle coins, plus a mini in-battle fishing game; and yet none of these options have been repeated since). Also unlike normal with RS medals, you exchange these event pieces in return for "**event boxes**", *not* in the lower-right corner of RS, but in the event interface (which again, won't open up until the event begins).

Note that **all event pieces leftover at the end are completely wasted and cannot be exchanged for anything else after the event - so you should endeavor to do just enough RS runs to exchange for a box, and then no more**. Event boxes similarly disappear when the event is over, but these only disappear after the second deadline, representing an extend grace period period of several days during which you can no longer earn additional event pieces, but you *can* wait to open up an event box, buy new boxes with gems or real-world money, or claim other rewards in the event interface (especially useful if you want time to change the R4 milestone reward offering). e.g., the last event, which lasted 7 days, had an *additional* 7 days afterwards before the event interface closed to do such things.

Advanced / theory-crafting thoughts: To clarify about the costs of doing additional RS runs during an event: instead of the "usual" discount that you get from buying an additional RS key but then receive 50 gems back for every other play in exchange for the RS medals - e.g., paying 80 gems for the first 2 keys but then the discount makes this an average of 55 gems per key - during the event if you choose to participate it will cost you the *full* amount for each additional key, since you will get no RS medals in return. So this is 80 gems for the first 2 keys, then 160 for the next 2, and finally 320 for the last key to allow a 7th RS run that day, if you so choose.

### What do I do with these event pieces once I earn them?

You (typically) get 10-15 event pieces per play, with +1 for each level of difficulty, so **up to 15 pieces if you can handle +5 every time**. **It takes 35 event pieces to open up an event box** (typically, though a year ago it took only 30 so there is a slight possibility that this could change again). Usually each box offers: 2-4 "new hero tokens" (you can keep these after the event, but you won't be able to earn them until the new hero is added to RS, which is usually not done until around the time of the next new hero event), 1-2 random hero tokens (although I thought I got much more than that last time!?) (chosen from among ALL heroes - even those you don't own yet or haven't even unlocked), a medium (~50%?) chance to get a meteor, and extremely tiny (<<1%?) chance to get 10000 gems.

### Can I get anymore event boxes, other than earning enough event pieces to open them?

During & after (for a few days) the event, you can also buy event boxes for 800 gems apiece, or a special deal to buy essentially 10 of them (actually 350 event pieces) for 7500 gems. Or this is one of the best values for spending real-world money, though limited twice, to purchase a special bundle (at whatever cost in your country - typically about $8 USA) containing 175 pieces, 10 new hero tokens, and 800 gems. One example of their use is for a (new?) player to get a better hero to use *before* playing with that hero in RS to get better rewards than would be possible otherwise. Another example is to play as much as you can in RS as F2P, then buy 1-2 or however many boxes would be needed to finish off a particular rank. Note that you cannot (typically) buy event pieces other than in a multiple of the number needed to open an event box, so there is (usually) no way to buy only a few to finish off a box. Also, it is slightly less efficient to purchase a box with real money than it is to play additional times in RS, *if* you can handle +5 difficulty per play, even for the 7th play per day at a cost of 320 gems for the 5th and final key - though the cost of that final key may be only slightly less efficient than the 10-box bundle, and depends ultimately on your level of skill, how much you value money, etc.

Note that the best use of either gems or a real-world money bundle is not to use them *instead* of playing the event, but to supplement it. Specifically you could: (a) play for as long and hard as you can, then buy only a few boxes to finish off a rank, at which point the very few gems gives small rewards that adds to your existing ones to pay off big by reaching a milestone marker that you otherwise couldn't; or (b) a brand-new player who wants to go all-in might spend first to get the new hero early on, *then* do the plays (which can then handle +5 difficulty for much longer and so yield better rewards); or (c) the only exception to using spending instead of playing might be the R3 milestone - i.e., if buying a single box would help you reach it, then spending 800 gems now to avoid spending 800 gems later for the awakening, and in return you also get the additional elixir and use of the hero at that higher rank for many months, basically pays for itself.

### What rewards do I get to keep after the event?

As you reach each successive new awakening rank for the new hero (by the normal process of getting their tokens, though from boxes rather than RS, and then going to Hero Camp and choose awaken), you *also* qualify to receive a reward from the event interface. Remember that tokens are "consumed" by the awakening process, but to be helpful, both the additional and total numbers are reported here.

* R1 (5 tokens) - 70 event pieces
* R2 (10 tokens, 15 total) - the hero him/her/itself
* R3 (15 tokens, 30 total) - 5000 elixir
* R4 (20 tokens, 50 total) - 30 hero tokens
* R5 (40 tokens, 90 total) - special, unique *never-to-be-repeated* event skin
* R6 (80 tokens, 170 total) - another different special, unique never-to-be-repeated skin

Additional notes:

* R1 => essentially 2 event boxes worth, so adding 4-8 new hero tokens, that covers a good half of the additional requirements towards R2
* R2 => starting from reaching this point you can play the hero, both during the event and forever afterwards - you'll need to feed them elixir though, so if you plan to use them during the event then I hope you saved up a lot for this purpose, as the requirements for a high-level hero are insanely high compared to early-game ones
* R3 => that amount of elixir is 8 days worth for a level-5 elixir mine, though not even a full days worth for a level-10 mine, so may or may not be worth it to you
* R4 => these tokens always offered for the hero at highest rank that you have unlocked, whether you own them or not, as long as they are not within 30 tokens of their maximum rank (or 30 meteors if you have all heroes at maximum rank already) - this is updated in real-time and during the grace period after the event so that you can force the reward to be for a different hero by getting them a few more tokens than whoever is chosen, though it is best to plan for this ahead ASAP (see more detail in the question below dedicated to this).
* R5 => not for the new hero but for some other, early-game hero instead (past choices: Bolton, Hogan, Efrigid, etc.)
* R6 => tend to be for late-game heroes (past choices: Azura, Raida, Azura again, etc.)

### What can a brand-new player expect to earn from the event?

Especially with the help from the R1 milestone marker reward, a new player is all but guaranteed to receive the new event hero, just for participating in the event. Dialing the difficulty down to +0 reveals the option to watch ads instead of playing, so when you reach the point where you can't handle it anymore, switch to watching ads and continue to get the event pieces, to open boxes, and reach these milestone markers.

Advanced / theory-crafting thoughts: 7 days \* 2 plays/day \* 10 pieces at +0 difficulty = 140 event pieces, which is enough to open 4 boxes, that should yield 8-16 new tokens, which is definitely enough to reach the R1 milestone marker already that offers enough pieces for 2 more boxes (and thus 4-8 more new hero tokens). On average this alone just might do it for you already? Then, adding 10 more plays from the 10 keys saved up adds a further 100 event pieces, and thus a further 2.8 boxes, or doing the +5 difficulty even just once brings this up to an even 3.0. Altogether even without having to buy additional plays in RS each day during the event or any event boxes with gems or real-world money bundles will still get you 6 boxes and thus 12-24 total tokens, or with the 10 keys saved up in advance (& 1 play at +5 difficulty) 9 boxes and thus 18-36 tokens total. Or if you didn't save up the keys in advance, *and also* are supremely unlucky in receiving new hero tokens from boxes, at worst you could buy another event box (or two) at 800 gems apiece, to get the last few tokens to reach that marker. So if you saved up 2k gems in advance, *or* 10 keys in RS, *or* do a few extra plays each day, *or* do some of the levels at additional difficulty, then you will have no trouble reaching this minimum.

On the other hand, if you join the game during the event, or haven't unlocked RS yet before it starts (which happens at level 40, at the end of W2 - so rush forward to at least that point ASAP!), then you might miss reaching this point (unless you are willing to spend real-world money to compensate?), although even then as a F2P you will have a chance to purchase the new event hero much later in your game, though at a cost of 3000 gems so definitely try to get it now if you can! (whether you plan to use the hero or not)

### How do I receive more than the bare minimum rewards from this event?

While reaching the R2 milestone is all but guaranteed from minimal efforts, reaching the R3 milestone is a little tiny bit harder - although not terribly difficult, though whether the costs outweigh the benefits is another matter, and depend purely on what YOU value in your game. You gain: (a) the use of the hero as you go through your campaign, which likely will be a strong boost to a new player as the new hero will become your MVP; (b) avoidance of the 800-gem cost to awaken them to R3 later (i.e., a single box now is exactly the cost of what it would take later so *definitely* worthwhile if 1 box would be enough to complete the R3 requirements); (c) other random hero tokens - which are scattered all over rather than focused but hey, aren't nothing - plus also meteors, and a (tiny) chance to win that 10000 gem prize; (d) 5000 elixir, which depending on the level of your elixir mine could be nearly worthless, or a little bit helpful. If it helps to hear from a more senior player, I had a maxed-out elixir mine, and didn't want to use the new event hero during my campaign (I felt like it was somehow "cheating" - rather, I *wanted* the struggle with the tower strategy, to better understand their mechanics, instead of overpowering levels with mere raw hero power), so I didn't bother getting the R3 rank for my first two hero events. But YOU may want to do so for YOUR game? (if you can)

Advanced / theory-crafting thoughts: As mentioned earlier, 10 stored keys + 2 more free plays each day, even with all but one played at +0 difficulty (i.e., as described above, playing just *once* with +5, then switching to watching ads), would yield 18-36 tokens, which alone might reach the 30 total new hero tokens to reach the R3 level, if you are lucky. But you can also fairly efficiently buy 2 keys in RS each day for 80 gems each (for 7 days \* 2 keys \* 80 gems apiece = 1120 gems total), which again even at +0 difficulty will yield yet another 140 event pieces, which again is yet another 4 boxes, that should yield 8-16 additional new hero tokens. That brings the cumulative total to 26-52 new hero tokens, which at the absolute worst case is just barely shy of the R3 milestone, and in the best case even exceeds the R4 marker. At worst, playing at +5 difficulty in 7 more of your RS runs would yield an additional 35 event pieces (which would bring the difficulty total up to +36 for the last play, ending it at +41 whereupon you could switch to watching ads subsequently), and thus one more box with an additional 2-4 hero tokens, and/or you could buy 1-2 boxes in exchange for 800 gems apiece to achieve the same effect. Thus, in the absolute bare minimum, most highly unlucky case, it could require 2720 gems to reach this level, though if the event continues for 14 days, then ignoring the additional gems from the Wheel of Prizes, you would earn 1300 gems during that time (excluding the last day just to be safe), thus lowering the requirement to have been saved up in advance to only ~1400 (in addition to the 800 for the 10 keys stored in RS in advance). So to summarize: the better your heroes, the less gems you have to spend, and the easier it is to reach this milestone - but if you followed the advice of storing up 10 keys in advance and have 2k gems ready, just in case, then you are certain to reach this level.

### What hero awakening rank / milestone marker should I aim at?

**Reaching the R4 milestone is something that should be done by all players who have sufficient hero power - e.g., those who have already or are close to finishing the campaign.** This offers the greatest *efficiency*, to avoid the 800-gem cost of awakening (per rank) for the hero later, plus having the use of that hero (and at that rank) in the meantime (to complete the campaign, for RS, future events, or tournaments), and especially getting the 30-token reward. BTW, slow/mid/fast-tracking a hero at 2/3/4 RS/day for 7 days yields 14/21/28 tokens, so using that time for the new hero event instead offers triple rewards: even more tokens than fast-tracking (30 from the R4 milestone marker) for a single hero (though perhaps for a different hero than you otherwise would have picked), plus 1-2 hero tokens per box (though offered in a scattered, random fashion instead of focused on the heroes that you want) and meteors & such too, and also the new hero tokens (which again, you keep regardless of whether you end on a rank marker or not), PLUS avoiding the cost of purchasing and awakening later (3000 for the hero itself, and 800/1600 gems to the R3/R4 levels; so a cumulative total of 4600 gems, though only 800 pertain to the R4 level itself, beyond the R3 milestone). It's really a great deal!

The caveat for new players is that you may not be able to reach this level, if your heroes aren't strong enough to be able to handle +5 difficulty each time (which for an event is even harder than usual b/c it's the same level over & over again), or that it may cost more to reach it than it is worth. You may want to read https://www.reddit.com/r/RealmDefenseTD/comments/hcoak2/hero\_release\_event\_cost\_breakdown/ that goes into even more detail about these costs - e.g., describing how purchasing additional RS runs (up to 7 per day) can help. Also note that if you really want to get ahead, consider spending real-world money to reach this milestone even if your current heroes aren't up to the task (limited to 2 such opportunities per event, done either before or after you play the levels in RS) to get 5-10 event boxes (which when opened will yield 10-40 new hero tokens), another direct 10-20 new hero tokens (so 20-60 of those total), and 800-1600 gems, which you could either keep or further feed back into buying another box or two, if needed.

Advanced / theory-crafting thoughts: 10 keys stored in RS + 4 RS runs/day for 7 days, at +5 difficulty each time (which if you have good heroes for RS, especially Leif, should be do-able; and maybe the new hero at R2-3 could even help you out further?), yields 570 event pieces, plus the 70 from the R1 marker is 640, and thus earns you 18.3 boxes (let's round that down to just "18" though - presuming you'll intelligently stop early so as to avoid wasting event pieces that can't form a box), which translates to 36-73 new hero tokens. R4 requires a minimum of 50 total tokens (20 beyond the R3 level) - so this is on average jut a bit more than the minimum requirement for R4. Going further: each box that you buy adds an additional 2-4 hero tokens, so at maximum to *guarantee* that you reach this milestone you would need a total of 7 boxes for 800 gems apiece, and thus 5600 gems for boxes, which when added to the 1120 gems mentioned previously for the 2 keys/day, is a total of 6720 gems. Though lets face it, what are the odds of getting "heads" every single time on a coin-flip literally 25 times in a row? (answer: a little more than a billion-to-one chance, if I did the math right:-) The more boxes you open, the more likely you are to get the "average" value of 3.0 total new hero tokens, or at least something closer in the range of 2.5-3.5, rather than either extreme of that 2-4 range (2.0-2.5 or 3.5-4.0), including the worst-case minimum of merely 2. So instead of looking at the worst-case minimum, assuming rather an average of 3 tokens per box (though your mileage will vary, perhaps by +/- 0.5 on average), then 18 boxes + 2 more from the R1 marker should yield 60 total tokens, well beyond the minimum of 50 to reach this point. And if need be you can still buy a box or two, for a grand total of <3k for this event (1120 for keys + 1600 for 2 boxes), or even a third box for a little over 3.5k, though again you should earn an average of ~1.3k during the event, making the total that you need to save up in advance be 2.2k (and this completely ignores the gems awarded by the Wheel, which may add another 50% of income on top of that). Even so - to be on the extra-safe side, avoid any purchases that you can before the event, to make *certain* that you aren't just barely short of the cost of the single box that could've made the difference for you:-). In summary: if you followed the advice of storing up 10 keys in advance and have a little over 2k gems ready, just in case, then you are likely to reach this level, *if* your heroes can handle +5 difficulty each time.

BTW, at 4 RS runs/day for 7 days, plus 10 saved up keys, the final difficulty setting of the event map should be +191, after your last play. So you should aim to have hero power sufficient to tackle the late one hundreds, in a setting such as a late-W6 map. If you can't handle that, you can switch to watching ads, but then you may need to buy some event boxes or a real-world money bundle to make up the difference.

### Should I use meteors during this event?

I never used meteors outside of tournaments, and *especially* in an RS situation where it is fairly easily avoidable (e.g., by getting a different hero token that day), but an unrepeatable event situation offering one-time rewards does sound like an efficient use of them. Perhaps HomeBarista will add a detailed answer here as to how many to save up and what would be efficient to use.

### Can I change the event milestone marker reward of 30 hero tokens to a different hero?

Yes! Somewhat - the rules are that it is dynamically calculated as the hero who has the least tokens remaining before reaching their maximum rank, as long as they are not within 30 tokens of reaching the maximum, with preference given to heroes unlocked later in the game. Odd points here include that you don't have to own that hero, and that you don't have to actually awaken the hero for them to be chosen, but rather it goes by how many tokens you have for them (e.g. a hero at R4 but having an additional 40 tokens is counted the same as a R5 hero). So while you can't just pick any hero that you want to receive the reward, awareness of these rules can help you to either avoid discounting a hero that you wanted to be chosen, or perhaps to get a few more tokens during the event to make it choose a different hero (especially during the grace period when you can no longer earn event pieces, but yet can put that time to good use adjusting the reward before you claim it).

An example: lets say that you own Narlax and want the tokens to go to him, but the game has chosen Leif as also being at R5 and yet unlocked later, even though you don't own him, nor do you want his R6 talent. To make matter worse, lets further say that you already earned 2 tokens for Leif as part of the random ones offered during the event, but yet got none for Narlax. In that case, simply get 1 more token for Narlax than Leif has (i.e., 3 tokens total, which if you buy 1 key in RS at 80 gems, can be done in a single day, or 1.5 days with just free runs), and the reward will go to him instead.

Advanced / theory-crafting thoughts: The issue of whether "maximum rank" will include R7 is technically currently unknown, but due to the patch now treating the visualization of R7 heroes differently than R6 ones, is almost certainly going to treat it correctly - i.e., for heroes that have an R7 their "max rank" will be R7 while for those that don't their max rank will remain as R6. e.g., a Fee at R6 with 50 additional tokens would likely get the reward (being just 50 tokens away from her R7) before a hero like Narlax at base R5 (thus being 80 tokens from his R6), by virtue of being closer to maximum rank. What remains unknown beyond that though is whether it will be calculated as distance to maximum rank, or as being at highest rank - e.g., if the aforementioned Narlax had 31 tokens already, then would he receive it since he is only 49 tokens away from his max rank, or would Fee b/c even though needs 50, her being at R6 already makes her a "higher rank"? Also, what if Narlax had exactly 30 tokens - would the tie be broken in favor of Narlax, as he is unlocked in later worlds (it is known that ties break that way, among heroes at the same rank - as long as that hero has been unlocked already, even if not purchased), or would the R6 factor of Fee override that? Since this issue has not happened before, and the devs have not answered this question, nobody knows.

### What about R5 - should I go for it?

Not at first. **The R5 milestone is only for advanced players, or P2W, but not intermediate F2P.** Do this if you are okay with the decreased efficiency of more investment for less rewards, and/or want an advantage in tournament (especially if R5 offers a good talent, which e.g. for Raida or Koi *definitely* did, though Shamiko...was an aberration in this regard), and/or the unique skin offered (which will *never* be repeated, ever), and/or just the fun & additional challenge of this fairly unique game mode - but again beware the costs. At this milestone you again get to avoid another 800-gem cost of the 5th awakening, and too get the random hero tokens, meteors, etc., but unlike lower ranks, there is no way to reach this with the "efficient" cost of buying just 2 keys/day - it will take a much higher commitment.

Advanced / theory-crafting thoughts: 10 keys stored in RS + 6 RS runs/day for 7 days, at +5 difficulty each time, plus the 70 event pieces from the R1 marker, yields 850 event pieces. This is 24.3 boxes worth, which translates to 48-96 new hero tokens (plus the 24-48 random hero tokens, meteors, 30 tokens from the R4 milestone marker, the unique skin from the R5 marker, etc.). To reach R5 you would have to get 90 tokens total, so you would have to be *extremely* lucky with this alone, plus even here the additional two keys in RS triples the daily cost of the event (+200%) from 2\*80=160 to +2\*160=480 gems, so total costs rise from 1120 to 3360 for the 7 days. Then, since even this expenditure is likely to be insufficient to the task, the next most efficient path forward from here, if you have a powerful enough hero line-up to handle the increased accumulated difficulty, is to purchase the most expensive key in RS at 320 gems, thus raising the daily cost by an additional 67% from 480 to 800 gems (+400% compared to just buying 2 keys), for a total of 5600 gems for the 7 days, and in return you get 1 additional play per day, or 105 pieces and thus 3 additional boxes, for 6-12 additional new hero tokens, or 54-108 total, or a more likely range being 67.5-94.5 at a less extreme 2.5-3.5 tokens per box. Thus, even at an "average" of 3 new hero tokens per box, the 81 new hero tokens still falls a little short of the 90 that would be required to reach R5, so you are almost definitely going to have to buy boxes. At an absolute maximum you'd have to buy 18 boxes (at 800 gems apiece and thus 14400 gems total) to guarantee reaching this marker, but as discussed earlier this is so unlikely as to not really be worth discussing. Instead, (-1) to 9 boxes is a more realistic range, and again assuming an average of 3.0 new hero tokens per box translates to just 3 boxes needed, and thus a total of 2400 gems for boxes. Adding in the 5600 total gem cost to buy the keys translates to a range of 5600-12800 gems, most likely close to 8000 give or take a box or two. Although to be on the safe side, you may want to have enough gems for still a third or even more boxes, to finish off the R5 milestone and thus not let all your additional expenditures go to waste beyond the costs of a normal R4 - i.e., why buy 3 more keys per day, and then have bought 2 more event boxes, only to fall slightly short of what an extra few thousand gems could have helped you reach? I'm personally choosing to save at least 11k (the cost of 8k plus that of 3-4 additional boxes) to avoid that horribly inefficient outcome, and also delay any other purchases as much as possible just in case it needs another box or two past that. The reason is that the cost of keys beyond the first two get progressively less efficient, thus making the R5 milestone highly inefficient to attempt to reach but have failed, and yet simultaneously you can't fully predict the final "true" cost of reaching the R5 marker ahead of time because you can't know in advance how lucky you will be in the draws. So if you have been somewhat unlucky in hero tokens obtained through your RS plays, and then your first three boxes further gives you only 2 hero tokens each (though they could just as easily have given you 4), you would be faced with the choice of having spent ~6k past what a normal R4 milestone would have cost, for very little to nothing in return (you get to keep the extra hero tokens, but they are HORRIBLY inefficient at that cost, unless you reach the R5 marker during the event to have justified that additional expenditure). Thus, it is perhaps best to ensure that you can finish what you started, just in case - and then any unspent gems beyond that can always be repurposed later - hence it is not unreasonable to save up even 13k prior to the event, to *guarantee* that it can be reached. Although you'd earn at least 1300 during the event (yet your mileage may vary since this is an estimate based off of average monthly income, which in reality is often 40 gems per day but with larger spikes at the end and middle and other times throughout the month, and yet again this ignores the Wheel that may offer ~50% more gems, so overall this is a rough but yet realistic figure), so accounting for that lowers the need to save up only ~11.5k in advance. In summary: 10 keys stored up, plus doing +5 difficulty each time, and buying several event boxes (here ignoring real-world money bundles), should get you to the R5 milestone for an average of ~8k gems, or to be safe ~11.5 should virtually guarantee it.

At 7 runs/day, plus 10 saved keys, the final difficulty setting should be nearly +296, so the level of hero power sufficient to tackle this option is *significantly* more than the R4 milestone - e.g., Koi won't cut it, although anyone who can power up towers (specifically those laying on blessed spots) can easily keep pace, even if their direct defense+offense are no longer significant. Read more at Realm Siege Strategy Guide.

### How do I reach the highest, R6 milestone?

**The R6 milestone is purely for P2W players.** R5 already required more investment than playing through the tournament in RS is likely to provide, plus likely a few (~3) event boxes besides, and so not surprisingly R6 (which requires almost literally double the total number of tokens) will require far more. The gem cost to reach this milestone, assuming 3 event hero tokens per box, is 21333 gems above the R5, which ignoring the Wheel of Prizes, is 4.7/7.5/17.8 months worth at 2/3/4 RS per day - certainly far more than an entire tournament season's worth - and thus beyond the reach of anyone except the most veteran of players who already have all heroes to maximum rank (and thus are unlikely to be reading this guide:-). Buying the 2 paid bundles provides 10 more event boxes, plus 20 more direct new hero tokens, and thus 40-60 new hero tokens total, and buying the 10-box bundle for 7500 gems provides another 10-40 new hero tokens, for a total of +50-100, which when added to the earlier total from 7 plays per day + 10 saved keys yields 104-208 tokens, or an average of 156 assuming 3 hero tokens per box. Since R6 needs 170 tokens, this falls slightly short (unless you are lucky with your draws), and you'll need to buy maybe 5 more boxes on top of that. Adding in the 5600 gem cost for all the keys (except the first 10) yields a total of 17100 gems (though if you are unlucky in your draws it could be a bit more than that - e.g. assuming as low as 2.5 instead of 3 new hero tokens per box raises it to 23500 gems total, though that's unlikely, but still ~20k is not an unreasonable figure), plus the ~$16. So to do this you would either have to be a whale (who doesn't care about this level of money), or have a strong desire to **dominate** in tournament play, which actually a new event hero at R6 should provide a lot of help for (especially if you already have the rest of the tournament Meta).

### What about R7?

The new event hero will almost undoubtedly *not* come at R7, but instead be capped at R6, as only a few heroes in the earliest parts of the game have those and they seem to be in the process of being rolled out sequentially - specifically to give a boost to incentivize using early-game heroes, while later-world ones are already powerful enough. And yet...Shamiko received her upgraded level-2 abilities prior to Leif, but even so this is likely b/c she was so pitifully low in utility that this was needed to help entice people to use her? Anyway, truthfully anything is possible so who knows...maybe the new hero will come available up to R7 after all? If so, then likely almost everything in this guide will become instantly outdated and all the math will have to be re-done with the new parameters, whatever they end up being. Though at least you will have this as a template to aid you in that case.:-P

### Can my heroes handle it?

Of course that depends on your heroes, and your skill, and luck, and level of preparation. Especially: more gems = more chances to buy event boxes, to make it more likely to happen, though it might not be as "efficient" past some point (seeing how I did the math above, you can figure it out for your specific situation, even/especially partway through the event with the number of hero tokens you have already earned vs. those remaining to reach your desired milestone(s)). There is a *ton* of in-depth information elsewhere on the wiki - e.g., at Battle\_Mechanics, and Realm Siege Strategy Guide - that can help, explaining for instance how blessed tower spots work, etc. But extremely briefly: some heroes are more well-suited to RS than others, since their powers are more *scalable* to increased difficulty - Efrigid is one, especially at her R4, and any hero who can power up towers (Leif > Yan > Helios), plus necro-Connie is supreme for defense/delay, especially upon reaching her R3.

A team like Fee R3 + Lance R3 + R2 Mabyn should be enough to get you to R2-3, especially with sufficient gems to buy event boxes when they can go no further. R4 is going to start to require some better heroes, like Helios at an absolute minimum, and perhaps surprising to you is that Raida + Koi aren't great for this game mode, where they die in a single blow against the absolute weakest of enemies around difficulty settings of +150 (plus Koi can't remain in dragon form for the long duration of an entire wave, and while heroes like Yan & Helios & Shamiko can get him back quicker for a second round during the same wave, what will you do in the meantime?). R5 would take an even deeper investment: Leif under a W6 haste tower plus Yan further hasting him can keep a blessed tower boosted literally 100% of the time (or lacking the haste tower, still almost that often), and a R5 necro-Connie can use her bunny spam to further help keep enemies in range until they die from tower damage, plus at R6 she can halt any single or clustered flying creature(s) in range too (although not scattered ones - they go through too quickly), but again, even a R6 Koi will be of almost no use to you when the difficulty reaches these levels.

### When should I stop working on the event milestones

From a purely mathematical standpoint - i.e., assuming every hero and awakening rank is equally valuable (which btw is NOT TRUE!!!) - the rewards are theoretically *always* worthwhile, but there comes a point where it may no longer be worthwhile practically *to you*, especially given the particulars of your situation. You do get to keep the new event hero tokens, so it will be easier to awaken them later when their tokens are unlocked in RS (usually about the time the next event starts), and also you get random hero tokens, meteors, the tiny chance of the 10000 gem reward, etc. But likely you don't "value" those random tokens nearly as much as you would a hero that you can work on in a focused manner to help you win tournaments with - e.g., tokens for Sethos are much less helpful than tokens for a hero like Fee, who in turn is used much less than for instance necro-Connie. Also, meteors are easy to make for a semi-senior player, who has finished the campaign and is using RS to get perhaps ~1000 elixir every play, and/or has the elixir mine at a higher level. So if you have reached the milestone that you wanted, it may be a good time to stop. Or, enjoy the new level, and keep doing it as long as doing so is "efficient" - e.g., the 2 free plays in RS each day.

Another consideration is that the new event hero may have a talent that is not worthwhile - e.g., regardless of how good or bad Shamiko was herself, her R5 in particular was nearly worthless in most tournament situations, where gold is not a limiting resource (this may change when W6 is featured in tournaments, but definitely at the time of her release and all the way forward to the next event this has not happened yet, so perhaps the devs messed up in thinking that they would make that happen much sooner than it actually did). Thus, even if you had the ability to reach her R5, it was better in her particular case to stop after reaching R4. Even better, you could look at her talent ahead of time, and decide to stop at the R4 level in advance, and thus reach that milestone much more efficiency without having to buy more than 2 keys in RS per day, or extra event boxes, etc., and thus put all those gems to better use elsewhere.

Conversely, for a newer player that hoped to reach R4 but upon starting the event, realizes that your hero power is nowhere near enough, three alternatives are to either (a) stop at R2 once you get the hero, and then resume whatever else you were doing in RS before the event; or (b) keep going, to obtain the random hero tokens and possibly meteors from each event box, and maybe hit the R3 level; or even (c) if you were smart enough to stockpile a bunch of meteors prior to the event (perhaps after reading this guide that advised it:-), you could maybe reach the R4 milestone with those, even if your heroes alone wouldn't cut it. Plus, as time passes people will post strategy guides - possibly on this page, on reddit, or on YouTube, and that could help you get a bit further ahead too. Truly, all three are valid options depending on what you value most (e.g., how useful would the elixir reward upon reaching the R3 milestone be to you?).

## Actual event play

### What maps will be used?

Nobody knows what maps it will use. If it features W6 ones as have been used in the last several events, then players who finished the campaign already will have a significant edge, since their stars from having completed the levels in that world can go into tower upgrades that are used in the RS levels. However, it is also quite likely to feature new W7 levels, before that world is even officially released yet, at which point nobody will have stars, or any knowledge of the enemies or tower types, etc., and we'll all just have to figure it out as it goes. Though the chances of early-game heroes being of much use in W7 situations is slim...certainly R4 would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to attain, while R2 is still possible, and maybe R3 even just with event boxes bought with gems. Note that while the hero will be made available to purchase later, you'd have to unlock W7 first, and pay 3000 gems, plus 800 for each awakening after the initial R2, so getting the new event hero to a minimum of R2 is a great value!:-)

### How do blessed tower spots work?

This is also explained at Realm Siege Strategy Guide, but basically they power up along with the difficulty of the event - thus making RS an entirely different type of battle mechanic than either campaign or tournament (or Endless, but there are only a handful of those in the entire game, whereas you need to do at least 2 RS/day so this is a *major* mode in the game). Unlike in tournament mode where tower damage is almost negligible, and they become more useful to complement your hero power - e.g., by providing delay, so that Koi's waves hit more enemies - in RS at high difficulty levels it is the opposite, where hero power becomes almost negligible, and tower damage that becomes supreme, with hero abilities mainly useful to complement your towers, for instance necro-Connie's bunnies and Grasping Apparition helping delay enemies so as to let towers do the work of actually killing the enemies. For example, at a difficulty setting of ~100, barracks (on a blessed spot) become more powerful even than Koizuul - who soon beyond that point gets to where he can even be killed easily in a few blows even by the weakest enemy. On the other hand, blessed spots only increase damage (and defense/health for barracks), not speed or most importantly "effects", so for example a W1 mage tower won't "haste" any more on a blessed spot than it would on a non-blessed spot, and a W3 artillery won't "blind" any better, and a W5 shroom's poison spores won't be any more effective (though the AoE damage from its' regular attack will), while a damage-dealing tower like a drum or crossbow or barracks will. So put those on blessed spots, and bell/money towers on non-blessed ones. Putting a drum or crossbow or barracks on a non-blessed spot is just a waste, and only works at the lowest difficulty settings where your heroes can compensate for the loss in effectiveness. Admittedly there actually is some merit to doing otherwise, if you can afford it - e.g. a red drum not powered up at all could still stun, and it can still be effective to use a barracks on a non-blessed spot to pause the enemies for a fraction of a second as their units are each one-shotted (btw the enemies at higher difficulty settings move much faster than normal), but generally you are far, FAR, \*\*\*\*\*FAR\*\*\*\*\* better to place damage-dealing (or for barracks, -receiving) towers on blessed spots.

BTW, this is the reason why the hero Meta is different for RS than for tournaments. Koi - the undisputed King of tournaments - works well in the latter style b/c he is well-suited to large waves of densely-packed enemies, with waves that come quickly and thus refresh his ability and lets him get back into dragon form quicker. But in RS, enemies are more sparse, but each wave lasts much longer. Since Leif increases the attack of *all* nearby towers in his rather large range, he is the MVP for this game mode, especially for a situation like W5 using many blunderbuss towers sniping enemies all over the map. Helios at R6 increases both the attack *and* speed of 2 nearby towers, and so can be arguably even better for a W6 situation where just a couple of towers do all the work, although at her stock R4 she offers less than Leif. Yan's haste also helps, but is inconsistent, and difficult to target - but her ability to haste up to 4 "things" (heroes, towers, individual barracks units, individual little men on top of towers, etc.) can also be very helpful if you learn to use it properly, especially to refresh a hero's active ability like Leif's, who then can keep towers powered up more often. Read more about Yan's ability (and lack thereof) here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RealmDefenseTD/comments/ez9bd0/yan\_haste\_tower\_bugbad\_design/. Necro-Connie may also be your MVP here b/c of her ability to stop enemies in their tracks, and let towers do the work of actually damaging them. Efrigid is similarly useful for her slow. Heroes like Fee who up through R6 offers high levels of direct offense (but yet not "scalable" to the even higher physical & magical defense of the enemies in this game mode) are horrible for this game mode, though her R7 & combined with necro-Connie's bunnies might become the new Meta for delay? Lancelot's shield may be put to good use though, to further aid barracks placed on blessed spots. Smoulder's R4 may help with fliers too - though he should be placed well out of harm's way b/c he won't be able to tank - and his R5 could offer an occasional to rare stun (maybe Masamune for that reason too? and Mabyn, placed off the path but near enough for her to release her boxes every so often). Caldera is great at tanking, and Azura's charm for the same reason. Though flying enemies are the main problems for these levels, so powering up a tower that can kill them usually offers the best option to win.

### Where can I get further advice?

Surely people will also share specific strategies on the Realm Defense Reddit, a few days after the event starts - this is a truly awesome community where people share, instead of hoard their great ideas to themselves - but until then, do the best that you can, and rely on the fact that you don't have to 3-star it, as just passing a RS level with even a single life left is sufficient for it to count!

Also repeatedly check YouTube, as likely players will post stuff there. It's hard now to find some old videos that are still relevant, but here are a couple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b02vHJow94 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdd8PWF10Us that show some play-throughs, though much of the info is outdated (e.g., now 70 instead of 60 tokens is offered as the R1 milestone reward, and boxes require 35 rather than 30 event pieces to open), plus the strategy is REALLY horrible to offer as a guide to a new player (e.g., W6 bell towers do ZERO damage, so to place them on a blessed spot is a huge waste of its' potential, and they only did that b/c they had supremely powerful heroes that didn't need more than a couple of actual damage-dealing towers, but a player with less supreme heroes could not get away with that as easily), and here's a more updated one that shows the event interface for Koi a few days before the event starts, but no actual play-through after that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk\_ft-6gaaQ. Surely after the event starts, new videos will be released.

Further links to additional information available at https://www.reddit.com/r/RealmDefenseTD/comments/glmajh/questions\_about\_upcoming\_event/, including one very foundational https://www.reddit.com/r/RealmDefenseTD/comments/cy0dst/event\_information\_for\_new\_players/ that this page attempts to expand upon. This page originally started as a reddit post at https://www.reddit.com/r/RealmDefenseTD/comments/hdmvlk/basic\_and\_detailed\_cost\_breakdown\_information/, but will be expanded independently from that.

Also, good luck!:-)

## During the event

Probably will be updated (sparsely) with additional info as the event goes on, though for more frequent updates check out Realm Defense Reddit.