Guildrun beginner guide

One: get to five heroes

You start with three. Five is the cap in the demo, and going from three to five is the single largest power increase available to you. It beats any item and most relics.

There are two ways to get there. Either of these will do it:

• Take the Mandate that matches what your team is already doing. Do not change your build to complete an objective.
• There are fifteen Mandate relics in total. All of them give the same reward.

Harmony CrystalIncrease your team size by 1 (Max: 5). No condition attached.Slaughter MandateDeal 15000 damage with auto attacks, then team size goes up by 1.Arcane MandateDeal 15000 damage with active abilities. The Mage version of the same reward.Shelter MandateApply 30000 Shields. Fits a Mystic or Tank team without changing anything.

Two: rank one hero to S rather than three to A

Rank B unlocks the specialization. Rank A adds a class upgrade. Rank S adds a second class upgrade and a fourth item slot.

That fourth slot is the part people underrate. A hero at S with four items and two upgrades contributes more than three heroes at A, and it costs less in shards.

Three: the specialization is the real choice

A hero below rank B is a stat line. From rank B it becomes a role. The same hero can end up doing completely different jobs.

Rip is the clearest example. It has the most health in the game at 1250, and it appears in four of the nine builds on the current tier list, playing The Glutton in three of them and The Brute in the fourth. Same hero, different job.

RipVanguard. 1250 health, 42 defence, 41 attack. The most common hero in strong builds.IriniDuelist. 650 health, appears in four of nine tier list builds.ZuriTank and Assassin at once: 900 health with the 50 base crit that only Assassins get.

Four: concentrate items, do not spread them

Items go on one hero and take one of that hero's slots. Three good items on your carry beat one item each on three heroes.

Slots start at three, become four at rank S, and can be pushed further. Watch for relics that move the number in either direction:

Quality over QuantityAdds two item slots to every hero.Heroic Capacity ExpanderAdds one item slot to every hero.Quantity over QualityRemoves one slot from every hero. The game deletes the extra items straight away, so check who is full before you take it.

Five: relics stack, so pick a direction

Relics apply to the whole guild and combine with each other. Five that point the same way beat ten that do not.

The numbers back this up: the six S tier builds carry 13 relics on average, the three A tier builds carry 8. That gap is most of the difference between them.

The clearest theme to commit to early is a class engine, because it gives everyone a stat and then keeps paying off through one class:

Vanguard's Titanic Engine+400 Max HP to all heroes. Every time a Vanguard attacks or is attacked it gains 10 permanent Max HP.Duelist's Momentum Engine+40 Attack Speed to all heroes. Each Duelist auto attack deals 5 bonus damage per attack already made.Warrior's Bloodshield Engine+50 Attack to all heroes. Warriors gain lasting Shields worth 15 percent of damage dealt.