LINE Games has been active in the gaming industry since 2012 and while they develop and publish games for consoles and PC as well, they are more popular in the mobile gaming community. DragonFlight, Destiny Child, and First Summoner are just some of LINE Games’ most popular titles with DragonFlight banking well over 10 million downloads from the Google Play Store alone. Each of the company’s games enjoy a largely positive average user review ratings and most apps have at least made it to top 500 lists of games in several countries. While the company ventures into a variety of genres, most of their successful titles are in the RPG category.
Exos Heroes is LINE Games’ latest strategy RPG, that’s out now on iOS and Android platforms. The superb anime-style graphics, highly dynamic battle system, and overall package it provides is guaranteed to be a treat to both anime and strategy RPG fans. While it basically offers everything RPG fanatics would look for, Exos Heroes has a lot of unique features and mechanics that will certainly bring new experiences even to experienced and veteran gamers. If you are in the lookout for an epic adventure that involves hundreds of unique characters, then you should definitely dive into the world of Exos Heroes.
Even for experienced and veteran players, the first glance of Exos Heroes may seem overwhelming with its many unique features and the general ambiance of its world screaming with details here and there. While it is true that there are a lot of information you need to be mindful of, the initial time spent on the game serves as a tutorial that introduces you to most of the basics. As you make progress and unlock more features and game modes, a quick tutorial on how to go about it also ensues. The continent of Exos is a huge open world and while you are free to explore it on your own, Exos Heroes makes it easy for you to navigate to important locations relative to the quests at hand. Likewise, auto mode in battle becomes available soon enough.
Exos Heroes is certainly loaded in terms of content but is still brilliantly designed to be easy enough for total beginners to pick up and play. Progress can be made regardless of how much time you spend on it but if you want to advance more efficiently, then stay with us and read our detailed Exos Heroes beginner’s guide. We have come up with several useful tips, cheats and strategies for Exos Heroes, so let’s get started!
1. Progress Through The Main Story
Exos Heroes’ initial session, which serves as the tutorial, is actually an introduction the game’s story. As most RPGs actually provide a story mode where you can learn more about the lore of the fantasy world and an introduction to the characters, some games like Exos Heroes actually make an effort to give as much of a story it can provide to immerse players more into its world. Beyond obtaining a better understanding of the basic features and mechanics of the game, progressing through the story chapters also serve as the key to unlocking more of what the game has to offer.
Quests within the main story are not entirely made up of battles one after another. Some are just dialogues or cut scenes but each one provides rewards. Beyond the account and hero EXP you earn along with valuable resources, milestones reached in terms of overall progress in the story as well as ratings you earn for each battle also earns you extra rewards. As you will continuously need to have a stronger party to progress in every aspect of the game, focusing your efforts on progressing through the story is the best way to ensure a faster and more efficient advancement.
Chances are that you will be inclined to jump in on the next story battle after finishing the current one but before you do, be sure to take time to read through the missions that can earn you stars if you complete the episode. The first star typically relates to having the entire party survive the battle but most other mission objectives can differ from one episode to the next.
Earning 3-star victories for all episodes within each chapter earns you 200 Xes, which is the premium currency needed to recruit more heroes to join your band. You can obtain some Xes from the story based on the number of stars you earn but not as much as when you complete all the mission requirements.
If you fail to secure a 3-star victory on your first try, you can always tap the speech bubble icon on the left side of the chapter quest and you can scroll through different chapters you have completed and retry any previously conquered episode. In case you missed to claim some rewards based on the stars you accumulated, you can claim them as well by tapping on the Xes icons at the bottom of the screen. Relative to this, you can browse through chapters and episodes you have not yet completed to see if there are new contents to be unlocked once you complete those episodes.
Related: Exos Heroes Tier List: Our Picks for the Best Fated-Grade Heroes in the Game
Note as well that since a lot of the other features and game modes can be unlocked after reaching certain milestones in the story, it will be very advantageous for you to unlock as many of it as you can on day 1. Some game modes have limited attempts within the day and being able to obtain extra rewards from them at the soonest will be very beneficial for you.
Naturally, there will come a point in the story where the challenge will become to difficult for you to overcome with the level and power of the heroes you currently have. If such is the case, then it is time for you to resort to the extra game modes as well as exploration to gather even more resources to boost your team’s power.
2. Create And Maintain A Balanced Team
With well over 200 characters currently available in Exos Heroes, there is certainly more than enough characters for you to choose from in creating your ultimate team. Of course, luck plays a huge role in obtaining heroes since a gacha system is involved in every method of acquiring new ones. There is also the usual rarity system as indicated by each hero’s star grade making higher rarity heroes start out with much better stats and more potent skills.
In fairness, even the lowest grade ones can be utilized and upgraded to be useful in some content and beyond that, there are plenty of opportunities to score a 4 or 5-star hero early on, of course, based on your activity and accomplishments. Beyond rarity grades, there are other factors you need to take into consideration as you create and modify your team’s roster.
For starters, there are 6 different elemental affinities for heroes in Exos Heroes. These are: fire, frost, nature, machine, light, and darkness. Unlike conventional RPGs, elemental affinities in Exos Heroes do not follow a “rock-paper-scissors” mechanic when dealing and receiving damage. Each element, on the other hand will be effective against a specific guardian stone inherent to every character that can render the character temporarily vulnerable once broken.
As such, considering a five-person team that each has a unique element raises the chances of being able to break the guardian stones of enemy units. Note that enemy units will have unknown guardian stones in combat initially and will only reveal the element they have once it has been broken. Likewise, similar heroes may also have different guardian stones as these are random from one character to the next. If possible, go for a team with heroes each sporting a unique elemental affinity and at the same time has different guardian stones.
Mana is an important factor in battle as skill usage depend on it. Heroes generate mana differently based on their elemental affinity and you need to be aware of how each unit in your team earns mans to utilize his or her skills. Fire element heroes generate mana after successfully banking a critical hit on an opponent. Frost characters, on the other hand, generate extra mana per successful block. Machine elementals earn a mana point at the start of the turn if they have more than 80% HP while nature elementals do so when they have less than 30%. At the start of their turn as well, light elemental heroes earn a mana point if the party is still intact while dark elemental heroes earn 1 mana for each fallen ally in their team.
Another important point of consideration when it comes to building a balanced team revolves around the roles or classes that each hero has. There are 4 distinct character roles in Exos Heroes and these are the attack type, the defense type, the support type, and the chaos type.
Attack type heroes naturally sport high attack values and exhibit skills that inflicts the most damage. These heroes may also have buffs for themselves and their allies and are best at breaking guardian stones with AoE spells and skills.
Defense types are the designated tanks that do not just excel at having high defense stats but also provide defensive support for their allies. Some defense type heroes can even provide healing and have crowd control skills.
Support types do not necessarily excel in both attack and defense and may not at all have healing spells. The wide range of support skills that these heroes may have can include casting buffs on themselves and their allies, cleanse negative status effects, and may also have the ability to inflict negative status effects on enemy units.
Last but definitely not the least is the chaos type. While a lot of things may come into mind with their class name, chaos types actually specialize in inflicting negative status on enemies. These units may not directly cause a lot of damage to the enemy team but are essential in breaking strategies and also sets them up to take more damage from allied units.
Defense and support types ar most suitable at the front row while attack and chaos types are usually best situated at the rear lane. However, you are still very much free to deviate from the standards. In any case, in the team-building window, you choose from 4 basic formations that suit your team’s roster.
Related: Exos Heroes Team Guide: Team Roster Samples and Suggestions to Dominate Each Game Mode
Keep in mind that different game modes may require different team rosters and formation but for starters, it is best to focus on the team you will be using to progress through the story mode as fast and as efficiently as you can.
As you will progress more rapidly on the early part of your adventure, you will amass more Xes quickly and be able to summon more heroes through the gacha. Chances are that you will still be able to obtain more legendary (4-star) or even fated (5-star) grade heroes. If you do, you should consider making changes to your roster. While it is okay to consider lower rarity heroes for your team, banking on higher rarity heroes will take you further through the early game content much easier and with less resources used.
3. Be Selective When Upgrading Your Heroes
There are numerous ways to strengthen your units in Exos Heroes and the most basic one comes from levelling them up. As you continue to use heroes in battle, they earn experience points that eventually lead to some level gains. For the most part, this will suffice to keep them at par with the levels and corresponding strength of the enemies in story mode but at some point, you will have to use EXP scrolls on them.
It may happen as well that you will recruit higher rarity heroes from the summon portal and will have to make adjustments to your team roster. In such cases, it is best to only use the EXP scrolls to use on new recruits to let them catch up to the levels of other units in the team. While you may be inclined to focus more on levelling up your fated grade heroes, keep in mind that the experience needed to level up exponentially increases per level. This means that spreading experience points across the whole team will effectively give your team more power and should be the strategy to keep.
Note that there are various EXP scrolls available in Exos Heroes and there scrolls that provide the same amount of EXP across all heroes regardless of elemental affinity, EXP scrolls with elements give more EXP to heroes that have the same element. As such, it is best to consume the appropriate scrolls for each hero. There are level caps as well associated with a hero’s star grade. A 1-star hero can only be levelled up to 15 while a 5-star hero a max level of 75.
Heroes can also be enhanced by sacrificing or feeding other heroes of the same or lower star grade along with spending gold. Each hero sacrificed has a separate and distinct probability of success, which depends on the sacrifiecced hero’s star grade and element. You can enhance a hero 5 times per star grade and if the previous enhancement is a failure, the next one has a boosted success rate.
Related: Exos Heroes Legendary Characters Tier List: Our Picks for the Best Legendary-Grade Heroes
Once a hero reaches maximum level and enhancement, you can further boost his or her level cap by 15 through blessing. Blessing materials needed to initiate the process will depend on the star grade and the element of the hero and you will also need gold. Securing extra copies of your favorite hero is not a waste of roll as copies can be used to transcend the hero, along with gold. Each transcendence increases the level cap of a hero by 2 and can be done for a maximum of 5 times.
4. Expend Daily Attempts At Each Challenge Dungeon
While focusing on the main story ought to be the strategy to go with to ensure that you will make progress faster in your Exos Heroes adventure, there are specific resources you need for your heroes that can be easily obtained from Challenge Dungeons. These dungeons unlock based on your progress in the story, along with the levels of challenges within each one. Each dungeon has limited attempts per day, which means that if you unlock them a day sooner, then you will ultimately end up with being able to engage in each one more over time.
The Experience Sanctum is where you can obtain EXP scrolls to level up your heroes. Enhancement materials can be farmed from the Spirit Sanctum. Naturally, you will have a constant need for more gold so unlocking and battling through the Ancient Gold Mine becomes important.
There are trade routes you can battle through to obtain some gears you can equip on your heroes as well as some that can serve as materials in upgrading them. Both the Solar and Lunar Trade Routes provide different rewards each day of the week. You can also farm for the resource materials needed for blessing heroes via the Blessing Sanctum.
Beyond farming for basic resources and hero enhancement materials, the challenge dungeons are also home to guild exclusive game modes, an arena, and a hero battle where you have an opportunity to be rewarded with new heroes. While it is important to expend all attempts at each dungeon within the day, it is also important to strategize around when it would be the best time to so, which is typically towards the end of the day.
As you continue to make progress within the story mode, it is possible for you to unlock more challenging levels within each dungeon that offer greater rewards. In some cases, expending attempts at the end of the day ensures that your heroes are at their peak within the day, making it easier or at the very least viable to proceed with higher level dungeons.
5. Run Dispatches And Explorations Before Leaving The Game
Without any in-game stamina that prevents you from pushing forward with the game’s story, it is highly likely that you will spend a lot of time in the game early on. Additionally, as you unlock more features and game modes, you will spend even more time on the game to farm the resources you need. At some point, you will have to take a break from the game and the best way to do so is to ensure that you continue to make progress while being offline and away from the game.
In essence, there are ways to earn passive rewards in Exos Heroes. The first one is through exploration and the other is through dispatch. Both features can earn you extra rewards that will definitely help boost your progress in the game so be sure to utilize both as extensively as you can.
Dispatch can be accessed while inside your ship and it is a feature where heroes can be deployed on missions that take several hours to complete to earn rewards. The dispatch feature is actually divided between an exploration mode and a dispatch mode but both work the same way. You choose heroes to deploy based on what is required by the mission and once the mission completes, you earn some rewards.
On the world map, you can send your team on an idle exploration where they can earn a wide variety of resources and engage in some battles as well. Levistones are consumed for each exploration incident and each battle you engage in. You have a limited number of Levistones you can accumulate but there are plenty of in-game rewards that earn you more Levistones to have it exceed the cap.
Levistones also regenerate over time so you should ensure to keep it as emptied out as much as you can so it can begin to replenish. There are 2 exploration modes which is basically an offline mode and an online one. Both has the same impact so if you are about to log out of the game, you might as well choose to go with the Smart Exploration.
6. Join An Air Squadron As Soon As You Can
Guilds, alliances, clans, factions, and similar player groups have become an essential part of any online RPG, along PvP battles between them, the typical guild system also features extra game modes where you can cooperate with your fellow members. In Exos Heroes, air squadrons represent guilds and as soon as you are able to, you should join one to start reaping rewards from it.
There will most likely be several air squadrons for you to choose from and as difficult as it is to determine the air squadron’s overall strength and activity, you can initially base it on the number of members. Most air squadrons require you to apply first and wait for an approval from the leader to join but some can be instantly joined.
While it is a fact that you can essentially play and enjoy Exos Heroes all on your own, there is a limit to how much you can progress as there are numerous air squadron-exclusive game modes and perks that you will miss out on if you decide to steer away from the feature.
To start off, signing in for attendance earns you rewards and the more members sign in, the better rewards each one receives. If you can, donate as much to the air squadron as donations will contribute to the squadron’s growth and development, which ultimately brings in more perks for each members. Guild exclusive content, which you can see in the challenges, can be engaged in as soon as you join an air squadron.
7. Accomplish Daily Quests
On top of the main story and the various game modes and features you can unlock and engage in as you progress through Exos Heroes, you will have daily quests to take on to earn even more rewards. Just like story progression, you can see these quests at the upper left side of the world map. Tapping on it will take you to the page where you can initiate the quest. You can only take on the next quest after completing the current one and there are 5 available quests to start with.
The daily quests are actually generally easy to accomplish compared to most other game modes. These quests do not necessarily involve battles and are often comparable to side quests or errands in other RPGs. Some are purely gathering quests while others may involve a series of conversations.
Just the same, Exos form part of the usual rewards you can obtain from completing each quest so be sure to take the time and make the effort to accomplish each one. Chances are that you will be done with all of it in 5 minutes or less anyway.
8. Take On Challenge Missions
Your progress in Exos Heroes’ main story and the level and strength of your team are actually just some determinants of your overall progress in the game. There certainly are a plethora of features and game modes that you have to spend time on but some of the game’s features reward you mainly based on how far you have progressed within each of the game’s numerous content. The first of these features can quickly be accessed via its icon at the upper left side of the screen on the world map and these are the challenge missions that you should visit as soon as you are able to.
Chances are that you may have accomplished a lot of these missions without knowing about them so clicking on the mission line whenever they glow earns you certain rewards. In any case, these challenge missions work as a relay of sorts, where you need to accomplish a specific task before unlocking the succeeding ones. If you happen to accomplish a feat that comes much later in the chain of missions, unlocking the mission will automatically make your rewards available.
For efficiency and best results, check the current challenge mission you have yet to accomplish, as focusing on it will enable you to earn its rewards, along with the subsequent ones if you happen to have completed them ahead of time. All of the challenges here relate to game modes and features that you typically engage in as you play the game so none of them are really that difficult to accomplish.
9. Accomplish Daily Missions And Achievements
We have certainly plowed through a lot of the content and features in Exos Eroes that you need to spend time on to maximize your progress and your team’s growth but there are certainly more to take on. In any case, the daily and weekly missions, as well as the achievements you can earn more rewards from, all coincide with your typical daily grind. You can access these within your airship via the diary icon at the right side of the screen.
Just like challenge missions, both missions within the diary as well as the achievements will not push you to venture outside of the game’s features that we have already discussed. Missions reset daily and weekly and each objective cleared earns you outright rewards. It is important to push for accomplishing each mission in the list as the final rewards are Exos that you will always have a need for.
Achievements, on the other hand, relate to milestones you reach across many aspects of the game and typically provide much better one-time rewards. Accomplishing certain feats within the achievements list replaces it with a higher level one. Exos, along with other valuable rewards, are common benefits to reap from reaching each milestone so be sure to also frequent this tab and check for the achievements you are close to achieving as you may be able to push for their completion and claim the rewards sooner.
10. Utilize The Door To Creation
While amassing Exos every chance you get to recruit more heroes via the recruitment portal is the most basic way of growing your army, Exos Heroes actually provides extra means of securing heroes, materials, and even Fatecore. This is through the Door of Creation feature, which you should frequently visit via its icon at the bottom of the screen inside your airship.
There will be plenty of opportunities for you to earn the needed materials you need to be able to craft new materials and summon new heroes. There are numerous other features to explore within the Door to Creation but those that involves disassembly or sacrificing heroes are best left for experienced or advanced players. In any case, you will certainly learn a lot more with regard to valuation of heroes and resources at your disposal as you progress through the game.
11. Take Advantage Of Time-Limited Events
Some players may actually be apprehensive when it comes to starting out on a fairly new game when they feel that they will come in later than other players but in Exos Heroes, progress can be very rapid at the initial hours of gameplay not just because of the quicker story progression and achievements that flood you with rewards but also due to time-limited events.
As soon as you dive into the world of Exos Heroes, The Exos Festa Event starts being active. This feature unlocks certain objectives you need to accomplish to earn Exos and other valuable rewards. The missions typically relate to the usual activities you should engage in just like the daily missions, challenge missions, and achievements. You can still accomplish missions and earn rewards for the previous days and although it is a 7-day event, you have more than 2 weeks to accomplish all feats.
While we stand with considering the main story as your top priority early on, it is important for every player to take advantage of this time-limited event. On top of the valuable rewards you can earn from accomplishing each mission, completing all missions across all days within the period provided can earn you a legendary weapon that is hard to obtain anywhere else in the game.
Despite the plethora of content and features that Exos Heroes currently has, we wouldn’t be surprised if more features are added in future updates. While, again, the game is absolutely playable at your own pace, being able to dedicate a lot of time on it and logging in consistently to explore will definitely result in a faster progression.
This is where we end our Exos Heroes beginner’s guide and we certainly hope that the tips and startegies we discussed will help you comb through the game’s abundant content more efficiently. In case you have spent a lot of time venturing through the Exos Continent and have chanced upon something we have not yet included in our guide, we welcome you to share your newfound tips, tricks, and strategies with us via the comment section!