A Guide to Heroic Saga, Battle Spirit and Hero Armaments
How the three features feed each other
Heroic Saga, Battle Spirit and Hero Armaments are easy to treat as three separate features, but they feed each other. Heroic Saga quests drop the items you need for the other two: Horn of Strength, Feather of Dexterity and Eye of Intelligence for Battle Spirit, and Silver Dragonscales, Gold Dragonscales and Recast Dice for Hero Armaments. In return, your heroes' Battle Spirit levels and Armament Points raise your chance of an additional chest on Saga quests.
Outside of Heroic Saga, Battle Spirit is a Hero Colosseum feature. It raises a hero's Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence there, so it pays off the most on the heroes in your Hero Colosseum setups.
Hero Armaments, on the other hand, add war stats to the heroes you deploy, and a lot of them: fully built out, 5 Infantry heroes can carry up to 300% Infantry ATK or Infantry Max HP between them. The breakdown is in the Hero Armaments section.
Let's first go over how Heroic Saga works and how to get more chests out of it, and then move on to Battle Spirit and Hero Armaments.
How Heroic Saga works
In Heroic Saga, you assign your heroes to quests on the Saga map. When a quest's countdown ends, your heroes return with rewards. Epic quests take 1 hour, and lower-grade quests are quicker. Every quest gives you one chest for sure. Depending on the quest and the heroes you assign, you also have a chance at an additional chest.
Each hero can only be assigned once per day. At the daily reset, your quest attempts and free refreshes are restored, and any quests you haven't started are replaced.
Your Saga Level decides:
- How many quests you can start each day (Quest Attempts, shown on the map as the Daily Quest Limit)
- How many heroes you can assign to one quest (Hero Limit)
- How many free refreshes you get
- Which quest grades can show up
| Saga Level | Quest Attempts | Hero Limit | Free Refreshes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| 7 | 6 | 7 | 7 |
| 8 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| 9 | 6 | 9 | 9 |
| 10 | 6 | 10 | 10 |
Level 10 is the cap. You earn Saga EXP from quests, and higher-grade quests give more of it.
Your Saga Level also sets the odds of each quest grade showing up:
| Saga Level | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Epic | Legendary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 60% | 30% | 10% | – | – |
| 2 | 50% | 35% | 15% | – | – |
| 3 | 40% | 40% | 15% | 5% | – |
| 4 | 30% | 45% | 20% | 5% | – |
| 5 | 20% | 50% | 20% | 10% | – |
| 6 | 10% | 55% | 25% | 10% | – |
| 7 | – | 60% | 25% | 15% | – |
| 8 | – | 40% | 35% | 20% | 5% |
| 9 | – | 20% | 50% | 25% | 5% |
| 10 | – | – | 60% | 30% | 10% |
A quest's grade decides which chest you can get from it:
| Quest grade | Chest |
|---|---|
| Common | white 100% |
| Uncommon | white 70%, green 30% |
| Rare | white 50%, green 30%, blue 20% |
| Epic | green 50%, blue 30%, purple 20% |
| Legendary | blue 50%, purple 30%, gold 20% |
Each chest gives you one random item from its list. The potential loot includes Recast Dice, Silver Dragonscales, Horn of Strength, Feather of Dexterity, Eye of Intelligence, and two artifact materials: [Uncommon] Records and Artifact Brushes. Gold Dragonscales only show up in blue, purple and gold chests. On top of the chest, a quest can give a few bonus items at random, such as Saga Compasses, more Battle Spirit items, speed-ups and resources. If you're upgrading artifacts, the Artifact Upgrade Guide shows how many Records each level takes.
Refreshes and Saga Compasses
Refreshing replaces the quests you haven't started, for a chance at higher grades. If there's a quest you want to keep, you can lock it, and refreshes will leave it alone. You get a number of free refreshes per day, and Saga Compasses give you more: each one refreshes all unlocked quests.
Save up your Saga Compasses for refreshing quests after you reach Saga Level 10. Until then, use your free refreshes to maximize the amount of Rare, Epic and Legendary quests you can complete daily. At Level 10, Common and Uncommon quests stop showing up, so every refresh is a roll for Rare, Epic or Legendary quests.
Let's say you're around Saga Level 5 or 6, and the daily reset gives you 1 Epic quest, a couple of Rare quests and some Uncommon quests.
To maximize your quest grades, take the Epic quest first and wait the hour until it's done. Then claim the rewards and immediately do your first free refresh. Waiting pays off because the refresh also replaces the quest you just claimed, so you get one more new quest out of it. Repeat the sequence if you get another Epic quest and still have a good buffer of free refreshes left over. If you're down to 2 or so free refreshes and still haven't completed multiple Epic quests, start completing Rare quests instead.
Strategic level-ups
To increase your loot, be deliberate and strategic about when you reach a level-up. Leveling up improves your odds of higher-grade quests and raises your Hero Limit, but most notably, it also:
- Refreshes the quests
- Resets your daily quest attempts
- Resets your free refreshes
My advice is to make sure your quest attempts and free refreshes are all used up before you claim rewards that would lead to a level-up. The level-up resets your attempts and free refreshes whether you've used them or not, so any you have left are wasted.
Getting the additional chest
Every quest shows its Additional Chest Chance, and it's made up of several bonuses. The one every quest has is the Hero Grade bonus: each Legendary hero you assign adds 5%, each Epic hero 3%, each Rare hero 2% and each Uncommon hero 1%. So the most you can get from it is 5% per hero slot: 35% at Saga Level 7, and 50% at Level 10 with 10 heroes. The quest bonuses below come on top of it.
Some quests have nothing beyond the Hero Grade bonus. Others add one or two of these:
- Designated Hero: a random hero gets a gold star next to it, and assigning that hero adds 15%.
- Battle Spirit Level: the heroes you assign need a combined Battle Spirit level of 10 per hero slot, for 20%. With a Hero Limit of 6 that's 60, and at Saga Level 7, with a Hero Limit of 7, it's 70.
- Armament Points: the heroes you assign need a combined number of Armament Points, for 20%. The target rises with your Saga Level: I've seen 1,800 at Level 6 and 4,200 at Level 7.
A quest has either Battle Spirit Level or Armament Points, never both, and the bonuses add up. At Saga Level 10, the best case is 50% from Hero Grade, 20% from Battle Spirit Level or Armament Points, and 15% from the Designated Hero, for an 85% Additional Chest Chance. When you open a quest, the hero list shows what counts for it: each hero's Battle Spirit level on a Battle Spirit quest, and their Armament Points on an Armament Points quest.
Since each hero can only go on one quest per day, don't spend your high Battle Spirit heroes on quests without a Battle Spirit Level target. Send out heroes with a Battle Spirit level of 1 there instead. Just make them high-grade heroes, because the Hero Grade bonus counts on every quest.
It can also make sense to save your heroes with high Battle Spirit levels or high Armament Points for higher-grade quests, if you have a good number of quest attempts left early in the day.
Battle Spirit
Battle Spirit affects a few things. The most obvious effect is that it increases the stats of your heroes inside the Hero Colosseum, through their Bonus Hero Colosseum Attributes: Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. But notably, Battle Spirit levels on heroes also count toward the Battle Spirit Level target on Saga quests.
Upgrading a hero's Battle Spirit takes Horn of Strength for STR heroes, Feather of Dexterity for DEX heroes, or Eye of Intelligence for INT heroes. The cost per level goes up every 5 levels:
| Battle Spirit level | Items per level | Total from level 1 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 5 to 10 | 2 | 14 |
| 10 to 15 | 3 | 29 |
I don't know what it costs beyond level 15, or where Battle Spirit caps.
For Saga quests, aim to get one hero per hero slot to Battle Spirit level 10, which covers the Battle Spirit Level target by itself: 6 heroes at Saga Level 6, and 10 at Saga Level 10. Beyond that, level some other heroes to 5 while it still costs 1 item per level, and keep a buffer of upgrade items in case a quest's target is just out of reach.
At least for the heroes you push to level 10, prioritize the heroes in your preferred Hero Colosseum setups. That way the same Horn of Strength, Feather of Dexterity and Eye of Intelligence do double duty: they raise those heroes' stats in the Hero Colosseum and count toward the Battle Spirit Level target on Saga quests, which gets you more value out of every upgrade.
Hero Armaments
Initially you must use one Silver Dragonscale on a hero to unlock Hero Armaments, which gives the hero's Armament 1 to 3 random effects. An Armament holds up to 3 effects.
Each effect is one of two kinds. Deployment Effects work when the hero is deployed. They come in two groups: troop stats (ATK, DEF and Max HP for one troop type) and Army stats (Army ATK, Army DEF and Army Max HP). Passive Effects work as long as you own the hero, deployed or not: things like Training Speed, Research Speed, Travel Speed and Army Capacity.
Deployment Effects are where the war value is, and there's a lot of it. A troop stat can be recast up to 20% and an Army stat up to 15%, and an Armament holds 3 effects. With 3 Infantry effects on a hero, that's up to 60% Infantry ATK or Infantry Max HP, or a mix of the two, and the 5 Infantry heroes you send in an attack or rally can add up to 300% between them. With 3 Army effects, it's 15% per effect and 45% per hero, so the 5 army heroes on your wall, or in a mix rally, can add up to 225% Army ATK or Army Max HP, or a combination. Those are the maximums, of course, but they show that Hero Armaments are a war feature, not just a way to hit the Armament Points target on Saga quests.
You improve an Armament in two ways: enchanting changes which effects it has, and recasting raises their values. Both change the Armament's Armament Points, which the game describes as a measure of an Armament's overall strength. On Saga quests, the Armament Points target is checked against the combined Armament Points of the heroes you assign.
Enchanting
Enchanting uses Dragonscales:
- A Silver Dragonscale can be used to reroll all effects on a hero, to 1 to 3 new random effects. The number of effects can go up or down.
- A Gold Dragonscale lets you enchant a specific effect slot, out of the 3 effect slots on a hero. The new effect and its value are random, but your other effects stay while you try for a new one.
Either way, you see the result first. You choose whether to apply it, and until you do, your current effects and values stay as they are. If you have a hero with 3 effects on it and apply a Silver Dragonscale's result, all 3 are replaced, and you might end up with just 1. Enchanting can also give you duplicate effects, such as 2x Army ATK.
Recasting
Recasting changes the value of one effect without changing the effect itself. You select one of the Armament's effects, pick a grade of Recast Dice, and each recast uses one die. Recast Dice follow the hero's troop type: Lore Weaver is a Cavalry hero, so every effect on it is recast with Cavalry Recast Dice, even if it has Siege Engine Max HP.
Each grade of dice rolls within its own range:
| Recast Dice | Troop stats | Army stats | Passive Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common | 0.1% to 3% | 0.07% to 2.25% | 0.05% to 1.5% |
| Uncommon | 2% to 6% | 1.5% to 4.5% | 1% to 3% |
| Rare | 4% to 10% | 3% to 7.5% | 2% to 5% |
| Epic | 8% to 14% | 6% to 10.5% | 4% to 7% |
| Legendary | 8% to 20% | 6% to 15% | 4% to 10% |
A new value only replaces the old one if it's higher. If it's lower or equal, you can't apply it and can only try again, so values only ever go up. A grade of dice also only works while the effect's current value is below that grade's maximum. So it makes sense to use your low-grade dice first: once an Army stat passes 2.25%, Common dice can't raise it anymore.
Passive Effects on your other heroes
Since Passive Effects work from every hero you own, heroes you don't use in a mix or blast rally, or on defense, can still be useful, for example with Training Speed.
The game's tooltip says: "Identical passive effects can stack up to 50%. Any amount beyond this limit has no effect." That wording is open to interpretation, so I tested what I could. I had Training Speed on four heroes, at 0.26%, 0.3%, 0.41% and 0.48%, and my Training Speed was 635.91%. After I removed the 0.26% effect from Stellina Unicorno, my total Training Speed dropped to 635.65%. So effects from different heroes do add up in full, at least at values this small. Exactly how the 50% limit works, I haven't been able to determine, as I'm not yet willing to commit Recast Dice to Training Speed.
Which effects to aim for
Which effects are ideal depends on how you use the hero. Steambot is the perfect hero for a Cavalry attack or rally, so it benefits the most from Cavalry ATK and Cavalry Max HP: 3x of either stat would be ideal. Army ATK and Army Max HP on Steambot would be decent, but by no means perfect. For an army hero you use as your Leader, such as Lore Weaver, Songstress of the Sea or Berserker, it's the other way around: Army ATK and Army Max HP are the ideal effects, since they apply to every troop type.
The difference isn't small. A troop stat caps at 20% and an Army stat at 15%, so settling for Army stats on a Cavalry hero costs you up to 5% per effect, or 15% per hero with 3 effects: 45% instead of 60%. In the recommended setup of an army hero as Leader and 4 Cavalry heroes, taking Army stats as "good enough" on those 4 heroes means missing out on up to 60% Cavalry ATK or Cavalry Max HP in total.
How I roll effects
Gold Dragonscales are the bottleneck. Silver Dragonscales show up in every chest list and in bigger stacks, and they don't have much other use. So a good strategy is to initially use only Silver Dragonscales on a hero to keep rerolling the effects, until you hit 1 or 2 ideal stat effects.
Say Lore Weaver is your Leader and a Silver roll gives it 1x Cavalry ATK. That's decent, but not ideal, so I would keep rerolling with Silver Dragonscales until I get Army ATK or Army Max HP on it. And depending on your temper, keep going until you reach 1x Army ATK and 1x Army Max HP, or 2x Army ATK, or 2x Army Max HP.
Not ready to give up a single ideal stat on your hero? You don't have to, since you only apply a Silver roll if it beats what you have. Still, once a hero has 1 ideal stat, I move on to the next best hero and continue the strategy there. Why spend a Silver Dragonscale on a hero that already has 1 ideal stat while my other heroes have none yet? It may not be perfect, but it feels like less of a waste.
I'd also avoid pouring Gold Dragonscales into an Armament with only 1 ideal stat. Keep those for the third slot, once the other two are where you want them. The same goes for recasting: don't start recasting effect values until you have 2x ideal effects and are ready to commit to using only Gold Dragonscales for the third one. A recast value is gone the moment you replace that effect.