Combat Basics

You can only directly move one of your heroes around the map by dragging them. You move other heroes by swapping places with them with the directly moved hero. By swapping places and moving your hero you can move all of the heroes into position on the map. Some Talents allow you to swap places with (tumble) or push a monster; you must move the unit with the talent to do this.

There are 3 basic attack types:

* Melee - the hero can attack monster that are within one tile of them.
* Ranged - the hero can attack the first monster that are within their attack pattern
* Magic (including healers) - the hero can attack all monsters that are within their attack pattern, penetrating past the first monster.

#### Maps

Maps have normal tiles on which you can move around. There also tiles that can block movement (for most units), but allow some attack types and tiles that block movement and all attacks.

* Normal tile (ground)
* No walking through (rubble, water, lava)
* No shooting through (wall)

Most heroes cannot move by choice into Water or Lava, they must be hit there by a monster with the Might Blow talent. When a unit that cannot be on these tiles is there they are negatively affected.

* Water - Heroes in water without the Water Walker Talent cannot attack and move 1 tiles automatically cardinally towards land each turn. If the land space is blocked the unit will move towards the next available land tile. The player can move a hero in water, but the movement is slowed considerably. You cannot move a hero on land to rescue someone in the water (unless the hero has the water walking talent). Enemies also suffer the same consequences, but some enemies can fly and are not affected by water.
* Lava - Heroes in Lava lose 25% HP and 50% def each turn. Heroes cannot attack when in lava and will automatically move towards land. The unit can be moved by the player in the same was as when in water.

#### Hero stats

Heroes have stats for Attack, Atk, Hit Point, HP and Defense, Def.

Atk is the base amount of damage that your unit can do. This can be increased by equipping offensive equipment (such as Amulets, Rings and Main-hand weapons) and bringing a compatible leader into battle. In battle there are more ways to increase damage, see below for more details.

Def is the maximum amount of HP that a unit can have. It can be increased by equipping defensive equipement (such as Headpiece, off-hand weapon and armour) and bringing a compatible leader into battle. This can be rueduced in battle by enemies with Brutal Attack or a special debuff like burn or acid.

HP is the current amount of hit points your unit has. When in battle this reduces when taking damage from an enemy. Reaching 0 HP means your unit will die and leave the battle.

#### Hero Classes

Different Classes have different Class Talents and attack patterns. See the Heroes page to read about Class Talents. You can see a units attack pattern from the top right corner of the map hero or by long-pressing on the a hero to bring up their hero card.

Melee attackers

Melee attackers attack monsters in the adjacent tiles. Some Melee units only hit cardinally, but some hit cardinally and diagonally (8-way).

* Knights (cardinal)
* Guardians (cardinal)
* Assassins (cardinal)
* Paladins (cardinal)
* Druids (cardinal)
* Rogues (8-way)
* Barbarian (8-way)
* Princesses (8-way)
* Pirates\* (8-way)
* Monks (8-way)

Ranged attackers

Ranged attackers attack the closest monsters within their attack pattern. e.g. an archer will hit the first unit to the top, left, bottom and right.

* Archers (cardinal)
* Hunters (cardinal)
* Rangers (8-way)
* Pirates\* (cardinal)

Magic attackers

Magic attackers attack all units within their attack pattern.

* Mages (cardinal)
* Witches (cardinal)
* Healers (cardinal)
* Elementalists (8-way)

Hero classes can be broadly split into 3 types

* Attackers - Assassins, Rogues, Pirates, Monks, Archers, Hunters, Rangers, Mages, Witches, Elementalists
* Defenders - Knight, Guardian, Barbarian.
* Support - Healers, Paladins, Druids, Princesses

A combination of each type can lead to success depending on the difficulty of the game mode. Two strong elementalists can clear most of the monsters from a map so you receive little damage, but they are frail and might easily die if you do not protect them. A knight can draw monsters away from weaker attacking units, but will need a support to heal them.

##### Healers

There are 3 healer classes: Healer, Paladin and Druids.

Healers and Paladins provide a 10% def heal to all heroes within their support pattern. Healers and Druids provide a 15% def delayed heal to all heroes within their support pattern. Healers only provide the delayed heal to units of the same colour, druids provide it to all colours.

Subsequent heals after the first one receive a -50% cumulative penalty. So two Maribel (1\* light healer) healing Dorian (1\* Light Knight) would heal for 10% from the first Maribel, 5% from the second Maribel and then the 15% delayed heal on the next turn for a total of 30% Def heal. A single Maribel heals for 25%, so the second healer is not adding much extra heal. An ascended Coalbone (^1\* Dark Paladin) can focus heal for 20% Def. Two Coalbone could heal for 30% (20% + 10%) on a single unit.

Healer classes can have talents that increase healing output. For example, Alyssandra (Light 5\*) has 3 healing focus talents all giving +50% heal which means when healing only one hero she can heal for 25% (10%+150%) of def (as well as her delayed heal). Many paladin also have a focus heal.

Healers also have unique heal talents like Pacifist, Triage, Healing Touch and Steady Heal.

### Skills

#### Talents

Talents are skills that each unit can use automatically in battle. Talents can provide buffs to your team, hero or debuffs to your enemy. You can see them on the hero inspector. If you hold the talent icon them you can see a description of what the talent does.

A list of talents is provided in Talents and Hero Talents pages

Each unit has a starting talent for their class. The number of additional basic talents is proportional to the star-rating of the hero. 1-star units get 1 additional basic talent and 5-star units gets 5 additional basic talents. Ascended units get an additional ascended talent which is similar to a basic talent, but requires ascended talent tokens to unlock. The cost of unlocking basic talents is proportional to the star rating of the unit with 1-star unit basic talents costing 1 talent token and 5-star unit basic talent costing 5 talent tokens for a total of 1, 4, 9, 16 and 25 talent tokens respectively to max a unit. Talents are the same for all star-ratings so a lower star unit with more offensive talents can do more damage than a higher star unit.

#### Leader Skill

The hero placed in the first (left-most) team position is the leader. This is the same for the initator of a co-op and mercenary. All the members of the team get the leader skill of of the leader if they meet the criteria. A 5-star leader gives the best leader skill for units of the same colour, but same-species teams of different colour might benefit from using a 4-star leader.

A leader skill can increase stats and give a talent during the fight. You can see these stats on the hero card.

* 1-Star - 1 second extra time for same colour
* 2-Star - 1.1x atk and 1.1x def for same colour
* 3-Star - 1.15x atk to same colour and 1.15x def to same species
* 4-Star - 1.25x atk to same colour and 1.25x def to same species
* 5-Star - 1.25x atk and 1.25x def to same colour and class leader talent to same species.

Ascended

* 1-Star - 1 second extra time for same colour
* 2-Star - 1.2x atk and 1.2x def for same colour
* 3-Star - 1.25x atk to same colour and 1.25x def to same species
* 4-Star - 1.35x atk to same colour and 1.35x def to same species
* 5-Star - 1.35x atk and 1.35x def to same colour and class leader talent to same species

Double Ascended

* 1-Star - 1 second extra time for same colour
* 2-Star - 1.25x atk and 1.25x def for same colour
* 3-Star - 1.3x atk to same colour and 1.3x def to same species
* 4-Star - 1.4x atk to same colour and 1.4x def to same species
* 5-Star - 1.45x atk and 1.45x def to same colour and class leader talent to same species.

Humans 5\* give the above balanced values.

Orcs and Elves skew toward offensive, typically: +0.05 atk and -0.05 def

Dwarves and Dragons skew towards defensive, typically: -0.05 atk and +0.05 def

Some ascended species effects are slightly different skews for different star ratings.

#### Class leader talents

Class leader talents are parries for the leader attack type e.g. Archers give ranged parry, Barbarians give melee parry and Healers give magic parry. The exceptions are Pirates which give Brutal Attack and Guardians that give Protector

### Damage reduction

#### Parries

Parries reduce damage from monsters. Typically, parries are 20% and stack multiplicatively. Parries can come from talents, leader skills of 5\*, stage buffs..

In special events, parries can have additional benefits like preventing a monster applying a debuff.

* Melee
* Ranged
* Magic
* Cardinal
* Diagonal
* Dodge

Dodge is a special damage reduction talent that stacks with other parries, but unlike other parries it gets used up. A hero with dodge will move out of the way of an attacking monster (if they can) and activate the parry. Dodge only activates if there is a free map tile 1 space away from the hero that can is not in the attackers attack pattern.

Dodge works differently for players and monsters because player movement is parallel and monster movement is sequential so turn order for heroes becomes important to hit a dodging monster

What does this mean?

One attack trait generally cancels one defensive trait. If you hit 100p with Backstab at Melee Parry, you will do 125x0.8 = 100 damage.

Two attack traits still lose against two defensive traits. If you hit 100p with 2 Backstabs at 2 Melee Parries, you will do 150x0.64 = 96 damage.

If you hit Juniper-enchanced Cassandra-Leader with 5 Backstabs, you’ll deal 225x0.8^5 = 73 damage.

This adjustment affects both Heroes and Monsters, including Traits like Overpower, Elf, and Nature’s Protection.

##### Immovable

Units with immovable cannot be pushed, tumbled or knocked back by mighty blow apart from by big enemies. It also negates the damage portion of mighty blow.

##### Natural Harmony

This is a buff from a druid to a unit of the same colour. Units gain a 20% damage reduction to all damage.

#### Species parry

All heroes get a species parry that reduces damage by a random value between 0-20%. This stacks with other parries.

* Humans: Melee
* Dragons: same colour
* Dwaves: Magic
* Orcs: at full HP
* Elves: Ranged

### Defense Damage Calculation

Attack damage is reduced by defensive traits and buffs. These can be talents (i.e. melee parry), monster class traits (i.e. beasts have -50% damage from melee attacks) and buffs (i.e. natures harmony from a druid).

All non-random damage reduction is either 20% or 50%. Random damage recution is between 0-20% (for species damage reduction).

The amount of HP lost after an attack is:

H
# P
d
a
m
a
g
e
∗

0.8

A

∗

0.5

B

∗
[
0.8
−
1.0
]

{\displaystyle HP=damage\*0.8^{A}\*0.5^{B}\*[0.8-1.0]}

Where A is the number of 20% damage reduction (parries and natures harmony) and B is the number of 50% damage reduction.

e.g. A berserking Kyron being hit with a 500 magic attack would lose 500 x 0.8^2 x 0.5^1 = 160HP

Ariane, leading, being hit by a 500 ranged hit would lose betwen 500 x 0.8^2 x 0.5^0 x 0.8 = 256HP and 500 x 0.8^2 x 0.5^0 x 1.0 = 320HP

she has a ranged parry talent, her own leader skill talent and her species damage reduction.

### Attack Damage Calculation

A set of damage calculations is provided during game play by long-pressing a unit to show their hero inspector and then holding their atk stat. See image.

Damage is calculated as:

a
t
t
a
c
k
∗
l
e
a
d
e
r
s
k
i
l
l
∗
(
1
t
a
l
e
n
t
s
)
∗
c
o
l
o
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h
e
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s

{\displaystyle attack\*leaderskill\*(1+talents)\*color\*herobonus}

Base attack stat is the value from the hero card in the barracks (including equipment).

Leader skill is the stat multiplier from the leader. This is shown during battle on the hero inspector.

Talents are typically 0.25, but can be 0.5 for species killers. Only active talents count. e.g. A sniper talent only activates when the monster is 2 or more squares away from the Hero (and only for the first monster if magic attacking hero).

Colour Advantage is 1.5 against the weak colour.

Hero bonus is a random value between 1.00-1.25. Monsters have the same bonus agaisnt heroes of a lower level.

Colour advantage:

* Blue attacking Red
* Red attacking Green
* Green attacking Blue
* Light attacking Dark
* Dark attacking Light

Princess support talents act like hero talents when activated.

Finishing blow first checks if the monster would die from the attack with finishing blow talents activated. If not, the talents are removed from the calculation.

For example, a red Hero with 400 base attack in battle with a corresponding leader skill of 1.25 would have a battle attack stat of 500 (400x1.25).

If the hero has 2 sniper talents then the damage they would do to a red monster would be 500x(1+0.25+0.25) = 750 damage minimum and 938 maximum. If the red hero attacks a green monster then it would be 500x(1+0.25+0.25)x1.5 = 1,125 damage minimum and 1407 maximum.

#### Attacking order

Heroes attack in the order you last moved them, including from previous rounds of a stage. Moving includes swapping places with them. If you don't move them they attack in team order. The hero you move will always attack first.

Monsters and automatic movement of heroes move the highest move-count unit first. For units with the same move count the order is random each turn.

### Monsters

#### Classes

Specific monster classes have class talents. Monsters can have multiple classes.

##### Stage buffs

Different stages can also give monsters buffs.

E.g. Wither heroic - Green monsters have Wither. Talent Rush - Clockwork monsters have arcane shield.

##### AI

All units have AI which dictates the movement type of monsters and Heroes when in auto play. You can see this in the inspector. you can use your knowledge of the enemy AI to predict where they will attack an postion your team to defend or avoid them.

 Unpredictable
 Evade
 Assasin
 Supporter
 Tactician

### Advanced

Some lesser known details:

* Heroes attack in the direction they last moved and then clockwise.
* Backstab for bosses with an 8-way attacker. The backstab position is directly across from the attacker and mirrored through 45 degrees.

#### Tumble and Push

Tumble (Rogue Class Talent) and Push (normal Talent) allow the player to move a monster with their hero. A tumble hero swaps places with the monster and Push moves the monster in the direction that the hero is trying to move. Only your units in a co-op can be moved, so you cannot use tumble or push of a co-op partners units. You can use them of a mercenary.

Both talents are a useful way to control where monster are, especially to help activate other talents like Whirlwind or Berserk and to move a hero into a better attacking position.

Tumble is useful for getting past a single monster to hit a weaker monster behind. Entering into a block of monsters to use whirlwind (like Elliott or Lysander)

Push is useful for delaying the monsters death to heal up by pushing them into water on multiple turns. You can push an enemy into lava to help kill them.

* You must be moving the unit with the talent (so a unit brought by a co-op player cannot be used)
* you must be able to move into the space for Tumble (i.e. you cannot Tumble a flying enemy over water or rubble)
* The number of enemies being pushed at the same time is less than or equal to the number of push talents. (e.g. you can push two enemies at the same time if your unit has two (or more) push talents).
* The number of monsters you can tumble per turn is limited to the number of Tumble talents you have. Currently, only Brianna can tumble more than once.
* Monster must be 1-tile size
* Monsters with the Immovable talent cannot be pushed or tumbled.
* Push and Tumble do not work diagonally.

Be careful with these talents as you can accidentally tumble into a group of enemies and not get out again.

#### Princesses

A princess can give +75% attack to an ally (equivalent of 3 standard atk talents) when attacking and can be useful when there is:

* not enough space to fit all your attackers,
* you have one very strong attacker,
* you need to kill something even quicker (e.g. Titans), or
* you want to use your main colour team and have an attack bonus against the enemy (e.g. Rotwood Heroic).
* you need extra attack to kill strong enemies

A princess is most effective when used to support stronger heroes attacking an enemy of colour weak to the princess e.g. Lucia supporting another hero against a dark enemy.

The support pattern is the same as a mage. However, it penetrates through allies, but is blocked by enemies and walls.

The damage boost from a princess acts like a normal talent, adding up to 75% of battle attack. All princesses gives 25% as their class talent to all attacks. All princesses give 25% to attacks against enemies of the princess' weak colour with their first normal talent. 5\* Ascended princesses give another 25% to attacks against enemies of the princess' weak colour with their first ascended talent. 4\* Princesses give 25% to attacks against a monster class.

The attack bonus for heroes with X attack talents is:

* 0 = 1.75x
* 1 = 1.60x
* 2 = 1.50x
* 3 = 1.43x
* 4 = 1.38x

Of course, if you use a princess to achieve enough damage to activate Finishing Blow then you achieve a lot more damage.

Princesses can also attack, but they are generally weaker. They attack as 8-way melee.

* Moreia can be used to stun enemies and benefits from attacking last (moved first).
* Murtag has Mighty Blow and can be used to either first move enemies into the attack pattern of another hero or later move enemies away from weaker heroes (or into water).
* Amberwing can be used with her shield to take a hit from a strong enemy. She can also help attack a single enemy with focus.
* Celeste can be used with prepare to attack for more damage.
* Sapphire Crown can hit a single target to silence them.
* Lucia will not provide much damage.

#### Story Bosses

See story mode for specific details on beating story mode. But remember, Dragons have -50% damage from diagonal attacks.

#### Titans

Titans are difficult bosses for players over level 75. They have lots of defence and require a strategy to kill them.

Titan battles cost Titan Coins to enter. See basics for more details.

Titans have 2 stages, the first is a mini-test with normal monsters. The second stage is the battle with the titan.

See Titans for more details.

##### Steinschlag

Steinschlag is a Green Titan who is boss-sized and randomly moves around the board. It has both melee and ranged damage with brutal attack.

See the titans page for more details.

##### Alpha and Omega

Alpha is a Light Titan, Omega is a Dark Titan. They are one-tile-sized and their movement is restricted to the top and bottom rows of the map. They use magic attacks and both have strong DoT talents.

See the Titans page for more details.

#### Heroics

Heroic battles are harder battles that appear regularly, but for a limited time. You can obtain equipment from the chest stages. See the Heroics page for more details.

##### Decay

Bring 2 Healers of the same colour. Form around them to heal every turn. Healers are the best because you can out heal the decay.