World 3: Sunstorm Sands

Desert thieves, jackal-headed Anubians and vile desert creatures overrun the Great Kingdom. Drive them back and reclaim the mysterious life-gem source.

To unlock this world, you first need to finish World 2 campaign. Then you have four options of unlocking this world:

1. Hero awakening ranks sum up to 2.
2. Own 4 heroes.
3. Spend 50 Tournament Coins.
4. Get it using real money (at the moment 4$).

Tips for unlocking HERE.

**Maps:** W3 map pictures are found here

## Campaign Progress Unlocks

There are 40 campaign levels in this world; this makes a maximum of 120 stars.

* Missions and W3 Endless mode unlocked with world 3 opening
* Level 50 unlocks Sethos to be bought
* Level 60 unlocks Helios to be bought and unlocks W3 Challenge mode (needs Sethos and Helios to play)
* Level 80 unlocks World 4 to be bought or opened

## Towers

For more detailed stats on the towers, upgrades, build cost, etc. please refer to this spreadsheet, or look at this Reddit post for simplified (but not 100% accurate) description.

### Spear Tower

 Indigenous troops that craft deadly spears to protect their home from invaders. Quick spear attacks that can hit ground or air units.

Enhancements:

* **Spear Wall** - 1x - A wall of spears bursts from the ground causing area damage
* **Crawlers** - 3x - Wooden bots that detonate explosives on enemies

Upgrades:

* 4 stars - Long Shot - These spears can fly!
* 5 stars - Poison Spear - These spears are toxic
* 6 stars - Lightning Spear - These spears shock!

Anti-air?: attacks both air and ground (air priority). Both enhancements ground only.

*Tips: By far best tower for all game modes and cheap too, should be your most used tower. 1) **Spear Wall** usually not worth it, nice dmg but too small area only worth in campaign if you can keep more enemies very close to each other, or in RS blessed spots. 2) **Crawlers** always worth at least first upgrade, 2nd and 3rd generally worth too, but almost never to be rushed (upgrading will remove one crawler you have placed and instantly spawn new +one extra, so great to upgrade to 2nd and 3rd when you need to stop enemy). Ideally upgrade once for each tower you have, and only then do 2nd and 3rd.*

### Necro Tower

 Infused with dark magic, this necromancer summons skeletons from the corpses around him. Slow magical decay aura that damages ground troops.

Enhancements:

* **Bone Burst** - 1x - Skeleton troops now explode when they die
* **Curse Totem** - 3x - A totem that weakens enemy armour and slowly damages them

Upgrades:

* 4 stars - Skeleton Mage - Give that skel a wand!
* 5 stars - Buff Skeletons - They hit the gym!
* 6 stars - Two for One - Double trouble!

Anti-air?: Curse Totem ground and air, rest ground only

*Tips: always worth building one or few. While it has the worst troop of all other troop towers, tower itself is pretty nice, mainly need to make it work by killing enemies under its range, since those reanimated summons are what helps base crapy skeleton to delay. 1) **Bone Burst** almost never worth upgrade, just too costly. Only could be worth if you can guarantee many skeleton and many enemies near them (like after Narlax's pull). 2) **Curse Totem** Always worth all 3 upgrades, but since cost skyrockets between upgrades usually not worth rushing all and just get a first one. 3) **unupgraded** is usable and in campaign you might not need extra dmg from armor break, but these enhancements and tower upgrade itself are pretty cheap compared to other towers, so no reason not to get Curse Totem.*

### Mirror Tower

 A tower with a large mirror on top of it that reflects the intense heat of the sun onto its target. Focuses a strong beam on a single ground troop for consistent damage.

Enhancements:

* **Solar Flare** - 1x - Blast of light that blinds enemies around the tower
* **Scorch of Ra** - 3x - Concentrated sun energy that obliterates a single target

Upgrades:

* 4 stars - Focus Fire - More time Equals more power!
* 5 stars - Second Hand Burn - Nearby enemies will be burnt!
* 6 stars - Slowdown - Like an ice beam but not!

Anti-air?: all effects ground only

*Tips: Generally one at you main chokepoint is good, but otherwise skippable, due to it being to costly, and ground only tower. 1) **Solar Flare** always worth it, to blind enemies helping your melee stay alive. 2) **Scorch of Ra** nice cheap source of extra ground damage. All 3 upgrades are generally worth it if you have spare coins. Never to be rushed (unless on blessed spots or buffed by Helios).*

### Genie Tower

 An ancient Genie bound to his lamp, and ready to do your bidding. Magical projectiles that can hit air and ground enemies.

Enhancements:

* **Polymorph** - 1x - Turns the enemy into a chicken
* **Channel** - 3x - Harnesses the abilities of previous towers to fight the enemy
	+ 1st: W1 "Rockets Away" from Cannon tower
	+ 2nd: W2 "Axe Totem" from Axe tower
	+ 3rd: W1 "Teleport" from Wizard tower

Upgrades:

* 4 stars - Charm - Enemies fight for you now!
* 5 stars - Increased Projectiles - More Magic Orbs!
* 6 stars - Magic Orb Mixture - Burn, Cold, or Poison!

Anti-air?: Polymorph and attack (air priority) both air and ground. Channel same as their original effects

*Tips:* Both *upgrades are somewhat usable but too costly, so is tower itself.* *Thus tower itself can be mainly skipped (One or two behind chokepoint or close to exit with polymorph can be great to stop enemy that gets through chokepoint. But so is Spear tower + Crawlers...). 1) **Unupgraded** in general it should be optimal to not upgrade after building. 2) **All upgrades** if you play tower-buffers (Helios/Leif/Yan) it should be worth doing all upgrades on tower you're buffing. 3) **Polymorph** great but too costly enhancement, worth if you having problem with single fast hard to kill enemies slipping through your main tanking area.*

## Enemies

All enemies (including bosses) along with their stats, skills, damage, etc. are listed here in spreadsheet.

For enemy kill counts toward Achievements and Daily Missions visit W3 enemies HERE.

**tips and commentary:**

* Due to deadly ranged, and poison enemies (especially Pallbearer and Cobra), generally avoid squishy melee and short range ranged heroes.
* Poison dmg from dmg-scaled enemies (Tournament, high difficulty RS, Weeklies) can really hurt. But poison only comes from enemy ranged attacks and skills, and can be avoided by engaging them in melee before they can use it. Teleporters (Masamune, Sethos, Raida, Narlax, Cyra), Summons, Narlax's pull or CC in general can be very helpful.
* Watch out for fast moving enemies like Gem Scarab, Mummy Wolf and Mummy. Generally good to have some very fast moving hero, or teleporter, or strong global active skill like Fee's/Connie's summon to stop them. Spear tower's crawlers or genie tower placed near exit is great at delaying those who get through your heroes.

## Strategies, tips and commentary

* For Campaign and Legendary:
	+ Sethos & Helios: both are nice for campaign, but 6000 gems cost makes them generally skippable. **Sethos** while great campaign tank, nice for W3&4 split levels and W5 in general, is one of the worst endgame heroes. If you really need good campaign tank, just level and rank up your Lancelot. Due to Necro-Connie in W4 and Leif in W5 he is even more skippable. If you're ok with using 6k gems on hero that only works in campaign buy him asap to get use of him while you can. Otherwise best to **SKIP HIM** until endgame and then buy only to unlock W3 Challenge (Yan's and Narlax's Lvl.2 skills), and use in his blessed week. **Helios** on his own pretty weak hero, but great support for others. Generally skippable due to 6k gem cost. Mainly used for tower buffing (great for RS blessed tower spots). Can also be great in Campaign, but only if you have other great heroes, since to haste them with his active skill can be very high value. Best to buy if you have R4 Efrigid and Necro-Connie to form one of best Campaign teams. Otherwise wait for endgame, to buy for RS (especially events) and to unlock W3 Challenge).
	+ Spear: Should be main priority tower. Unlock those star upgrades first and mainly build this cheap great cost/benefit ratio tower.
	+ Necro: look at tower tips above, nothing more to say. Always use 1-3 where needed.
	+ Mirror: base tower is pretty weak, generally it's good to have one ahead of where you tank enemies with Blind upgrade to help protect your heroes/summons/skeletons (blind makes enemies 50% chance to miss their attack). On boss levels more are nice, in place where you tank boss to help dmg him, since tower have pretty nice single target dmg if you have 4 stars upgrade - Focus Fire.
	+ Genie: really nice tower, but just too costly. One unupgraded near chokepoint (just behind it), so it charms enemy unit and help tank one more enemy, where you want them to die (under necro tower). Or with polymorph enhancement. Or one further behind to have charm ready on CD, to stop fast enemy that can get through your chokepoint (but Spear tower crawler can do that for ground enemies and can also use those nice spears with shock and attack from far away. So, yeah...)
	+ Heroes: If you did your awakenings and have your FeeR3 or LancelotR3 or EfrigidR4, you should be fine. If you rushed in with weak under leveled base rank heroes, or bought weak heroes, this is where you might find some challenge. If youre stuck on some level don't be frustrated slow down awaken and level your Fee/Lance or other hero, and you'll be fine, as long as you do your 2 free daily RS, Daily Trial, SR, etc. you won't be stuck for long.
		- Avoid: Generally avoid squishy short range ranged (Bolton, old-Connie), as poison and Vulture Riders can quickly overwhelm them. Same kinda goes for squishy melee (Hogan, Masamune, Mabyn), although **Masamune** is pretty nice due to his teleport, just don't let him frontline as tank and die, and **Mabyn** can be really amazing just have her slightly behind main action to keep enemies under necro tower and Mirror's blind, and don't do something stupid like tank with her and soak all poison (against which is her high dodge useless). And Obsidian is just trash, mainly due to his slowness.
		- Decent: Smoulder is good, but need to be ranked to be worthwhile. Sethos is good here, but best to be skipped. Helios same.
		- Ideal team: EfrigidR4 + Fee(R1-R3) + Lancelot(R1-3)/Mabyn (even base R2 Efrigid should be great just keep in safe range from all ranged enemies, and expect more tanking needed due to less CC and dmg from her)
* Endless: endless maps are only hard once you unlock them, and gets really easy usually as soon as you get to next world (rank and level heroes bit more). If you struggle and just can't wait use Youtube.
* Challenge: due to very high cost 12k gems (own Sethos+Helios) to open, it's generally best to postpone it. After which point you will likely have so high level & rank heroes that this should pose no challenge at all. If you somehow open it too early to just power through it, there will be 2 big problems:
	1. Scarab eggs: there will be scarab eggs sprinkled across the map in most levels. They spawn Flying Scarab units on death, and respawn new eggs shortly after. They are cloaked so your units should normally avoid autoattacking them. But you have to 1) avoid some global hero passive skills. Azura and Raida can auto-target and kill cloaked with passive skills 2) avoid aoe heroes or just placing them where their attacks/skills can also kill eggs. 3) **DO NOT PUT NECRO TOWER ADJACENT TO EGGS** Necro tower has very small dmg aura, that is still enough to kill eggs, then spawn skeleton which in turn helps kill more eggs insta kill new eggs that spawn, etc. This can spawn so many enemies that it can even crash your game, or slow your device. And certainly to lose you a match.
	2. On some maps Scarath Boss is there to annoy you with his web throwing. He throws a web (8s CD) stunning one random hero in place (for ~6s), So basically you will only have 2 heroes in play most of a match, this can really hinder you if you need them to tank, especially on maps with more lanes. Note that some passive hero skills still works when cocooned, like Narlax's orbs still spinning and doing dmg around his cocoon. It can be helpful to use fast and teleporting heroes to keep up with enemies. And heroes like summoners (Fee,Connie,Obsidian) whom are not disrupted by CC as much (since their summons keep holding enemies while hero is cocooned. Cocoon only seeks ground targets (Smoulder and Helios can't be cocooned, but that only means other hero/es will be cocooned more often if you chose them).
* Realm Siege: generally same as campaign, but as difficultly rises, low damage CC heroes won't cut it anymore, good tank/way to stop enemies is generally required, etc. For towers, make use of blessed spots (avoid Necro tower there) and buffing blessed tower spots (Helios/Yan/Leif) is always great value. Look at enemies section above and prepare based on that.
* Tournaments: As usual with each wave difficulty goes up, until tower damage mostly doesn't matter anymore. So never waste coins on dmg only enhancements (like Spear tower's Spear Wall).
	+ Spear tower: this is your bread and butter, just slap it everywhere and upgrade for max crawlers to help delay enemies.
	+ Necro tower: Always use 1-3 where needed (generally 1 should be enough).
	+ Mirror tower: almost never worth it, blind is just too unreliable. One at main chokepoint can be nice (if you plan to tank enemies with heroes), but generally best to just ignore it (especially if you use ranged teams and just cc/delay enemies).
	+ Genie tower: usually just avoid it (while charm is nice CC effect it can also backfire as it can save enemy from massive damage aoe skills like Koi's waterfall or RaidaR6+Narlax combo). And its just too damn costly to make this tower work (to also have teleport and polymorph).
		- *in theory if you had unlimited gold, use only fully upgraded genie towers everywhere strategy could seem appealing, in practice again charm is just too disruptive and can backfire on you (+ 60sec charm CD with only 5sec duration is really ineffective CC). And you won't have unlimited coins.*
	+ Heroes: just look at enemy section above for tips, to see what enemies can be problematic and what can be good response. But generally just follow current Meta Heroes. As far as tower synergies, as usual they work best with lock down (CC enemies under Necro tower). Otherwise repositions like Yan's teleport, Narlax's pull, or Mabyn's/Shamiko's terrify are great as well to move enemies back to chokepoint. Unlike regular CC, reposition is also great since it allows crawlers to build up again and act as delay, instead of just being wasted as low damage (this also works great with Meteor item, and is the reason why MabynR6 can sometimes compete with meta heroes in W3, not much since S13 though).
* Extra notes:
	+ build>upgrade>sell>repeat: In tournaments of other worlds you generally want to utilize troop tower in build>upgrade>sell>repeat strategy to resurrect troops and help tanking. But in this world Necro tower is just not made for this (you want to keep it up so it does curse totem and so enemies that dies turn into skeletons). Crawlers from Spear tower are also bad for this as it takes too much time and coins to even get to them. Weirdly enough it's Genie tower that can somewhat work for this. As you build it its charm spell is ready to be used and you can make use of this strategy to keep charming single target (and likely force second to attack it). But it is rarely even worth it, and runs through your coins fast (coins which you probably don't have as many maps have too many tower spots to even fully upgrade your Spears).
	+ Spear Tower's Crawlers also act as ministun. To explain - when enemy gets close enough mine will essentially act like if it engages with said enemy, it starts moving close to its target and enemy will just stand there waiting for crawler mine to get to it and explode (essentially being stunned for that short period).
		- *Btw this is basically how all melee combat encounters work, except you will only notice it in slow heroes, and you generally want your heroes to attack or to be free to cast skills, not to essentially also be locked along with its enemy, slowly moving to it doing nothing (one of reasons why Obsidian is so bad).*
	+ There is a way to change rally point distance for troop tower units. Step1 build spear tower and upgrade for Crawler (has higher rally range) > step2 move crawler where you want your skeleton to be > step3 sell spear and build necro > he will move into that position even if its further than necro tower range, and remember it for rest of a match unless you move rally point elsewhere (even if you sell tower again or build other towers). If you set this up on wave0 you won't lose gold by selling tower.
		- HOWEVER it is absolutely useless... A) you want your unit to be in necro tower range anyway, to keep enemies there to die and ress as skeleton. B) skeleton unit is really weak anyway. So it's just a waste of time...
		- instead what you sometimes might want to do, is to just setup where your crawlers gonna be at wave0, so you won't waste time repositioning them later. Generally just keeping them where they are is ok as it could just be nicely spread to delay enemies. Or you might want to pull them all close to your chokepoint to add extra dmg and way to keep enemies dying under necro tower. Or you might cluster them away (usually somewhat behind chokepoint) where you can have them slightly spread to tank boss (as he moves back an forward to engage mines. while they respawn, but this requires precision and no other units go near and use up crawlers). However you never want to directly overlay multiple tower crawlers, it would just make all of them to charge into enemy at once explode and leave you without any to delay.
	+ Since different value debuffs can stack it can be worth to upgrade Necro tower's Curse totem to different levels if you use more near each other one to 3rd upgrade with 50% one to 2nd with 30% and one only to 1st with 10%.

## Level-Specific Strategies and Tips

Can always just search on youtube for eg. "realm defense 50" and try to emulate what you see.

### Level 50

 Sethos' Boss Level (Sethos' unlock). Boss will show up with last wave in center crossroad. Unless engaged in melee, based on his HP he will move to one of exits (usually top exit). When brought to 40%HP he will burrow to entrance and move back to you along with units. And he uses same abilities as Sethos Hero has. *Really old videos back from 2017 suggests it's easy to kill boss, don't get fooled it takes time to bring him down (since soon after he was buffed with 80% physical armor).*

Towers: generally depends on what heroes you use etc., but most commonly you want to tank boss in the middle with help from spear tower's crawlers. If you don't have them there yet, put your tower upgrades onto spear tower, but keep 4 stars for Mirror tower's Focus Fire. Put mirror on tower spot directly above and directly below center crossroad pure necro tower directly to right of crossroad. Everywhere else build spear towers, you can ignore furthest from center tower spot (one on middle exit lane). Due to map layout it's generally waste to spam all tower spots with unupgraded towers, rather build them one by one up to 1st crawler enhancement. Don't rush mirror tower upgrades, just make sure both are at max upgrade before last wave (no point getting Blind enhancement on mirror below crosroad, Scorch of Ra is optional on both, but better save for crawlers). Move your crawlers towards center where they'll help tank boss.

Heroes: if you struggle you probably ignored ranks or level's. Best and quickest way to get significant buff, is to get Fee to R1, if you didn't do so yet. And if your Lancelot dies too much get him to R1 as well. Since boss have very high physical armor it's better to bring heroes with spell damage. But don't go overboard you want to have something to help tank him. Best teamcomb would probably be FeeR1 +LanceR1 +Efrigid. Smoulder is nice, Mabyn is great (but dodge doesn't protect her against boss' venom or reflect dmg, if you don't have proper level she can die really fast).

### Level 60

 Helios' Boss Level (Helios's unlock). Boss will show up with last wave in altar on right side and immediately move towards map center. He uses same abilities as Helios Hero has, in pattern depending on position. 1) Once he arrives to center he cast singe diffusion (do not stand in middle of map if you stand directly below him this should be enough dmg to oneshot most heroes). > 2) then moves to side corner turn, and cast Flame on (again this can easily kill your heroes if they stand there), if there is any enemy nearby he will also cast sun orb on nearest enemy. > 3) moves to center and cast diffusion twice there > 4) moves to right side corner turn , and cast Flame on, and if there is any enemy nearby he will also cast sun orb on nearest enemy. > 5) should be about dead by now, if not dead by now again moves to center > left > center > right >... Once he dies first time he will respawn in altar. This times moves to top crossroad and starts to move along right side path towards exit like normal enemy, along a way can cast stop any of these 3 spell.

Heroes: due to boss being flying and doing tons of dmg to heroes close to him its better to chose ranged heroes and mind your positioning. However since towers can do most work with boss you can just focus on enemies and build accordingly. When moving between altar or each position boss can be intercepted by melee engage (from flying like Smoulder, however he does rather good amount of dmg, so this should be discouraged). Ideal team: FeeR1-R3 +Efrigid +LancelotR1-3/Mabyn/Smoulder

Towers: If you use base rank low lvl heroes you might have problem stopping enemies at top chokepoint, if you do move heroes and build necro at chokepoints near exit. Otherwise just build one mirror closest to entrance, one necro directly below top chokepoint and everywhere else spear towers and move crawlers to chokepoint. Can also skip mirror entirely and just build one necro in that location instead. It is also worth building one Genie tower at each place boss stops (but these can be just skipped in favor of spear tower).

*Generally one of easiest boss levels, so probably wasted my time writing this. Only can go wrong if you do something really stupid like build only mirror and necro tower everywhere and ignore spear and genie completely, which means no tower dmg to boss. Or if you position you heroes terribly, so they keep dying from boss, or even before boss (wave 7 has a lot of vulture riders).*

### Level 70

 Pharaoh's Boss Level. First encounter with pharaoh. But instead of him you will fight his 2 guardians. Boss will appear in 7th out of 8 waves and only cast sandstorm which is mapwide spell that slows and blinds all enemies. At last wave boss will bring both guardian statues to life. They act like regular boss (move toward their exit, unless engaged in melee combat.

Heroes: Due to need to tank both bossed best is to bring 2 melee heroes (while Fees wolfs are nice melee heroes are better). If you followed community advice you likely don't have many melee heroes (if you do bring them, your Masamune or Sethos should be nice, even HoganR3 or Obsidian should be decent), but no worries your Lancelot and Mabyn should be up to a task. Ideal team: LacelotR1-R3 +Mabyn +FeeR1-R3/EfrigidR4 (Efrigid below R4 is probably not ideal for this level, but doesn't mean you can't bring her).

Towers: As usual you mostly want to have spear towers with crawlers, one necro and one mirror per lane placed in are where you will tank bosses (ideally build your necro and mirror on tower spot directly below each guardian statue, and one to left/right of it) might be worth to build additional mirror or genie, but generally spear should be better.

### Level 80

 Pharaoh's 2nd Boss Level. Boss will come through mid entrance in last wave and stop at first tower spots he will just stand there cast one spell (bring guardian statues back to life, one by one). Once you kill him instead of dying transform and heal-up to full, and move down a lane like normal boss. If you're fast enough you can actually bring him to 0% and 2nd phase before he brings last statue to life.

Towers: basically 2 ways to do it : 1) build for delay - to stop bosses and other enemies from moving forwards. Mainly build spears with crawlers and 1-3 necro per lane. 2) build for kill - to kill bosses. Mainly build mirrors and necro. Will also likely require few spears to handle flying units on left lane, unless you have enough dmg from ranged heroes to stop them). No matter how you build you want 2-4 (one is absolute minimum) Mirror towers on first 4 tower spots in middle lane where boss will stand (so they take him down while your heroes focus on stopping guardian bosses. If you build many mirror towers where boss is, you want to tank him under mirror's range after his first kill, otherwise he'll move out.

Heroes: basically same as lvl.70↑↑ (ideal to have 1 good melee per lane where guardians are. Ideal team probably same: LacelotR1-R3 +Mabyn +FeeR1-R3/EfrigidR4

## Completion Rewards

Rewards per level for three stars completion in this realm. Each level experience is **divided** somewhat equally between your heroes. If you don't complete Normal level with 3 stars you will get half the experience, and second half once you do. If you don't complete Legendary on first try you will get half the experience, but second half is lost as successful try after that won't award any experience. *Tip. Can watch an ad to double your Potion reward.*

Quest = gems awarded for quests. Legendary quests are awarded once all 5 corresponding maps are finished.

*Rewards (mainly experience) was changed few times over the years and might change again in future.*