th, 2018, the Dark Brownie Magician (Korona) Hall of Heroes was announced. I’m not sure how to feel about Korona. I think he just sucks in general. Before we begin, Hall of Heroes is a lot like Trial of Ascension, so that means you can use Trial of Ascension strategy and monsters (e.g. attack bar pushbacks, stuns and continuous damage are king). I strongly advise bringing your regular Trial of Ascension team. In my case, I’m using Baretta (L), Belladeon, Frigate, Veromos, and Charlotte. Let’s cut the chatter and get on with it!

Is Korona Usable?

Nope. Recently he got nerfed so that his third skill, Kindness Gone Wrong, only has a 50% chance of stripping now; even though he removes both harmful and beneficial effects now. I’m not too sure if I’d recommend Korona, even if his second skill is Fever Time (which buffs the attack power and CRIT Rate of all allies) No rune recommendations here because I don’t know.

Stage 1

So we start off this Hall of Heroes with three Aquilas (wind Brownie Magicians) and two Garos (fire Ninjas). The Threat: Garo is annoying, deadly, and it feels like he is literally unable to die. I know that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but there is some truth to it. His passive skill Narrow Escape allows him to save himself from death once per turn and increases his attack bar by 50%. This means that if your Veromos is about to deliver the finishing blow, Garo is going to reduce that damage to 0. If your Charlotte gets a turn before he does, though, then he’ll die from it. Aquila is one of the only two regular element four-star AoE strippers in the game; next to Soha. Like Korona, his second skill is Fever Time. That alone is really nice about him. His third skill, Unexpected Exposure, attacks all enemies and removes all their beneficial effects off of them. Basically he’s Korona but better. The Solution: Garo needs to die first. Did you know that when I say “fatal blow” that includes Continuous Damage? If he’s on his first turn and he’s about to die from Continuous Damage, he’ll block one DoT’s damage, but if he has, say, three DoTs on him, then he’ll die from the damage caused by the other two DoTs. What I’m saying is that you should bring someone like Baretta or the Ice Mist-path water Homunculus. Baretta’s third skill Phoenix’s Fury inflicts two DoTs on all enemies. If you rune him on Despair, it stuns, too. The DoTs will kill Garo, and all you’re left with is Aquila. In the higher stages, Aquila’s third skill can and will one-shot everyone, so keep him stunlocked until you can kill him.

Stage 2

Please come back to me, Draco; I’m sorry for feeding you to Orion when I was a noob. This stage consist of three Dracos (fire Brownie Magicians) and two Renos (water Dice Magicians) The Threat: If we’re talking “support-wise” threat, then Draco is a really big threat. Draco’s third skill “Whistle” makes him like a budget Velajuel. He’ll blow a whistle; causing everyone to gain Immunity for 2 turns and have their attack bar increased by 30%. All allies will also gain a random buff between Increase Speed, Increase Attack Power and Increase Defense for 1 turn. Reno, meanwhile, is an attacker and it turns out he’s a bit of a budget Lushen. His third skill Dice Madness will have him roll four dice to attack all enemies four times. Each dice represents the attack power of each attack, and the greater the number on the dice, the higher the damage. If the number of one of the dice is the same as the previous number, that attack will ignore defense (e.g. if dice 3 and dice 4 have the number 5, then it will ignore defense) The Solution: Stunlock Draco first. You have to take them down before you focus on anyone else. Immunity is seriously a hassle to deal with, especially in Hall of Heroes. If you’re not fast enough or lucky enough to stun the Dracos, then an AoE buff stripper like Soha or a buff blocker like Zinc would easily be a countermeasure against them. Reno isn’t that big of a threat until you get to the higher levels. When that happens, make sure that you try and nuke Reno first, instead of going for Draco. Unlike Velajuel, Draco doesn’t cleanse harmful effects off of his allies, so it would be easy to apply defense break and then stun the Renos, if nothing else. Once all five monsters are dead, continue on to stage 3: the miniboss.

Stage 3

Who’s ready to face off against the miniboss? Certainly not me! Anyway, the miniboss is Son Zhang Lao (dark Monkey King) and two Figaros (light Jokers) The Threat: Fun fact: did you know that the names for the Monkey Kings are all nicknames for Sun Wukong, the Monkey King of ancient Chinese folklore? I know this because I’ve been watching a lot of “Journey to the West”-type movies and there was a reddit post that mentioned it once. Also, the transmogged version of the light Monkey King, Qitian Dasheng, looks the most similar to Sun Wukong himself out of all the monkeys. …Alright, I’m going back on topic, I swear. I just wanted to take a moment to nerd out about Sun Wukong. So as it turns out, Son Zhang Lao has a really cool third skill, Summon Clouds. First of all, his third skill scales off of his max HP. That alone is really nice. Anyway, he’ll attack all enemies with a giant storm cloud to break their defenses for 2 turns and then has a 50% chance to stun them all for one turn. He’s like an attacker version of Galleon…which makes him a better version of Luer. Figaro is a budget Garo. His passive, Camouflage, gives him a 25% chance to cancel incoming damage, and each time he attacks, he’ll remove a beneficial effect off of the enemy he attacks. While he’s not a damage dealer like Son Zhang Lao is, he’s still pretty annoying to deal with. The Solution: You can’t stun the miniboss itself during stage 3, but what you can do is put them to sleep and stun the lackeys. I’m not saying that you should put Son Zhang Lao to sleep, but instead keep the Figaros stunned. You don’t have to kill the lackeys anymore in the miniboss and boss stage of Hall of Heroes, which is always nice. Keep the lackeys stunned, the miniboss broken, and his attack bar low.

Stage 4

Oh god, here comes the cancer hamster. In this stage, we have three Orions (water Brownie Magicians) and two Hraesvelgs (no, that was not a typo; wind Barbaric Kings) The Threat: Orion truly is a cancer hamster. They should change his third skill’s name from “Harmless Prank” to “Painful Prank” I don’t know why I love the phrase “cancer hamster” so much. Maybe it’s because it’s like, two in the frickin’ morning as I type this, but I digress. Orion, Gemini and Draco all share the same second skill, called “Fly Fly” in which they attack all enemies and break their defenses for 1 turn. That sucks. I’m not even done yet, because I haven’t even mentioned that all Brownie Magicians have a chance to get an additional turn if they use their first skills, and I haven’t talked about why Orion’s third skill is so horrible. Harmless Prank does five things: First, it removes a beneficial effect off an enemy, then it stuns an enemy, breaks another enemy’s defense for two turns, and grants Unrecoverable on another enemy for three turns, and then it increases all allies’ attack bars by 30%. Keep in mind that the first four things are completely random and uncontrollable, so that could really mess up your team composition. All this still leaves Hraesvelg, whose third skill attacks all enemies twice, increases the attack power and speed of all allies for 2 turns; and on top of that, when his third skill is on cooldown, he’ll gain a +35 boost to speed and recover his HP by 10% for each turn that the skill is on cooldown. Have I ever mentioned I really want a Hraesvelg, because I really want a Hraesvelg. The Solution: Lock down all three Orions before you do anything else. I lost count of the amount of times Orion managed to screw up my entire run because he used Harmless Prank and stunned my Charlotte before she could use Wind Guardian Angel and stun everyone else. Also, the attack bar boost basically means that the enemy team’s gonna get the turn before you do. After that, go for the Hraesvelgs, and make sure that neither of them can use their third skill. A monster who could inflict Silence on them (e.g. Natalie, Stella, Astar, Lupinus, etc.) would be nice, because Silence forces the monster to use their first skill. Cooldown resetting monsters like Zaiross and Platy could work, too. Once you get through this cancer stage, prepare yourself for stage 5.

Stage 5

We’re almost to the boss; don’t give up now! Here we now have three Geminis (light Brownie Magicians) and two Gregos (dark Liches) The Threat: Hey, did you know that there have now been three Brownie Magician Hall of Heroes? It’s true; Draco and Gemini were HoH monsters before Korona was! So Gemini turned out to be a really good monster, and I’m sad that I missed out on his HoH. His passive skill Small Grudge will increase his Attack Power by 50% if his HP ratio is lower than the enemy’s HP ratio the moment he attacks (so if he’s at 3,000 HP and the enemy’s at 10,000 HP, he’ll do more damage). He will also remove one beneficial effect off of the enemy he attacks if he has less beneficial effects than the enemy – making it not the best idea to bring Colleen or Woosa with you! Grego is an attacker threat. I say this as someone whose friend has a Grego. He’ll decrease the damage inflicted on him and the recovery amount on him by 50%, for starters. That means Eladriel’s second skill will only heal him by 25% and not 50%. On top of that, his attack power will increase by 50% each time an ally or enemy dies; accumulating up to 5 times. The Solution: I like to kill both Gregos first, this way he doesn’t have a chance at having his passive start to stack up. Admittedly, the other Grego will stack his passive once one is dead, but he would soon be dead anyway. Once he’s done, you can safely take out Gemini, and then you’re ready for the boss stage!

Stage 6

It’s boss time! The Threat: The threat differs per stage, thanks to the lackeys. For example, in a stage where the boss is Korona and the lackeys Orion and Gemini, then I’d say the biggest threat is Orion. The threat in the screenshot I provided above is tied between Orion and Draco. The Solution: Again, because the threat varies, the solution varies. Using my example above, I’d say kill Orion, stunlock Gemini, and then kill Korona. You don’t need to kill the lackeys anymore, but sometimes it makes it easier for you; such as when you get unlucky and end up with a massive damage dealer as a lackey. This particular Hall of Heroes was annoying, and I hope you got at least one copy of Korona. I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!  ]]>