ATTENTION - DO THIS FIRST!

• Open the "Menu" with 'ESC'.
  
• Click the "Settings" button.
  
• Click the "Redeem Coupon" button.
  
• Enter WELCOMEPANOPTYCA in the popup and claim your free 5000 diamonds.
  
• Enter THANKSCOMMANDERS in the popup and claim your free 5000 diamonds.

NOTE #1 - Thanks to louis21314 for posting this in the Steam Discussions!

NOTE #2 - The new code was added on December 11, 2025 and announced in the thread for the new patch (that includes offline mode and a handful of other significant changes).

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Overall the UI is pretty straightforward, however there are a handful of things that might confuse you if you don't pay close attention to all the information presented across multiple screens and popups.

NOTE - Unfortunately Commander Experience is not displayed on the main screen of the UI, so it is very, very easy at the start of the game to think your "Total Combat Power" (sum of all your heroes' power) is your Commander Experience.

NOTE - The big takeaway here is that for "fractional" increases (like attack speed from DEX and Crit Chance from INT) they are displayed as +0 on the "Character Info" sheet, but show the full value on the "Stats Details" tab.

- Unlock Hero (start with one for free)
- Level up Hero and assign attribute points
- Select skills for use in the four available slots
- Loot or craft gear
- Enhance gear
- Craft potions and equip on Heroes (up to three - can have duplicates - i.e two health potions and one mana potion)
- Clear Acts and Stages
- Complete Main Quests to gain Commander experience and levels (also Bounty Quests once unlocked)
- Spend Commander points in the "Commander Traits" section
- Use Commander skills as you unlock them (total of four you unlock every 5 Commander Levels)
- Clear Shadow Temple Stages using up your limited Raven Feather currency once this content is unlocked (Requires having at least one hero at Level 25)
- Optional: Farm specific Stage 10 levels for special resources to use in crafting
- Optional: Buy items using coins and diamonds in the shop as desired (some are FREE!)

NOTE #1 - You basically execute the above over and over until you push into higher Commander levels that unlocks more content and features.

NOTE #2 - Rather than clicking on each type of chest for each hero to "loot" them, you can instead press F4 to collect them from every hero on the current "Scene". The best part is that unlike mouse clicking, you collect all the chests instantly rather than slowly ticking through them. If you have auto-dismantle setup you will need to press F4 multiple times to cycle through the different rarity chests. Still faster than looting with mouse clicks.

- Buy up all the "Free" items from the Shop
- Buy up all the "cheap" items from the Shop (things that don't deplete your currency that much but add great progression value)
- Do all the Bounty Quests (up to 15 per day)
- Use up all your Raven Feathers (when you unlock Temple).

NOTE - Depending on how active you are, you'll probably want to focus your purchases on hero slots, Shared Inventory and Storage expansions. The micromanagement of inventory can be a hassle if you are doing the F2P approach as you won't have any of the automation or expanded storage associated with the "passes".

Once you have enough surplus coins you'll want to start buying the blue weapon/armor/accessory upgrades (capped quantity per day). With surplus diamonds I recommend the Weekly Raven Feather boxes (3 total per week = 150 Raven Feathers). The weekly reset occurs on Mondays at 4:00 UTC (which is Sunday Night in the US).

There are a variety of items for sale in the Base Camp. Much of it is quite expensive, especially when it comes to higher rarity books. See image below:
https://eo.steamhost.cc/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3616280039

NOTE - Some of the items in the shops are locked behind Commander Level. I think most of it unlocks when you hit Commander Level 10.

NOTE - Patch 1.0.2.0 that dropped on December 11th, 2025 has changed Commander Traits a bit resulting in a handful of significant ramifications:

• You will have more total Commander Trait points thanks to the fact that each Act you fully clear in "Battlefields" awards one Commander Trait point.
  
• ALL Commander Traits only cost 1 point, instead of before when Magic and Rare traits were more than 1 point.
  
• Max Treasure Chest capacity bonuses in the "Faith" tree have been doubled. Enjoy being able to "idle" for twice as long before needing to collect them!

Traits and Skills are two separate sections/tabs of the "Commander Info" screen.

As it relates to Traits, this is my high level breakdown of what each one gives you:

- % chance increases to the total quantity of chests dropped.
- % chance increases to the rarity of chests dropped.
- Increases the number of monsters present in each Stage.
- Chance to duplicate chests when acquiring them.
- Chance for "unique" enemies to show up twice in the same Stage.
- Other miscellaneous bonuses to Shadow Temple and Ruins Stages.

- Decreases gold cost of crafting.
- Decreases gold cost of purchases in the shop.
- Decreases gold cost of purchases from Base Camp Merchants.
- Increases the concurrent Bounty Quests that can be taken by 2.

- Reductions to the seconds spent waiting after death before starting another run.
- Increases to the total number of chests each hero can carry.
- Increases to the total number of normal chests that can be carried without taking up chest capacity on each hero.
- Increases to the total number of magic chests that can be carried without taking up chest capacity on each hero.

NOTE - As you can see from the screenshot below, each of my heroes has a few hundred normal chests yet the total number of chests counted towards their maximum capacity still hasn't been reached. Extremely handy if you are going to step away from the game for a while.

https://eo.steamhost.cc/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3615399126
- Increases to movement speed.
- Increases to flat attack and spell damage.
- Increases to % total armor.
- Increases to % total spell resistance.
- Increases to % cooldown reduction.
- Increases to health recovery potion instant heal %.
- Allows potions to regenerate one charge a second if the potion hasn't been used in the last 5 seconds.

These unlock based on Commander Level. Each skill lasts for 1 hour and has a 6 hour cooldown. Multiple skills can be active at the same time.

Explorer's Vision = Treasure Chest Drop Quantity +50% (unlocks at Level 5)

Hidden Advisor = Experience Gain Bonus +50% (unlocks at level 10)

Commander's Luck = Treasure Chest Rarity +50% (unlocks at level 15)

Eyes of Abundance = Gold Gain Bonus +50% (unlocks at level 20)

NOTE - These bonuses stack with the corresponding ones you get from scrolls, so when possible take full advantage of this by timing your Shadow Temple/Ruins runs with Commander Skills + Scrolls.

Most of your gear will be acquired from clearing Stages and using materials from dismantling to craft your own. Crafting in this game is extremely powerful, so it's worth taking the time to become familiar with what you can craft and when you should plan to do so. Some key items are as follows:

• Main Hand Weapons
  
• Off-Hand Weapons
  
• Armor
  
• Potions
  
• Backpacks

NOTE #1 - Main hand and off-hand weapons are class specific, but everything else can be worn by any class provided they meet the required level.

NOTE #2 - You'll notice I didn't list out amulets or rings when it comes to crafting. Well that's because you can't craft common or magic or rare rings that have combat stats. Those will have to come as drops from clearing Stages (including Main and Bounty Quests) or from pouches you purchase from the Shop with diamonds (or get as part of Daily FREE purchases).

It's up to you to decide when to regear each of your heroes but here are some things I'd say are worth consideration:

• Resources are relatively finite, so when it comes to crafting blue and yellow gear, try to do it every 10 levels at the earliest. You want to get maximum usage out of your resources because typically it's the blueprints required in the craft that will hold you back.
  
• When you want to create rare (yellow) gear, I'd recommend using Raven Coins to purchase the Platinum bars directly from Base Camp at 1 Platinum bar per 20 Raven Coins. I've found this to be a lot less time consuming than trying to create Platinum bars from Steel bars.
  
• To some degree try and pick a "carry" and max them out as best you can and use them to "push" through the Acts. After all, you can only have one hero per Stage until you get to Shadow Temple. So evenly distributing gear will actually cause you to progress the Main Quest slower rather than focusing your best gear on the strongest hero and then going from there.

NOTE - Don't be too surprised if your "carry" changes over time. Since acquiring skill books and gear can be influenced by RNG, it's not uncommon for a hero you build later on to get "lucky" and grab a high rarity and very effective skill(s) that scales better with their gear than what you had on your previous "carry". This can also apply to Main Weapon drops too.

Each Act has a Boss Stage specific resource that is widely used as part of crafting higher rarity items. In terms of magic rarity (blue) this is the Mana Stone: Denus and for rare rarity (yellow) its Mana Stone: Skylet.

If you go to the "Materials/Consumables" section of the Craft screen you'll see that you can craft "Mystery Chest: Magic Stone I" and "Mystery Chest: Magic Stone II". Each one costs 10 Mana Stones and 1000 gold to create a box that could potentially yield 1-50 Mana Stones. That means that theoretically (provided you are lucky) you can actually gain Mana Stones overall by using this. For example, in batches of 10 chests I spent 600 Mana Stone: Denus and gained 797 Mana Stone: Denus. I don't know exactly what the % chance is for each yield but it's an option for trying to grow your pile of Mana Stones at the cost of a little gold and some luck.

NOTE - At this point I've only gambled about 1200 Mana Stone: Denus. My best batch of 100 Mana Stones (10 chests worth) yielded 187 in return. My worst yielded 40. So there's definitely a risk that you can burn your stones away or end up breaking even.

Otherwise you can take your surplus Mana Stones you don't need for weapons/armor and craft the other types of "Mystery Chests" that give you a chance to obtain crafting materials (i.e. blueprints), enhancement stones, skill books, or gold.

Check Sparrowhawk's Wiki Thread to see how to get access to the Wiki and go to the "Probability Rates" section to see what the percentages are like based on the type of chest. Basically if you are expecting Rare or Unique rarity items, expect to open several hundred, maybe even a couple thousand chests.

DISCLAIMER - At least until the Wiki itemizes the drop rates for these, I'll put my results here.

Since I'm getting a reasonable amount of Platinum and Mithril bars now, I decided to spend 25k Raven Coins on the vendor in the Base Camp:

Chest #1 = 3 x Boss Enhancement Stone (Accessory)

Chest #2 = 3 x Random Skill Book (Rare) [Recovery (Priest) | Intimidating Cry (Warrior) | Time of Assassination (Assassin)]

Chest #3 = 10 x Unique Armor Enhancement Stones

Chest #4 = 5 million gold from the "Guild's Gold Pouch"

Chest #5 = 10 x Unique Armor Enhancement Stones

NOTE - Not sure it's worth it, but I'll keep trying because I think I can afford to gamble on these chests instead of buying other items without hurting my progression too much.

In order to capitalize on the gold coins and diamond currency rewards as well as a variety of other rewards (skills and blueprints) it pays to have a good strategy for continuously clearing Stages and progressing through the various Acts in the game.

NOTE - As part of the changes with Patch 1.0.2.0, players will also be able to earn an additional Commander Trait point for each Battlefield Act they fully clear.

On the surface, this is a fairly straightforward process of leveling up your hero, getting higher level gear, and then enhancing that gear accordingly so that a single hero can continue to defeat all the Stages in a given Act.

NOTE - As a reminder, each Stage of the Act "Battlefields" can only accommodate one hero. In addition, only one hero at a time can fight on that Stage. For example, you might think that you can assign all your heroes to fight in Act 1 Stage 6, but they will just fight the battle solo. However you can't do this. Instead you'll end up having one hero do Stage 6, another do Stage 5, another do Stage 4, etc. This is another reason why you don't need to be in a rush to try and get every single hero at the exact same clearing power until later on when you can actually field more than one hero in the content (i.e. Shadow Temple).

Since this is an idle game, the progression can become quite incremental at a certain point. This means that eventually you will hit a point where your best current gear isn't enough for your best hero to survive a specific area (without using revive - more on that below). When that happens you'll essentially need to "farm" the highest Stage you can clear with a good win rate. Ideally this Stage will also provide at least 50% experience, but don't be too surprised if you get in certain situations where the best Stage you can farm is only 20-30% experience. Sometimes this will happen when you are on the cusp of a significant gear upgrade (i.e. the magic (blue) level 35 armors and the rare (yellow) level 37 weapons start to be available). Alternatively it can happen when you are waiting on enough blueprints to be available for the off-hand weapons.

To the best of my recollection (Chapters 1-3 might be a little off on the levels) this is what I needed to clear the Acts:

Chapter 1:
Full cleared around level 15
Armor and Weapon and Jewelry enhanced to +4

NOTE - Majority of weapons and armor were common (white) rarity. Got lucky with a handful of magic (blue) rarity rings and amulets. Defeated boss with the Knight class.

Chapter 2:
Full cleared around level 20
Armor and Weapon enhanced to +5
Jewelry enhanced up to +6 if common, and +4 if magic

NOTE - Started to get magic (blue) rarity armor and weapons, however 75% of them were obtained from crafting. Defeated boss with the Knight class.

Chapter 3:
Full cleared around level 25
Armor and Weapon enhanced to +8
Jewelry enhanced up to +6 if common, and +4 if magic

NOTE - Started to get rare (yellow) rings but had them equipped on other classes besides the Knight. Defeated boss with the Knight class.

Chapter 4:
Full cleared around level 30
Armor and Weapon enhanced to +8
Jewelry enhanced up to +6 if common, and +4 to +6 if magic

NOTE - Defeated boss with the Knight class.

Chapter 5:
Full cleared around level 35
Armor enhanced to +8
Weapon enhanced to +11
Offhand enhanced to +8
Jewelry enhanced up to +10 if common, +4 to +6 if magic, +4 if rare

NOTE - At this point most of my heroes have the magic off-hand equipped. Defeated boss with the Knight class. I didn't think to use the "Revive" feature the whole time I was trying to clear this Act. Had I done that I'd have cleared it at a lower level.

Chapter 6:
Got to boss around level 38
Armor enhanced to +8
Weapon enhanced to +11
Offhand enhanced to +8
Jewelry enhanced up to +10 if common, +4 to +6 if magic, +4 if rare

NOTE - Multiple heroes with their first rare (yellow) weapon via crafting. This was the first time I used the 50 diamond "Revive" feature to beat a Stage 10 boss. This one I killed in 3 revives with my Knight (thanks mostly to Full Moon Slash skill).

Chapter 7:
Got to boss around level 50
Armor and Weapon enhanced to +11
Offhand enhanced to +11
Jewelry enhanced (mostly) to +6 for all rarities (only Priest and Mage using common jewelry at +10 to +14)

NOTE - Defeated the boss with the Warrior in three revives. At the time the Warrior had my best weapon, a level 37 rare axe. My Knight is mostly outclassed at this point because of lower DPS in comparison to Warrior and Assassin.

Chapter 8: [Blocked at 8-7]
Armor and Weapon enhanced to +11
Offhand enhanced to +11
Jewelry enhanced (mostly) to +6 for magic and rare (one rare ring is at +11)

NOTE - Currently in progress (can't clear 8-7 just yet) with my Assassin leading the pack as a result of now having a main and off-hand level 46 rare weapons both enhanced to +11. Also has two rare (yellow) Ruby Rings enhanced to +6. I suspect it will be a toss-up in terms of whether I'll clear the 8-10 boss with the Warrior or the Assassin. Right now though, the Assassin is the favorite because he's almost in 100% rare gear. However, since I've started "farming" Act 7 stages and now Act 8 stages, I'm getting a lot more rare (yellow) rarity upgrades than I was in Act 5 and 6.

Unlike most idle games, the offline mechanic (Added with Patch 1.0.2.0) here is the generation of a new currency (Command Reserve, CR for short) over time while the game isn't running that you can store up to a certain threshold and then spend later on buffs or collecting instant rewards:
https://eo.steamhost.cc/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3621866755
As you can see, these buffs are no joke, +100% essentially doubles whatever you're getting normally. Excellent for turning on right before you start a bunch of Shadow Temple runs. The great thing is that it's not like a scroll and can be turned on and off at any time simply by clicking on it. It will only consume CR based on the time it was active. As a result you don't have to worry about "wasting" the buff if for some reason you need to turn it back off (i.e. ran out of Shadow Temple/Ruins "keys").

NOTE - For now, I'm a little too skeptical to try out the "Adjutant's Command". I get the funny feeling that instantly getting Treasure Chests/Magic Stones/Gold/EXP is somehow not going to be as much as doubling Experience/Gold/Treasure Chest Quantity for a full hour (30CR/h + 30CR/h for two buffs).

As you might expect from a F2P game, there is both a questing and achievements system in place that serves two purposes:

• Guide and motivate the player to complete certain activities and content.
  
• Reward the player for achieving specific objectives and milestones.

When it comes to the "Main Quest" you can expect the following (not a comprehensive list):

• Tutorial style "do this at that screen" type objectives.
  
• Go buy X from the shop type objectives (some even requiring diamonds - do it anyway though).
  
• Enhance gear X number of times.
  
• Dismantle gear X number of times.
  
• Clear Act X Stage Y.
  
• Collect X number of Y type of Mana Stone.
  
• Kill X number of monsters.

NOTE #1 - For the quests that ask you to spend diamonds in the shop, you need to resist your natural urge to think the game is trying to bamboozle you into "wasting" premium currency. The game is going to shower you with so much from questing and achievements that the amount the quest wants you to spend amounts to a drop in the bucket. Plus... it's literally the only way to progress further and continue to gain Commander Experience.

NOTE #2 - Once you've fully cleared Act 9 and get access to Act 10 the "Main Quests" essentially transform into a series of "Kill X Monster" objectives that quickly ramp up from 5k to 100k. So no more of the "Clear Act X Stage Y" like you were seeing in previous Acts. The rewards for finishing those quests provide 100 Commander Experience, 120-150k+ gold and 5-10 Random Skill Books. However, from a scaling perspective they start out requiring 5k kills per quest and then 100k by the time you're at #148 and then 200k deeper into #160+. Unfortunately, at least for right now they all still only give you 100 Commander Experience and 10 Random Skill books. So be prepared to be in it for the long haul grinding for Commander Levels!

When it comes to the "Bounty Quests" you can expect the following (not a comprehensive list):

• Complete Act X Stage Y a specified number of times.
  
• Obtain X amount of treasure chests.
  
• Defeat X amount of monsters.
  
• Dismantle equipment X amount of times.
  
• Obtain X amount of Iron.
  
• Obtain X amount of Steel.
  
• Obtain X amount of Mysterious Essence.

Approximate Gold Coin cost for X number of refreshes:

• Refresh #1 = 5.5k
  
• Refresh #2 = 11k
  
• Refresh #3 = 19k
  
• Refresh #4 = 30k
  
• Refresh #5 = 44k
  
• Refresh #6 = 61k
  
• Refresh #7 = 80k
  
• Refresh #8 = 102k
  
• Refresh #9 = 127k
  
• Refresh #10 = 155k
  
• Refresh #11 = 185k
  
• Refresh #12 = 219k
  
• ------------------------------------
  
• Refresh #XX = 470k+ (I think the max gold cost before diamonds is based on Commander Level)

NOTE #1 - While you can only complete 15 Bounty Quests per day, you can do many more refreshes. However, at some point it starts to cost 10 diamonds instead of just gold coins. The first time this happened to me I wasn't taking notes, but I do remember the diamond cost came right after spending about 275k+ gold coins (I know it wasn't 300k yet). I'm not swimming in enough diamonds to test further, plus at that point I had already completed 15 Bounty Quests. After reset it was back to just costing a few thousand gold coins.

Overall, I'm not sure if there really is a cap on the number of times you can refresh trying to get the "best" Bounty Quests. I like to try and get as many of them as possible that have reward options that are ALL skill books. Personally though, I stop doing refreshes once it starts costing diamonds.

NOTE #2 - Each Bounty Quest has a "Tier" which governs the amount you have to do for the objective as well as providing more rewards than a lower "Tier" of the same type. Not sure how many "Tiers" exist.

When it comes to "Achievements" you can expect the following (not a comprehensive list):

• Defeat X number of monsters by "grade" (i.e. rarity - Magic, Rare, Unique, etc).
  
• First clear of Act X Stage Y.
  
• Achieve Commander Level X.
  
• Achieve Hero Level X (only counts for the first hero that hits the specified level).
  
• Achieve X number of total heroes.
  
• Obtain X amount of gold.
  
• Spend X amount of diamonds.
  
• Attempt X amount of enchantments.
  
• Succeed at X amount of enchantments.
  
• Fail at X amount of enchantments.
  
• Have a hero die X amount of times.
  
• Craft X amount of times.
  
• Dismantle X amount of times.
  
• First clear of Stage X of Shadow Temple.

NOTE - Most of the rewards you get from achievements will be diamonds and gold. However, you can also get enhancement stones and skill books.

DISCLAIMER - There is a Wiki (check "Activities > Quests") out for this game now so I won't be updating this section any further. Check Sparrowhawk's thread for more details on how to access it.

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NOTE #1 - Thanks to TurukTheCook and RPGz4EVR for contributing Main Quest information.

NOTE #2 - Some of the entries above have been extrapolated because I didn't always write down all the information for each quest exactly. The ones I have the least confidence in are the kill counts for #141-145.

As of the 1.0.1.3 update (December 3rd, 2025), Shadow Temple has NO EXPERIENCE RESTRICTIONS. To take full advantage of this, make sure you set the AI for the heroes running it to "Exploration Range = Full" and "Enemy Clear Style = Full Sweep" to collect every singe drop of experience per Raven Feather (additional loot from "extra" monster kills is nice too!).

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Because there are only a finite number of Raven Feathers up for grabs each day/week, I would not recommend spending on a Stage of Shadow Temple that's "too easy". You want to maximize your chances of getting the highest grade rewards from the Shadow Temple Stages as well as the highest possible number of Raven Coins per run. So getting 30 runs per day of Stage 4 would be better than doing 10 runs of Stage 4, 10 runs of Stage 3, and 10 runs of Stage 2.

Once you hit Stage level 35+ content you may notice that your heroes are still dying even in decent gear and while at the "right" level. When this happens in the Act Battlefields it's relatively inexpensive to diamond your way out of it with revives (50 diamonds a pop). However, in Shadow Temple you only get a single revive that costs 450 diamonds (which is nothing to sneeze at especially if you are going the F2P route).

Since Shadow Temple does allow sending two heroes in at a time, theoretically you could choose to use an overtuned hero to "solo clear" a Stage while bringing along a very weak low level hero to power level them. I did this a few times when my Knight was the carry and my Priest needed some help leveling up (hadn't gotten her AOE nuke skills yet). But again, Raven Feathers are limited in quantity, so this would be more of a kill two birds with one stone move and not something you should rely on to level your weaker heroes.

Lastly, you can boost the total number of Raven Feathers you get per day by going deep into the Exploration tree of the "Commander Traits".

NOTE - Since Shadow Temple provides a lot of blueprint rewards you may find it useful to do one of the "Crafting Materials" recipes to convert weapon/off-hand/armor blueprints into an "artisan" version used to make the orange rarity gear (100 regular blueprints = 1 artisan blueprint). This may be especially helpful if getting the blueprint is the bottleneck for you crafting orange gear.

After Shadow Temple, Ruins appears to be the last combat content area to unlock and run. The area itself is broken down into two sections, Ruins of Sideros and Ruins of Kesidus.

NOTE - Just as a heads up, unlike Shadow Temple, Ruins of Sideros has an experience penalty when running Normal. Haven't done Ancient yet so not sure if it's the same. Also haven't done Ruins of Kesidus yet either.

Within either Ruins of Sideros or Ruins of Kesidus there are two versions of a run, "Normal" and "Ancient". The loot tables are almost identical in terms of what drops with the exception that Ancient Ruins has Faint Mana Stones and Mana Stones in the loot table. Normal Ruins only has Faint Mana Stones.

NOTE - The one thing I'm unsure of is whether or not the drop rate of everything that's included in both Ruins types is the same. For example, I would speculate that there would be a higher chance of getting higher rarity drops within Ancient Ruins vs. Normal Ruins. Unfortunately there's nothing in the game UI to indicate one way or another.

Much like Shadow Temple, the player is required to obtain a consumable in order to enter the Ruins. However, in this case the consumable is crafted using Mana Stone: Ahel (unique rarity) to craft "Mystery Pouch: Timestone". Upon using it, the player has a chance to either get a "Crystal of Time" (magic rarity) for opening a Normal Ruins run, or a "Timeless Stone" (unique rarity) for opening an Ancient Ruins run.

NOTE #1 - While I realize this isn't a large enough sample size, as part of opening roughly 400+ pouches, I've only gotten one Timeless Stone that works for Ancient Ruins.

NOTE #2 - Opened another 400 pouches, didn't get any Timeless Stones.

NOTE #3 - Opened another 400 pouches, got 4 x Timeless Stones. At this point that makes it cumulatively about 5 x Timeless Stones across something like 1200-1500 pouches.

One significant difference between Normal Ruins and Ancient Ruins is that the player can consume additional units of "Crystal of Time" in order to boost the rarity and drop rate of chests obtained during the run. One crystal is consumed for no boost, 10 for a boost and 100 for "Overdrive". Unfortunately, the % modifiers to rarity and drop rate are not indicated in the UI.

In terms of general difficulty, Ruins of Sideros seems to have significantly less total enemies than Battlefield and Shadow Temple and they do significantly less damage. However, do not let that trick you into thinking it will be easier as enemies have significantly higher HP and may still destroy you due to attrition, especially since you will generate less potion charges throughout the run and during the boss fight.

NOTE - If you die you can revive for 50 diamonds, however the number of total revives you can use per run is limited to 5. In addition, the cost of each revive increases by 50 every time you use one (so a second revive is 100 diamond and a third is 150, and so on).

For more information on Ruins, including drop rates and the associated levels for each stage/difficulty of Normal and Ancient, see Sparrowhawk's Wiki Thread.

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DISCLAIMER - The information below are my preliminary observations and thoughts about Ruins in general. At this point I've cleared up through Difficulty 7 of Normal Sideros, but I spend most of my runs with Knight/Warrior doing Difficulty 5 for optimal clear speed/win rate.

My Healing/Mana potions don't appear to be recharging much for my Knight, literally hanging on thanks to mana regeneration and being tanky enough to only take 46-96 damage from the boss. Noticing the same thing with Assassin/Warrior as well. Looks like potion charge generation works more off total kills than anything else, which is probably why they charge so much faster when running Shadow Temple.

• It is possible for your heroes to get soft-stuck when going around corners in the narrow corridors to engage enemies. This can be particularly troublesome in the final boss area because it can result in enemies being able to inadvertently split your duo apart and then take you out one by one. Even if you don't wipe, it'll severely inflate your total run time.
  
• On a positive note, there not as many large groups of enemies and no backtracking when it comes to map design for Ruins Stages (at least not in Normal Ruins of Sideros).

NOTE - Since I was trying out a new duo today (Assassin/Warrior) I noticed that when they get "stuck" on a corner they sit there for up to 10-15 seconds and then "teleport" back into the fray. So as long as 15 seconds solo isn't enough for one of your duo to die, in most cases the run will be fine.

• Maybe I just need a higher sample size, but I'm a little bummed out on how few chests you get per run. Even doing a boosted run barely yielded more total chests.
  
• I suspect I'll be in for super disappointment once I've crafted enough "Crystals of Time" to do the "Overdrive" mode of Normal Ruins of Sideros.

NOTE #1 - For reference, if doing 15 Normal runs with "No Boost" results in 30 total chests, doing 15 Normal runs with "Boost" (10x the "keys") does not result in 300 total chests. More like 60-70 tops. To make matters worse, it's also the same experience.

Boosting and Overdrive really just seems like something you do to technically cram as much potential chest quantity and rarity bonuses while your 3 x Commander Skill and 4 x Scroll buffs are active. Even with that being considered, you'd also need an amazing Unique Mana Stone daily income to support doing Overdrive with all 7 "buffs" active multiple times per day.

NOTE #2 - To be fair though, even if the chest count feels lower than what you'd see in Shadow Temple, Ruins is still a great option for "24/7" experience grinding when you run out of Shadow Temple Raven Feathers. However, if you want decent clear times (i.e. under 5 minutes) out of Normal Sideros Difficulty 1 or 2 you definitely want at least Level 55 Rare Armor (+15) and Level 55 Rare Weapons (+20) on two heroes that are at least around Level 65. Alternatively, near full Level 52 Armor/Weapons at +15 can probably do it too. Also having one or two Rare pieces of jewelry doesn't hurt.

NOTE - Since there's a character limit on sections, I'll put my observations on the Ancient Ruins fight in it's own section.

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Ancient Ruins is a boss fight against "Eroded Sideros". Didn't have to clear any preliminary waves or corridors full of enemies, just spawned directly in the boss arena room. This attempt was done with a Level 70 Warrior and Level 70 Priest:

• Phase 1 is a normal fight against the boss who uses just melee attacks like normal Sideros.
  
• Phase 2 after the boss' health hits 50% he goes behind a dome barrier in the top center of the circular arena and summons a bunch of adds toward the center of the room. In addition, the boss starts healing slowly until it reaches 75% health and then the bubble disappears. I suspect if the player kills the adds quickly enough the boss would probably stop healing. Once he comes out of the invincibility dome, the boss starts using an additional attack which looks a lot like Hurricane Strike from the Knight except it shoots out in 6 directions.
  
• Phase 3 after Max Health hits 25%, repeats Phase 2. Worst case the boss heals back up to 50%. Not sure if the boss gets an additional special attack or still keeps the melee and AOE Hurricane Strike.

I died before the boss came out of the invulnerability bubble in Phase 3 because my Priest got separated by the spawning invincibility dome and somewhat "stuck" toward the center of the room surrounded by 10+ enemies while the warrior was in the top right of the room next to the invincibility dome fighting 5+ enemies. So rather than using his charge and AOE in the direction toward the priest, he stayed where he was until the priest died.
https://eo.steamhost.cc/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3622118058

NOTE - Revive in Ancient Ruins costs 450 diamonds and can only be used once.

A hero's skills are an integral part of their performance when it comes to offense, defense and utility. Much like gear, there are skills you start with, skills you can buy from shops and skills you can get from Achievement Rewards, Main Quests and Bounty Quests. While a hero can have an arsenal of many skills (up to 14 - not counting the "Common" ones), only four skills can be equipped at a time. Each skill has the following components:

• Name
  
• Rarity
  
• Exclusivity (i.e. which classes can use it)
  
• Description
  
• Current Level effect and/or damage
  
• Next Level effect and/or damage
  
• Mana Cost
  
• Cooldown
  
• Range

NOTE - A key takeaway here is that not all skills do damage and each one that does is of a specific damage type. For this game, currently it's either attack damage or spell damage. Attack damage isn't going to increase the damage of skills that work off of spell damage (and vice versa). While I know this seems obvious, it's still an easy mistake to make. Plus, it might not necessarily dawn on you that poison is considered "spell damage".

See below for how many skills are in the common category vs. those which are exclusive to specific classes:

• Common = 13 skills
  
• Knight = 10 skills
  
• Archer = 12 skills
  
• Assassin = 14 skills
  
• Warrior = 13 skills
  
• Priest = 12 skills
  
• Wizard = 13 skills

Skill levels are increased by collecting duplicate skill books and using them to "upgrade" the skill to the next level. The number of books required incrementally increases based on the current level of the skill:

• Skill Level 1 -> 2 = 1 book
  
• Skill Level 2 -> 3 = 2 books
  
• Skill Level 3 -> 4 = 2 books
  
• Skill Level 4 -> 5 = 3 books
  
• Skill Level 5 -> 6 = 3 books
  
• Skill Level 7 -> 8 = 5 books
  
• Skill Level 8 -> 9 = 7 books
  
• Skill Level 9 -> 10 = 7 books
  
• Skill Level 10 -> 11 = 10 books
  
• Skill Level 11 -> 12 = 10 books
  
• Skill Level 12 -> 13 = 20 books
  
• Skill Level 13 -> 14 = 30 books
  
• Skill Level 14 -> 15 = 40 books
  
• Skill Level 15 -> 16 = 50 books
  
• Skill Level 16 -> 17 = 100 books
  
• Skill Level 17 -> 18 = 200 books

NOTE - Rarity of the skill has no impact on the number of books required to upgrade it.

NOTE - I didn't start keeping track of this until later on in my playthrough. As a result, the upgrade cost from going to Level 9 and Level 10 in a skill is currently missing. I'm also not sure what the max skill level is.

NOTE - Thanks to TurukTheCook for providing the book count for upgrading Skill Levels to Level 9, 10 and 12-14, Ente for the book count when upgrading at Skill Levels 14 and 15 and RPGz4EVR for the book count going from Skill Level 16 to 17 and 17 to 18.

While gear and skills play a strong role in a hero's ability to clear a Stage, having the right potions equipped can make a significant difference as well. Unlike a lot of the other "equippables", you can't get potions as "loot" or buy them at the shops (game shop or the base camp shop). So your only option is to craft them.

Potions have three main attributes:

• Effect - Typically a buff (attack speed, movement speed, or defense) or restoration effect (health/mana).
  
• Charges Per Use - How many charges are consumed when a potion is "used/activated".
  
• Total Charges = Maximum charges that can accumulate for a potion.

Early on in the game, access to potions is relatively limited to the following:

• Healing Potion = Restores health
  
• Mana Potion = Restores mana
  
• Burning Potion = Provides a boost to % ATK SPD for 6 seconds
  
• Solid Potion = Provides a boost to % Defense for 6 seconds
  
• Speed Potion = Provides a boost to Move SPD for 6 seconds

NOTE - The later game potions and elixirs have much stronger effects but are significantly more costly to craft. I'll cover those in a future update to the guide when I get around to actually making and using them.

Lastly, potions come in "sizes" (Tiny - Small - Medium - Large), which improves the effect (for health/mana potions) and the total charges for all potions. For example, a tiny potion only has 100 max charges and takes 40 charges per use. This means that without charging it, you can only get 2 uses. A medium potion however, has 120 max charges and takes 40 charges per use. In this case they can be used 3 times before needing recharge.

NOTE #1 - The buff potions (Burning - Solid - Speed) have higher max charges. For example, a Medium buff potion has 160 max charges and still only costs 40 charges per use. So the hero can drink from it four times in a row vs. only 3 drinks from the corresponding health/mana potion. The odd thing here is that regardless of potion size, the buff potion buff duration is still only 6 seconds.

NOTE #2 - The buff potions don't get a larger bonus to their effect as the size of the potion increases like health and mana potions do. Personally I think this makes them less appealing/effective to use in the early-mid game.

NOTE #3 - BUFF POTIONS OF THE SAME TYPE DON'T STACK. For example, I tried using a Large Solid potion and a Medium Solid potion on my Priest and it consumed charges from both simultaneously but only displayed one buff (even double checked the stat page to make sure armor only went up by 100% instead of 200%).

Generally speaking, in the vast majority of scenarios I've found that using 2 Healing Potions and 1 Mana Potion typically yields the best results for each hero. It seems to be much easier to ensure that a hero doesn't run out of mana while clearing a Stage than it does them running out of health. As a result, I haven't found a situation just yet where 2 Mana and 1 Health works better.

NOTE - It's possible I'm just missing the sweet spot, but so far I have yet to encounter a situation where a Health/Mana/Buff potion setup worked better for clearing Stages than a Health/Health/Mana potion setup. Maybe once heroes reach a certain threshold of base stats, the 40% ATK SPD or Defense buff becomes much stronger than additional health/mana.

NOTE UPDATE - A DPS Priest build works better with 1 Health / 1 Mana / 1 ATK SPD potion than 2 Health / 1 Mana. The reason is because running the HoT (Divine Blessing), two nukes (Puriflying Flame and Divine Strike), and the +projectile ability (Enchant Vision) allows her to clear faster. Since one of the nukes (Purifying Flame) also has a 800 HP heal (for any ally standing in the AOE radius), she doesn't need a second Medium Health potion (especially if you set the range where she will cast Purifying Flame such that she can't cast it without also healing herself).

How fast your heroes push through the Acts will determine how quickly you need to move from using Tiny to Small to Medium to Large in terms of potion size. For my specific playthough I've found the natural accumulation of materials tend to allow me to keep my 3 best pushers equipped with the right potions, while the rest tend to lag behind for a while.

NOTE #1 - One interesting dynamic here is that for heroes with low mana pools, you can sometimes get away with using mana potions one size lower than the health potions they need. For example, my Knight and Warrior both use Medium Healing and Small Mana potions. The Small Mana Potion is more than enough to allow both heroes to "spam" all their skills upon cooldown without running dry of mana.

NOTE #2 - This dynamic also applies in a similar fashion to buff potions. The only difference between a Small Buff potion and a Medium one is the total charges. From a practical perspective though, you can make a Small Buff potion work for a long time. For example, I was experimenting on my Priest running a Medium Solid potion, Small Burning potion and a Medium Mana potion. While I did get more total uses from the Medium, it wasn't that much more. Certainly not the magnitude of difference that there is between Small and Medium Health/Mana potions.

Enchanting is something that appears to be intended for use when the player has unlocked the "Ruins" content, since the resources required for enchanting drop directly from there. The "Ruins" unlocks once you have successfully cleared Act 10 Stage A3 (which is a boss).

NOTE - Technically you can start enchanting unique (orange) rarity armor and weapons the moment you can purchase Mana Stones from the in-game Shop. If you actually have orange pieces, there's a great chance it's worth it for you to enchant them.

In terms of the Enchanting UI, if you click the '?' in the white circle at the top center of the screen it'll show you where the different areas are for executing the enchanting process. However, here are a few things it doesn't really cover in detail:

• If you want the item to show up on the enchanting screen it either needs to be in your shared inventory (right pane) or equipped on the last hero you selected before opening the enchanting screen. Items on other heroes or items in storage (left pane) will NOT show up on the enchanting screen. In addition, the Mana Stones/Cores used for enchanting must be in shared inventory too!
  
• Each time you want to try to enchant it will cost 20k gold for a unique item (orange) and 5k gold for a rare item (yellow). I haven't obtained a Boss Tier (red) weapon or armor yet so I don't know how much that costs.
  
• The cost to "seal" an enchant varies based on the the rarity of the enhancement. Some of them even cost diamonds!
  
• You can only "seal" one enchant at a time. Sealing is basically "saving" an enchant for application later if you run out of materials (or just decide to stop rolling) before you roll the enchant you really want. For example, let's say you are enchanting a unique melee weapon and your first roll is "common" +13 ATK DMG enchant. You'd seal that for 10k gold and then keep rolling until you get a magic, rare or legendary version of the +ATK DMG enchant. If you get it and want to stop, that's great, no further action needed. However if you don't succeed and your last roll is something you don't want, you can at least overwrite it with the "sealed" +13 ATK DMG you had on the first roll.
  
• "Overwrite Magic" is used when you are ready to take a "sealed" enchant and place it on the item. This part does not cost anything.

NOTE #1 - You might be curious as to what happens to a "sealed" enchant when you exit the enchanting screen. The answer is that it gets "saved". So if you open up the enchant screen again and select the same item you will see the current enchant as well as the one you had "sealed" previously.

NOTE #2 - I noticed today that when I went to enchant the unique off-hand for my Warrior, the gold coin cost was 40k instead of the 20k for every other piece of unique gear (armor/weapon) I tried to enchant.

This won't be comprehensive since I only started enchanting yesterday, but it'll still be information that might be helpful. Tracking this for now just in case the magic sealing cost is based on more than the rarity of the enchant.

Magic Sealing Cost
Magic Rarity + %ATK SPD = 100k gold
Common Rarity + %ATK DMG = 10k gold
Legendary Rarity + %Crit Change = 50 diamonds
Legendary Rarity + %Max HP = 50 diamonds
Magic Rarity + %Max HP = 100k gold
Rare Rarity + Flat ATK DMG = 20 diamonds
Legendary Rarity + Whirlwind Skill %DMG = 50 diamonds

Here I'll cover miscellaneous things I've observed or otherwise found out that's relevant to the game that doesn't cleanly fit in any of the other sections yet. Over time some of it I may elaborate into their own sections depending on how involved the subject is.

For the most part this feature seems to work fine. However, as of late with Shadow Temple I get these situations where after selecting multiple runs and clicking the auto-retry button it starts a run of Shadow Temple but does not trigger the fact that I've set up multiple. Then I go to the Command View and see that the game has switched my auto-retry setting to "standby" instead (even though it was on auto prior to running Shadow Temple).

Fortunately if you just let a run finish and then exit out of Shadow Temple and then initiate another set of runs again it appears to work. While I need to experiment more to be sure, I suspect this happens if you mess with the number of retries during a series of Shadow Temple runs that haven't finished yet:

• Step #1 = Successfully start a series of 10 Shadow Temple runs.
  
• Step #2 = While on run #7, go into the inventory and use a pouch to get more feathers (10).
  
• Step #3 = Go into Battle View and wait for the current run to get to the end then edit the number of retries to be 16.
  
• I think at this point the retry has a chance to get screwed up and might only do 1 more run instead of 16 and will have automatically switched both heroes back to the standby setting. Regardless, when this does happen, you have to take your team out of Shadow Temple and redo it from the start for it to register the retries correctly.

NOTE - If you can't get the '-' or '+' buttons to work when trying to configure the number of retries, you can just click the number and it'll pull up that calculator looking popup where you can quickly set the desired number of retries.

Found out about clicking the number to trigger the popup from Hangman69 in this thread.

On many occasions when I end up getting a new skill for the first time from either a random skill book or one of the ones where it lets you pick from a list, it won't show a red dot on the Skills button in the main UI. However the next time you get that book (which lets you upgrade the skill) the Skills button will get a red dot.

Not really a big deal, but for those heroes that literally need every single charge available for whatever Stage they are on, be careful about when you swap out their potions. If you do it at the wrong moment, they could wipe. However, most of the time the potion will have fully charged up by the time they need to start using it.

I've noticed occasionally that if my Assassin dies fighting the last boss of a Stage but kills the boss afterwards due to periodic poison damage, then the game registers it as if the Stage has been "cleared" and will trigger a retry normally. The initially displayed resurrect timer and option to revive will disappear once the boss dies.

You've probably noticed by now that your Commander Level increases a lot as you go from 1 - 10. This is because there are so many opportunities to complete Main Quests in the early game because most of the objectives don't take very long to complete. The only times you'll somewhat get "stuck" is when you are trying to breach Stage 10 (i.e. the boss) of Act 5 and beyond. However, even then once you are past Stage 10, then the flood of Main Quests available continues until you get "stuck" again.

Once you get to Act 10 the dynamic shifts considerably. Starting with Main Quest #140, the only objectives you will get from quests is to "Defeat X Monsters". When you do so, the reward is:

• 100 Commander Experience
  
• 130k-150k Gold Coins
  
• 5-10 Random Skill Books

This is pretty nice and an easily convenient objective at the start. However, the required number of kills quickly ramps up from 5k kills for a few quests, then 10k for a few, then 50k, then 100k, and so on until you hit #158 and it jumps up to 200k. The kicker is that the the rewards don't scale accordingly. So even for 200k kills you'll only get 100 Commander Experience, about 150k Gold Coins and 10 Random Skill Books.

Results will vary based on each player's roster and monster kill speed, but generally speaking If you do the math on how much Commander Experience you'll get a day from Bounty Quests and the Defeat X Monsters Main Quest, it'll become clear that it will take several days to accumulate the 2.6k+ experience needed for Commander Levels past 15. So prepare yourself for the long haul when it comes to going from Commander Level 15 to Commander Level 20.

NOTE - I don't know if the monster kill count keeps going up periodically past 200k or if Commander Level experience requirement skyrockets after Commander Level 20. My suspicion is that it will only get worse.

So far I've had a fairly positive experience using the Magic rarity "Sapphire Ring" to dramatically increase the Mana Pool of my Knight and Warrior who are barely around 120 Mana each. When running Battlefield and Shadow Temple Stages this isn't a problem because of how easily the swarms of enemies make it to regain potion charges. However, when running Ruins of Sideros having a single Sapphire Ring (+15 enhanced or better) can immediately put them at 500 Mana which lasts A LOT longer and helps keep their DPS higher for nearly the full duration of the boss fight at the end. In addition, with a pool of 500, they both can get much more efficient use out of Medium and Large Mana Potions.

NOTE - After reading TurukTheCook's Guide it's pretty clear my preliminary observations on this did not accurately reflect how this really works in the game, so I'm archiving/moving the section containing what I originally thought to the end of the guide temporarily until I'm ready to remove it completely.

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When I first started the game and was looking at the stat boosts from applying attribute points I thought it would be the same amount (per point) for each class. However, after saving up several points today and then checking different classes I suspect there is some sort of background scaling going on with certain stat bonuses which you won't notice unless you check for stat bonuses after applying several attribute points.

NOTE - Ideally I should respec each class and then apply 45+ points in a single stat (without actually applying it), add up the bonuses and divide by total attribute points spent to see what the deal is. However, not quite ready to burn roughly 2.5k diamonds using Stat Reset Scrolls.

NOTE - Priest and Archer are missing from the details below because they didn't level up today.

Strength

Increases to strength affect Attack Damage, Max Health and Armor. However, it seems like the Warrior and Assassin gets a more Attack Damage and Max Health across many attribute points while the Knight gets quite a bit more Armor.

Knight (Level 52)
- 1 ATK DMG
- 5 Max HP
- 31 Armor

Assassin (Level 55)
- 2 ATK DMG* (had 5 attribute points saved up still only got 6 total ATK DMG)
- 6 Max HP
- 17 Armor

Warrior (Level 52)
- 2 ATK DMG* (saved up 2 points and got 4 total ATK DMG)
- 6 Max HP
- 14 Armor

Wizard (Level 44)
- 1 ATK DMG
- 5 Max HP
- 13 Armor

Dexterity

Increases to dexterity affect Attack Speed, Critical Hit Damage and Move Speed. The Assassin class seems to get the highest amount of Attack Speed per unit of dexterity across several attribute points.

Knight (Level 52)
- 0.027 ATK SPD
- 1 Crit DMG
- 3 Move SPD

Assassin (Level 55)
- 0.037 ATK SPD
- 1 Crit DMG
- 3 Move SPD

Warrior (Level 52)
- 0.0196 ATK SPD
- 1 Crit DMG
- 3 Move SPD

Wizard (Level 44)
- 0.0216 ATK SPD
- 1 Crit DMG
- 3 Move SPD

Intelligence

Increases to intelligence affect Critical Hit Chance, Spell Damage, Max Mana, and Cooldown Reduction. The Assassin and Wizard classes seems to get the highest amount of Critical Hit Chance and Spell Damage across several attribute points.

Knight (Level 52)
- 1 Spell DMG
- 0.0549 Crit Chance
- 3 Max Mana
- 0.2 Cooldown Reduction

Assassin (Level 55)
- 2 Spell DMG* (forgot to compare total Spell DMG after applying 2 points... I think it was 3 though)
- 0.1082 Crit Chance
- 3 Max Mana
- 0.2 Cooldown Reduction

Warrior (Level 52)
- 1 Spell DMG
- 0.075 Crit Chance
- 3 Max Mana
- 0.2 Cooldown Reduction

Wizard (Level 44)
- 2 Spell DMG* (had 3 points saved up and got 5 Spell DMG)
- 0.0912 Crit Chance
- 3 Max Mana
- 0.2 Cooldown Reduction

NOTE - Since both the guide and my account's roster/progression have evolved over time since I first started I've updated the "Basic Guide Information" at the top and am recording the previous information in this archived section at the bottom of the guide.

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A collection of insights and observations from the perspective of a Level 11 Commander currently playing the game F2P. The contents are likely to be most useful for players just starting or in the early game.

For reference I'm currently in Act 7 working my way towards the boss at Stage 10 (I'm currently stuck at Stage 8 though). My current line-up is:
- Knight Level 50 (Full STR Build)
- Archer Level 45 (15 points in STR all the rest in DEX)
- Assassin Level 48 (1:1 STR/INT Build)
- Warrior Level 49 (Full STR Build)
- Priest Level 40 (Mostly 1:1 STR/INT - Last 5 points all went into INT though)
- Wizard Level 36 (Full INT Build)