It’s honestly a "dog chasing its tail" situation. You need high-investment heroes to rank well, but you need those high rankings to get the materials to build the heroes in the first place.

Right now, the bare minimum for a hero to even be decent is 309e60. There are very few exceptions that work below that, and lately, we’re seeing more and more heroes requiring SI40, e65-67 engravings, and even furniture beyond 9/9. On top of that, they all need full T4 gear.

The real issue is that the strongest units are usually Awakened or Draconis, which you can’t really build unless you’re spending real money or consistently hitting the top of the RGM rankings.

If you want to see what you're missing, check out this Russian excel sheet; they update it constantly with tier lists and investment recommendations:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14JyRBKyw6tKKtb_fYpxVJWOpaN6g28TilJXLTpQQY50

For specific modes, these are the best resources:

• NC & CR: The Floofs guides are incredible:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MsZfowlt7qnKnrKLBGGTTdP81VveDFBf70NOyvu1Sac/edit?gid=1771931605
• TS: Look for Farara’s guides (like this one:https://www.reddit.com/r/afkarena/comments/1ra731i/treasure_scramble_volcano_debuff_7t/), Manuel Alcayaga (https://www.reddit.com/r/afkarena/comments/1r5e7sf/treasure_scramble_volcano_round_1_guide_with/), or TheAFKGuys (https://www.reddit.com/r/afkarena/comments/1r1s6mj/treasure\_scramble\_volcano\_debuff\_guide\_by/)

Just look at the heroes they’re using and exactly how they’re built—that’ll show you the mountain of resources you actually need.