th, 2018, the Fire Lich (Antares) Hall of Heroes was announced, breaking our three-month streak of good Hall of Heroes mons. 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! (Note: After B1 I swapped Frigate for Tesarion. I didn’t realize how much I desperately need it until then.)

Is Antares Usable?

He can be usable if you really put your mind to it, but overall, he’s kinda niche. His passive skill, Transcendence, gives him a 15% chance to gain an additional turn whenever the enemy’s turn ends. He’s more or less just a shield breaker for NB10. If you rune him on Violent runes he can go a little crazy, and could screw up speed tuning if his passive procs. If you do decide to use him for NB10, I’d rune him Violent + Revenge, SPD/HP%/HP%.

Stage 1

We’re beginning stage one with three Rigels (water Liches) and two Racunis (fire Hargs) The Threat: Rigel’s a pretty big threat. His passive states that he’s immune to sleep, stun and freeze effects. His second skill, Deadly Touch, will attack random enemies and inflict defense break on them. If they already have the slowdown effect on them, then he’ll add a freeze effect on top of the slowdown and possibly the defense break. On top of that, Racuni sucks, and I don’t mean that in an “oh he’s a bad monster” way. I mean he’s really annoying as hell to deal with. His passive skill will remove up to two harmful effects on a selected ally at every turn, and heals them for 10% of their HP per turn. This means that, together, they can really wreak havoc – Racuni will cleanse debuffs off of the Rigels, and the Rigels will inflict defense break and freezes on everyone; two things that are deadly when combinbed. The Solution: Did you know that the Liches are the only four star family who all have passives? That means that if you can bring Tesarion to your team, you’ll pretty much have a cheat code to this Hall of Heroes. Here’s why: Tesarion is one of two monsters who can bring Oblivion onto a monster – Oblivion a debuff that blocks passives. The only other monster who can also inflict Oblivion is Isis, the light Desert Queen. She’s a nat5, though (an LnD nat5 at that), so don’t expect to get her anytime soon, though. If you don’t have an Isis or a Tesarion, though, I’d seriously recommend looking for a friend whose rep is that, because they can really make this Hall of Heroes easier for you. Luckily, Tesarion is farmable – he’s the fire Ifrit, and can be acquired via the guild shop.

Stage 2

No jokes for stage two because I can’t think of any; Qebehsenuef’s name sounds more like a sneeze than anything else. Here, we have three Fucos (wind Liches) and two Qebehsenuefs (water Horuses; yes I spelled that correctly and did not have a seizure on the keyboard) The Threat: Again, this is another one of those stages where each monster by themselves isn’t that bad, but when they’re on the same team things get…crazy, to say the least. At the beginning of every one of his turns, Fuco will generate a shield on himself for one turn that absorbs a fixed amount of HP proportionate to his level. On top of that, whenever someone attacks him with the shield on, they’ll have their attack speed decreased for one turn. Qebehsenuef is a fusable monster, and one of the few decent four-star monsters that can be fused. His main trick is his third skill, Shout of Fury. He’ll increase the attack power and critical rate of all allies for two turns, and then make a selected monster Invincible for one turn. (Basically, you choose a monster, and Qebehsenuef buffs everyone and adds Invincibility onto the chosen monster). The Invincibility by itself can be enough to annoy you – just be glad they weren’t put on the Halphas stage, but on top of that, the attack power and Critical Rate buff is deadly. Did you also know that there are only four monsters who put AoE attack + Crit Rate buffs on everyone? Those monsters are: Sieq (fire Hellhound), Qebehsenuef (water Horus), Aquila (wind Brownie Magician) and Korona (dark Brownie Magician) The Solution: Again, Tesarion is your best bet. However, Tesarion only works for Fuco. Qebehsenuef doesn’t have a passive, so Oblivion would do absolutely nothing on him. I’d recommend bringing a buff stripper like Belladeon or any of the Archangels (due to their first skill), in case you can’t kill the Qebehsenuefs before they buff everyone. On top of that, though, the buff strippers can get rid of the shield on Fuco for a turn or two, which makes then a viable alternative to Tesarion – At least for this turn. When you successfully kill everyone, you can move on to the next stage.

Stage 3

It’s time to fight the miniboss! Here, we have one Sekhmet (fire Desert Queen) and two Iunus (wind Anubises) The Threat: Sekhmet for sure. People say that she sucks, but if anything she’s underestimated, especially in Hall of Heroes. Her third skill, Charming Voice, will attack an enemy, stealing all of its beneficial effects and sets its skills onto max cooldown. Basically, she’s a budget Ganymede – there’s a chance for monsters to resist getting their skills pushed back, but if and when she attacks your reviver and sets their skills on cooldown, before an Iunu kills your damage dealer, you’re gonna cry. That’s another thing – Iunu is deadly as well. He’s most notable for his passive skill, Underworld King’s Return, where at the moment he’s killed, he’ll revive himself by 30% and then set his attack bar to the max. His attack power will increase by 100% each time he revives himself – but only up to three times. Brand of Hell, his second skill, also attacks an enemy three times, each hit leaving a Brand effect for two turns. Brand is a debuff that causes enemies to take 25% more damage than they would without the Brand. It’s…fun. /s The Solution: The solution to here is a little more difficult, because you can’t completely rely on Tesarion. On top of Sekhmet not having a passive skill, bosses and minibosses cannot have Oblivion applied to them. The lackeys can, though, so if you can Oblivion Iunu, I would highly recommend it. I’m going to give the age-old advice of attack-bar pushbacks, defense breaks, and Continuous Damage as far as the eye can see because it works. I know it’s getting old, but it’s usually what can successfully get you through Hall of Heroes 99% of the time. Who wouldn’t want to win HoH? I mean, hey, free skillups and six-star food! (As I write this, I’ve already gotten three Antares’ so I can six-star my Dias for raids.)

Stage 4

You, dear reader, are the apple of my Iris! Here, we have three Gregos (dark Liches) and three Irises (light Magic Knights) The Threat: So my friend has a Grego, meaning that I can write from experience about him. He has the same two first skills as Rigel (except instead of freeze, he has stun) but his passve is the coolest part about him. King of the Dead decreases the damage he takes and also his recovery amount by 50%. That means that if Eladriel were to heal him, he’d only get healed by 25% of his max HP, and not 50%. His attack power also increases by 50% for each time an enemy or ally dies. It accumulates up to five times; so his attack power will be increased by 250% if five monsters die. That’s deadly. Iris is also a really good support monster, even after her nerf. Her passive removes a beneficial effect with each attack with a 35% and heals the ally by 15% of their HP after each attack on her turn. That means Revenge runes won’t heal a monster, but I’m fairly sure that she can still strip beneficial effects with her Revenge runes. Don’t quote me on that, though. The Solution: Just Tesarion this stage. All five monsters have passives, so it doesn’t matter who you choose to use your Tesarion on – as long as he lands the Oblivion, you’ll have the worst part of that monster gone. This stage might be the easiest, but unfortunately for you, Stage 5 is the hardest of them…

Stage 5

This is probably the hardest stage in the Hall of Heroes, so don’t Halphas it! Here, we have three Halphas’ (light Liches) and two Hakens (dark Bearmen) The Threat: Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Welcome to the Halphas stage. I think about half a year ago, Halphas got majorly buffed so that he went from an instant win in ToAH to one of the most annoying and deadly monsters ever. His passive skill, Endless Attachment, went from just granting Invincibility on himself for one turn when he hits 50% HP to…well, this: he grants Invincibility on himself for one turn once he hits 50% HP. When he has Invincibility on, he’ll drain 10% HP out of each monster for every turn they take, healing himself for that 10%. Here’s what I mean:

• Your Sigmarus gets Halphas to 50% HP
• Endless Attachment procs
• Belladeon heals the team
• Halphas drains 10% HP from Belladeon, healing himself with that 10%
• Veromos gets a turn
• Halphas drains that HP from Vero
• He gets an additional turn
• He drains him again

I’m not even gonna talk about Haken, who’s so utterly useless and does nothing that I’m not wasting space on him. The Solution: Tesarion, Tesarion, Tesarion. If you don’t have a Tesarion or an Isis (light Desert Queen; the other monster who can bring Oblivion) the other thing you can do is land defense break on Halphas and use your strongest nuker against him. Hopefully, it would be able to one shot him and won’t proc his passive. If not, well, I’m sorry for you. You remember my advice in stage 2, about bringing a buff stealer? That advice also applies here. Of course, if you have a monster that can block beneficial effects, like Megan, I’d recommend bringing them too. Someone like Zinc, who has AoE beneficial effect block, would work wonders, too.

Stage 6

The Threat: Once again, the threat varies per Hall of Heroes stage. For example, any stage with Halphas as a lackey is a stage where you need to either one-shot Halphas or just completely ignore him outright before his passive can cast Invincibility on himself. The Solution: Any other stage, though, is usually a free-for-all, so you could attack any of the three Liches you wanted. I’d always recommend going for Antares himself in the cases where there’s no Halphas, though, because you don’t have to kill the lackeys in the boss/miniboss stage anymore. I hope you guys enjoyed this article, as I certainly enjoyed writing it. I’m Sara Ann, and I’ll see you in the next article!  ]]>