Keepsake Guide

By the Monkey King: Arena of Heroes strategy guide team

Note: This article is for reference only and is not an official gameplay guide.

Keepsakes are blessings of Cangjie, and will be available when the main character reaches level 37. With a proper combination, they can grant heroes a powerful boost! There are 12 sets of Keepsakes in Monkey King: Arena of Heroes. This article features three main sections: How to Obtain Keepsakes, Keepsake Overview, Keepsake Upgrade.

[How to Obtain Keepsakes]

1、 Keepsakes are mainly acquired from the Spiritual Ruins Quest, which you can explore with your friends from the same Sect. One Spiritual Ruins Token is required to enter the ruins. You get 2 Spiritual Ruins Tokens each day and can save up to 4 tokens in total. The Spiritual Ruins gives out Keepsakes and Metres (resource used to upgrade Keepsakes). The Keepsakes available changes each week. The higher the difficulty, the more rewards there will be. Challenging Spiritual Ruins stages at Legendary difficulty or higher will give you the chance to get a Mythical Keepsake.

2. You can also purchase Keepsake Packs, which will save a lot of time.

[Keepsake Overview]

1、Keepsakes are divided into Rare, Epic, Legendary and Mythical tiers. You cannot upgrade the tier of a Keepsake (for instance, you can't promote a Keepsake from Rare to Epic), but extra Keepsakes can be decomposed into Metres.

2、 Keepsakes have 4 slots: I, II, III and IV, in an anti-clockwise direction. Slot I gives a HP boost; Slot II offers an ATK, HP, Damage or Damage Reduction bonus; Slot III focuses on ATK; and Slot IV gives an ATK, HP, Crit Rate, Crit Damage or Healing Bonus.

3. Keepsakes for equipment sets provide attribute bonuses. 2/4-piece sets give heroes a stats boost, while 3-piece sets provide additional traits for heroes.

4. Based on the features of 3-piece sets, I have classified Keepsakes into 4 types and will share with you some recommended heroes for the Keepsakes (you can also check the recommended Keepsakes at each hero's Keepsake tab).

Assault (increases damage for friendly heroes): Crushing Formats, River All in Red, A Sprig of Plum Blossom and Water Dragon's Hum

Defensive (increases HP for friendly heroes): Partridges in the Sky, Dusty Sky, and Pacified Storm

Support (increases attributes of teammates): Pure Serene Music, The Bodhisattva Tune, Song of the Fish and Missing Young Maiden

Class change: Lament of Banished

**[Assault Keepsakes]**

[Crushing Formats]

Set feature: When a turn ends, permanently increases your hero's Attack by 10%, up to 40%.

Recommended heroes: Bull Demon King, Yama, Lord Erlang and other heroes whose power grows in battle.

Instructions: [Crushing Formats] is suitable for half-tank/half-DPS heroes who become more powerful as the battle progresses. They may be relatively weak in terms of damage at the beginning, but will experience a burst of power and dominate the battlefield once they survive the early phase.

[River All in Red]

Set feature: When attacking, increases Damage by 6% for each enemy target within the attack range, up to 36%.

Recommended hero: Lady White Bone

Instructions: I only recommend this keepsake for Lady White Bone. She can attack 6 targets, so the highest percentage of 36% will be triggered once she's in battle.

[A Sprig of Plum Blossom]

Set feature: After attacking and defeating the target, deals indirect damage equal to 60% of excess damage to the enemy with the lowest Health.

Recommended heroes: Lady White Bone, Golden Wing Roc, Lord Erlang, Sun Wukong, Silver Horn, the main character and other assault type heroes.

Instructions: Highly recommended! Super effective! [A Sprig of Plum Blossom] is a must-have for heroes who can deal excess damage, kill enemies with ease and have high burst of power! Equipped it on heroes with high burst damage to defeat enemy targets in the first round, so you have less to worry about later.

[Water Dragon's Hum]

Set feature: When attacking a single target, increases Damage by 30%. The increased damage is reduced by 6% for each additional enemy in the attack range.

Recommended hero: Thousand Hands

Instructions: Thousand Hands is the only hero that is commonly associated with high damage output to a single target, so this Keepsake is definitely one for her.

**[Defensive Keepsakes]**

[Partridges in the Sky] set feature: After the friendly hero releases skill, restores 20% of the carrier's lost HP.

[Dusty Sky] set feature: When this hero is attacked, for every 10% of HP the hero has, increases Damage Reduction by 3%, up to 30%.

Recommended heroes: Hundred Eyes, White Dragon, Wanderers, Azure Bull and other tank heroes.

Instructions: These two Keepsakes are most suitable for tank heroes. Based on actual squad, [Dusty Sky] can be used at the early stage for damage reduction, while [Partridges in the Sky] can be used after the defense system is formed.

[Pacified Storm]

Set feature: Before the battle starts, increases HP and Max HP by 30% if your hero is in the front row.

Recommended heroes: front row heroes (excluding the main carry hero).

Scenario: Normally, the front three positions won't comprise only tank or support heroes, but would include assaulters as well. If you are worried that the enemies may pose a threat the front row, then you can equip your assaulters with [Pacified Storm] to increase their defense. However, for main carry heroes, it is still recommended to equip them with assault Keepsakes to bring out the best in them.

**[Support Keepsakes]**

[Pure Serene Music] set feature: Your hero's presence boosts the Attack of all friendly Heroes, except for the hero, by 20% (unique feature).

[The Bodhisattva Tune] set feature: Your hero's presence boosts the Defense of all friendly Heroes, except for the hero, by 20% (unique feature).

Recommended heroes: Mengpo, Princess Iron Fan, Pigsy, Chang'e and other support heroes.

Instructions: The logic of these two Keepsakes is the same--they are best for support heroes. The choice of which Keepsake to choose depends on the actual squad configuration and the actual battle. The idea is to make up for areas that are lacking. Take note of the “unique feature”. If there are two heroes equipped with [Pure Serene Music], then only 20% of the attack effect will be triggered.

[Song of the Fish]

Set feature: After attacking, if your hero outranks all friendly Heroes in the order of actions, then recovers your frontline Hero's Rage by 1 point (can't be triggered more than once per round).

Recommended heroes: Slot I (non-assaulters)

Scenario: This Keepsake is limited to Slot I and requires some flexibility to function optimally. Support heroes and half tank, such as the Bull Demon King of the Demon faction, are best for Slot I at the early stage (placed in Slot I to trigger the linkage skills and increase DMG Reduction). In the later stages, however, it is more suitable to place assaulter heroes in Slot I to gain an advantage with Ying Zhao's Rage bonus + Infinite Mercy's turning Rage into Damage.

[Missing Young Maiden]

Set feature: Increases Healing Bonus by 40% during direct healing.

Recommended heroes: White Mouse, Princess Peacock, Tang Monk and The Empress.

Scenario: This Keepsake will greatly improve the healing effect, so there is no need to think too hard!

**[Special Introduction] Class Change Keepsakes**

[Lament of Banished Immortal]

Set feature: When releasing a skill, converts healing to the same amount of damage (ignoring Defense) and targets at the enemy.

Recommended heroes: White Mouse, Princess Peacock, Tang Monk and The Empress.

Scenario: When your squad does not require much of direct healing, you may consider replacing the healer with an ultra assaulter. The feature that ignores defense can be quite something.

[Keepsake Enhancement]

1、 Enhancing a Keepsake requires [Metre]. Metres can be obtained through Spiritual Ruins Quest, by decomposing Keepsakes, or purchased from the shop.

It is recommended to purchase as many Metres as you can in the shop every day because upgrading costs a large amount of Metres.

2、Enhanced Keepsakes will have their main attributes increased. When a Keepsake reaches level 4/8/12/16/20, a random secondary attribute will be upgraded. Remember this when upgrading your Keepsakes.

3、 When all four equipped Keepsakes are upgraded to the same 2x level together, a resonance bonus will be activated (e.g., all four Keepsakes are upgraded to +4), bringing an increase in attributes. Considering the features of enhancement and resonance, it is better to follow the rule of 2x when allocating resources for Keepsake upgrades.