Heroes of Esperia PvP Event Guide [April 2023]

This guide can be quite useful, especially the part about when to attack in Heroes of Esperia, and team positioning. Essentially these strategies got me to the top rank in the last HoE event, where I was by far the weakest player and could not win a single battle (true story, but it probably won't happen again).

Heroes of Esperia?is one of the best PvP events in AFK Arena, where players can fight against others to earn points, get to the higher ranks/divisions and compete for better rewards. This very challenging event requires patience and strategic thinking to outshine your opponents.

I must admit that I hate writing these guides, as it feels like I tell people what to do like I know better. But anyway, I will keep updating this one, and I recommend reading the complete guide, as there is no simple recipe to succeed in HoE.

Not only do you have to bring the right teams, but even the timing of your attacks is vital to keep yourself high enough in the order and lose ranks.

Heroes of Esperia: Basic Event Information

The Heroes of Esperia event uses the martial rating system:

• Martial Rating: All of a player's hero ascension tiers will remain the same and start with a hero level of?240.?Hero levels may be increased based on the player's?Resonating Crystal?level.
• Equipment: All hero gear (including unadorned parts ) are Mythic?T1?and?include Faction Bonuses?but are un-enhanced. If a hero is already equipping Mythic?T3?gear, heroes will retain their Hero Bonuses.
• Signature Items: All signature items and their abilities will be retained.
• Elder Tree: Players' current Elder Tree levels and Virtue attributes will be retained, including their effects.
• Oak Inn Furniture: All the effects and abilities granted by a hero's furniture are preserved.
• Artifacts:?The effects of artifacts will not be retained.
• Unions:?The effects of artifacts will not be retained.

Battle Rules

• Bronze League is a 1-vs-1 formation, Gold/Silver is 3, Diamond is 5, Legend is 7.
• You cannot use Dimensional heroes and the heroes linked with them simultaneously, even in different teams.
• Free to refresh opponents a couple of times per day. Afterward, it starts costing diamonds.

Star Convergence

Star Convergence buffs reward players for stacking up heroes of the same class in their teams. This may be useful for new players that don't have ideal team comps, but somewhat irrelevant for players with the current meta teams.

• Every 1?Warrior?class hero on the battlefield increases the?Attack Rating of all heroes?(including enemies) by?8%?the?first?time their?health falls?below 50%.?This effect can be stacked five times and lasts for 5 seconds.
• Every 1?Tank?class hero on the battlefield grants?all heroes?( including enemies) a?shield?equal to?250%?of their own?Attack Ratings?the?first?time their?health falls below 50%.?This shield can reach 1250% of its own Attack Ratings and lasts 5 seconds.
• Every 1?Ranger?class hero on the battlefield?increases?the?Haste?of?all heroes?(including enemies) by?10?points while their?health?is?above 80%. This effect can reach a maximum of 50 points and last for the whole duration of the battle.
• For every 1??Mage?class hero on the battlefield, allied heroes (excluding the Ultimate ability caster) will receive 80 Energy points when an ally uses their Ultimate ability.
• For every 1??Support?class hero on the battlefield, each surviving ally will have their Health Regeneration increased by 15%, which can be increased up to a maximum of 75%. This effect will last for the whole duration of the battle.

Heroes of Esperia Best Tips and Tactics

I don't have great advice to give you for this event. Instead, I will try to avoid giving bad advice. In this event, there is an obscure co-dependency between attacking (where you have much more control and a winning advantage) and defending, where you are handicapped; the opponents have control of the teams they use and the order.

In simple words, attacking at the wrong times, when other players also push to move higher in the ranks, may be a waste of time as you won't stay at your new rank for long.

Here are some tips, though:

• Defending is super hard in this event, and it requires a balance among your teams so that you will have a chance to win the majority of the fights or give your opponent a hard time trying to figure out the best team comps to beat you. They still have the advantage, especially if there is a battle power deficit, but testing people's patience can work wonders. I will explain defending in detail below, but the idea is simple: Don't build one super team and two bad ones (for three-stage battles), Don't build two super teams and three bad ones (for five-stage battles) and don't build three super teams and four awful ones (for seven-stage battles). Try to make others put in the work to defeat you rather than breeze past you.
• Attacking is much simpler; focus on beating the number of teams required to win the fight and put trash against the rest.
• Ideally, you don't want to attack during resets as many players are active at the time as others' attacks towards you will negate any gains. Of course, this advice goes to waste if everyone follows it, and since pretty much everyone agrees that this is the best tactic, it's not a guaranteed success.
• Stack your tickets and use them at the end of the event, when the top players are already at the top and others may be fed up with the event.
• Don't?spend diamonds?on refresh; attack weaker opponents. It's much better to hoard tickets than to spend diamonds on refreshes.
• Generally speaking, if you are an excellent defender, try to climb as many divisions as you can for free and then stay low on the division you reach. Even if you are kicked out the next day, you will have a chance to clear out the whole division and get to the low/middle of the next one.

Play AFK Arena on PC/Mac to enjoy the game any time!

Attacking and Defending in Heroes of Esperia

As an attacker, not only can you pick and choose fights to take advantage of faction counters and power differences. Focus on position and synergies, find the weakest links in opposing compositions and try to take them out first to take control of the fight.

Examples: Put your Athalia against the enemy Zolrath to take him out before he uses his special turns the tide of the entire fight. Put your Ferael (Alna Comp) or Merlin (Ainz Comp) opposite of Ainz against Ainz comps to slow him down/soak his Ultimate. Doing these little things may be enough to turn a guaranteed loss into a more 50-50 fight.

Note: Avoid playing HoE when you are too bored, or around the reset time if you are in Europe, for instance, and you are close to your bedtime. No way you will be making those adjustments when you are sleepy.

In general, playing HoE around reset is a bad idea as you will probably end up in a zero-sum situation (losing all your progress because other people are very active during that time).

Attacking Priorities:

1. Attack players with fewer strong teams than required to win (1/3, 2/5, 3/7).
2. Find the right tradeoff between battle power, faction advantage, and trophies obtained. I know it's hard, but that's how the whole thing works here.
3. Check the recommendations below for countering meta teams with other meta teams.

Defending Priorities:

I guess the best way to describe defending is guerilla warfare and adding an element of surprise. The simplest way to explain this is that attackers will use a lot of default formations. You will expect to find Eironn in the middle of the backline, Ainz at the edge (or any other carry), and durable characters at the front.

Try to counter this by altering the default positioning. It won't guarantee a win, but an intelligent opponent will be forced to tweak their team. Your best chance is to hope that not many players are intelligent and patient. These has worked well because even pro players (sometimes especially pro players are too bored to rotate teams).

Hoarding tickets to do a final push before the HoE event ends is the greatest most obvious advice ever.

Heroes of Esperia Formations and Team Building

I have already detailed the best teams in AFK Arena, primarily focusing on PvE, although several work in PvP too. But let me give you an example. Below you will find one of the most accessible team comps in AFK Arena, the Ainz Comp. This is a great team, but what happens when you have to build multiple teams for a fight? Let's assume a 5-stage battle.

When on the Attacking Side: Don't focus on building five good teams; try to build 1 excellent, two very good, and two bad ones, and reorder the teams accordingly. Your opponent will likely use a similar setup, so your outstanding teams will beat the two bad ones, and then you will rely on your excellent team to beat a tough fight. So, this emphasizes the tremendous advantage of reordering.

This is the strategy I use in Legends Championship, so I can assure you it works unless you are too bored to bother with reordering (I sometimes am).

When on the Defensive Side: And now the tricky part. When on the defensive side, you are a sitting duck. If you use the 1-3-3 strategy on defense, you will probably lose. So let's try something different.

Instead, we try to bring on one excellent meta PvP comp (Ainz Comp) and two very good to great ones. That's Alna's & Grezhul's comp and an Ultimate negating Lucretia Cheese.

The Three Best PvP Teams for Heroes of Esperia & Meta vs. Meta

You will find even better formations than these, but I'm trying to focus on experienced players that have invested very little in Celestials and Hypogeans and Engravings. So you won't find Orthos stall teams (too low in the priority queue) or even Misha Burst teams (too new, lol).

Most people already know this as these three teams are the ones you always encounter in Legends' Challenger Tournament.

• Ainz Comp: Arthur, Albedo, Ainz, Merlin, Ezio/Leonardo. (Its only weakness can be energy or ultimate disrupting teams like the two below).
• Alna's Frozen Mist: Alna, Grezhul, Silas, Oden/Desira/Athalia, Ferael. (Great team tactically, can occasionally beat Ainz Comp's, and dominates almost everything else, except for the formation below).
• Disrupting Lucretia Cheese: Lucretia, Twins, Ezizh, Rowan, Haelus. (This team is kind of a whale team, but in full effect, it can even dominate Ainz Comps, as it prevents Ainz from using his Ultimate. If the investment is not there, Ainz can pretty much one-shot everyone. On the other hand, Alna's stall team can be too slow in killing Lucretia, and I have seen my Alna team get destroyed by her).
• Other notable teams: Lucretia x Five Pull, Thoran Cheese, Scarlet x Lucretia Disruptor.

I usually place my Ainz Comp against Alna's comps, hoping that Oden won't prevent Ainz from Ulting. I always accept that the opponent's AInz Comp will beat my Lucretia Cheese, and I hope that my Alna comp will beat their Lucretia Cheese unless they have fully invested in Ezizh and Haelus (RIP). Sometimes I may go Alna Comp vs. Alna Comp, but I believe that is very risky, even though my Ainz Comp will beat Lucretia Cheese 99 times out of 100. Remember, the point is to win three battles out of 5 eventually.

On 5-team battles, you have teams #2 and #3 against the opponent's worst teams and have Ainz comp take down the third weakest (and third strongest) team until you reach a point where that team is stronger than even your strongest team (RIP).

What is the “Heroes of Esperia” Event?

Heroes of Esperia is a PvP event in AFK Arena that follows a structure similar to Legends' Challenger Tournament and Legends' Championship.

There are six league divisions: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, Master & Legend.

Each formation must contain at least one Hero.

Players need to earn more trophies to get a higher ranking in their division and get into a higher league. Higher leagues unlock better rewards.

Players can only challenge other players in the same league divisions.

The only exception is players in the Masters league can Challenge players in the Legends league, and if they win, they can get into the Legends league. Trophy counts do not get affected in this kind of matchup.

When a player in the Legends league defeats someone with a higher ranking, they will immediately swap their positions. Those who have lower rankings will be exposed to getting defeated by players in the Masters league.

At the beginning of a new season, rankings are determined based on player combat ratings.

When getting into higher leagues, players must submit more?team formations?for best-of-three, best-of-five, and best-of-seven. That's when you reach the playoffs, and both strategy and patience are crucial.

To manage the formations, press the Formation button on the Heroes of Esperia screen.

Heroes of Esperia Season Rewards

At the end of the season, players in each league division will receive the corresponding rewards, containing Hero Soulstones and Honor Experience.

Players can use honor Experience to raise a player's honor level and unlock rewards such as avatar frames, etc., as shown below: