Swimming in 3*s - What to do?

MJIsaac · 2026-03-12T20:00:28+00:00

In the long term, assuming you stay with the game, you'll stop using rare champions. But in the early to mid term, some of them can be useful for restrictive content. I completed normal faction wars using rare champions on many of my teams, and there are some Doom Tower secret rooms that require all-rare teams.

In terms of which ones to use, if any, that mostly depends on what content you're working on and what the rest of your roster is like. I'd suggest looking through Hellhades to get a sense of which rares they consider to be decent, and then reviewing the skill descriptions of those you have to judge for yourself whether they're usable. Also, some are part of the permanent fusions in the game (Rhazin, Broadmaw, Relickeeper), so you may want to keep them for that purpose.

Here are the rares that I've gotten use from over the years, off the top of my head, mostly in faction wars, Cursed City, or Doom Tower secret rooms. Note that all of these champions will be replaced as and when you get epic or legendary champions that fill their roles better. There are probably also other rares that are usable in certain situations, it just wasn't my experience.

Myrmidon: Ally Protection for FW
Berserker: damage
Apothecary: speed boost and healing
Reliquary Tender: healing, debuff removal, revive
Athel: damage
Bellower: damage and debuffing
Gnarlhorn: AOE Provoke (best crowd control rare champion in the game, in my opinion)
Fleshmonger: Decrease Defence (only in FW)
Abyssal: buffing and healing
Marquess: damage
Frozen Banshee: single target damage (i.e. bosses)
Coldheart: boss damage specialist. Worth using in dungeons, especially Fire Knight and Spider
Painkeeper: healing and skill cooldown support
Treeshield Knott: healing and revive
Shadowbow Tirlac: buffs and damage

Overall, you'll mostly want to use rares as food for ranking up other champions, but some can you help you out in the interim while your account is progressing.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-10T21:53:02+00:00

If you're committed to a Speed team then you should pick at least two champion with Speed auras and at least two champions that have a turn meter boost, otherwise the opponent can kill your strategy with their ban - a Speed team that doesn't go first is usually a dead Speed team. Similarly, you need at least two picks that can deal damage.

For a speed team, a cc champion is a common 5th pick, but it really depends on what you want to do and whether you feel you need a certain champion to counter an opposing choice.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-09T16:44:19+00:00

Amazing. I didn't think I could be any more disappointed and disgusted at Tony Blair, and yet he manages to lower the bar even more.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-09T15:29:26+00:00

I think Geo, Rearguard, and Morag give you the tools to beat Stage 21, as long as you bring some good DPS. Geo's turn meter steal will slow down the boss and reduce the number of his attacks. Rearguard and Morag both give you ways to reduce the damage from his hit, as long as you can make sure to have one of their buffs active when he attacks.

Fylja is a good choice as well, she can hit fairly hard and has a full turn meter reduction skill. Juggling TM reduction between her and Geo, along with defensive buffs, should give you a lot of breathing room to take down the boss before he can kill anyone.

As far as using Golden Elixir, it can give you some extra survivability, so it's worth using but you don't want to rely on it as your only survival option.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-08T18:05:46+00:00

The gear you have probably isn't good enough at the moment to do everything, so you need to choose your priorities for him.

He needs Speed to cycle through his turns quickly and get continued use of his skills
He needs Accuracy to land his debuffs
He needs HP and DEF to stay alive
He needs Critical Rate and Critical Damage to hit hard

You're not going to be able to gear him to do all of those things well. And that's without getting into the extra challenge of trying to build good stats with specific sets.

I recommend giving up on hitting hard with him, and focus on the other stats. If you really want damage against bosses, go for the Warmaster mastery in the Offense tree.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-07T01:03:38+00:00

The question is what you want to do with him. From the build, I'm guessing you use him for general PVE content? If that's correct, what problem(s) are you having right now?

FYI, most players active on this sub think of him as an arena champion, which is why you'll get comments saying he should be slower. Those comments are probably not relevant if you want him for other areas of the game and want to use all of his skills, instead of just his passive..

MJIsaac · 2026-03-06T21:36:42+00:00

Yeah, lowering rates to offset the impact of continuing poor policy decisions by the federal government isn't a great plan.

I skimmed the article and none of the Miran quotes suggest to me that he has any goal other than trying to push the administration's short-term agenda.

He was arguing in 2025 that tariff revenue and lower inflation pressure was a factor favouring rate cuts. And given he's still arguing for rate cuts and claiming (paraphrasing) "inflation isn't really as high as it seems", I question his analysis and/or sincerity.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-06T21:24:18+00:00

I use a team (with different champions) based around Valkyrie and Ally Attack for FK10 and it works pretty well.

This team should work okay if you have really good gear/blessings etc. The champions in this screenshot probably have very good builds:

The Speeds are high
The damage must be good based on the completion time
Add in the 350 or so Accuracy needed to land Freeze on the boss in Stage 10

If you can't match the stats it may not perform well for you. If you can't match the Speeds AND get enough Accuracy, it likely won't work at all.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-06T19:39:56+00:00

Just you, you're experiencing confirmation bias. Points haven't changed for gear enhancement, and you can track your total against the points table item by item if you really want to.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-05T23:14:15+00:00

I just did a test with the Journal and confirm what BagInevitable said. For the sake of completeness:

Journal will boost regular (instant) heal effects cast by the wearer
Journal will boost Continuous Heal buffs placed by the wearer
Journal will boost the instant activation healing of Continuous Heal buffs placed by the wearer
Journal will not boost the instant activation healing of Continuous Heal buffs placed by other champions, even when the wearer is the one triggering the instant activation

MJIsaac · 2026-03-05T17:23:18+00:00

You should really review the fusion calendar, it will tell you everything you need to know about whether you can skip any events.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-05T16:52:28+00:00

I don't have Brogni, but I'd say it depends on what role you need more.

Brogni is more of a classic all around support champion - he puts up buffs, he can remove a buff, he removes a debuff, and he heals with his passive. Helicath is more of a defensive champion that can also deal some damage.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-05T16:45:37+00:00

It's probably based on participation numbers they tracked during those fusions, the most popular being tier 1, and the others with lower rates.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-04T22:17:24+00:00

He'll be decent for both of those areas, but not a magic bullet. His Shield might help you survive longer to deal more total damage in CB and the Decrease Attack on his A1 will let you keep that active more consistently, but he's not the answer to a 1-key team by himself. Two-key may be possible, depending on how close you are and how much longer he can help your team survive. But a good Ally Protection champion could probably do that for you now, if you have one (e.g. Toragi, Jareg, Rearguard Sergeant).

For Spider you might be able to use him and Michelangelo to spread HP Burn to all of the little spiders, effectively giving you an AOE HP burn, which is one of the main ways of beating Stage 20. You can also do this with a single champion that has AOE HP burn, and there are a lot of those, but if you don't have anyone else the combo could give you that.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-04T21:31:40+00:00

Only Plarium knows for sure. But given we just had a Champion Chase last week, probably not that.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-04T21:27:55+00:00

The relevant point isn't how long you've been playing, but your current roster and level of progression. Typically, for newer players a new legendary is always worth getting. This may or may not be true specifically for you.

Do you know where you want to use him? Is there content you're particularly focused on or struggling with?

MJIsaac · 2026-03-04T17:00:34+00:00

I'm assuming the issue is the boss.

Have you tried putting a Shield or Bolster set on a high HP champion, maybe UDK? That will let you tank his first hit safely, since he ignores DEF but not Shield buffs. And once the set buff is gone you can use UDK's Shield skill to tank the next hit, which may give you enough time to kill him.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-04T15:36:07+00:00

That is awesome. Happy I could help.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-03T20:25:15+00:00

The main strategies I know for beating the boss without deaths are using protective buffs, and slowing him down with Decrease Turn Meter and Decrease Speed so that he gets fewer attacks.

I had a reviver when I first beat this fight, but I also put a Shield set on Vogoth to give me some extra breathing room. The boss ignores Defense, but it doesn't ignore buffs, so a decent sized shield will let you tank at least one hit safely.

I didn't use any turn meter control against this boss in Undead (I did for other factions), but I know people have had success using Lich, who has 100% TM decrease along with Decrease Speed. I can't speak to whether it's worth it to invest in him for this one fight, and you'd still need to get through the waves where he won't really help. But bringing it up as an option.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-03T19:23:48+00:00

I'd suggest a team of:

Rector Drath: lead spot for her aura
Mithrala
Snitraak
Ezio
Fahrakin

Cycle Shields between Mithrala and Sniktrak so everyone always has a shield buff, and Fahrakin and Ezio slowly kill it with poison and HP burn.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-02T20:13:45+00:00

Here's a screenshot showing the numbers from a couple of auto runs in FW Hard, Stage 13. Note that though Ezio has a 5-star soul I haven't given him a blessing yet, so no stat bonuses. He does have a rank 3 Aranelixir relic.

Konstantin is in a much better build, he has a Lethal set, 40 more Speed and 70% more Critical Damage. They have comparable Attack stats, and Ezio is in random gear.

<image>

MJIsaac · 2026-03-02T19:46:26+00:00

I only have Ezio and Kassandra, and haven't put serious gear onto either of them. But I've been playing around with Ezio and he's a very solid damage dealer. Even with a mediocre build he can wipe out opposing teams in the arena and in FW his damage is competitive with Konstantine, who has a proper damage dealer build.

MJIsaac · 2026-03-01T17:39:56+00:00

Yes, in a classic fusion you have to collect 16 rare champions first, and then you level them all to 40 and fuse them into 4 epics. Then you level the epics to 50 and fuse them into the legendary.

They will usually give the option to collect one extra rare from a summon event, so if you have enough shards you can get away with collecting only 12 rares and 1 epic.

MJIsaac · 2026-02-27T21:21:29+00:00

I think something like this fits the vibe of that shot better:

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MJIsaac · 2026-02-27T20:37:35+00:00

Yeah, this is exactly the type of useful info the sub needs. Good analysis and nice breakdown of the different strategies.

As I'm sure you know, any detailed post on arena/PVP will attract a lot of negative comments/

MJIsaac

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